Lubya a palestinian demolished Village in Galilee Memory-History-Culture-Identity Mahmoud Issa Preface

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Local history

Some three thousand Palestinians lived in the village of Lubya before their expulsion in 1948. Some of the inhabitants of Lubya found refuge in neighbouring villages and cities now located inside Israel. The majority, like my family, were uprooted and dispersed across the borders of their homeland. Today, there are an estimated forty thousand refugees from Lubya residing in forced exile in as many as twenty-three countries around the world.

Hundreds of books have been written about the Palestinian people and the catastrophe (Nakba) that befell them in 1948. With few exceptions, however, the voices of those Palestinians who lived and continue to live this history are largely absent. This was by and large true for my village of Lubya. The individual stories of the men, women, children, and the elderly who were forced to leave their homes in search of safety, as millions of people have done throughout the many wars and civil conflicts of the past century, were simply buried beneath Israel’s victorious historical narrative.
For the Zionist movement, which aimed to establish an exclusive Jewish state, Palestine was 'blank piece of paper' on which the movement would inscribe its own exclusive history. Palestinian refugees and their villages were of little interest, apart from the fact that they complicated Zionist claims to the land. Commenting on the fate of the nearly one million Palestinian Arab refugees, the Israeli Foreign Ministry observed that “the most adaptable and best survivors would ‘manage’ by a process of natural selection and others will waste away. Some will die but most will turn into human debris and social outcasts and probably join the poorest classes in the Arab countries.”^⁵
Following the depopulation and destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, the newly-founded state of Israel began construction of new Jewish settlements on the lands of these villages. In the case of Lubya, Israel established a settlement called Lavi. A second settlement named Giv’at Avni was built on the eastern side of the village in 1992-93. The Jewish National Fund (JNF), with support from the Women’s Zionist Organization of South Africa, subsequently planted a pine forest on the remains of Lubya and named it 'The Forest of the Republic of South Africa.' Lubyans, like all other Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons, were not permitted to return to their village and repossess their lands.
This process of depopulation, destruction and dispossession, however, has not succeeded to wipe out the memory of this little Palestinian village. For those Palestinians who were born in Lubya and for their children and grandchildren, most of whom have never seen this place called Lubya, the village remains alive through the stories passed down from generation to generation. This is true for the more than five and a half million Palestinian refugees and displaced persons who were uprooted from their villages and cities in Palestine over five decades ago. Their historical narrative is not intended to silence those who drove them into exile, but rather to decode more than five decades of denial, marginalization and negation.
Too often, the only remedy for the powerless, the displaced and the exiled is the power of memory, the unfettered effort to repossess their own images of the past through various oral traditions – to remember, to register, to recount, to sing, to draw, and to dance. The individual stories of men, women and children, what I refer to as local history, thus plays a fundamental role in preserving, reconstructing and reinterpreting the history of forgotten or marginalized peoples in different corners of the world. 'Localism', with its specific culture, traditions, and lively social networks, still stands as a locus for millions of people deprived not only of their human dignity and basic human rights, but also deprived of the opportunity to narrate their own historical experiences.
When I visited South Africa in November 2003 I discovered that Mr. Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in the African National Congress (ANC) government, and a South African Jew, had planted a tree in memory of my village Lubya in the city of Pretoria.^⁶ The memorial reads as follows:
LUBYA

Dedicated by the Honourable Minister

Ronnie Kasrils

(Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry)

to the Palestinian village of LUBYA upon whose ruins a forest was built

where cows were permitted to graze but the displaced occupants are not allowed to return.

