Majdel Selm

Majdel Selm مجدل سلم
Village
Majdel Selm Location within Lebanon
Coordinates: 33°13′18″N 35°27′52″E / 33.22167°N 35.46444°ECoordinates: 33°13′18″N 35°27′52″E / 33.22167°N 35.46444°E
Grid position	193/291 PAL
Country	Lebanon
Governorate	Nabatieh Governorate
District	Marjeyoun District
Elevation	560 m (1,840 ft)
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Dialing code	+961

Majdel Selm, or Mejdel Islim, (Arabic: مجدل سلم‎‎) is a village the Marjeyoun District in Southern Lebanon.

Name

According to E. H. Palmer, the name Mejdel Islim means Islim’s watch-tower, p.n.^[1]

History

In 1596, it was named as a village, Majdal Salim, in the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Tibnin under the liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 51 households and 8 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25 % on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, vegetable and fruit garden, orchard, goats, beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues" and a press for olive oil or grape syrup; a total of 9,110 akçe.^[2][3]

In 1875 Victor Guérin found that the village had about 300 Metawileh inhabitants.^[4] He further noted: "A mosque, now abandoned and falling into ruins, has succeeded here a Byzantine church, the materials of which have been used in building it. Over one of the windows is a stone (apparently once the lintel) with an old Greek inscription, the characters of which are too much defaced to be read. A monolithic column lies beside it, half buried in the ground, surmounted by a capital sculptured in form of open basket work."^[5]

In 1881, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as a "large village, built of stone, of ancient appearance, containing about 500 [..] Metawileh [..]. Situated on table land, surrounded by olives and arable land. Water supply from a large masonry birket and many cisterns."^[6] They further noted: "Village containing several good lintels and remains of ruins; an ancient road leads from the village to the Birkeh."^[7]

References

1. Palmer, 1881, p. 29
2. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 181
3. Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
4. Guérin, 1880, p. 267
5. Guérin, 1880, pp. 267-268; as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, pp. 136
6. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 89
7. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 136

Bibliography

• Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Guérin, Victor (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 3: Galilee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (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.
• 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.
• Rhode, Harold (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University.

External links

• Majdel Selm, Localiban
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 2: IAA, Wikimedia commons