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Sharafat (Template:Lang-ar) is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood in southern Jerusalem, Israel.Historically, it was located about 5 km southwest of Jerusalem.In 2002, the population was 978.The Palestinian Authority considers Sharafat a part of its Jerusalem Governorate,but it is under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem Municipality.

Geography

Sharafat is situated on a mountain-ridge at an altitude of Template:M to ft. It is located east of the Green Line, in the Seam Zone.The built-up area of the village lies Template:M to ft south of Gilo, Template:M to ft from Teddy Stadium. Some tracts of village land were expropriated by the Israeli government in 1970 for the construction of Gilo. According to Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, an additional 1,350 dunams (1.35 km2) were expropriated in 1983.

In 1996, the total land area of the village was 1,974 dunams (1.974 km2), with a built-up area of 285 dunams. Of these, 1,962 dunams were privately owned by Muslims, and the remainder was public land. Zuhur and Deir Cremisan are often included in land and population surveys as part of Sharafat. In 2003, the combined land area was 8,939 dunams, housing a population of 963 in 245 dwellings.

History

Mamluk era

During the period of Mamluk rule (c. 13th - early 16th centuries), Sharafat was home to the Badriyya a renowned family of awliya (Muslim saints) to whom the village was dedicated as a waqf (Islamic trust) by the viceroy of Damascus in the 14th century, and whose family tombs continue to be venerated to this day. Sharafat is mentioned in Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th and 15th centuries, Ottoman tax records from the 16th century, and the travel writings and ethnographies of European and American visitors to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries. Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th century mention the Husseini family renting the lands of Sharafat. The specific branch who leased the village from a fief-holder is said to be al-Husyani al-Wafā'i, descendants of al-Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the founder of Islam, Muhammad, and the village remained in their possession throughout the Mamluk period.

The Jerusalemite chronicler Mujīr al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl (c. 1495) documents the exploits of Sufi notables in Hebron and Jerusalem, and provides much information about the history of Sharafat in the Mamluk period. The Abdu l-Wafā' or the Wafā'iyya are described by him as a family of Sufi scholars and ashrāf ("honoured ones") whose origins were in 12th century Iraq. Al-Sayyid Badr al-Dīn Muhammed (d. 1253, also known as Sheikh Badir), a renowned Sufi wāli (Muslim saint) from this family took up residence in Dayr al-Shaykh. 'Abd al-Ḥafiz (d. 1296–1297), his grandson, established roots in neighbouring Sharafat when Dayr al-Shaykh had become too small to accommodate the growing population, relinquishing the revenues to the land he owned in the latter for the benefit of those remaining. Dāwūd, the son of al-Ḥafiz, established a zāwiya and tomb in Sharafat where all his descendants were buried. The most famous of these were al-Sayyid 'Alī and al-Sayyid Muhammed al-Bahā', considered "pillars" of the Holy Land and its surroundings (wa-kānā a'mida al-arḍ al-muaqaddasa wa-mā hawlahā).

Under Mamluk rule, the village of Sharafat was dedicated as a waqf ("Islamic trust") to the Badriyya family by the viceroy of Damascus in 1349. Al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl suggests that Sharafat was named for this family of ashrāf. The Palestine Exploration Fund notes that prior to its renaming, the village was known as Karafat (the opposite of Sharafat, which means "noble"). Badriyya (also called Sitt Badriyya), Sheikh Badir's daughter, was also buried in Sharafat, as was her husband, Ahmed et-Tubbar. The simple, unadorned tomb of Sitt Badriyya overlooks a valley that is today crowded with highways, but is still venerated by area residents, who believe that she can render assistance in times of drought.

Ottoman era

Sharafat is listed in the Daftar-i Mufassal, a book of the Ottoman Empire that recorded tax related information for the villages in the area in 1596–1597. It had a population of 12 Muslim families. A 16th-century Ottoman map situates Sharafat in the green belt around Jerusalem.

James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem during Ottoman rule, writes of visiting Sharafat between 1853 and 1856. He describes it as a small village perched on high hill to the southwest of Jerusalem which could be seen from there. The villagers are described as "a robust and well-fed people," who expressed to him that they were happily exempt from a family feud between the Abu Ghosh and Mohammed 'Atallah that was the disturbing the peace of nearby Beit Safafa.

Mandate era

Musa Alami (1897–1984), a Palestinian nationalist and politician, owned a house in the village of Sharafat where he hosted lunches and dinners for members of the foreign press and British visitors, prior to losing his properties in the 1948 war.

