Ain Jalut
Coordinates: 32°33′02″N 35°21′25″E / 32.5506°N 35.3569°E
Ain Jalut or Ayn Jalud (Arabic: عين جالوت, Hebrew: גילות[1]) is a spring in Israel, southeast of Afula.[2] It was the location of the Battle of Ain Jalut, considered a major turning point in world history;[3] the name was later taken up by Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Army.
A small Palestinian village was established in the area in the late 19th century; according to medieval chronicler Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad there had been a prosperous village there in the middle ages.
The name "Ain Jalut" means the Spring of Goliath (Arabic: جالوت, romanized: Jalut).
History
Middle Ages
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The Itinerarium Burdigalense (586) notes "ibi est campus, ubi David Goliat occidit" in reference to a location just before Scythopolis.[4] Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, in his Life of Saladin, wrote that "The Sultan continued his march to el-Jalut, a prosperous village, near which there is a spring (ain), and here he pitched his camp".[5] Yaqut al-Hamawi mentions Ain Jalut as "a small and pleasant town, lying between Nablus and Baisan, in the Filastin Province. The place was taken by the Rumi (Crusaders), and retaken by Saladin in 579 (1183 CE)."[6] In the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the Mamluks defeated the Mongol army of Hulagu Khan which was under the command of Kitbuqa.
19th century
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Edward Robinson's Biblical Researches in Palestine describes 'Ain Jalud as "a very large fountain, flowing out from under a sort of cavern in the wall of conglomerate rock, which here forms the base of Gilboa. The water is excellent; and issuing from crevices in the rocks, it spreads out at once into a fine limpid pool, forty or fifty feet in diameter, in which great numbers of small fish were sporting. From the reservoir, a stream sufficient to turn a mill flows off eastwards down the valley." Robinson proposed a connection between the site and the "spring of Jezreel" (1 Samuel 29:1 where the "Battle of Gilboa" was fought: "There is every reason to regard this as the ancient fountain of Jezreel, where Saul and Jonathan pitched before their last fatal battle; and where, too, in the days of the crusades, Saladin and the Christians successively encamped."[4]
John Wilson in his 1847 Lands of the Bible wrote that on "a steep descent into the valley north of Jezreel, we unexpectedly came upon a well from which the present village is supplied with water. This, and not the fountain of Ain Jalud, to the east of the village, and at a greater distance from it, visited by Dr. Robinson, we took to be the well of Jezreel noticed in Scripture."[7]
According to the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine in 1882, Victor Guérin stated that the rock from which the fountain springs has been artificially hollowed into a cavern.[8][9]
Identification
Although there exists a tradition (and some historical dissent) of identifying Ain Jalut with the Well/Spring of Harod, modern scholarship remains willing to cast doubt; the identification, however, cannot be called certain.[10] A 2017 article published by Israel Finkelstein and Oded Lipschits also rejects the identification of Ein Harod with Ain Jalut, as they claim the biblical battle actually took place near Shechem (modern day Nablus), after which the Israelites chased the Midianites to Succoth which is east of the Jordan River. They mention Josephus who puts the location of the battle next to the Jordan River in his 1st century CE book Antiquities of the Jews.[11]
Village
Sometime after the Sursock family bought the land from the Ottoman government in 1872, they established a small village here.[12][13] In 1921, when the Jewish National Fund purchased the land from the Sursocks, the nine families who lived here petitioned the new British administration for perpetual ownership, but were only offered a short lease with an option to buy.[14]
Legacy
One of the three original brigades of the Palestine Liberation Army was named "Ain Jalut", after the battle.[15] In July 1970, Yasser Arafat referred to the modern area in the context of the historical battle:[16]
This will not be the first time that our people has vanquished its enemies. The Mongols came and swept away the Abbasid caliphate, then they came to Ain Jalut in our land – in the same region where we are today fighting the Zionists – and they were defeated at Ain Jalut.
References
- ↑ Leopold Zunz (1841). The itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela: Dr Zunz on the Geography of Palestine. A. Asher & Company. pp. 429–430. Search this book on
- ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 157
- ↑ J. J. Saunders (29 March 2001). The History of the Mongol Conquests. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 115–. ISBN 0-8122-1766-7. Search this book on
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Robinson and Smith, 1841, volume 3, p.168
- ↑ Life of Saladin, translated by Conder, p.89
- ↑ Quoted in Le Strange, 1890, p. 386
- ↑ Wilson, Lands of the Bible, volume 2, p.88
- ↑ Guérin, 1874, pp. 308-310
- ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 101
- ↑ William Emery Barnes (14 August 2017). Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges The book of Judges. CUP Archive. pp. 82–. GGKEY:YC30BLESUWU. Search this book on
- ↑ Israel Finkelstein and Oded Lipschits (7 March 2017). "Geographical and Historical Observations on the old North Israelite Gideon tale in Judges". Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 129 (1): 14–15, 17.
- ↑ Ruth Kark (2017). "Consequences of the Ottoman land law: Agrarian and privatization processes in Palestine, 1858–1918". In Raghubir Chand, Etienne Nel and Stanko Pelc. Societies, Social Inequalities and Marginalization. Springer International Publishing. pp. 101–119. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-50998-3_8. Search this book on
- ↑ Seth Frantzman (2010). The Arab settlement of Late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine: New Village Formation and Settlement Fixation, 1871-1948. PhD Thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. pp. 155, 185. Search this book on
- ↑ Arieh Avneri (1984). The Claim of Dispossession. Transaction Books. p. 118. Search this book on
- ↑ Gabriel Ben-Dor; Universiṭat Ḥefah. Makhon le-ḥeḳer ṿe-limud ha-Mizraḥ ha-tikhon (1978). The Palestinians and the Middle East conflict: an international conference held at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Haifa, April 1976. Turtledove Pub. pp. 179, 187. ISBN 978-965-200-001-9. Search this book on
- ↑ International Documents on Palestine. Institute for Palestine Studies. 1973. p. 877, quoting “Radio Interview Statements by Central Committee Chairman Arafat of the PLO on the Efforts Being Made to Reach a Peaceful Settlement,” 25 July 1970. Search this book on Also in Paul T. Chamberlin, Preparing for Dawn: The United States and the Global Politics of Palestinian Resistance 1967-1975, Ohio State University, 2009
Bibliography
- Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Search this book on (p. 116)
- Guérin, V. (1874). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 2: Samarie, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- Le Strange, G. (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Search this book on
- Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Search this book on
- Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. Search this book on
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