The simple act of a South African minister planting a tree with a plaque reinstating the original name of this little Palestinian village is part of the process of undoing the injustices that befell Lubya and the hundreds of other Palestinian villages that were depopulated in 1948 and later destroyed. Just as South Africans were able to chart a path towards reconciliation only after exhuming the horrors of apartheid, reconciliation cannot come about between Palestinians and Israeli Jews as long as the debris of lives and homes lie hidden beneath places like the South African Forest. Equality, non-discrimination, and respect for basic rights, including the right of refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes and properties provide the foundation for reconciliation.
While this book does not address the ongoing tragedy of all Palestinian refugees, in many ways, the experiences of refugees from the village of Lubya mirror the experiences of Palestinian refugees from the other 531 Palestinian villages and localities depopulated in 1948.^⁷ I have chosen to give those refugees from my home village of Lubya an opportunity to narrate their own historical experiences. It is their lively stories and vivid images, their unfailing dreams and still fresh if sometimes fragile memories that reveal the indigenous face of this particular village and transform the overgrown ruins into a specific geographic and human place.
Uncovering Lubya
My relationship to Palestinians, both personal and public, arose from my work within the Palestinian trade union movement and other institutions. This work gave me the opportunity to be in daily contact with Lubyans all over the world. My Palestinian origin, my involvement in the Palestinian cause, and my long stay in Europe, provided me with a dual vision placing me between the oriental culture in which I was born and brought up in, and the western one in which I have lived for the past twenty years.
My knowledge of, and contact with those Lubyans who remained in Israel, as well as with several of the Israeli Jews who occupied Lubya in 1948 could be considered as my ‘first contacts’ with my new field of study. These contacts along with my first visit to Lubya in 1994 also opened new horizons and understandings. When asked by a journalist about how I felt standing in Lubya for the first time, I answered: “It is as if I was born in and lived in an airplane and I have landed for the first time.”
It took me almost five years to assemble this piece of ethnography. When I started, I did not have any written documentation or texts about Lubya. As I met with Lubyans in various places of exile, however, I began to uncover a number of interesting collections about life in the village written by Lubyans themselves. These included a small booklet written by Ibrahim Shihabi^⁸, the diary of Muhammad Khalil (Abu Isam)^⁹, and the genealogical trees of the Samadi, Kilani, ‘Atwat, and Shihabi families (These are reproduced in Appendix II). Other documents uncovered during the research process included photos, marriage papers, deeds and titles of land, and personal letters. These provided a rich source of information, which helped me in reconstructing life in Lubya before and after 1948.
The Israeli State Archives in Jerusalem, the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, and the Haganah Archives in Tel Avivm (the Haganah was Israel’s pre-state militia), also proved to be a source of information about Lubya. Archival documents included land registration papers, correspondence between makhateer (appointed village leaders) and the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), and hundreds of letters exchanged between the JCA and the British Land Commissioner concerning registration of land in Lubya. Recently released documents from the 1940s and 1950s revealed vital information concerning the history of Lubya, including, for the first time, accounts by Jewish officers and soldiers who participated in the occupation of Lubya in 1948.
British Mandate documents provided statistical data gathered in two national surveys of Palestine in 1922 and 1931. The 1931 census was updated annually until 1946. British archives also included petitions from Lubyans to the JCA, documents on the establishment of a local council, as well as reports on health standards in the village. This information was not available from any other source. While I was doing research in the British Archives Department, the Public Records Office in the Kew, the Oxford Library, St. Anthony’s College, and the House of Commons Archives, I could not find any trace of land registration documents. Copies of these documents are dispersed in different Israeli archives and other relevant institutions in Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Land documents are also available at the UN Archives in New York.^¹⁰
I also conducted around 700 interviews with Lubyans living in various places of exile. In a case like Lubya, every old man and woman is a lost library. In addition to eight months of work among Lubyans in Denmark, I spent fourteen months living as a participant-observer among Lubyans in Israel and Jordan, and later on, an additional nine months in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. I also conducted a number of interviews with Jewish Israelis including several interviews with two retired officers who participated in the military offensive against Lubya in 1948.
Innovative and diverse approaches were necessary to cope with the widespread net of Lubyans, from Gaza and Ramallah in the Palestinian self-rule areas, to Dayr Hanna, Nazareth, Um al-Fahm, and al-Makr in Israel, from Irbid and 'Amman in Jordan, Wavel camp, 'Ayn al-Hilwe, Bourj al-Shamali, and Bourj al-Barajni in Lebanon, to Lubyans in Berlin, Denmark and Sweden. Although there is a pattern of a common historical narrative and plight that traverses this wide spectrum, the responses to the interview questions were at times as different as the places in which the respondents live.
Different psychological factors, such as fear and insecurity, played a vital role in the narrative. Exile and life as refugees has left a heavy toll on Lubyans in terms of oppression and marginalisation, both in their private and public lives. These feelings complicated the interview process. An interview with a Palestinian refugee, who visited Lubya in 1994, for example, resulted in him being barred from ever returning. Only when assured of anonymity, would the interviewee start to speak, and only a few consented to their full name being given. This was not a problem for the Israeli officers. They spoke with confidence and without reservation.
Oral history as a methodology for uncovering the past has its own shortcomings. Nevertheless, there are ways to avoid memory lapses such as forgotten names, dates and events. In the case of Lubya, comparing the responses of the various interviewees to the same question about the same event, and the availability of written documents from British, Israeli and Palestinian sources among others, served to clarify and bring out the 'reality', bearing in mind that 'pure facts' do not exist. Documents, literature and data are, therefore, when available, the main source of reference, supported by interviews conducted with Lubyans who witnessed the events personally.
Despite the well-known shortcomings of oral history, it is the only means available today to reconstruct the history of Lubya from the perspective of the villagers themselves. Refugees from Lubya, like other Palestinian refugees, left few written documents behind. None of the inhabitants of village foresaw what their future held in store for them. More than fifteen old men and women from Lubya whom I interviewed in the last five years have now passed away. Without their record and words, part of our modern history would be lost. Much is already lost.
In the end, and in the literal sense of the word, there was not a stone in Lubya that was not turned over to recover the hidden stories of this once lively village that is now buried beneath the South African Forest. This book draws upon only a small portion of the more than one thousand pages of interviews, photos, and documents that I collected. The whole collection of pictures, original recorded tapes, video films, maps, more than one thousand related papers and interviews in this manuscript, and the Danish Radio documentary film about Lubya, will be available at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute (CNI) and the Danish Refugee Council in Copenhagen. Most of the material will be included in an exhibition about Lubya in 2006 and hopefully, when it comes into being, in the Palestine National Museum.
Chapter One provides a general overview of memory in the lives of elderly Lubyans. Chapter Two traces the origins of the different families and tribes in the village. The third chapter examines the landscape and places in Lubya as remembered by Lubyans themselves. Chapter Four describes some aspects of everyday life in the village, including education, harvest, local disputes and wedding celebrations. The fifth chapter elaborates on relations between Lubya, neighbouring Arab villages and Jewish settlements, as well as with British mandate authorities. The sixth chapter examines the role of land in the conflict. Chapter Seven looks at the role of Lubyans in the 1936-39 uprising. This is followed by stories of Lubyans about 1948 – i.e., the Nakba – in Chapter Eight. Chapter Nine looks at life in exile and in the final chapter, Chapter Ten, Lubyans reflect about their ongoing attachment to their home village, the future and the possibility of return.

Chapter One
The Archaeology of Memory
The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Milan Kundara

