Fandaqumiya, (, al-Fandaqumiyah, Pentakomia) is a Palestinian village located in the Jenin Governorate of the northern West Bank, northwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 3,363 inhabitants in mid-year 2006 and 4,265 by 2017. Projected Mid -Year Population for Jenin Governorate by Locality 2004- 2006 Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
Etymology The Arabic name of the village, Al Fandaqumiyah (الفندقومي), is a corruption of the Greek term Pentakomia: Komia means 'village' or 'community', while penta means 'five'. Pentakomia probably refers to an administrative unit of five villages which existed in the area.Palmer, 1881, p. 182
Geography Fandaqumiya is located in the northern West Bank, on the road leading north from Nablus to Jenin. The village is partly situated on the slope of a hill in the Musheirif Range and partly built on adjacent ridges in between the valley of Jaba' to the north and the Musheirif hills to the south.Zertal, 2004, p. 307. Its old core is in the slope part of the village with an elevation of 470 meters above sea level (about 30 meters higher than its surroundings) and a total area of 20 dunams.Zertal, 2004, p. 306.
The nearest localities are Jaba' to the immediate east, Beit Imrin to the south, Burqa to the southwest, Silat ad-Dhahr to the immediate west, and Ajjah to the north. as well as the former Israeli settlements of Homesh and Sa-Nur, which were dismantled in Israel's 2005 unilateral disengagement plan.
History Antiquity
Pottery sherds from the Hellenistic, early and late Roman and the Byzantine eras have been found here. A sacred cave exists above the village on the south, which is probably an ancient rock-cut chapel.Conder and Kitchener, 1882, vol 2, p. 185
Fandaqumiya appears as Penṭāḳūmewatha (), in the 6th-7th century Mosaic of Reḥob. There, it is described as a Jewish village in a region of Sebaste which was inhabited mostly by non-Jews and, therefore, agricultural produce obtained from the area could be taken by Jews without the normal restrictions imposed during the Sabbatical years, or the need for tithing.Aaron Demsky, The Permitted Villages of Sebaste in the Reḥov Mosaic, Israel Exploration Journal (vol. 29, no. 3/4), Jerusalem 1979, p. 190.
Medieval period The village is mentioned in Crusader sources of 1178,Rey, 1883, p. 426 as a place sold to the Knights Hospitallers.
Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179–1229) noted it as "a village belonging to and lying among the hills of Nablus."Le Strange, 1890, p. 441; cited in Clermont-Ganneau, 1896, ARP vol 2, pp. 336-337
Pottery sherds from the early Muslim and Medieval eras have also been found here.
Ottoman era
In 1596 Fandaqumiyya appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as being in the nahiya of Jabal Sami, part of the Sanjak of Nablus. It had a population of eleven households and one bachelor, all Muslim. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a press for olives or grapes; a total of 11,752 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 125. Fandaqumiya was mentioned by the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi in 1640.
In 1830, during the military campaign against a revolt by the Jarrar family of Sanur, Emir Bashir Shihab's forces set fire to Fandaqumiya. In 1838, Edward Robinson passed by and noted it as a being a small village,Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol.3, pp. 150-151 located in the esh-Sharawiyeh esh-Shurkiyeh (the Eastern) district, north of Nablus.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. 3, 2nd Appendix, p. 129
French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863 and 1870, and estimated it as having about 500 inhabitants. He describes it as being situated on the slopes of a high hill. With abundant waters, the whole slope was cultivated with beautiful olive trees, figs and pomegranates.Guérin, 1875, pp. 216-217
In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Fandaqumiya as "a very small village on the slope of the hill, with three springs to the south-west, small and marshy."Conder and Kitchener, 1882, vol 2, p. 155
A spur of the Ottoman Hejaz railway to Damascus was built through the area, and a station was opened nearby at Sebastia. After the collapse of the Ottomans, locals took apart the rail infrastructure for secondary use in construction. Many of the steel beams can still be seen in the roofs of local homes.
British Mandate era In 1917, Fandaqumiya was captured by General Allenby's British forces from the Ottomans, and three years later it was assigned to British Mandatory Palestine. In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Fandaqumiya had a population of 327, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Jenin, p. 29 This increased in the 1931 census to a population of 445, still all Muslim, living in 101 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 68
Soon after the British arrived, they built a police fort on a nearby hill. Despite many villagers being employed in the construction, relations with the British forces were at times rocky owing to tax disputes. During the riots of 1936-1939, some villagers launched attacks on the British troops, and the village was subject to British reprisals. During the 1940s, the British administration funded modern water and agriculture development projects as well as an elementary school.
In the 1945 statistics the population was 630 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 16 with 4,079 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. 54 885 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 2,737 dunams for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 98 while 14 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 148
Jordanian era In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Fandaqumiya came under Jordanian rule.
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,014 inhabitants in Fandaqumiya.Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 25
Post-1967 Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Al Fandaqumiya has been under Israeli occupation, along with the rest of the West Bank. Under the Oslo Accords, the town was assigned to Area B.B'Tselem Interactive Map https://www.btselem.org/map The Greek name of this village inspired name of Homesh, the nearby Israeli settlement whose name also derives from the number five.
References
Bibliography
External links
Welcome To al-Fandaqumiya Survey of Western Palestine, Map 11: IAA, Wikimedia commons Erection of a permanent military checkpoint and devastation of land inside the evacuated colony of Sanur, 12, May, 2007, POICA