Al-Bireh

The Crusaders captured and named the town Birra. It was also called Castrum Mahomeria, Magna Mahomeria or Mahomeria Major.[10] It was one of 21 villages given by King Godfrey as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[11] In 1114, the gift was re-confirmed by Baldwin I of Jerusalem.[12]

In 1156, 92 people from Mahomeria pledged their allegiance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and a further 50 names were added in the next three decades. Hence, it has been estimated that the total Frankish population at this time was 500–700.[10][13]

The Crusaders built a castle,[14] church and hospice there.[10][15][16] The latter two buildings were built by the Knights Templar in 1146 and belonged to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Ayyubids under Saladin drove away the Crusaders from Birra when they reconquered interior Palestine after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, and completely demolished the town. Yaqut al-Hamawi mentions seeing the ruins a few times during his travels in the area.[17] Nearing the end of Ayyubid rule, in 1280, the modern town of al-Bireh was an inhabited village. The Ayyubids built a mosque in the town dedicated to Umar ibn al-Khattab adjacent to the church ruins.[18]

Potsherds from the Crusader/Ayyubid era have been found.[7]

Al-Bireh, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village, called Bira al-Kubra, was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Al-Quds which was under the administration of the liwa ("district") of Al-Quds. It had a population of 45 households, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, occasional revenues, beehives and/or goats; a total of 4,570 akçe. Half of the revenue went to a waqf.[19]

In the spring of 1697, Henry Maundrell noted at Al Bireh, which he called Beer, the remains of a Church, which he wrote was built by Empress Helena.[20]

After the 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine, the Ottoman authorities conscripted many men from Al-Bireh as soldiers. In 1838, when Robinson visited, 60 had been taken away to be soldiers, out of a total population of 700.[6] Robinson noted it as a Muslim village, el-Bireh, located in the area immediately north of Jerusalem.[21]

When French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, he found it to have 800 inhabitants.[22]

Socin, citing an official Ottoman village list compiled around 1870, noted that Al-Bireh had a population of 399 Muslims in 142 houses, and 20 "Greeks" in 5 houses, though that population count included only men. It was further noted that the name meant "The cistern".[23] Hartmann found that Al-Bireh had 142 houses.[24]

In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Bireh as a good-sized village, with "fairly well built" houses.[25]

In 1896, the population of Bireh was estimated to be about 1,080 persons.[26]

Until 1917, the city served as a political and administrative center for the Ottoman Empire.

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Al-Bireh had a population of 1,479; 1,407 Muslims, and 72 Christians,[27] where the Christians were 61 Orthodox, 3 Roman Catholics and 8 "other".[28] The population had increased in the 1931 census to 2,292; 2,044 Muslim and 248 Christians, in 541 houses.[29]

In the 1945 statistics, the town's residents numbered 2,920; of which 280 were Christians and 2,640 Muslims,[30] while urban Bireh had 967 dunams of land, and rural Bireh 22,045 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.[31] Of this, 5,162 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 11,226 used for cereals,[32] while 759 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[33]

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Al-Bireh came under Jordanian rule.[34]

In 1961, the population of Bira was 14,510.[35]

Great Mosque, al-Bireh

During the Six-Day War, on June 6, 1967, Israeli troops occupied the city, and Al-Bireh has been under Israeli occupation since.

Israel confiscated 346 dunams of land from Al-Bireh in order to build the Israeli settlement of Beit El (established in 1977) in addition to 780 dunams in order to build Pesagot (established in 1981).[36]

In 1994, the civil administration of the city was turned over to the Palestinian National Authority under the Oslo Accords. Al-Bireh is the second largest center of Palestinian administration after Gaza. Besides the governor's headquarters, it also hosts a considerable number of governmental, non-governmental, and private organizations, including the Ministries of Transportation, Supply, Information, Public Works and Higher Education, as well as the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.[37] Due to its proximity with Ramallah, the cities form a single constituency for elections to the Palestinian National Authority.

Al-Bireh Aerial photo

After the 1995 accords, 39.8% of village land was classified as Area A, 5% as Area B, while the remaining 55.2% was classified as Area C.[38]