Before his death in 1989, Muhammad Khalil (Abu Isam) recited to his son several pages of information about the history of Lubya. As far as I know, Abu Isam, who was a teacher in Lubya and a director of schools in ‘Illut and Nazareth, is the only Lubyan of the elderly generation who kept a diary about life in the village. Two small booklets about the village were later published by Lubyans Ibrahim Shihabi and Yousef Abu Dhais. Both are now residing in Syria. Nothing could hold back the lively memories of the early years these men spent in Lubya.
Today, men and women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties still reminisce about the past, both for their own sake as well as that of their children who still pass on, more or less accurately, those same stories and traditions to their own daughters and sons. While the image of this little Palestinian village may be somewhat “ambiguous, contradictory … multiform and strangely composite,”^¹¹ in the minds of the young generation, that is not the case for those who were born and grew up in Lubya before its depopulation and destruction in 1948.
Reminiscences, eyewitness accounts, and collective historiography based on lore and tradition have become the primary source of inspiration for the elderly and the cornerstone of identity for the young generation of Lubyans. For teenagers, the middle-aged and the elderly alike, Lubya is a subconscious point of reference, a cultural framework, and a past and present mental image that continues to shape, inspire and impact their personal lives. Recollection of historical incidents dating back hundreds of years gives an indication of the social continuity that underlies the village's history.
Even for those Israeli Jews who participated in the military operations against Lubya in 1948, like Izra Lavi and Nahom Abbo, the memory of Lubya has not faded, laying concealed barely below the surface of their present lives. These memories have also become part of the history of this little village. More than fifty years on, the depopulation of Lubya, the razing of it to the ground, and the subsequent construction of several new Jewish settlements in its place have not succeeded to erase the life of this Palestinian village.
Memorial landmarks
Throughout more than five decades of exile, Palestinian refugees have struggled to revive, reshape, and retain the past through re-establishing social relations and networks, recreating cultural life, recounting the history of their places of origin through anecdotal stories, and passing on songs, proverbs and jokes from one generation to the other.
Abu Sameh al-Samadi^¹², who lives in Yarmouk refugee camp near the city of Damascus, is one of them. I remember meeting Abu Sameh for the first time as a young boy during a visit to Damascus with my father. Abu Sameh obtained his high school degree when he was over fifty years old. He has managed to assemble a private library that fills the walls of three rooms in his house. The library includes old Arabic manuscripts that recount different historical events that took place in and around Lubya. Today, many researchers looking for documents about Arab and Islamic history visit his personal library. Less than one hour after entering his home, all the relevant books that mentioned Lubya, directly or indirectly, were piled up in front of me. Both Abu Sameh's memory and his library were an invaluable source for verifying details of Lubya's history.
While I was in Yarmouk camp, Abu Sameh suggested I make a visit to another elderly Lubyan who was also known for his sharp memory. Fifty years after he saw Lubya for the last time, Haj Karzoun^¹³, woke up one night and started drawing the village on a piece of paper until he had drawn all of its houses and marked down the names of its inhabitants. Haj Karzoun showed me his map of the village during my visit. He talked for hours, describing every household and plot of land. At the end of the interview he said to me: “Excuse me if I have missed two or three names which I am not quite sure about, but I will write them in the new version of the map.” When I gave him an old aerial photograph of Lubya before its destruction he held it as he would his own child and silently wept and kissed it. As he place it beside the map he had drawn, it was very difficult to distinguish between the ‘imagined’ Lubya he had drawn from memory after fifty years and the real one.
In Burj al-Shamali camp in Lebanon one can meet two or three families from Lubya every hundred metres. I visited the camp in early 1999 to conduct a number of interviews. Not long after I had arrived I was surrounded by young people who had come to meet me. All of them seemed to know me. They had heard about the research and a few of them had already seen The Ancestors' Land, the documentary about Lubya. During my visit I met a shopkeeper named Muhammad Thyab who was born and grew up in Lubya where he also had a small shop. He showed me a copy of his loan book from his shop in Lubya, which he has kept until this day, hoping to be paid for the goods he sold on credit more than fifty years ago. When I showed a copy of the book to a few Lubyans now residing in Damascus, they became angry and denied that they owed any money to Muhammad Thyab. Fayiz al-Fawaz (Abu Majid)^¹⁴, one of the Lubyans from Yarmouk camp in Syria, insisted on opening the file. “Those people must not forget their past when they were poor,” he said. “Even after 50 years they should give back the money.”
I knew Abu Majid when I was a child living in the camp in Lebanon. Once he came from Syria illegally to say hello to my uncle. He jumped over the wall of the camp so as to flee the Lebanese mukhabarat (intelligence) as it was forbidden for Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon and Syria to visit one another without prior permission from the government intelligence offices. From that time on I was facinated by Abu Majid's accounts, and the way he told his stories. Abu Majid recounted to me, as if by rote, all the historical events that took place in Lubya over the past 200 years. He remembered the first inhabitants of the village and those who followed, as well as all that happened in and around Lubya. He talked for hours, and when I had run out of tape cassettes, he said to me: “If you are tired now you are welcome to come back tomorrow.” More than twelve hours of taping over a two-week period had not tired him out. The people who come to listen to Abu Majid highly enjoy the emotional way in which he recounts the history of the village. His narrative is often interspersed with singing and many entertaining episodes from the lives of the people of the village.
Historical events in Lubya
I was also amazed to realize while interviewing elderly Lubyans, that certain historical events are enthusiastically recounted as part of their own personal heritage. It often seemed to me as I sat listening to Lubyans recount stories of life in exile after the Nakba in 1948 that the more hardships one faced the more one needed to search for one's roots.
The five main historical events that elderly Lubyans most vividly remember and most often recount are the battle of Hittin in 1187, Lubya as the birthplace of the famous Muslim scholar Abu Bakr al-Lubyani, the death of Damascus Governor Suleiman Pasha in 1743, Napoleon’s march to ‘Akka (Acre) in 1799, and the role of Khalil Ibrahim Azzam, an officer from Lubya, in the battle against Napoleon.
The name Lubya appears as early as the Middle Ages as the battlefield where the European Crusaders were defeated on 4 July 1187. Although named after the heights of Hittin, the actual battle was fought on the land of Lubya. After this decisive battle, other cities fell to the Muslim forces, one after the other, including Jerusalem, which fell on Friday, 2 October 1187.
Salah al-Din, the Kurdish Muslim leader who defeated the Crusaders, established his headquarters south of Lubya in the village of Kufr Sabt where he could clearly observe the battle. During the battle, the Crusaders attempted to reach the large reservoirs in the villages of Tur’an and Lubya, but found them empty. Lubya was well-known as a natural source of water as was nearby Hittin. Following a fierce battle and no access to water the Crusaders were forced to surrender.
The famous Arab historian Ibn al-Athir (1160-1232/555-630 hijri^¹⁵) described the battle as follows: “Those who saw the dead thought that there were no prisoners, and those who saw the prisoners thought that there was no one killed”.^¹⁶ Damya (dam in Arabic means blood), one of the famous fields of Lubya, is said to have derived its name from the blood, which flooded the field during the battle.^¹⁷
Abu Isam’s diary describing life in the village, provided yet another geographical and historical reference to the battle Salah al-Din fought on Lubya’s land.
North of Lubya is a land called al-Rik where the battle between Salah ad-Din and the Crusaders took place. This is what was written by Hilal Ibn Shaddad in his book Tarikh Salah al-Din (The History of Salah al-Din). Hilal accompanied Salah ad-Din on all his battles. In the battle of Hittin, he wrote in detail about the tactics employed by Salah ad-Din, including how cutting off the water supply from the springs of Hittin played a fundamental role in the victory, because the army of the Crusaders was thirsty and the weather was hot. Among the prisoners was Arnaud, leader of the castle at al-Karak [located today in Jordan]. Arnaud used to harass the pilgrims, and once imprisoned the sister of Salah al-Din. For this reason Salah al-Din killed him, refusing him the mercy he granted to other imprisoned leaders.
Abu Bakr Abdel-Rahman Bin Rahhal Bin Mansour al-Lubyani taught Islamic religious sciences in Damascus in the 15^th century. He was known as the “Fikhist and Muslim’s Mufti”.^¹⁸ Fikhist and Mufti are titles given to an authoritative Islamic personality for his ability to interpret the Qur’an, the hadeeth (spoken words) of the Prophet Muhammad, and the capability of passing his own judgement, based on his scholarly knowledge of Islam and the holy text of the Qur’an.
Suleiman Pasha al-Athim was the governor of Damascus in the 18^th century. He died on 24 August 1743, while he was on his way to the village of Dayr Hanna, near Lubya, to challenge the dissident Dhahir al-'Umar. al-'Umar had refused to pay his taxes to the central government in Damascus. Ironically, the majority of Lubyans who stayed in the newly-established state of Israel after Lubya’s destruction in 1948 are now living in Dayr Hanna.
Dhahir al-'Umar became one of the most powerful leaders in the area, especially after annexing the cities of ‘Akka (Acre), Haifa, and Jaffa, and the whole area around Lubya, including the villages and towns of Saffuriyya, Shafa ‘Amr, Tiberias and ‘Ajloun. Dhahir al-'Umar was also known as the “Prince of the Galilee.”^¹⁹ Some historians consider al-'Umar as the first Palestinian who tried to build an independent Palestinian entity free from the control of the Ottoman authorities.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s attack on Egypt and Syria (1798-1801) marked the beginning of the struggle between the French and the British in the Middle East, which lasted more than a century. The successor to Dhahir al-'Umar, Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar (1722-1804), succeeded in defending ‘Akka against the French. The British sided with al-Jazzar, while the French succeeded in occupying Safad and Nazareth. The Ottoman forces, arriving from Damascus, occupied Tiberias and the village of Lubya, but were defeated near Mount Tabor southwest of Lubya.

