Beit Qad

Beit Qad
Other transcription(s)
 • Arabic بيت قاد
Beit Qad

Location of Beit Qad within the Palestinian territories

Coordinates: 32°28′19″N 35°21′45″E / 32.47194°N 35.36250°E / 32.47194; 35.36250Coordinates: 32°28′19″N 35°21′45″E / 32.47194°N 35.36250°E / 32.47194; 35.36250
Palestine grid 183/208
Governorate Jenin
Government
 • Type Village council
Population (2016)
 • Jurisdiction 1,799
Name meaning Beit Kâd: the house of Kâd[1]

Beit Qad (Arabic: بيت قاد‎‎) is a Palestinian rural village in the West Bank governorate of Jenin. The village is located 5km from the city of Jenin and according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 2016 it had a population of 1,799.[2]

History

The village is associated by some scholars with a biblical locality in the Kingdom of Israel, located between the city of Jezreel and the kingdom's capital Samaria.[3] It is mentioned in the Book of Kings as Beth Ekad of the Shepherds (Hebrew: בֵּית-עֵקֶד הָרֹעִים‎‎) which can be translated as "meeting place of the shepherds". In this place, Jehu, king of Israel, slaughtered 42 relatives of Ahaziah, king of Judah.[4] The village is also associated with a village mentioned in the Onomasticon (Gazetteer) of the Greek historian Eusebius called Beth Ekamat.[5]

Some intact Roman buildings can be found in the village,[6] and ceramics from the Byzantine era have also been found there.[7]

Ottoman period

Beit Qad, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village appeared in the nahiya of Jenin in the liwa of Lajjun. It had a population of 20 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 9,500 akçe.[8] Beit Qad was described by the census as a hamlet.[5]

In 1870 Victor Guérin found the village to have 200 inhabitants.[9] In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Beit Kad as “a small village on a knoll near the plain. It has a large cemented cistern, now broken. The houses are of stone and mud.”[10]

British period

In the 1922 census the population of the village was 190[11] decreasing slightly in the 1931 census to 185, in 35 households.[12]

In 1944/5 the population was 290, all Muslim,[13] with a total of 8,915 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[14] Of this, 608 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 6,976 dunams for cereals,[15] while 10 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[16]

Jordanian period

In 1948 Palestinian refugees from Mount Gilboa were absorbed in the village and stayed there as sharecroppers.[17] The refugees who arrived to Beit Qad had the opportunity to resettle in the village instead of moving to refugee camps.[18] In 1951 they built, with the aid of the Jordanian government, another agriculture-based village, 2km north of Beit Qad, called Mashru' Beit Qad which means "Project of Beit Qad"[17] The Jordanian census conducted in 1961 recorded 247 persons in Beit Qad and 197 persons in Mashru' Beit Qad.[19]

1967, aftermath

In a census conducted by Israel after it occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, Beit Qad "south" (respectively "north") were reported to have 223 (respectively 216) residents, including 86 (respectively 53) persons in households whose head was a refugee from Israeli territory.[20]

Geography

The village is located north of Deir Abu Da'if in the Jezreel Valley (known in Arabic as "Marj Ibn Āmir"). The village is split into two sections: the south and north (which is called Mashru Beit Qad) and is surrounded by fields. The village has an ancient mosque built from ancient building stones and an old Arabic maqam.[6][21]

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 160
  2. ↑ "Localities in Jenin Governorate by Type of Locality and Population Estimates, 2007–2016". Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
  3. ↑ Longman III, Tremper (2013). The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Baker Publishing Group. p. 325. ISBN 978-1-4412-3886-3.
  4. ↑ Hubbard, Robert L. Jr. (1991). First & Second Kings- Everyman's Bible Commentary. Moody Press Chicago. pp. 176–177. ISBN 0-8024-2095-8.
  5. 1 2 "בית קאד [Beit Qad]" (in Hebrew). Mapa.
  6. 1 2 "Beit Qad". Welcome to Palestine.
  7. ↑ Dauphin, 1998, p. 785
  8. ↑ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 160
  9. ↑ Guérin, 1874, pp. 333–34
  10. ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, p. 83
  11. ↑ Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Jenin, p. 29
  12. ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 70
  13. ↑ Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 16
  14. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 54
  15. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 98
  16. ↑ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 148
  17. 1 2 "משרוע בית קאד [Mashru' Beit Qad]" (in Hebrew). Mapa.
  18. ↑ "أهالي بيت قاد أفشلوا مشروع التوطين". Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 21 May 2014. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
  19. ↑ Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics (1964). First Census of Population and Housing. Volume I: Final Tables; General Characteristics of the Population. p. 25.
  20. ↑ Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (1967–1970). Joel Perlmann, ed. "The 1967 Census of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: A Digitized Version". Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, 2011–2012. Volume 1, Table 2.
  21. ↑ Hareuveni, Immanuel; Eretz Yisrael Lexicon; Ministry of Education p.132

Bibliography

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