Barish ( ar, باريش ) is a local authority in

Southern Lebanon Southern Lebanon () is the area of Lebanon comprising the South Governorate and the Nabatiye Governorate. The two entities were divided from the same province in the early 1990s. The Rashaya and Western Beqaa Districts, the southernmost distri ...

, located in

Tyre District The Tyre District is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon. History Ancient history Founded at the start of the third millennium BC, Tyre originally consisted of a mainland settlement and a modest island city that lay a short distance o ...

, Governorate of South Lebanon.

Name

E. H. Palmer wrote in 1881 that the name Barish meant "abounding in herbage".

Anis Freiha Anis Freiha was a Lebanese author who has written extensively about Lebanese traditional village life. Life He was born in the town of Ras el Matn, Mount Lebanon, and studied at the American University of Beirut AUB, and at the University of Ch ...

said that the origin of the name is Syriac: “The house of the chief and the lieutenant colonel, and he mentioned that there is another possibility that it is from the Hebrew bero ?sh: cypress, and in the Aramaic bero ?sh, and in the Syriac.”

Location

Barish is located in the

South Governorate South Governorate ( ar, الجنوب; transliterated: al-Janub) is one of the governorates of Lebanon. South Lebanon has a population of 500,000 inhabitants and an area of 929.6 km2. The capital is Sidon. The lowest elevation is sea-level ...

. It is 350 m above sea level and 89 kilometers to the southwest of Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, or about an hour and a half, and 16 km from the center of its district Tyre. Its land area is 404 hectares. The number of its registered residents is 5000, expatriates 1500.

History

In 1875

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...

found that it had 300

Metawileh Lebanese Shia Muslims ( ar, المسلمون الشيعة اللبنانيين), historically known as ''matāwila'' ( ar, متاولة, plural of ''mutawālin'' ebanese pronounced as ''metouali'' refers to Lebanese people who are adherents ...

inhabitants. He further noted: "It is surrounded by plantations of fig trees, olive trees and tobacco; some houses and a small

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

were partly built with ancient materials, either found on site or from Broukhai".Guérin, 1880, p
261
A sept heures vingt-cinq minutes, je descends de cette colline vers l'ouest-sud-ouest, et, après avoir franchi un vallon, je monte à ''Beyrich'', village qui compte une population de 3oo Métualis. Il est entouré de plantations de figuiers, d'oliviers et de tabac; quelques maisons et une petite mosquée ont été en partie construites avec des matériaux antiques, soit trouvés surplace, soit provenant de ''Broukhai''. In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described Barish as: "A village, built of stone, containing about 200 Christians, situated on the top of a hill, surrounded by gardens, figs, and arable land ; water supplied from cisterns in the village and spring near."Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p
91
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Education

References

Bibliography

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External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 2
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Tyre District Populated places in Tyre District Shia Muslim communities in Lebanon