Sharafat ()meaning Battlements", according to Palmer, 1881, p. 329 is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem,Cohen, 1993, p. 12. located within approximately 5 km to the south west of the Old City of Jerusalem.Ephrat, 2008, pp. 158–159. It is situated close to the Palestinian town of Beit Safafa and near the Israeli settlement of Gilo in the southern portion of East Jerusalem.
Sharafat is later mentioned in 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. During the period of Mamluk rule (c. 13th - early 16th centuries), Sharafat was home to the Badriyya 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.
After the 1948 Palestine War, Sharafat lay in the area to the east of the Green Line that was ruled by Jordan until 1967. Following the occupation West Bank, including East Jerusalem by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel included it in its expanded Jerusalem District.Ma'oz and Nusseibeh, 2000, p. 62. In the 1970s, the Israeli government expropriated land from the village to build the settlement of Gilo, whose subsequent expansion saw the destruction of homes, vineyards and orchards in Sharafat. The Palestinian Authority (PA), established pursuant to 1993 Oslo Accords, considers Sharafat a part of its Jerusalem Governorate. In 2002, the population was made up of 978 Palestinians.
Geography
Sharafat is situated on a mountain-ridge at an altitude of .Universiṭat Tel Aviv, 1998, p. 2. It is located east of the Green Line, in the Seam Zone.See map on page 95. The built-up area of the village lies south of Gilo, from Teddy Stadium. Some tracts of village land were expropriated by the Israeli government in 1970 for the construction of Gilo.Cohen, 1993, p. 82. According to Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, an additional 1,350 dunams (1.35 km2) were expropriated in 1983.
In 1996, the total land area of the village was 1,974 dunams (1.974 km2), with a built-up area of 285 dunams. Of these, 1,962 dunams were privately owned by Muslims, and the remainder was public land.Kark and Oren-Nordheim, 2001, p. 241. Zuhur and Deir Cremisan are often included in land and population surveys as part of Sharafat. In 2003, the combined land area was 8,939 dunams, housing a population of 963 in 245 dwellings.
History Hasmonean era
The site of a prosperous Jewish village during the Hasmonean period, archaeological excavations performed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2019 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.
Mamluk era During the period of Mamluk rule (c. 13th - early 16th centuries), Sharafat was home to the Badriyya 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. 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.Poliak, 1977, p. 39.
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.Ephrat, 2008, p. 140. 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. '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). Mujīr al-Dīn notes that the arrival of Sufis led to the departure of the Christian community, highlighting the institution's role in accelerating Islamization.
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.Luṭfī, 1985, p. 121. Al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl suggests that Sharafat was named for this family of ashrāf.Moudjir ed-dyn, 1876, p. 164 The Palestine Exploration Fund notes that prior to its renaming, the village was known as Karafat (the opposite of Sharafat, which means "noble").Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), 1916, pp. 16–17. Badriyya (also called Sitt Badriyya), Sheikh Badir's daughter, was also buried in Sharafat, as was her husband, Ahmed et-Tubbar. 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.Benveniśtî, 2000, p. 283Universität Wien, 2005, p. 174.
Ottoman era 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.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 120 A 16th-century Ottoman map situates Sharafat in the green belt around Jerusalem.Cohen, 1993, pp. 134–135. In 1838 it was described as a Muslim village, located in the Beni Hasan district, west of Jerusalem.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 123
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.Finn, 1878, pp. 215-216. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted 18 houses and a population of 53, though the population count included only men.Socin, 1879, p. 160 noted that it was located in Beni Hasan DistrictHartmann, 1883, p. 122, also noted 18 houses
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.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 22.
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.Vester, 2007, p. 313.
In 1896 the population of Scharafat was estimated to be about 125 persons.Schick, 1896, p. 125
British Mandate era In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sharafat had a population of 106, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p. 14 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.Greenberg, 2010, p. 136. 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.Granqvist, 1950, p. 66.
In the 1931 census, the population of the village was recorded as 158 Muslims, in 32 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 43
In the 1945 statistics the population of Sharafat was 210 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 25 with 1,974 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 58 482 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 508 for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 104 while 5 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 154
Jordanian era
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.Nashāshībī, 1990, p. 207. 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.
1951 Israeli raid