Sharafat, East Jerusalem

Archaeological excavations performed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2019 [15] have found remains of a rural Jewish settlement from the Hasmonean period, dated to between 140 BC and 37 BC. The excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority was done prior to the construction of a school in the Sharafat neighborhood in southern Jerusalem.

In the excavation findings in the site, there was a large wine-making winepress that contained numerous fragments of jars, a large columbarium cave, an olive oil press, a large Mikveh (bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism). The highlight of the excavation is a magnificent burial estate, which included a corridor that led to a large rock-cut courtyard surrounded by a bench. As was customary in Jewish burial caves during the Second Temple period. The stone items are very rare and were usually incorporated into the magnificent buildings and burial estates of Jerusalem, such as that of the priestly family of the sons of Hazeer in Kidron and several tombs in the Sanhedria neighborhood of Jerusalem.[16]

During the period of Mamluk rule (c. 13th - early 16th centuries), Sharafat was home to the Badriyya^[i] a renowned family of awliya (Muslim saints) to whom the village was dedicated as a waqf (Islamic trust) by the viceroy of Damascus in the 14th century, and whose family tombs continue to be venerated to this day. Sharafat is mentioned in Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th and 15th centuries, Ottoman tax records from the 16th century, and the travel writings and ethnographies of European and American visitors to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries. Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th century mention the Husseini family renting the lands of Sharafat.[17] The specific branch who leased the village from a fief-holder is said to be al-Husyani al-Wafā'i, descendants of al-Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the founder of Islam, Muhammad, and the village remained in their possession throughout the Mamluk period.[18]

The Jerusalemite chronicler Mujīr al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl (c. 1495) documents the exploits of Sufi notables in Hebron and Jerusalem, and provides much information about the history of Sharafat in the Mamluk period.[19] The Abdu l-Wafā' or the Wafā'iyya are described by him as a family of Sufi scholars and ashrāf ("honoured ones") whose origins were in 12th-century Iraq. Al-Sayyid Badr al-Dīn Muhammed (d. 1253, also known as Sheikh Badir), a renowned Sufi wāli (Muslim saint) from this family took up residence in Dayr al-Shaykh.[20] 'Abd al-Ḥafiz (d. 1296–1297), his grandson, established roots in neighbouring Sharafat when Dayr al-Shaykh had become too small to accommodate the growing population, relinquishing the revenues to the land he owned in the latter for the benefit of those remaining. Dāwūd, the son of al-Ḥafiz, established a zāwiya and tomb in Sharafat where all his descendants were buried. The most famous of these were al-Sayyid 'Alī and al-Sayyid Muhammed al-Bahā', considered "pillars" of the Holy Land and its surroundings (wa-kānā a'mida al-arḍ al-muaqaddasa wa-mā hawlahā).[4]

The Weli of Budrieh at Sherafat, between 1900 and 1926.

Under Mamluk rule, the village of Sharafat was dedicated as a waqf ("Islamic trust") to the Badriyya family by the viceroy of Damascus in 1349.[5] Al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl suggests that Sharafat was named for this family of ashrāf.[4][21] The Palestine Exploration Fund notes that prior to its renaming, the village was known as Karafat (the opposite of Sharafat, which means "noble").[22] Badriyya (also called Sitt Badriyya), Sheikh Badir's daughter, was also buried in Sharafat, as was her husband, Ahmed et-Tubbar.[20][22] The simple, unadorned tomb of Sitt Badriyya overlooks a valley that is today crowded with highways, but is still venerated by area residents, who believe that she can render assistance in times of drought.[20][23]

Sharafat is listed in the Daftar-i Mufassal, a book of the Ottoman Empire that recorded tax related information for the villages in the area in 1596–1597. It had a population of 12 Muslim families.[24] A 16th-century Ottoman map situates Sharafat in the green belt around Jerusalem.[25] In 1838 it was described as a Muslim village, located in the Beni Hasan district, west of Jerusalem.[26]

James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem during Ottoman rule, writes of visiting Sharafat between 1853 and 1856. He describes it as a small village perched on high hill to the southwest of Jerusalem which could be seen from there. The villagers are described as "a robust and well-fed people," who expressed to him that they were happily exempt from a family feud between the Abu Ghosh and Mohammed 'Atallah that was the disturbing the peace of nearby Beit Safafa.[27] An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted 18 houses and a population of 53, though the population count included only men.[28][29]

In 1883 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Sherafat as a village of moderate size on a low hill. The houses were of stone, and the water-supply was from Ain Yalo, in the valley to the west.[30]

In her book, Bertha Spafford Vester, an American who lived in Jerusalem's American Colony in 1881 and 1949, writes about the grave of a female saint in the village who was venerated by Muslims and Christians alike.[31]

In 1896 the population of Scharafat was estimated to be about 125 persons.[32]

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sharafat had a population 106, all Muslims.[33] In 1929, the American Colony established a child welfare station in Sharafat, in a room provided by the village sheikh which was also open to women from the neighbouring villages.[31][34] In interviews with area residents conducted between 1925 and 1931 by Hilma Natalia Granqvist, the Finnish ethnographer, when asked which villages were renowned for having more daughters than sons, Sharafat was named along with the villages of Beit Sahour and Ein Karem.[35]

In the 1931 census, the population of the village was recorded as 158 Muslims, in 32 houses.[36]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Sharafat was 210 Muslims,[37] with 1,974 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.[38] 482 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 508 for cereals,[39] while 5 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[40]

Deir Sharafat, July 1948

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Sharafat lay in the area to the east of the Green Line that was occupied by Jordan until 1967. Musa Alami a Palestinian nationalist and politician, owned a house in Sharafat where he hosted members of the foreign press and British visitors.[41] Serene Husseini Shahid mentions Sharafat in her book A Jerusalem Childhood: The Early Life of Serene Husseini. Her grandfather, Fadi al-Alami, Jerusalem's mayor under Ottoman rule, is said to have bought land in Sharafat after falling in love with an oak tree in the village that was thought to be 1,500 years old. Shahid writes that the mukhtar's home was surrounded by Israeli forces during a raid across the armistice line in 1951. The house was blown up, and Miriam and her daughter were partially buried in the rubble for a day before being rescued. They both succumbed to their wounds in the hospital.[42]

On the night of February 6–7, 1951, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a raid on Sharafat on the orders of Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion after IDF intelligence determined that it had served as a base for an attack in which an Israeli man was murdered, his wife raped, and their home robbed. IDF troops from the 16th (Jerusalem) Brigade entered Sharafat at night, surrounding and blowing up two houses, one of which belonged to the village mukhtar. Three women and five children (aged 1–13) were killed, and five women and three children were injured.[43] Moshe Dayan, characterized the operation as "an eye for an eye."[43] Reuven Shiloah, head of the Mossad, told the British ambassador that the incident had been provoked by "Arab raiding, raping, etc. from [the] Jordan side."[43] He also told King Hussein that individual soldiers may have been involved in the raid. Samir Rifa'i, the Prime Minister of Jordan, who had been regarded by Israel as "generally reasonable and conciliatory," described the IDF raid on Sharafat as "fiendish" and "provocative", and became convinced that Israel "did not seriously desire peace," thereby derailing American hopes for pursuing peace talks.[43] According to Benny Morris, such punitive raids constituted a prime IDF strategy between 1951 and 1953.[43]

In 1961, the population of Sharafat was 128.[44]