Allar, Jerusalem
Encyclopedia
Allar was a Palestinian
Arab
village located southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Wadi Sarar ("Valley of Pebbles"). The name was shared by the twin villages of 'Allar al-Sifla ("Lower Allar") and 'Allar el-Fawqa ("Upper Allar"), with official imperial ledgers often listing them both under the single entry of Allar.
Habitation in the village spanned centuries and is attested in architectural remains and documents from the Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman and Mandate Palestine periods. Allar was depopulated during the 1948 Palestine war and the Israeli localities of Matta
and Bar Giora
were established on its former lands.
church and cloister made up of five other vaulted buildings attest to habitation there in the 12th century. One of these buildings is thought to be a Cistercian house, a sister house of Belmont
built in 1161 known as Saluatio.
From the 13th to 16th centuries, the villages were ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate
based in Cairo
and appear together in a document dating to circa 1264 that lists land grants made in Palestine
by the Sultan
Baybars to his amirs.
Toward the beginning of four centuries of rule over the area by the Ottoman Empire
, in August 1553, two leaders of Allar were held accountable for the village failure to pay taxes and were arrested by the imperial authorities. The imperial defter
of 1596 lists Allar as part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jerusalem with 204 inhabitants who paid taxes on wheat, barley, olive trees, molasses, goats, and beehives.
The waqf
custodian of the mosque
in Allar (and that of Bayt Nuba) in 1810 was appointed by the Ottoman authorities, and hailed from the Jerusalem family of notables, the Dajanis. Also in the village was a shrine dedicated to al-Shaykh Ibrahim ("Abraham the Sheikh
").
Western travellers who wrote of the village include Edward Robinson
, who travelled throughout Palestine and Syria
in 1838 and Victor Guérin
, whose travels spanned many years in the latter half of the 19th century. Both describe Lower and Upper Allar as two distinct villages located in a valley. Robinson calls it er-Rumany wadi
("Pomegranate Valley"), while Guérin calls it Oued el-Limoun ("Valley of the Lemons/Limes"), so named because of the abundant presence of a variety of citrus tree there known to the Arabs as limoun. Both note the presence of a large, ancient, ruined church in Lower Allar. Robinson describes a fine fountain further up the valley that irrigated fruit trees and gardens below, noting the abundance of olive trees. Guérin describes A'llar es-Sifla ou et-Tahta as an oasis covered in grape vines, citrus, pomengranate and fig trees, irrigated by an ancient canal and a second inexhaustible water source.
The inhabitants of Upper Allar moved to Lower Allar at the end of the 19th century. While Upper Allar was repopulated during the period of British rule in Mandate Palestine
and housed a primary school, it is listed in British censuses from the time as a mazra'a ("farm").
In 1945, Allar had a population of 440 Arabs, all of whom were Muslim
. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
, Allar was depopulated as a result of a military assault by Israeli forces on 22 October 1948. It was one of a series of villages occupied during Operation ha-Har, an offensive launched by Harel Brigade
and Etzioni Brigade
to widen the Jerusalem corridor
.
The operation began on the night of 18-19 October with an attack on the Egyptian Army
/Muslim Brotherhood
forces stationed in the village to defend it alongside local militia. Great care was taken not to draw Transjordan's Arab Legion
into the battle. The Egyptian army was forced to retreat to the west, and several villages southwest of Jerusalem were captured. The residents were expelled or fled under pressure, probably in the direction of Bethlehem and Hebron hills. Refugees who camped in the nearby gullies and caves were driven out in subsequent raids.
Refugees from Allar and other Palestinian villages who are old enough to remember life there express nostalgia for the natural abundance of the land lost. One Umm Jamal recalls eggplants, pomegranates, cucumbers and green beans as among the many products grown on the village lands which were fed by springs known to locals as Umm al-Hasan ("Mother of Goodness"), Umm al-Sa'd ("Mother of Happiness"), Umm Nuh ("Mother of Noah"), al-'Uyun ("The Eyes"), and Umm al-'Uyun ("Mother of the Eyes").
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
village located southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Wadi Sarar ("Valley of Pebbles"). The name was shared by the twin villages of 'Allar al-Sifla ("Lower Allar") and 'Allar el-Fawqa ("Upper Allar"), with official imperial ledgers often listing them both under the single entry of Allar.
Habitation in the village spanned centuries and is attested in architectural remains and documents from the Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman and Mandate Palestine periods. Allar was depopulated during the 1948 Palestine war and the Israeli localities of Matta
Mata, Israel
Mata is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Shemesh, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 554....
and Bar Giora
Bar Giora
Bar Giora is a moshav in the Judean Mountains. Located between Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 414....
were established on its former lands.
History
The older of the two villages appears to have been Lower Allar. Remains of a Crusader-eraCrusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
church and cloister made up of five other vaulted buildings attest to habitation there in the 12th century. One of these buildings is thought to be a Cistercian house, a sister house of Belmont
Balamand Monastery
The Balamand Monastery , is an Antiochian Orthodox monastery founded in 1157 in Balamand near Tripoli, Lebanon.- References :...
built in 1161 known as Saluatio.
