Ayta al-Jabal, Aayta Ej Jabal
عيتا الجبل، عيتا الزط
village
Map showing the location of Baraachit within Lebanon
Map showing the location of Baraachit within Lebanon
Ayta al-Jabal, Aayta Ej Jabal
Location within Lebanon
Coordinates: 33°10′32″N 35°24′28″E / 33.17556°N 35.40778°E / 33.17556; 35.40778
Grid position188/286 PAL
Country Lebanon
GovernorateNabatieh Governorate
DistrictBint Jbeil District
Area
[1]
 • Total4.99 km2 (1.93 sq mi)
Elevation
[1]
680 m (2,230 ft)
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)

Ayta al-Jabal or Aayta Ej Jabal (Arabic: عيتا الجبل), also Ayta ez-Zutt (Arabic: عيتا الزط),[2] is a village in Nabatiye Governorate, in the Bint Jbeil District of southern Lebanon, about 112 kilometres (70 mi) from Beirut. The village is situated in the southern outskirts of the town of Tebnine, in the heart of the Lebanese Shia Muslim community of Jabal Amel. The village sits on an elevation of 680 metres (2,230 ft) above sea level.

History

Antiquity

Ayta el-Jabal has been identified with Beth Ayit, a place mentioned in Rabbinic literature as being positioned on the border that signified the northernmost limit of Jewish settlement upon their return from Babylonian captivity in the 6th to 5th centuries BCE. Contemporary research indicates that this text was composed in the 2nd century CE, approximately six centuries after the return to Zion. Despite its later origin, it mirrors an ancient reality, likely harking back to the Hasmonean or Herodian periods, around the 2nd or 1st century BCE.[3][4]

Ottoman period

In the 1596 Ottoman tax records, the village, named 'Ayta al-Gajar, was located in the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Tibnin under the Liwa of Safad, with a population of 12 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, such as wheat (2,600 akçe), barley (1,400 akçe), olive trees (500 akçe), goats and beehives (400 akçe), in addition to "occasional revenues" (137 akçe) and a press for olive oil or grape syrup (12 akçe); a total of 5,049 akçe. Part of the revenue went to a waqf.[5][6]

In 1856 it was named Aithat et Tut on Kiepert's map of Palestine/Lebanon published that year,[7] while in 1875, Victor Guérin passed by and noted: “to my left, beyond a wadi, [is] the village of A'ïtha, on a high hill; it does not look very considerable and is inhabited by Metualis."[8]

Ayta al-Jabal shown amongst the villages surrounding Tebnine in the 1880s PEF Survey of Palestine.

In 1881, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village (which it called 'Aita ez Zut): "A village, built of stone, containing about fifty Metawileh, situated on a hill-top, with figs, olives, and arable land around. There are two cisterns in the village."[9]

French rule

The current Bint Jbeil province was created in 1922 by French mandatory authorities.[10]

Notable people from Ayta al-Jabal

References

  1. 1 2 Aayta Ej Jabal, Localiban
  2. ↑ Âita ez Zutt, meaning "the high mountain of the Zutt", according to Palmer 1881, p. 17
  3. ↑ פרנקל, רפאל; פינקלשטיין, ישראל; Frankel, Raphael; Finkelstein, Israel (1983). "'The Northwest Corner of Eretz-Israel' in the Baraita 'Boundaries of Eretz-Israel' / 'מקצוע צפונית מערבית של ארץ-ישראל' בברייתת התחומין". Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv / קתדרה: לתולדות ארץ ישראל ויישובה (in Hebrew) (27): 44–45. ISSN 0334-4657.
  4. ↑ Frankel, R. & Finkelstein, I. (1983), p. 44
  5. ↑ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 183
  6. ↑ Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 Archived 2019-04-20 at the Wayback Machine writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
  7. ↑ Kiepert, 1856, Map of Northern Palestine/Lebanon
  8. ↑ Guérin, 1880, p. 385
  9. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, p. 94
  10. ↑ Ahmad Rida, Memoirs of History (مذكرات للتاريخ), Dar An-Nahar: Beirut 2009, pp. 138, 179, 180, 183, 227.

Bibliography

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