Serene Husseini Shahid (1920–2008), his niece, writes of Sharafat in her book A Jerusalem Childhood: The Early Life of Serene Husseini (2000). Her grandfather, Fadi al-Alami, who served as Jerusalem's mayor under Ottoman rule, is said to have bought land in Sharafat after falling in love with an oak tree in the village that was thought to be 1,500 years old. Her family owned a summer home in the village where she befriended Miriam, the eldest daughter of Ali Mishaal, the village mukhtar, whose house lay just across the street. Recalling how they played together in the oak tree, and she watched with fascination as Miriam prepared the trousseau for her marriage at the age of 15, she then tells of the tragedy that befell Miriam and her family decades later when their home was surrounded by Israeli forces in the 1951 attack on Sharafat (See section below). Miriam and her daughter were partially buried in the rubble for a day before being rescued, and both succumbed to their wounds in the hospital.

A travelogue by Bertha Spafford Vester, an American who traced her family's history in Jerusalem between 1881 and 1949, indicates the grave of a female saint in the village (likely that of Sitt Badriyya) was venerated by Muslims and Christians alike. During the time of British rule over Mandate Palestine, the American Colony operated a weekly child welfare station in the village of Sharafat, beginning in 1929, in a room provided by the village sheikh which was frequented by women in neighbouring villages as well.

In 1931, the population of the village was recorded as 158 Muslims. In interviews with area residents conducted between 1925 and 1931 by Hilma Natalia Granqvist, the Finnish ethnographer, when asked which villages were renowned for having more daughters than sons, Sharafat was named along with the villages of Beit Sahour and Ein Karem.

Under Jordanian rule

After the 1948 War, Sharafat lay in the area to the east of the Green Line that was occupied by Jordan until 1967. On the night of February 6–7, 1951, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a raid, collectively punishing the village, because it was "thought to be a base for infiltrators who had committed acts of sabotage or murder in Israel." David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, ordered the attack on Sharafat after IDF intelligence determined that it had served as a base for an attack on Maliha during which an Israeli man was murdered, his wife raped, and their home robbed. IDF troops from the 16th (Jerusalem) Brigade entered Sharafat at night, surrounding and blowing up two houses, one of which belonged to the village mukhtar. Three women and five children (aged 1–13) were among the up to fourteen Arabs killed in the explosions and shootings, and five women and three children were injured.Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Military Commander of Jerusalem, characterized the operation as "an eye for an eye". At first, Israel publicly denied knowing anything about the incident. A day later, Reuven Shiloah, the head of the Mossad, told the British ambassador that the incident had been provoked by "Arab raiding, raping, etc. from Jordan side." Days later, he also told the Jordanian King Hussein that individual soldiers may have been involved in the raid. Samir Rifa'i, the Prime Minister of Jordan, who had until this time been regarded by Israel as "generally reasonable and conciliatory," described the IDF raid on Sharafat as "fiendish" and "provocative", and because of it, became convinced that Israel "did not seriously desire peace," thereby derailing American hopes for pursuing peace talks. According to Benny Morris, such punitive raids constituted a prime IDF strategy between 1951 and 1953.

Under Israeli rule

Sharafat was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and became part of the Jerusalem District.Government expropriations of land east of the Green Line enabled the creation of Jewish satellite neighbourhoods, among them Gilo. built on lands of Sharafat, Beit Jala, and Beit Safafa.In 1986, a PLO observer wrote to the UN to protest the case of Halimeh Abdal Nabi, a 70-year-old woman whose home was demolished in 1986. In the early 1970s, 40 dunams had been expropriated from the family to build a road to Gilo and the land was declared a "military zone." Ray Hanania, a Palestinian-American journalist and comedian describes the land of Sharafat as "a rambling field of olive trees and small orange groves."

Development projects

In 2010, the Latin Patriarchate launched a construction project to house dozens of Christian families, mostly young couples with children. Some 9,000 square meters of land were purchased by the families and the Jerusalem municipality granted the necessary construction permits. Eighty apartments are now under construction.

Archaeology

Archaeological excavations in 2007 found a terrace compound that may have been part of the agricultural periphery of Sharafat or Beit Safafa in the last century. A quarry and winepress were ascribed to the period of Roman–Byzantine occupation. Ceramic artifacts and a Hasmonean coin date from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A ritual bath (mikve) was documented near the site.

Footnotes

• ^i Badriyya is another name for the Husseini (or al-Husayni) family. According to Musa Ishaq al-Husayni, the first recorded member of the family is Badr ibn Muhammed (or Sheikh Badir) who died in 1252 and was buried in the zawiya of Wadi Nasur in Jerusalem. The family was therefore at first referred to as Badriyya.

