History
The first part of the village name, Dayr ("monastery") suggest that the village might have had a monastery and a Christian population. However, in modern times the population was Muslim. According to the residents of the village, ancient artifacts from the Canaanite, Israelite and Roman period were unearthed in the Ottoman and British Mandate period.
In 1596, Dayr al-Qassi was a village in the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Jira under the liwa' (district) of Safad, with a population of 132. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, as well as on goats and beehives.
In the late nineteenth century, the village of Dayr al-Qassi was described as being situated on a ridge, encircled by fig trees, olive trees and arable land. It then had a population of about 200.
According to a 1945 census the village had a population of 2,300 and was a part of larger town also containing the two villages of Fassuta (existent) and al-Mansura. The town was mostly Muslim but had a large Palestinian Christian minority. Its total land area was 34,011 dunums of which only about 8,092 dunums were built upon.
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