Issawiya

Al-Issawiya (Arabic: العيساوية, Hebrew: עיסאוויה, also spelled Isawiya or Isawiyah) is a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is located on the eastern slopes of the Mount Scopus ridge. To the east and north, it is bordered by Road 1, which connects Jerusalem with the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim; immediately adjoining it to the north, west and southwest are the Hadassah Medical Center, the Hebrew University campus, the Jewish settlement of French Hill and the Ofarit military base; to the south, there is a planned park, the Mount Scopus slopes national park.

In 1945, the village lands encompassed 10,417 dunams.

Edward Henry Palmer in 1881 thought that the name meant "the place or sect of Jesus (called 'Isa in Arabic)."

A burial cave, with pottery dating to the Early Roman period (first century CE), has been found at Issawiya.

Two burial chambers were documented in 2003, one dating to the Roman period, the other to the Byzantine era (sixth–eighth centuries CE). A burial cave with a 4 line inscription in Greek have been examined, the inscription ascribes the tomb to the daughters of the Kyros family.

Issawiya, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the 1560s the revenues of al- Issawiya were designated for the waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. In the 1596 tax registers it appeared as Isawiyya, in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds, with a population of 35 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. The villages paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives; a total of 6,940 akçe.

In 1838 it was noted as "a little village", located in the el Wadiyeh region, east of Jerusalem. An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Issawiya had a population of 178, (or 78), in 29 houses, though the population count included only men.

In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described El Aisawiyeh as a "small village on the eastern slope of the chain of Olivet, with a spring to the south and a few olives round it." Another source states the locals grew vegetables, which were sold in Jerusalem.