From the 13th to 16th centuries, the villages were ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt was the final independent Egyptian state prior to the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in 1805. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. The sultanate's ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, Arabised...
based in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and appear together in a document dating to circa 1264 that lists land grants made in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
by the Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
Baybars to his amirs.
Toward the beginning of four centuries of rule over the area by the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, in August 1553, two leaders of Allar were held accountable for the village failure to pay taxes and were arrested by the imperial authorities. The imperial defter
Defter
A Defter was a type of tax register in the Ottoman Empire. The information collected could vary, but tahrir defterleri typically included details of villages, dwellings, household heads , ethnicity/religion , and land use.The defter-i hakâni was a land registry, also used for tax...
of 1596 lists Allar as part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jerusalem with 204 inhabitants who paid taxes on wheat, barley, olive trees, molasses, goats, and beehives.
The waqf
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
custodian of the mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
in Allar (and that of Bayt Nuba) in 1810 was appointed by the Ottoman authorities, and hailed from the Jerusalem family of notables, the Dajanis. Also in the village was a shrine dedicated to al-Shaykh Ibrahim ("Abraham the Sheikh
Sheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
").
Western travellers who wrote of the village include Edward Robinson
Edward Robinson (scholar)
Edward Robinson was an American biblical scholar, known as the “Father of Biblical Geography.” He has been referred to as the “founder of modern Palestinology.” -Biography:...
, who travelled throughout Palestine and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
in 1838 and Victor Guérin
Victor Guérin
Victor Guérin was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Minor, North Africa, Syria and Palestine.-Biography:From 1840, Guerin was a professor of rhetoric...
, whose travels spanned many years in the latter half of the 19th century. Both describe Lower and Upper Allar as two distinct villages located in a valley. Robinson calls it er-Rumany wadi
Wadi
Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.-Variant names:...
("Pomegranate Valley"), while Guérin calls it Oued el-Limoun ("Valley of the Lemons/Limes"), so named because of the abundant presence of a variety of citrus tree there known to the Arabs as limoun. Both note the presence of a large, ancient, ruined church in Lower Allar. Robinson describes a fine fountain further up the valley that irrigated fruit trees and gardens below, noting the abundance of olive trees. Guérin describes A'llar es-Sifla ou et-Tahta as an oasis covered in grape vines, citrus, pomengranate and fig trees, irrigated by an ancient canal and a second inexhaustible water source.
The inhabitants of Upper Allar moved to Lower Allar at the end of the 19th century. While Upper Allar was repopulated during the period of British rule in Mandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine existed while the British Mandate for Palestine, which formally began in September 1923 and terminated in May 1948, was in effect...
and housed a primary school, it is listed in British censuses from the time as a mazra'a ("farm").
In 1945, Allar had a population of 440 Arabs, all of whom were Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
, Allar was depopulated as a result of a military assault by Israeli forces on 22 October 1948. It was one of a series of villages occupied during Operation ha-Har, an offensive launched by Harel Brigade
Harel Brigade
Harel Brigade is a reserve brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, today part of the Northern Command. It played a critical role in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.- War of Independence :...
and Etzioni Brigade
Etzioni Brigade
The Etzioni Brigade , also 6th Brigade and Jerusalem Brigade, was an infantry brigade in the Haganah and Israel Defense Forces in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was founded in late 1947 as the Field Corps unit responsible for the defense of Jerusalem and its surroundings, where it operated during...
to widen the Jerusalem corridor
Jerusalem corridor
The Jerusalem corridor is a segment of Israeli territory between the Shephelah and Jerusalem which is home to over 700,000 Israeli Jews. Not including the Arab population of annexed East Jerusalem the areas population is almost 99% Jewish. Roughly stretching from Latrun in the west to Jerusalem in...
.
The operation began on the night of 18-19 October with an attack on the Egyptian Army
Egyptian Army
The Egyptian Army is the largest service branch within the Egyptian Armed Forces and holds power in the current Egyptian government. It is estimated to number around 379,000, in addition to 479,000 reservists for a total of 858,000 strong. The modern army was created in the 1820s, and during the...
/Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
forces stationed in the village to defend it alongside local militia. Great care was taken not to draw Transjordan's Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
into the battle. The Egyptian army was forced to retreat to the west, and several villages southwest of Jerusalem were captured. The residents were expelled or fled under pressure, probably in the direction of Bethlehem and Hebron hills. Refugees who camped in the nearby gullies and caves were driven out in subsequent raids.
Refugees from Allar and other Palestinian villages who are old enough to remember life there express nostalgia for the natural abundance of the land lost. One Umm Jamal recalls eggplants, pomegranates, cucumbers and green beans as among the many products grown on the village lands which were fed by springs known to locals as Umm al-Hasan ("Mother of Goodness"), Umm al-Sa'd ("Mother of Happiness"), Umm Nuh ("Mother of Noah"), al-'Uyun ("The Eyes"), and Umm al-'Uyun ("Mother of the Eyes").
External links
- Allar, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural CenterKhalil Sakakini Cultural CenterKhalil Sakakini Cultural Center is an organization established in 1996. It is located at 4 Raja Street, Ramallah in the West Bank. The traditional manor that houses the centre was the former family home of Khalil Salem Salah, the mayor of Ramallah between 1947/1951, is now owned by the Palestinian...
- Allar, from Baheth for Studies.