Antiquity As early as the second century BCE in
the Hasmonean period a Judean settlement called Migdal Afek or Aphek () sat on the same hill of Mirabel and Majdal Yaba. According to
Josephus, during the
First Jewish–Roman War (66-70 CE), the Jews of
Antipatris fled to Migdal Aphek on the approach of
Cestius Gallius.
Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk periods The Crusaders conquered
Palestine from the
Fatimid Caliphate in 1099, and built a fortress on the former site of Migdal Afek and the future site of Majdal Yaba in 1152, naming it 'Mirabel'. The fort was held by
Manasses of Hierges, but eventually fell to
Baldwin of Ibelin, who ruled it as a lordship of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1162 to 1171. In 1166, lands belonging to the fortress and the harvest of its fields were given to the Church of St. John the Baptist in
Nablus. The Muslim diplomat
Usama ibn Munqidh reported that the lord
Hugh of Ibelin acted oppressively against the Muslims in the lordship; in 1156, he imposed heavy taxes on the Muslims, requiring them to pay four times as much as the local Christians. The inhabitants of eight villages, including the
Ibn Qudamah family, left their homes in 1156 and migrated to Damascus, where they founded the
Salihiyah suburb. In 1177, the Muslim army under
Saladin, sultan of the Egypt-based
Ayyubid Sultanate, marched from south of Palestine northwards past
Ascalon to Mirabel Castle, which was being used to defend the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. In July 1187, Saladin's younger brother,
al-Adil I, conquered Mirabel, but did not destroy the castle. Chronicler
Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad recorded that in 1191–92, Saladin used the castle as a base for carrying out raids against the Crusaders, although he camped outside of it. Saladin gave orders to dismantle the walls of Mirabel after his defeat at the
battle of Arsuf. While under Ayyubid rule in 1226, the geographer
Yaqut al-Hamawi mentions it as
Majdal Yafa or 'Tower of Jaffa', probably due to its proximity to the town of
Jaffa. He says it was a village with a "formidable fort". June 1240 marked the arrival of the
English crusade led by
Richard of Cornwall, brother of the
King Henry III of England and brother-in-law of
Emperor Frederick II.
Al-Salih Ayyub, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, offered Richard a new treaty to be complementary to the earlier one signed with
Theobald IV,
Count of Champagne. His offer this time included his readiness to recognize the legitimacy of the concessions made by his uncle and opponent
al-Salih Ismail, the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, to the Crusaders, so that Jaffa and Ascalon, and all of
Jerusalem, including
Bethlehem and Majdal Yaba, in addition to
Tiberias,
Safed,
Mount Tabor and the castles of
Belvoir, were all included in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1266, after the fall of Jaffa to the
Mamluks, Sultan
Baybars sent chiefs from
Deir Ghassaneh to protect Majdal Yaba's castle. In the late 13th century, the castle at Majdal Yafa was abandoned. an estimated total population of 44. On 3 March 1799, General
Kléber, commander-in-chief of the
invading French forces, received the order to push detachments after having taken up position to the south of the
Auja River, to watch enemy movements, and to prepare for the army to march to
Acre. He instructed General
Lannes), on 6 March, to undertake a reconnaissance in the mountains inhabited by the people of
Jabal Nablus, who seemed to be hostile. Turks were firing from behind rocks and down precipices. The small column was obliged to retreat with heavy losses, with sixty French troops killed, more than double the number wounded, and Lannes's arm broken. ) of Burraz al-Din, 2007 In the 19th century, the village was named 'Majdal al-Sadiq' after Sheikh Muhammad al-Sadiq al-Jamma'ini, the chief of the village who hailed from the prominent Rayyan clan. The Rayyan were a branch of the Arab Bani Ghazi tribe that migrated to Palestine from
Transjordan in the 17th century. inscription at the castle in Mejdal Yaba, which reads: ΜΑΡΤΥΡΙΟΝ ΤΟΥ ΑΓΙΟΥ ΚΗΡΥΚΟΥ,
Martyr shrine (martyrion) of Saint Kyriko. On 7 November 1850
James Finn, future British Consul to Jerusalem and Palestine, visited the village and found it and the castle in a very dilapidated condition. He met Sheikh al-Sadiq's family, and slept in the castle for a night, surveyed the remains of the church at the castle, and saw the Greek inscription upon the lintel, which he translated as meaning
Martyr Memorial Church of the Holy Herald, but
Clermont-Ganneau later translated as
Martyr shrine (martyrion) of Saint Kyriko, relating Kyrikos/Cyricus, the child martyr of
Tarsus. with Majdal Yaba being their main village, where they maintained a fortress and manor. During this time, however, they were embroiled in war with their rival clan, the Qasim, who controlled the Jamma'in East area and also belonged to the Bani Ghazi tribe.
