Bi'ina or al-Bi'na[2] (also el-Baneh) (Arabic: البعنة) is an Arabtown in the Northern District of Israel. It is located east of Akko. In 2003, Bi'ina merged with Majd al-Krum and Deir al-Asad to form the city of Shaghur, but was reinstated as a local council in 2008 after Shaghur was dissolved. Bi'ina has a mostly Muslim population (92%) with a small Christian minority (8%);[3] in 2022 its population was 8,629.[1]
Along with several other sites, Bi'ina was proposed as the location of ancient Beth-Anath mentioned in Egyptian and biblical texts.[4][Note 1] Archaeological evidence suggests that Bi'ina, though perhaps occupied in the Early Bronze Age, was no longer occupied in the Late Bronze Age.[7]
The old site of Bi'ina is thought to have been at the mound of Jelamet el-Bi'ina, less than a mile southeast of the present site of Bi'ina.[8] The word jélameh, meaning "hill, mound," is sometimes employed instead of tell.
Ottoman Empire
In 1517 Palestine was conquered by the Ottoman Empire from the Mamluks. Around this time, possibly as early as 1510, the Sufi sheikh Muhammad al-Asad had settled in the monastery of the village of Dayr al-Bi'ina (also called Dayr al-Khidr, the 'St. George La Beyne' of the Crusaders). Under order of the Ottoman sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520), a major patron of the Sufis, the Christian inhabitants of Dayr al-Bi'ina were expelled from the village, so that eventually a significant Muslim settlement could be established there under the auspices of Muhammad al-Asad and his followers. Dayr al-Bi'ina was thereafter called Deir al-Asad after the sheikh and the expelled Christians established the village of Bi'ina at its present site, about 0.5 kilometers (0.31 mi) to the south of Dayr al-Bi'ina. According to local tradition, the present Christian inhabitants of Bi'ina are the descendants of the expelled Christians.[9]
In 1596 Bi'ina was recorded in Ottoman tax registers as belonging to the nahiya (subdistrict) of Acre, part of Safed Sanjak. It had a population of 61 households; 46 Muslim and 15 Christian. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olives, cotton, goats or beehives, in addition to a press for grapes or olives; a total of 7,134 akçe.[10][11]
By the early 18th century the Banu Zaydan (or Zayadina) family held sway in the Shaghur area and their future leader, Zahir al-Umar, played a prominent role defending Bi'ina from a taxation campaign by the Ottoman governor of Sidon at some point between 1713 and 1718. The event helped establish Zahir's good reputation with the area's inhabitants.[12] By 1730, Zahir had gained control of Tiberias as its multazim (tax farmer) and within a few years moved to expand his domains. In 1740 Zahir besieged Bi'ina, by then a fortified village, but after failing to capture it, secured control of it by forming a pact with its headman, sealed by Zahir's marriage to the headman's daughter.[13][14]
After Zahir was slain in an imperial Ottoman campaign against him, the new, Acre-based governor of Sidon, Jazzar Pasha, moved to eliminate Zaydani control in the Galilee. Zahir's son Ali posed the main challenge to Jazzar's rule in the region and controlled several fortified villages in the central and eastern Galilee, including Bi'ina. After a string of victories against Ali, Jazzar gained control of the area in 1776.[15] A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799, during Jazzar's rule, by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as "El Bena",[16] while in 1838, el Ba'neh was noted as Greek Christian village in the Esh-Shagur district, located between Safad, Acca and Tiberias.[17]
In 1875 Victor Guérin noted that the population was divided between Druze and Greek Orthodox Christians. He listed a mosque and a Greek church, both of which were built on the sites of older churches.[18] In the late 19th century, it was described as a village of 300 Muslims and 100 Christians, surrounded by olives and arable land. Water was supplied by a spring.[19] A sarcophagus was also seen lying outside the town. Lieutenant Kitchener of the Palestine Exploration Fund described the town under its name El-Baneh, and where he noted a spring and birket (reservoir).[19] A population list from about 1887 showed that B'aneh had 620 inhabitants; slightly more Muslims than Greek Catholic Christians.[20]
In the 1945 statistics, Bi'ina had 830 inhabitants; 530 Muslims and 300 Christians.[24] They owned 14,839 dunams of land, while 57 dunams were public.[24][25] 1,619 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 5,543 used for cereals,[24][26] while 57 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[24][27]
Israel
During Operation Hiram, 29–31 October 1948, the village surrendered to the advancing Israeli army. Many of the villagers fled north but some remained and were not expelled.[28] The village remained under martial law until 1966.
In 1981, a Bedouin neighborhood was created in the village, populated by members of the Sawaed tribe from Rame. In 2001, the village was spread out over an area of some 30 dunams (7.4 acres).[29]
^W.F. Albright was a major proponent of this view (AASOR - 1921/1922, pp. 19–20). As for the Egyptian texts that mention Beth-Anath, see the Zenon Papyri. Cf. Stephen G. Wilson & Michel Desjardins, Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in honour of Peter Richardson, Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo Ontario 2000, p. 121, ISBN0-88920-356-3
^Shmuel Ahituv, Canaanite Toponyms in Ancient Egyptian Documents, Magnes Press: Jerusalem 1984 ISBN9652235644, citing Aharoni (1957:70-74).
^Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6Archived 2019-04-20 at the Wayback Machine writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied from the Safad-district was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9.
Aharoni, Y. (1957). The Settlement of the Tribes of Israel in the Upper Galilee. Jerusalem: Magnes Press.
Albright, W.F. (1922). "Contribution to the Historical Geography of Palestine". The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 2–3: 1–46.
Albright, W.F. (1923). Warren J. Moulton (ed.). "Beth Anath". The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research (AASOR). 2–3. New Haven: Yale University Press. JSTOR3768450.
Frankel, Rafael; Getzov, Nimrod; Aviam, Mordechai; Degani, Avi (2001). "Settlement Dynamics and Regional Diversity in Ancient Upper Galilee (Archaeological Survey of Upper Galilee)". Israel Antiquities Authority. 14.
Gal, Zvi (1988). "The Late Bronze Age in Galilee: A Reassessment". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 272 (272): 79–84. doi:10.2307/1356788. JSTOR1356788. S2CID164010807.
Joudah, Ahmad Hasan (2013). Revolt in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: The Era of Shaykh Zahir al-Umar (Second ed.). Gorgias Press. ISBN978-1-4632-0002-2.
Klein, S. (1934). "Notes on History of Large Estates in Palestine". Yediot - Bulletin of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society. 1: 18–34.
Layish, Aharon (1987). ""Waqfs" and Ṣūfī Monasteries in the Ottoman Policy of Colonization: Sulṭan Selīm I's "waqf" of 1516 in Favour of Dayr al-Asad". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 50 (1): 61–89. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00053192. JSTOR616894.
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