The French burned many villages on their way through the Lubya area to besiege ‘Akka. Nine consecutive attacks failed to defeat Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar. The first attack on ‘Akka took place on 28 March 1799. Napolean gave up the siege of the city, and ordered his forces to return to Egypt. It was the beginning of a new era of conflict in the region between the emerging powers of the industrial revolution in Europe.^²⁰
Khalil Ibrahim Azzam from Lubya was a prominent officer in al-Jazzar’s army. Abu Isam's diary contains the following account of the internal conflicts within the ranks of al-Jazzar's army.
The Shanashri family was known because of its influence in the area. Khalil Ibrahim Azzam was an artillery officer in the army of al-Jazzar. He was well-known for his role in the battle against Napoleon, but later on disagreed with al-Jazzar who imprisoned his father Ibrahim Azzam for a ransom, which he refused to pay. While in prison his father met the Prince, Yousef Shihabi, then governor of Lebanon. The guards found a paper in the latter’s food on which Azzam promised to free both the Prince and his father from captivity. Azzam deserted and fled with a contingent of soldiers. al-Jazzar followed him to Lubya, partly destroying the village in revenge. I have been told by elderly people who were present when Lubya was destroyed by al-Jazzar forces that the villagers have always been able to communicate with each other by mimicking the sound of birds and animals. This is how they were able to escape from al-Jazzar’s men.
Abu Isam is a relative of Khalil Ibrahim Azzam. They both come from the Shanashri family.

Chapter Two
Hamayil, Shuyukh and Makhateer
All families invent their parents and children,

give each of them a story, character, fate, and even a language.

Edward Said

Yousef Abu Dhais (Abu Bassam)^²¹ resides in Homs refugee camp in Syria. He is in his seventies. When I first met Abu Bassam in Damascus he was trying hard to finish his book about Lubya.^²² I met with him in his house in the camp a few days later when the book was finally ready. His enthusiasm for our interview was as great as it was for writing the book. The main theme of one third of the book concerns the different hamayil (families; singular, hamula) in Lubya and where they are living today.
The patriarchal system that dominated the social and cultural structure of Lubya was mainly based on its family-oriented pattern of life. Exile has inspired many Lubyans, like Abu Bassam, to create shajaraat al-‘ailaat (family trees). The family tree of the ‘Ajaynis drawn by Abu Walid^²³ with the assistance of most members of his hamula, for example, goes back to the seventh century. The original copy is some nine metres long and about forty centimetres wide. Abu Walid’s son, an engineer, helped transfer all the names onto one large sheet of paper in the form of a family tree. Many local makhateer (village heads) and other authoritative persons consider the geneology authentic.
When I visited Abu Sameh and his library in Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria, I was surprised to find that my name and that of my brother were there as part of a detailed genealogical tree of the family dating back to the seventh century and to Caliph Ali’s sons, Hassan and Husayn. Caliph Ali was one of four main followers (al-Khulafa’ al-Rashideen) of the Prophet Muhammad after his death. To what extent this family tree is correct, how credible it is, and what role it plays in the collective consciousness of the community requires further research. Thanks to this map, however, Abu Sameh was invited to Iran as a member of the dynasty of the Prophet Muhammad.
According to Abu Muhammad Kilani^²⁴, one of the few elderly Lubyans who remained inside Israel not far from the village, these family trees “teach the new generation about their origins and not to forget their cousins.” Some families, including mine, trace their origins back to religious and otherwise well-known personalities. This is not uncommon in the Arab world. Many Arab kings and presidents, for example, trace their origins to descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. To what extent these connections are true is an open question and requires further study.
Earliest remembered families in Lubya

One of the earliest recorded references to the population of Lubya is from 1596. Lubya was described as a village in the nahiya (district) of Tiberias and liwa’ (province) of Safad. Total population of the village was 1,117 persons.^²⁵ Almost three hundred years later in 1886, the population of the village was estimated to have doubled to 2,730 persons.^²⁶ During the 1930s, the Imam (preacher) of the al-Hula district in northern Palestine, Sheikh Sha’ban Salman, visited Lubya and observed that the population of the village was around 3,000 persons.^²⁷