Bibliography

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• Cohen, Shaul Ephraim (1993). The politics of planting: Israeli-Palestinian competition for control of land in the Jerusalem periphery (Illustrated ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226112764, 9780226112763. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Ephrat, Daphna (2008). Spiritual wayfarers, leaders in piety: Sufis and the dissemination of Islam in medieval Palestine (Illustrated ed.). Harvard CMES. ISBN 0674032012, 9780674032019. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Finn, James (2004). Elizabeth A. Finn (ed.). Stirring Times, or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856. Edited and Compiled by His Widow E. A. Finn. With a Preface by the Viscountess Strangford. Volume 2. Adamant Media Corporation. ISBN 140215089X, 9781402150890. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Granqvist, Hilma Natalia (1950). Child problems among the Arabs: studies in a Muhammadan village in Palestine. Södorström.
• Greenberg, Ela (2010). Preparing the Mothers of Tomorrow: Education and Islam in Mandate Palestine (Illustrated ed.). University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292721196, 9780292721197. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Hanania, Ray (1996). I'm glad I look like a terrorist: growing up Arab in America (Illustrated ed.). Lulu.com. ISBN 0965476103, 9780965476102. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Kark, Ruth; Oren-Nordheim, Michal (2001). Jerusalem and its environs: quarters, neighborhoods, villages, 1800–1948 (Illustrated ed.). Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0814329098, 9780814329092. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Luṭfī, Hudā (1985). Al Quds al-Mamlûkiyya: a history of Mamlûk Jerusalem based on the Ḥaram documents. K. Schwarz.
• Ma'oz, Moshe; Nusseibeh, Sari (2000). Jerusalem: points of friction, and beyond (Illustrated ed.). BRILL. ISBN 9041188436, 9789041188434. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
• Morris, Benny (1997). Israel's border wars, 1949–1956: Arab infiltration, Israeli retaliation, and the countdown to the Suez War (2nd, revised, illustrated ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198292627, 9780198292623. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Nashāshībī, Nāṣir al-Dīn (1990). Jerusalem's other voice: Ragheb Nashashibi and moderation in Palestinian politics, 1920–1948 (Illustrated ed.). Ithaca Press. ISBN 0863721176, 9780863721175. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Quarterly statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. Palestine Exploration Fund. 1916.
• Pappé, Ilan; Maʻoz, Moshe (1997). Ilan Pappé, Moshe Maʻoz (ed.). Middle Eastern politics and ideas: a history from within. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1860640125, 9781860640124. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Poliak, Abraham N. (1977). Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the Lebanon, 1250–1900 (Reprint ed.). Porcupine Press.
• Universiṭat Tel-Aviv. Makhon le-arkheʾologyah, Makhon le-arkheʼologyah ʻa. sh. Sonyah u-Marḳo Nadler (1998). Tel Aviv, Volume 25. Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University.
• Universität Wien. Orientalisches Institut, Institut für Ägyptologie und Afrikanistik, Institut für Orientalistik (2005). Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Volume 95. Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Instituts, Universität Wien.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Vester, Bertha Spafford (2007). Our Jersalem. READ BOOKS. ISBN 1406742872, 9781406742879. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

References

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13. Kark and Oren-Nordheim, 2001, p. 241.
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21. Cohen, 1993, pp. 134–135.
22. Finn, 2004, pp. 213-216.
23. Nashāshībī, 1990, p. 207.
24. "Features - A Jerusalem Childhood: The Early Life of Serene Husseini" (PDF). Jerusalem Quarterly. Heinrich Böll. Spring 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-22. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |Volume= ignored (|volume= suggested) (help)
25. ^ Vester, 2007, p. 313.
26. Greenberg, 2010, p. 136.
27. Palestine Census 1931, Population of Villages, p. 43.
28. Granqvist, 1950, p. 66.
29. ^ Morris, 1997, pp. 206-207, 439.
30. Cohen, p. 12–13, 82.
31. Prepared for, and under the guidance of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (1982). "ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK (INCLUDING JERUSALEM): Their Nature and Purpose". UNISPAL. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
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34. Helping Christian families be rooted in Jerusalem
35. D. Amit, 1994. Ritual Baths in the Hebron Hill Country: Landmarks for Reconstructing the Jewish Settlement during the Time of the Second Temple. Studies of Judea and Samaria, Proceedings of the Third Conference, pp. 161–162 ; A. Kloner 2000. Survey of Jerusalem: The Southern Sector, Site 87) and a burial field that dated to the Early Roman period was excavated (ESI 18:94–95; Survey of Jerusalem: The Southern Sector, Site 44)
36. Pappé and Ma'oz, 1997, pp. 166–167.

v t e Jerusalem Governorate
Subdistrict	Jerusalem J1 (Territories of East Jerusalem unilaterally annexed by Israel in its Jerusalem Municipality)
Cities	Abu Dis al-Eizariya (Bethany) al-Ram
Municipalities	Hizma Biddu Bir Nabala Kafr 'Aqab Qatanna
Villages	'Anata 'Arab al-Jahalin Beit 'Anan Beit Duqqu Beit Hanina Beit Ijza Beit Iksa Beit Safafa Beit Surik Jaba al-Jib al-Judeira Khan al-Ahmar Mukhmas Nabi Samwil al-Qubeiba Qalandia Rafat as-Sawahira ash-Sharqiya Sharafat ash-Sheikh Sa'd Shuafat az-Za'ayyem
Refugee camps	Qalandia Camp Shu'fat Camp

• Jerusalem Governorate