Maarakeh ( ar, معركة) is a town 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 ...

, in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

Geography

The Municipality of Maarakeh is located in the Kaza of Tyre (sour) one of Mohafazah of

South 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 distric ...

kazas (districts). Mohafazah of South Lebanon is one of the eight mohafazats (governorates) of

. It is 90 kilometers (55.9 mi) away from Beyrouth (

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

) the capital of Lebanon. Its elevation is 270 meters (1) (886 ft - 295 yd) above sea level. Maarakeh surface stretches for 2000 hectares (20 km² - 7.7 mi²)(2).

Name

E. H. Palmer wrote that the name Mảrakeh meant "The battle field".

History

In 1596, it was named as a village, ''al-Ma'raka'', in the Ottoman ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' (subdistrict) of

Tibnin Tebnine ( ar, تبنين ''Tibnīn'', also Romanized ''Tibnine'') is a Lebanese town spread across several hills (ranging in altitude from 700m to 800m (2,275 ft to 2,600 ft) above sea level) located about east of Tyre (Lebanon), i ...

under the ''

liwa' Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ) * Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province") * Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region") * el, Διοίκησις (''dioikēsis'', meaning "province" ...

'' (district) of

Safad Safed (known in Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an eleva ...

, with a population of 119 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, such as

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...

, olive trees, fruit trees, cotton, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 13,350 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 180 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 700

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: "Here are uprights and lintels of door with cut stones, apparently ancient; and in 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, ...

, built of regular blocks probably taken from an old church, are several fragments of monolithic columns.'" In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described it as: "A village, built of stone, containing about 400

, on flat top of high ground, surrounded by gardens, olives, figs, palms, and arable land. There is a spring and five cisterns." On 28 June 1984 the Israeli army surrounded the town and began house to house searches. 119 men, aged between 13 and 60, were taken away as prisoners for further interrogation. At the time it was estimated that Maarakeh had a population of 13,000. On 4 March 1985, during the

Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon The Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon formally began in 1985 and ended in 2000 as part of the South Lebanon conflict. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in response to a spate of attacks carried out from Lebanese territory by Palestinian mi ...

, an explosion destroyed a mosque killing local resistance leader, Mohammed Saad. At least 15 people were killed in the explosion.Ihsan A. Hijazi
'Blast in Lebanon kills 15 in mosque,'

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

5 March 5, 1985.

Education

Notable people

* Kassem El Zein (born 1990), Lebanese footballer

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 2
IAAWikimedia commons
* Localliban: Centre de resource sur le developpement local

{{Tyre District Populated places in the Israeli security zone 1985–2000 Populated places in Tyre District Shia Muslim communities in Lebanon