During the period of the British mandate in Palestine (1922-1948)^²⁸, officials conducted two national censi of the country. The 1922 and 1931 surveys gave the population of the village respectively as 1,712 and 1850 persons. British officials updated the last census of 1931 to 1946 estimating the total number of Lubyans in that year at 2,350 persons.^²⁹ According to information about Lubya collected by Zionist officials for the purpose of settling Jewish immigrants in the country there were 2,400 Palestinians living in the village in 1943-1944.^³⁰By 1948 it is estimated that Lubya had a population of 2,726.^³¹
While recollections about the first families to have settled down in the village vary among elderly Lubyans, accounts of the families living in the village at the beginning of the twentieth century are much more similar. Abu Majid from Yarmouk camp in Syria turned out to be one of the primary oral accounts about families in Lubya over the past two centuries. He is well-known for the sharpness of his memory, and the detailed information he is able to recite about Lubya’s past. Like many Palestinian refugees, Abu Majid learned about the history of his village from his grandparents. “As a child, I liked to be with my grandfather and mother and hear from them the stories of the people of Lubya. I never got tired of questioning them. That is how I have all the knowledge of Lubya’s history.”
According to Abu Majid, the 'Ajayni was the first hamula to settle in Lubya. “The ‘Ajayni family consisted of four brothers. Each one of them had their own house (dar). Every house had its own gate.” Abu Majid belongs to this family. His main eight grandfathers were Subuh, ‘Umar, Nasir, Ali, Husayn, Muhareb, Fawaz and Fayiz. The first to arrive in Lubya was Subuh. Lubya was unihabitated before the arrival of the ‘Ajayni. If one takes an average of 30 years between the ages of each of Abu Majid’s grandfathers, the period of settlement in the village would go back 240 years.
The next family to settle in the village was the Shanashri. “They came from a small village in Syria named Ghazali,” said Abu Majid. “At that time people used to band together in order to protect themselves from Bedouin attacks. Farmers paid them a khawa (money or other assets payed by the weak to be protected by the strong) to leave them alone. Lubyans used to pay a khawa to a Bedouin tribe from eastern Jordan by the name of Bani ‘Azzam. Some of these old customs were still in practice until recent times.”
Almost half of Abu Isam’s diary deals with the origins of the inhabitants of Lubya. All the hamayil of Lubya are mentioned in detail. Abu Isam started with the history of his own hamula, the Shanashri. “There were two brothers who came from a village named Kufr Allaban in the Tulkarem area from a family named Aboudi. Those two brothers were Shanshir and Madi. These were the first two people known to have settled in Lubya. The sons of Shanshir lived in the eastern part of the village and the sons of Madi lived in the western part.”
“The village’s inhabitants multiplied during the years, but a dispute occurred between the two families. As a result, the Shanashri family took control of the village after defeating the Madi family. Some of the Madis were killed and others emigrated to neighbouring villages. A few of them settled in Saffuriyya, in the Nazareth region known as Dar Abu Haite. From the family descended the Abbassi and Touba families who were large landowners in the village.”
“Another group from the Madi family settled in the village of Mujaydil. They were known by the family name of Lubani. They were landowners and of good standing. Others from the Madi family lived in the village of Ja’oni village. Today it is named Rosh Pina. A branch of the family named ‘Amayri left for Lebanon and Syria, and another part of the family, from which the Jabir family is descended left to Beit Fourik east of Nablus. A few of them lived in Nablus itself. There was also the Hardanin family who settled in Hamama village near Jerusalem. Others settled in Ijzim in the Haifa region. They retained the name of Madi.”
The house of Madi is still intact in Ijzim, together with the mosque and the school of the village. [See older copy for reference to visit in 1999] Abu Isam wrote that other members of the family “also settled in Tantoura, a village on the coast near Caesaria and ‘Itlit. These were intelligent, well-educated, and renowned for their generosity. All left for Lebanon in 1948.” Tantoura (35 km south of Haifa) was the site of a large massacre of civilians during the 1948 war. Recent research revealed that on the 22-23 May 1948, after the establishment of the state of Israel, around 200 Palestinians from the village were killed by Israeli Jewish forces.^³²
According to Abu Isam, family dispersion and poor transportation throughout the area during the early years of settlement in the village weakened the relationship between different members of each hamula. “In the past it was difficult to be in contact with all these people scattered in different villages.” Members of the hamula nevertheless remained connected and “as the roads between villages improved, the original close relationships were re-established. Today members get together as one family even though they continue to be dispersed throughout the country.”
Some families from Lubya derived their name because of their early settlement in the village. Issa Lubani^³³, for example, was a poet and a novelist living in Nazareth. He was well-known among Palestinians in the area both as a writer and for his long period of political activism in the Communist Party in Israel after 1948. He was very sick when I visited him in 1995 and could not move from his bed. Although he wept when he remembered the tragic events that involved his brother’s death [see later], he looked very fresh at the end of the interview.
“I was born in Mujaydil as was my father who was born in 1884,” said Issa. “As far as I know we emigrated from Lubya a long time ago. The village mukhtar was from our family. I heard the story of our grandfathers from my sister Fahima al-Najjar who was born in 1925. She told me that there were seven brothers who came to Lubya 200 years ago probably from somewhere in the West Bank area. Three of them settled in Mujaydal, but no one knew where the other four went. But it is certain that our origins are from Lubya. That is why they called us first Lawabni and later on we registered ourselves as Lubani.” This confirms Abu Majid’s account of Lubya’s history.
A few days after my visit, Issa’s wife, Manwa Zu'bi, called me to say that because of the interview Issa was healthy and fit again and had left his bed for the first time in a month. Undoubtedly, memories of the past are not only crucial elements of one’s identity, but a curative factor as well. Issa later contacted me in Copenhagen in hope of finding someone to publish his novels.^³⁴ Two years later in 1999, however, Issa died in Nazareth before having the opportunity to see all of his books in print.
Tahir Mahmoud Husayn (Abu Tal’at)^³⁵, who was the mukhtar of Lubyans in Jordan until his death in 2000, noted that “other family branches that go by the name of Lubani are now living in Huwwara and Sal villages in Jordan.” Abu Tal'at and his wife, Um Tal'at, knew all the Lubyan households in Jordan and Syria. “Those who live in Huwwara carry the family name of Lubani because one of them emigrated to Lubya with his pregnant wife, and when she died, his son bore the name Lubani. He was the original grandfather of the Lubani family in Jordan.”
“There are now about 3,000 Lubyans, either by origin or through family relationships, in different parts of the Kingdom of Jordan. They originally came from ‘Ajloun, where a dispute had at one point taken place between the brothers. As a result, some of them walked over to Lubya and settled there. These are the ‘Ajayni, a deviation from the word ‘Ajalni (from ‘Ajloun). Others stayed in Samad, also in the ‘Ajloun area, and still go by the name of Samadi.”
