Burqin, Palestine

Burqin and vicinity in 1799[8]

In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as Bruqin, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Sami of the Liwa of Nablus. The population was 23 households and 4 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid a tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, which included wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 7980 akçe.[9]

In 1799, Pierre Jacotin placed the village, named Berkin, nearly straight west of Jenin on his map.[8] In 1838 Edward Robinson placed Burqin as being in the District of Jenin, also called "Haritheh esh-Shemaliyeh".[10]

In 1863, when Victor Guérin visited, he found the village to have about 1,000 inhabitants, all Muslim with the exception of 90 Greek Orthodox Christians. He further noted that "Some 30 excavated cisterns are evidence that this village sits upon an ancient settlement."[11]

In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of al-Sha'rawiyya al-Sharqiyya.[12]

In 1872, Claude Reignier Conder visited Burqin during his surveying work in Palestine. He was met by the local curé and shown the church. It had a stone screen on the east, shutting off three apses.[13]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Burkin as "A village of Greek Christians, with a small modern church for the Greek rite. It stands on the side of a white hill, with a good well below on the north, and olives near it."[14]

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Burqin had a population of 883; 871 Muslims and 12 Christians males,[15] where all the Christians were Orthodox.[16] This had increased in the 1931 census to a population of 1,086; 1,010 Muslim and 76 Christians, in a total of 227 inhabited houses.[17]

In the 1945 statistics the population were 1,540; 1,430 Muslims and 110 Christians,[18] with a total of 19,447 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[19] Of this, 3,902 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 11,219 dunams for cereals,[20] while 36 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[21]

• 
  Burqin 1943 1:20,000
• 
  Burqin 1945 1:250,000

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Burqin came under Jordanian rule.

In 1961, the population of Birqin was 2,055.[22]

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Burqin has been under Israeli occupation.

On 21 July 2015 the 21-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Alauna of Burqin was shot dead during a confrontation with Israel forces who had entered the town on a night-time arrest mission.[23]