Saffarin (Arabic: سفارين) is a Palestinian village in the western West Bank, in the Tulkarm Governorate of the State of Palestine, located 11 kilometers South-east of Tulkarm. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Saffarin had a population of about 1,037 inhabitants in mid-year 2006 and 754 by 2017.[1][3] 9.8% of the population of Saffarin were refugees in 1997.[4] The healthcare facilities for Saffarin are designated as MOH level 2.[5]
Saffarin | |
|---|---|
| Arabic transcription(s) | |
| • Arabic | سفارين |
  Saffarin Location of Saffarin within Palestine | |
| Coordinates: 32°15′43″N 35°06′39″E / 32.26194°N 35.11083°E | |
| Palestine grid | 160/185 |
| State | State of Palestine |
| Governorate | Tulkarm |
| Government | |
| • Type | Village council |
| Population (2017)[1] | |
• Total | 754 |
| Name meaning | Sefarin, from personal name[2] |
History
editSaffarin has been identified with the Israelite village of Sepher, which was mentioned in one of the Samaria Ostraca.[6]
Ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here.[7]
During the Crusader period, Diya' al-Din (1173–1245) writes that there was a Muslim population in the Saffarin.[8][9]
Ottoman era
editSaffarin, like all of Palestine was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517. In the 1596 tax registers, part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jabal Sami, part of the larger Sanjak of Nablus. It had a population of 8 households, all Muslims. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a press for olive oil or grape syrup, and a fixed tax for people of Nablus area; a total of 9,167 akçe. 3/24 of the revenue went to the Waqf Halil ar-Rahman.[10]
During the 18th century, a group of Transjordanian Huwaytat Arabs, settled in the village. The newcomers formed several families, including the Dar Hasan hamula, cmprised of the Hannun, Salih, Abu Dhiyab, ‘Ali Abu Bakr, and Samara families. In the middle of the 19th century, the Hannun and Samara families moved to Tulkarm together with other families of Saffarin. Later on, members of the Hannun family established the plantation/village of Bayyarat Hannun near the coastal city of Netanya, and would serve as mayors of Tulkarm for most of the 20th century.[11]
In 1870 Victor Guérin noted it as a village of 600 persons.[12]
In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Wadi al-Sha'ir.[13]
In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Sefarin as: "a small village on a knoll, upon a ridge, supplied by cisterns, with a few olive trees."[14]
Around the turn of the 20th century, Saffarin was one of the villages in which the Hannun family owned extensive estates. The Hannuns fostered close ties with the clans inhabiting the village.[15]
British Mandate era
editIn the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sufarin had a population of 458 Muslims,[16] increasing in the 1931 census to 444 Muslims, living in 100 houses.[17]
In the 1945 statistics the population of Saffarin was 530 Muslims,[18] with 9,687 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.[19] Of this, 1,624 dunams were used plantations and irrigable land, 1,384 for cereals,[20] while 13 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[21]
Jordanian era
editIn the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Saffarin came under Jordanian rule.
In 1961, the population was 616.[22]
Post 1967
editSince the Six-Day War in 1967, Saffarin has been under Israeli oppressive occupation.
References
edit- ^ a b Preliminary Results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census, 2017 (PDF). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (Report). State of Palestine. February 2018. pp. 64–82. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
- ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 190
- ^ Projected Mid -Year Population for Tulkarm Governorate by Locality 2004– 2006 Archived 2008-02-07 at the Wayback Machine Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
- ^ Palestinian Population by Locality and Refugee Status Archived 2012-02-07 at the Wayback Machine Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
- ^ Health care Facilities Tulkarm Governorate
- ^ Millard, Alan (1995-11-01). "The Knowledge of Writing in Iron Age Palestine". Tyndale Bulletin. 46 (2): 208. doi:10.53751/001c.30407. ISSN 2752-7042.
Sixteen of the twenty-seven place names can be identified with those of Arab villages existing in the past hundred years in the countryside around Samaria (such as Elmatan, 28.3, modern Ammatin, or Sepher, 16a, b.1, 2, 29.3, modern Saffarin)
- ^ Dauphin, 1998, p. 768
- ^ Talmon-Heller, 1994, p. 109
- ^ Talmon-Heller, 2002, p. 134
- ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 126
- ^ Marom, Roy (2024). "THE PALESTINIAN RURAL NOTABLES' CLASS IN ASCENDENCY: THE HANNUN FAMILY OF TULKARM (PALESTINE)". Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies. 23 (1): 84. doi:10.3366/hlps.2024.0327 – via Academia.
- ^ Guérin, 1875, p. 212
- ^ Grossman, David (2004). Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. p. 253.
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 161
- ^ Marom, Roy. "The Palestinian Rural Notables' Class in Ascendancy: The Hannun Family of Tulkarm (Palestine)". Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies. 23 (1): 77–108.
- ^ Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Tulkarm, p. 27
- ^ Mills, 1932, p. 57
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 21
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 76
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 127
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 177
- ^ Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 27
Bibliography
edit- Barron, J.B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
- Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Dauphin, C. (1998). La Palestine byzantine, Peuplement et Populations. BAR International Series 726 (in French). Vol. III : Catalogue. Oxford: Archeopress. ISBN 0-860549-05-4.
- Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics (1964). First Census of Population and Housing. Volume I: Final Tables; General Characteristics of the Population (PDF).
- Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945.
- Guérin, V. (1875). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 2: Samarie, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
- Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Hütteroth, W.-D.; Abdulfattah, K. (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
- Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Talmon-Heller, Daniella (1994). "Popular Hanbalite Islam in 12th–13th Century Jabal Nablus and Jabal Qasyūn". Studia Islamica. 79: 103–120. doi:10.2307/1595838. JSTOR 1595838.
- Talmon-Heller, Daniella (2002). Riley-Smith, J. (ed.). The Cited Tales of the Wondrous Doings of the Shaykhs of the Holy Land. Vol. 1. published in Crusades. Aldershot, Hampshire: Published by Ashgate for the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. pp. 111–154. ISBN 0754609189.
External links
edit- Welcome To Saffarin
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 11: IAA, Wikimedia commons