Families
Organization of social space according to family and tribe has prevailed in the Middle East for hundreds of years.^³⁶ A hamula (hamala is the Arabic verb ‘to bear’) is a group of people connected to one another by a special contract based on mutual agreement rather than blood relations. This pattern of organizing social space is an expression of collective solidarity. At harvest time, for example, all the members of the hamula in Lubya shared responsibility for bringing in the crop. Members of a hamula were also obliged to support one another when a member of the hamula was killed or otherwise hurt.
A good example of this phenomenon is the relationship between the Hamzat and the ‘Ajayni tribes from Lubya. They are from the same hamula but do not belong to the same original great grandfather. It is the same with the ‘Athamni, ‘Asafri, and the Za’atri. They are all part of the ‘Atwat hamula but have different great grandfathers. According to Abu Bassam from Homs camp in Syria, who spoke in detail about the meaning of the hamula, there were no ‘asha’er (tribes connected through blood lines; singular, ‘ashira) in Lubya, only hamayil.
The advent of Islam in seventh-century Arabia witnessed the integration of family and tribal loyalties within the newly emerging Islamic community. Nevertheless, these older social patterns still function today, taking different shapes and forms, especially when employed as a means of political legitimacy. In Palestine, village social structure and family and tribal loyalties continued to prevail in all rural areas in Palestine on the eve of the Nakba in 1948.
Abu Muhammad Kilani remained internally displaced inside Israel throughout his life. His son, Yousef Muhammad Ibrahim Yousef, contacted me after having read an interview about my research project in the Arabic newspaper as-Sinnara and Kul al-Arab magazine inside Israel. Abu Muhammad spoke as if he was still living in Lubya. On a visit to the village in 1995 he started by telling me about the family network in Lubya, while seated on the ruins of his home.
“Lubya was a network of interrelated families because there was a lot of intermarriage. Your family belongs to Hassan Issa. You were landowners and farmers. We owned eight dunums (1 dunum = 1,000 m²) between your fields (kuroum; singular, karim), the Karim Sheikh Saleh. There were eight families in the village: Shihabi, ‘Atwat, ‘Ajayni, Samallout, Fukara, Kafarni, Hajajwi and the Shanashri. The Ali Yasin al-Kafri family is from Kafra. The Hajjo family is originally from Hajji, in the district of Hebron. Abu Fathi went there before he died. The Samadi family is from Samma, in the Hauran area of Syria.”
Abu Isam’s diary gives a more detailed picture of the origins and names of each hamula and its members. According to the diary the families of the village were the Shanashri, ‘Atwat, Kafarni (Hajjo), Samallout, Karazni, Kilani, and Rifa’iyya. Family members were spread over a wide area in and around Lubya, as well as in various parts of Palestine. The dispersion of families usually took place after a family dispute. “The Shanashri family descended from the sons of Rashdan from Saleh. Issa al-Rashdan and his sons left for Syria where they worked as merchants. Haj Kasim and his sons, and Yasin and his sons descended from Saleh. al-Ghaith, the descendant of Azzam, moved to Lebanon. The Shanashri family was influential in the area.”
“The Shihabi family was renowned as fighters. Originally they came from Lebanon where they were the followers of Prince Yousef Shihabi who fought in vain against Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar [who defended the city of ‘Akka against Napoleon] and was executed by him. Ali al-Ahmad from Lubya was executed in Nazareth in the Monday Market, while Ibrahim al-Azzam was set free because of the intervention of friends. After the execution of their leader Yousef Shihabi, his followers joined the forces of Khalil Ibrahim in Lubya. Khalil settled them on land named al-Shafa where the Circassians (Sharkas) lived in Kufr Kama. After the death of Khalil Ibrahim, his son Abdel-Qader took over the responsibility for the whole region of Tiberias and invited the Shihabi family to settle in Lubya.”
“The ‘Atwat family include the ‘Athamni, Za’atri, ‘Asafri, and Samallout families. It was said that they originally came from Samallout in Egypt. The ‘Ajayni are also called Samadiyya from the Samadiyya tribe in East Jordan. The Hajjo family, also named Kafarni, comprised the ‘Aidi and Karzoun families. The Rifa’iyya family were called Fukara or Darawish. They followed a special religious sect and had a place named al-Zawiya where they would meet together. The Kilani or Za'idiyya were also followers of a special religious sect.”
“During the Ottoman period the families of Yasin and Hamzat from the ‘Ajayni emigrated to Tiberias and to Jordan. Sharif Mansour and his sons Muhammad and Ahmad emigrated to Haifa. The latter became known as eminent merchants. Muhammad Sharif also became very well-known as a property owner and had good standing among the merchants. His sons, Adib and Hassan, studied at the Arab University in Beirut, but in spite of their good grades, they chose not to become teachers and continued to work with their father.”
According to Abu Isam, Lubya was also home to a number of other families who had come from other parts of Palestine. “Many foreign families lived in Lubya, such as the Tallouzi, and the Abid and Badir families who were descended from the former and originally came to Lubya from Tallouza, in the Nablus area, during the Ottoman period. So did the Shara’an sons, Mustafa, Mahmoud and Abdel-Rahman, who originally came from Silet al-Thahir, and the Shahin family who came from 'Arrabit al-Battof. There were also families from Libbid in the Nablus area, and the Jamal family from Gaza, and the Jalila family from 'Arrabit Nablus.”
Sameeh Jawhar Shihabi, another Lubyan who I met in Yarmouk camp in Syria, recounted the origin of his family going back hundreds of years. “The Shihabi family is originally from Bani Makhzoum from a tribe called Bani Sheeba. They came to play a role in the events that took place in Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham) in the period of Mahmoud al-Din al-Zinki. The latter had asked for the assistance of Prince Munkith al-Shihabi to protect the coastal areas of Lebanon against the crusaders’ attacks.”
“After the battle, Zinki awarded the Prince the area between Hasbayya and Shakeef Castle (in Lebanon) and Safad in the south. The Shihabis allied themselves with different families, such as the Jumblats and Arslans, against the Ma’niyeen. In the battle of ‘Ayn Dara in 1449, the Shihabis took the lead under their Prince Haydar. After him came Prince Yousef who took care of Bashir Shihabi who was still a child. The latter changed his religion and took power after killing his uncle Yousef. After the death of Prince Yousef, his sons left Hasbayya to Lubya under the leadership of Princes Kasim and Haydar. Kasim stayed in Lubya while Haydar moved on to Egypt and settled in a village called Meet Koum in the Suez area. The descendants of Kasim were the original members of the Shihabi family who remained living in Lubya until 1948.”
“The Shihabis maintained their relations with other leaders in the area such as Prince Said al-Jaza’iri, the son of Abdel-Qader al-Jaza’iri, the Syrian fighter Ahmad Maryoud who came to Lubya many times, Kamil Beik al-As’ad, and Sultan Pasha al-Atrash. In 1925, during the time of French colonial rule, Sultan Pasha al-Atrash asked for help from the Shihabi family and 350 camels loaded with seeds and beans were sent from Lubya to Sultan Pasha.” Sultan Pasha was a famous Druze leader who fought fiercely against French colonisation of Syria. The Druze in the Golan Heights erected a memorial in the middle of the town of Majdal Shams as a sign of respect.

