Ein 'Arik

Ein Arik, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in 1596 'Ain 'Arik appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a total population of 24 households, 14 Muslim and 10 Christian. The villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards and fruit trees, goats and beehives; a total of 4,300 akçe.[9]

In 1838, Edward Robinson noted it as a partly Christian village, with 25 Christian men, and the rest Muslims.[10] It was located in the Beni Harith district, north of Jerusalem.[11]

In 1870 the French explorer Victor Guérin found Ein 'Arik to have "forty small houses, inhabited by half Muslim, half Greek schismatics, who have a church."[12] An Ottoman village list of about the same year, 1870, showed that Ein 'Arik had 41 houses with 179 Muslim men, and 24 houses with 80 Greek Christian men; a total of 65 houses with 259 men. The population count included men, only.[13][14]

In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Ain' Arik as "A small stone hamlet in a deep valley with a Greek church, the inhabitants being Greek Christians. There is a good spring to the west with a small stream. The place is surrounded with olives, and there are lemons and other trees round the water in a thick grove."[15]

In 1896 the population of 'Ain arik was estimated to be about 471 persons; half Christian and half Muslim.[16]

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, 'Ain 'Arik had a population of 365; 165 Muslims[17] and 200 Christians; 144 Orthodox, 56 Roman Catholics,[18] increasing in the 1931 census, to 494; 220 Christians and 274 Muslims, living in a total of 117 houses.[19]

In the 1945 statistics, the population of 'Ein 'Arik was 610; 360 Muslims and 250 Christians,[20] while the total land area was 5,934 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[21] Of this, 2,203 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 1,168 for cereals,[22] while 32 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[23]

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Ein 'Arik came under Jordanian rule.

In 1961, the population of 'Ain Arik was 1,385,[24] of whom 260 were Christian.[25]

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Ein 'Arik has been under Israeli occupation, and according to the Israeli census of that year, the population of 'Ain 'Arik stood at 642, of whom 215 were registered as having come from Israel.[26]

After the 1995 accords, 7.3% of village land has been defined as Area B land, while the remaining 92.7% is Area C.[27]

There are two churches located in the village, one Orthodox Christian and the other one is Roman Catholic Couvent Saint-Etienn. One mosque is located in the center of the village and has the tallest minaret in all of Palestine.[28] Two-thirds of its inhabitants are Palestinian Muslims, and the remaining one-third are Palestinian Christians.[2] The village council which consists of mostly Muslims is chaired by a Christian. Both Christians and Muslims have been living together since early on harmoniously by respecting each other's religion.

Ein 'Arik is known for the natural springs that run through the village and pour into the valley. Both springs, up until the year 2000, were used for drinking and cooking. The village has a large lush valley filled with fruit trees. In 1948 when Palestinians were exiled from their villages some refugees from different villages settled in Ein 'Arik due to the accessibility of clean water.

Ein 'Arik has a public swimming pool, which is open from May to September. There are several restaurants in Ein 'Arik that serve traditional Arabic cuisine, but the most popular of the restaurants is the Falaha, which is very well known throughout the West-Bank area.