Deir Abu Mash'al

In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine and in the 1596 tax-records it was in the Nahiya of Jabal Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. The population was 42 households, all Muslim. They paid a tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, which included wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to "occasional revenues"; a total of 3,300 akçe.[9] Sherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found here.[5]

According to Roy Marom, in the 18th or early 19th centuries, residents of Deir Abu Mash'al affiliated with the Qaysi camp during the Qays and Yaman conflicts, alongside residents of Jayyous and part of the residents of Bayt Nabala. They fought several skirmishes against Yamani rivals from Qibya and Dayr Tarif.[10]

In 1838 Edward Robinson noted Deir Abu Mesh'al on his travels in the region,[11][12] as a Muslim village, located in the Beni Zeid district, north of Jerusalem.[13]

In 1870, Victor Guérin found the village to have 450 inhabitants. He further noted: "At the highest point I notice, on a large platform, the traces of a powerful construction, some of which are still inferior, and which was built with beautiful cut stones of a magnificent device. Under this platform reigns a huge cistern dug into the rock. To the south stands a gigantic wall of very thick wall, but built with stones of a much lesser apparatus than those which constitute the lower courses of which I have just spoken. The houses in the village are roughly built, but almost all of them contain ancient materials. Near these Moslem dwellings lay on the leveled rock several areas, perhaps dating back to the earliest antiquity, and which the present fellahs still use to beat their barley or wheat."[14] An Ottoman village list of about the same year, 1870, indicated 33 houses and a population of 159, though the population count included men, only.[15][16]

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Deir Abu Meshal as "A small and partly ruinous stone village in a very strong position on a lofty hill. [] A pool exists on the south side of the village, which supplies the place with water."[17]

In 1896 the population of Der abu masch'al was estimated to be about 273 persons.[18]

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the village, named Dair Abu Masha'al, had a population of 289, all Muslim,[19] increasing in the 1931 census to 404 Muslim, in 88 inhabited houses.[20]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Deir Abu Mash'al was 510 Muslims,[21] with 8,778 dunams (8.8 km²; 3.4 sq mi) of land according to an official land and population survey.[22] Of this, 2,076 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 1,058 used for cereals,[23] while 19 dunams (1.9 ha; 4.7 acres) were built-up (urban) land.[24]

• 
  Deir Abu Mash'al 1942 1:20,000 from 1918 survey
• 
  Deir Abu Mash'al 1942 1:250,000

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Deir Abu Mash'al came under Jordanian rule.

The Jordanian census of 1961 found 987 inhabitants at Deir Abu Mash'al.[25]

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Deir Abu Mash'al has been under Israeli occupation.

After the 1995 accords, 85% of village land was classified as Area B, and the remaining 15% as Area C. Israel has confiscated hundreds of dunams of land for bypass roads.[26]