Abu Majid continued with more information about the Hamzat family, which was a branch of the 'Ajayni hamula. The latter now reside in Jordan. “Hamza Agha was another member of the 'Ajayni tribe and also a descendant of one of the four original 'Ajayni brothers. His descendants who now live in Jordan go by the name of Hamzat. He was loyal to the Turks and together with his son Yasin was responsible for the city of ‘Akka. Because of this, Ibrahim Pasha persecuted him and chased him out of the region.”

“Before his departure, Hamza left his daughters and one of his sons, Ismail, with the 'Ajayni tribe in Lubya. Later on in his journey, another one of his sons became sick, and Hamza left him in Damascus with the mukhtar of Kufr Harib in the Golan Heights. Ibrahim Pasha captured the latter and asked him to tell him who his father was. To protect himself, the child answered, ‘You are, sir’. Upon hearing this, Ibrahim Pasha took the child with him to Cairo where he stayed for the next ten years.”
(See Appendix I – Families as Remembered by Lubyans).
Documents I discovered in Israeli archives also describe the family structure in Lubya. Intelligence collected by the Haganah, the pre-state militia of the Jewish Yishuv (the modern Jewish community – i.e., literally settlement – of Palestine), listed six main families in the village.^³⁷Both the ^Haganah^{and the Jewish Agency were involved in collecting information on as many Palestinian villages and towns as possible for the purpose of land acquisition, settlement of Jewish and possible future transfer or expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian Arab population.}^³⁸
According to the dossier on Lubya, the Shihabi^family^{from Tal Shihab in the Hauran region were among the original inhabitants of the village. They possessed three-fifths of its land and property and were considered of moderate financial means. The ‘Atwat family are described as the descendants of the original village inhabitants while others are originally from the town of Aboud in the Ramallah area. They owned two-thirds of the land and their financial situation was good. The ‘Atwat family consisted of two sub sub-groups; the Hajajwi and the Shanashri families.}
The dossier further states that “information sources on [the ‘Atwat] tell us that there was no corruption among its members; however, there were rumours of sporadic violence because there is evidence that these families did not think well of each other.” The file also gives an estimate of the size of each family. The largest families were the Shihabis and the ‘Atwats. Each numbered around 500 persons. The next largest family was the Shanashri who numbered 300 persons, followed by the ‘Ajayni and Fukara (200 persons each), and the ‘Asafri and Za’atri families (150 persons each).
The above genealogies do not comprise all Lubyans due to the difficulty of keeping tabs on their numbers in the twenty-three countries in which they now live. Today, only a few families keep the tradition of drawing up a family tree where only male members of the family are registered. Abu Walid in Damascus, Abu Muhammad Kilani in Israel and Abu Rif’at Samadi in Jordan still have their family trees. The Shihabi family tree goes back four centuries. It was passed down from the grandfrather to the father and now to the son Sameeh Jawhar Shihabi. He spent many months recreating the original manuscript.
(See Appendix II – Selected Family Trees of Lubya)
While all the Lubyans I interviewed belonged to different tribes and families their self-image varied from one form of loyalty to another, ranging from total loyalty to the family towards total loyalty to the people or nation. [See chapter 9] The weakening of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1980s, witnessed a return to earlier forms of social organization, namely the family and the tribe, and more recently, religion, as discussed further in Chapter Nine on life in exile.
When reminiscing about the recent past of Lubya, Abu Bassam wishes that the new generation of intellectuals could leave the tribal mentality behind and only remember what will be helpful for their future. Abu Bassam felt that this phenomenon, in a sense, went against one’s loyalty to the homeland. “There is no need to write about Basheer al-Shihabi and about the origins of the Shihabi family. It is useless to go back hundreds of years to prove one’s origin.”
“Our family origins go back to Bani Hilal Ibn ‘Amir Ibn Sa’sa’a Ibn Kais Ibn ‘Ailan Ibn Mudar Ibn Nizar Ibn Ma’d Ibn ‘Adnan. This is what was written in ‘Aref al-‘Aref’s book, Kaba’il Beir al-Sabi’, but I doubt this account. Even the author said that this was not first hand information. Dabbagh in his book takes the 'Atwat back to Ma’ath Ibn Bakr Ibn Wa’il Rabi’a Ibn Nizar Ibn Ma’d Ibn Adnan. Which of the two authors was right? We’ll never know.”
Abu Bassam's experience, and by consequence his perception of past forms of social organization in the village is different from the experience of other Lubyans I interviewed from the older generation, like Abu Majid, Ibrahim al-Shihabi and Yousef al-Yousef. This can be explained by the fact that others, unlike Abu Bassam, did not participate in other forms of social organization that transcended their own hamula.
Shuyukh and Makhateer
The sheikh and mukhtar (plural, shuyukh and makhateer) functioned as the heads of their communities. They constituted a link between Palestinian communities and those in power, whether it was the Ottomans, the British or the Jewish Yishuv. They also played a fundamental role in resolving disputes among villagers themselves.
One acquired the title of sheikh through good relations with one’s family, hamula, and the wider society in which one lived. Every neighbourhood (hara) had its own sheikh who carried the title of sheikh al-’ashira (sheikh of the tribe), and represented the tribe in happy as well as in sad occasions,” said Abu Majid. “Every sheikh had a meeting place called a madafi or manzool (guesthouse) in which tribe members, as well as foreigners and guests, would gather on various occasions. The sheikh took a tribute (mashyakha) of five liras for every girl who married outside the hamula, and ten liras from the bride groom if he married a girl from outside the village. Those who married from within the hamula had nothing to pay.”
“Sheikh Abu Ahmad used to cook borghul in a big pot in the yard in front of a holy place (maqqam) named Abu Gazi on the eastern part of the village,” said Abu Majid. “He would shout at the passersby: 'al-'Aish ya joo'an, tfaddalu (Food for the hungry, please come and eat).' He was the only authority to whom people turned to to resolve their problems. Ali Ahmad’s authority reached until Safad, in the Galilee, where he opened a free restaurant (takiyya). He had a daughter and a son.”
“In the spring time he would survey the different plots of land and record in his notebook the names of those farmers who didn't cut the extra grass from their fields (al-ta'sheeb). He would then send two men to call the farmer to his madafi where he was punished with a whip (kurbaj). 'jildak lakashru (I will take you skin off.)', he said.” One of the participants in the interview protested against me writing down this story, but I insisted. “On the contrary,” I said, “it is a good story.”
Lubyans I interviewed listed the names of the last 10 shuyukh of the village until the Nakba.
‘Ajayni Mahmoud Husayn Issa (Abu Saleh)

Kafarni or Hajajwi Ahmad Suleiman Hajjou (Abu Zaki)

Samallout Ibrahim Thyab Hamdan (Abu Thyab)

‘Atwat Hassan Abu Dhais (Abu Mustafa)

‘Asafri Yousef Mousa al-Thyab (Abu Muhammad)