Victor Guérin visited in 1870. In 1870/1871, an Ottoman census listed the village in the
nahiya of Jamma'in al-Thani, subordinate to Nablus. Members of SWP who visited in 1873 reported a large building of "massive masonry", probably a former church, with a side door inscribed in Greek "Memorial of
Saint Cerycus". In 1882, the village was described as "a large and important village, evidently an ancient site, having ancient tombs and remains of a church. It stands on high ground above the plain, and contains a house or palace of large size for the Sheikh; it was the seat of a famous family who ruled the neighbourhood. The water supply is from wells and cisterns. In 1888, a school was founded in Majdal Yaba. In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, there were 726 inhabitants: 723 Muslims and 3 Jews, rising to 966, all Muslim, in a total of 227 houses in the
1931 census. The layout of the village resembled a parallelogram and its houses were clustered together, separated by narrow alleys. They were built of mud and straw or stone and cement. Each neighborhood was inhabited by a single
hamula ('clan') and contained a
diwan for public meetings and receiving guests. In 1935, a mosque was built in Majdal Yaba and the Ottoman-built school had reopened in 1920, enrolling 147 students in the mid-1940s. There was also a clinic in the village. Agriculture was the basis of the economy, with farmers planting wheat, corn, barley, vegetables, and sesame. They also tended fruit orchards, particularly citrus.
Artesian wells irrigated the fields. Of this, a total of 2,481
dunums of village land was used for
citrus and bananas, 110 dunams were plantations or irrigable land, 13,906 dunums were used for cereals, while 59 dunams were classified as built-up urban areas. File:JaffaJerusalem1799.jpg|Majdal Yaba during French Invasion of 1799 File:Charles William Meredith van de Velde, Map of the Holy Land 2x1.jpg|alt=Charles William Meredith van de Velde, Map of the Holy Land, 1856.|Megdel 1856 File:Majdal Yaba 1941.jpg|Majdal Yaba 1941 1:20,000 File:Al Mirr 1945.jpg|Majdal Yaba 1945 1:250,000 File:Majdal Yaba.jpg|Families prior to 1948
1948 war and aftermath File:Occupation of Majdal Yaba.png|Majdal Yaba, July 1948 File:Justice Tower ii.jpg|Majdal Yaba, February 1949 File:Justice Tower.jpg|Majdal Yada, March 1949 File:Majdal Yaba iii.jpg|Member of Harel Brigade at Majdal Yaba, 1949 File:Tombstone in Majdal Yaba cemetery.jpg|Damra family tomb in Majdal Yaba's Eastern Cemetery Majdal Yaba was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947
UN Partition Plan. During the war, it was occupied by the Second Battalion of the
Alexandroni Brigade on July 12, 1948, in
Operation Danny, after wresting it from the
Iraqi Army who were defending the village during the
1948 Arab-Israeli War. The nearby village of
Ras al-Ein, deserted in the 1920s, was also captured. The
New York Times reported that the situation of the surrounded Iraqi troops was "hopeless". The capture of Majdal Yaba also led to the control of the hills lying to the north of the operation zone and the springs of the
al-Auja river (). On August 28, 1948, The Iraqi forces attempted to recapture the village, but were asked to abandon the operation The Israeli town of
Rosh HaAyin — which today is a city – was built on village lands in 1950, and in 1953, the Jewish
kibbutz of
Givat HaShlosha was established on village lands. According to Palestinian historian
Walid Khalidi, the Rayyan Fortress still "crowns the site" in addition to the tomb of Sheikh Muhammad Al-Sadiq, and a part of the village cemetery still remains. In 1992 the fortress was "slowly crumbling" and the dome of the tomb was severely cracked. The ruins of Mirabel Castle have been recently restored and made accessible as part of the Israeli national park of Migdal Afek. ==See also==