History
Amr ibn al-A'as, a prominent Arab commander of the Rashidun army, was said to have been injured in the village. According to local tradition, a tree was planted on the spot where his blood was spilled. The story was written up in the village history in the year 1919. In 1225 Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi noted that Qarawat Bani Hassan was "a village in the District of Nablus."
In 1596, Qarawat Bani Hasan appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the nahiya of Jabal Qubal in the liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 13 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives.
French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1870, and estimated it as having about 150 inhabitants. He described the town as being in decline, but with great remains of former better times. When he was visiting, a squad of bashi-bazouks were rounding up 35 villagers, and taking them to Nablus as they had not paid their taxes. In the 1881 "Survey of Western Palestine", the village (called Kurawa Ibn Hasan) was described as:
partly ruinous, but evidently at one time a place of great importance, with ancient tombs, one of great beauty, and rude stone towers. Its ancient name is given by the natives as Sham et Tawil. The little mosque of Sheikh 'Aly el 'Amanat stands apparendy over the apse of a church. The supply of water is from wells and cisterns.
In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Qarawa had an entirely Muslim population of 313, while in the 1931 census, Qarawa had 89 occupied houses and population of 352, still all Muslim. In 1945 the population was 450 while the total land area was 9,685 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 105 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,820 for cereals, while 30 dunams were classified as built-up areas.
Read more about this topic: Qarawat Bani Hassan
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)