Za’atri Hafith Issa al-Mahmoud

Shanashri Khalil Abdel-Qader

Kilaniyyi & al-Rifa’iyya Ghareeb Abu Ismail

‘Awaydi Nayif al-Younis

Shihabi (two) Fawaz al-’Ali & mukhtar Yihya al-Sa’id
The title of mukhtar, on the other hand, required recognition by the authorities concerned. Relations with neighbouring villages fell within the authority of village shuyukh and makhateer. This included issues ranging from trade to assistance during periods of crisis. Makhateer from Lubya, for example, attended high-level meetings with Sheikh Iz al-Din al-Qassem in 1935 and met with king Abdullah of Jordan in 1948. For less important issues the son of a mukhtar was often sent.
The mukhtar was also named as a sheikh by his own hamula as an additional sign of respect. Makhateer were often the wealthiest members of their own hamulas. They owned more plots of the land than others, and due to their relations with the authorities they had more commercial opportunities. In Lubya, for example, Mustafa Abu Dhais, the son of mukhtar Hassan Abu Dhais, was known for his relations with both the British and Jewish officials and businessmen. He was employed as a manager for the British buying horses and food and had joint business interests in Tiberias with two Jewish families. These relations eventually became a source of conflict in the village.
The position of mukhtar was often passed down from one generation to the next. Abu Tal'at, for example, became mukhtar of Lubyans in Irbid, Jordan, following the death of his father. “The eldest of the family normally took over responsibility for his family or for the tribe as a whole. Whenever the oldest of the tribe died, the one next in age replaced him. First we had Younis, then Joudi, then Mousa, and then my father. In 1949, after we came to Jordan I became ^mukhtar^{of the Lubyans. I do not get paid for doing this job. I have served to this day without financial compensation, although I encountered some opposition from my own family, the Samallout and my cousins.”}
Other people in the village were assigned to help the mukhtar and served as a link to the people – the nawateer (guardians; singular, natour). Abu Majid recalled a few stories about the nawateer in Lubya. “Two people worked for the mukhtar in Lubya. They were called nawateer. They cleaned the streets of the village once every two months and passed the mukhtar’s messages on to the villagers.” The two guardians in Lubya were 'Awad al-Qatamish and Abdullah Abu al-Sheikh.
“When a medical team arrived in the village, for example, the natour's job was to inform the villagers of its arrival. The medical team used to come to visit every four to five months carrying first aid equipment such as eye drops and embrocations. It was usually made up of two British and one female Christian Arab staff members. Whenever the villagers asked the natour to intervene with the British staff in order to give them what medicine they wanted, he used to answer in a funny way: ‘Even we the officials didn’t get any.’”
“Another example of a guardian’s job was to make announcements about lost property. He used to roam the streets and call out in a loud voice: 'ya sam’een al-soot, salloo ‘annabi, awalkoo Muhammad, thaniko Ali,ya min shaf halbakara al-day’a, willi bilakiha ilo hilwan (Those who hear my voice, give mercy on our prophet, Muhammad is the first and Ali is the second. He who finds the lost cow and returns it would will receive a gift in return).'”
“Thyab Dandash, who came originally from Baalbek and lived in al-Maghar, was one of the nawateer. When the Turks wanted to call someone to the army, he used to sing loudly in order to give the individual concerned advance notice and allow him to flee. 'winkannak farari fir, winkannak farari fir, ‘ala dal’ona ‘ala dal’ona’ (If you intend to desert from the army, run away).' He would alter some of the words of well-known songs, usually a wedding song, to convey the intended message and then revert to the original wording of the song and continue singing.”
Until the 1800s, the mukhtar in Lubya had always been appointed from outside the village. According to Abu Majid, “The village hired a mukhtar from Hittin, a nearby village. The latter’s term of office was one year, and the villagers were glad to collect money for his salary due to his ability to read and write. Towards the beginning of the 19th century, however, Lubyans decided that they did not need the hired man’s services any more due to the fact that he used to leave the village every time he got angry at one of the villagers. So the ‘Ajayni men got together and decided to call upon one of their relatives, Ali Ahmad al-Ruhayyil (Sheikh Abu Ahmad), who was one of the four original brothers and living in the village of al-Shouneh [located in the northern Jordan Valley] to replace him. Ali al-Ruhayyil was well-known to Lubyans who slept at his house in al-Shouneh when they travelled to Jordan.”
“Ali Ahmad Ruhayyil arrived in Lubya in the year 1810 and told the Lubyans that he would accept to be their mukhtar on condition that they give him a free hand in managing the affairs of the village. The ‘Ajayni built a madafi for the new mukhtar, which had enough room for 200 men and which went by the name of al-‘ikd. Ali Ahmad Ruhayyil (Abu Ahmad) became sheikh of the whole village and not only of the ‘Ajayni tribe. The villagers used to support their sheikh by offering him one-day’s worth of work.”
“When Ibrahim Pasha [the son of Egyptian leader Mohammad Ali who controlled Palestine between 1831 and 1940^³⁹] arrived at Nazareth, Ruhayyil worked with him against the Turks. This was at least the report written against him. When Ibrahim Pasha retreated to Egypt, the Turks executed Ruhayyil and his son in Nazareth around 1848. (Abu Sameeh put the date of his death in the year 1832-1833). The man who wrote the report against Ruhayyil was from the village of Tur’an from the ‘Adawi family. The man who carried out the execution was from the 'Abd al-Hadi family.”
“Later on, he tried to propose to Ruhayyil's daughter, but Ruhayyil’s wife refused to accept the proposal accusing the man of executing her husband. The governor tried to put more taxes on 'Ajayni, and if they didn’t meet his demands he threatened to put the whole family in prison. Ruhayyil’s wife gave him all her jewellery in return for not persecuting her family, and her daughter was married to Yasin al-Hamza who was at that time the governor (Ka’im Makam) of Tiberias.”
“After the death of Ruhayyil and his son, the ‘Ajaynis chose Younis al-Ali as sheikh of Lubya. He was followed in his post by Younis Ali, Kwateen and Khalil al-Abid, respectively who were all makhateer for the whole village. When Khalil al-Abid resigned, the British appointed Hassan Abu Dhais [the father of Mustafa Abu Dhais], Yihya al-Sa’id, and Suleiman ‘Atiyyi, respectively, to the post of mukhtar of Lubya.”
Abu Muhammad Kilani knew personally the well-respected mukhtar Haj Khalil, the father of Abu Isam, in his later days. Kilani lamented the miserable situation in which Haj Khalil lived. “I know Haj Khalil’s story very well. He lived in my house in 'Arrabi in 1948, but when he became seriously ill he moved to his son’s house in Nazareth. There he encountered some problems at home, so he returned to ‘Arrabi and lived with my uncle Haj Ahmad from the Shanashri family.”
“Later on we found him a house near that of the Yasin family, but when he became terminally ill, we moved him to the hospital. He stayed there two weeks and then died and was buried by the municipality three days later. He was well respected by all the people of Palestine; even small children respected him.” He died alone in a hospital in Nazareth in 1952 at the age of 65.
Documents from Haganah archives list three main makhateer in Lubya in the period 1943-44.^⁴⁰This included Khalil al-Abid who was from the ‘Atwat family. The dossier describes al-Abid as an old mukhtar, appointed by the British government and accepted by the inhabitants of the village. He was a leader of the local council of Lubya (majlis mahali).
The second mukhtar described in the document was Hassan Abu Dhais who was also appointed by the British government and was a well-known personality and well accepted by the people. He was married to Sa’id Afandi’s daughter from Tiberias and through this marriage he also gained influence in the Tiberias area. The other mukhtar listed in the document was Yahya Sa'id. Sa'id was from the Shihabi family. He was also appointed by the government with which he had good working relations.
The same dossier also provides a list of the mukhateer of each family in Lubya. The mukhateer of the Shihabi family were Yihya Sa'id and Fawzi al-Ali. The mukhtar of the 'Atwat family was Hassan Abu Dhais. This clan consisted of two sub-groups: the Hajajwi family whose mukhtar was Ahmad Suleiman and the Shanashri family whose mukhtar was Haj Khalil al-Abid. Mahmoud Husayn as the mukhtar of the 'Ajayni family. Yousef al-Mousa was the mukhtar of the 'Asafri family, Hafith al-Issa was the mukhtar of the Za'atmi family and Gharib al-Mughawish was the mukhtar of the Fukara family.^⁴¹
Chapter Three
Landscape

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