Safad al-Battikh ()Safed el Battîkh, Safed of the melons, according to Palmer 1881, p. 32 Palmer further notes: "The word battikh (melons) is used by the vulgar in the sense of nothing.' Thus if asked whether anything grows in a place which he knows to be barren, an Arab will reply ironically, 'melons'! This mistake has given rise to a statement in Robinson that a certain bare valley in the Tih is productive of 'melons'!" is a municipality in Nabatiye Governorate, in the Bint Jbeil District of southern Lebanon, about from Beirut. The village is situated in the north eastern outskirts of the town of Tebnine, in the heart of the Lebanese Shia Muslim community of Jabal Amel. The village is above sea level.
History
In the 1596 Ottoman tax records, the village, named (same as today but some history books transliterate differently such as Safad al-Battih), was located in the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Tibnin under the Liwa of Safad, with a population of 10 households and 2 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, such as wheat (1,300 akçe), barley (420 akçe), fruit trees (380 akçe), goats and beehives (20 akçe), in addition to "occasional revenues" (80 akçe); a total of 2,200 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 182Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
In 1856 it was named Safed on Kiepert's map of Palestine/Lebanon published that year,Kiepert, 1856, Map of Northern Palestine/Lebanon while in 1875, Victor Guérin passed by and noted: "to my left, on a high hill, the small village of Safed el-Bathikha, inhabited by both Métualis and Christians."Guérin, 1880, p. 384
In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village (which it called Safed el Battîkh): "A village, built of stone, containing about 100 Metawileh and fifty Christians, situated on hill-top, surrounded by arable land. The water supply is from several perennial springs and ten cisterns in the village."Conder and Kitchener, 1881, p. 95 Modern era The current Bint Jbeil province was created in 1922 by French colonials.Ahmad Rida, Memoirs of History (مذكرات للتاريخ), Dar An-Nahar: Beirut 2009, pp. 138, 179, 180, 183, 227.
In 2009, there were 125 members of the Lady of the Assumption parish of the Melkite Church in the village.
Demographics In 2014 Muslims made up 64.37% and Christians made up 35.45% of registered voters in Safad al-Battikh. 63.06% of the voters were Shiite Muslims and 26.21% were Greek Catholics. https://lub-anan.com/المحافظات/النبطية/بنت-جبيل/صفد-البطيخ/المذاهب/
References
Bibliography
External links Safed el Battîkh on the Palestine Exploration Fund Map of 1878, Map 2: IAA, Wikimedia commons Safad El Battikh, Localiban