Sakhnin - History

History

Settlement at Sakhnin dates back 3,500 years to its first mention in 1479 BCE by Thutmose II, whose ancient Egyptian records mention it as a centre for production of indigo dye. Sargon II also makes mention of it as Suginin.

It was mentioned as Sogane, a town fortified in 66, by Josephus.

Known as Sikhnin or Sikhni, meaning "home of the labourers" in Aramaic, and Sukhsikha, meaning "produces oil" in Hebrew, the town was known for Jewish scholars like the rabbi Joshua of Sakhnin in the periods of the Mishna and Gemara. His grave is known in Arabic as Nabi as-Sideiq, and was a focus of pilgrimage from the Middle Ages through the present. The town continued to flourish as Hellenist Sogne into the period of Roman conquest.

Annexed to the Ummayad Caliphate after the Battle of Yarmouk, it came under brief crusader rule as Zakkanin until retaken by Saladin and the Ayyubid Dynasty following the Battle of Hattin where it remained in Muslim hands under the Mamluks, Dhaher al-Omar, and the Ottomans, until Ottoman Syria was occupied by the British Empire after World War I.

In 1596, Sakhnin appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Akka of the Liwa of Tabariyya. It had a population of 66 Muslim households and 8 bachelors. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, cotton, and a water mill.

In the late 1870s, Conder and Kitchener described Sakhnin as follows. "A large village of stone and mud, amid fine olive-groves, with a small mosque. The water supply is from a large pool about half a mile to the south-east. The inhabitants are Moslems and Christians, and in 1859 numbered 1,100, and cultivated 100 feddans, according to Consul Rogers."

At the time of the 1931 census, Sakhnin had 400 occupied houses and a population of 1688 Muslims, 202 Christians, and 1 Jew.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Sakhnin surrendered to Israeli forces on July 18, 1948, during Operation Dekel, but was re-captured by Arab forces shortly afterwards. It finally fell without battle into Israeli hands in October 1948. In 1976, it became the site of the first Land Day marches, in which six Israeli Arabs were killed by Israeli forces during violent protests of government confiscation of 5,000 acres (20 km2) of Arab-owned land near Sakhnin. And in 1976 three more civilians were killed during clashes with the police, and in Jerusalem and the Aqsa Intifada in 2000 two men were killed.