Barish () is a municipality 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 distr ...

, located in

Tyre District The Tyre District is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon. Municipalities The following 72 municipalities are all located in the Tyre District: * Al-Aabbassiyah * Aaitit * Aalma ash-Shaab * Ain Abu Aabdallah * Ain az-Zarqa * Ain ...

Governorate 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 District, Rashaya and Western Beqaa District, Western ...

Etymology

E. H. Palmer Edward Henry Palmer (7 August 184010 August 1882), known as E. H. Palmer, was an England, English oriental studies, orientalist and explorer. Biography Youth and education Palmer was born in Green Street, Cambridge, the son of a private scho ...

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

Anis Freiha Anis Freiha (also spelled Freyha or Feiha) 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 A ...

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 (, or simply ) is one of the governorates of Lebanon, with a population of 590,000 inhabitants and an area of 929.6 km2. The capital is Sidon. The lowest elevation is sea-level; the highest is 1,000 meters. The local popul ...

. 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 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

found that it had 300

Metawileh Lebanese Shia Muslims (), communally and historically known as ''matāwila'' (, plural of ''mutawālin''; pronounced as ''metouéle'' in Lebanese Arabic), are Lebanese people who are adherents of Shia Islam in Lebanon, which plays a major role ...

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

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

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

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s in the village and spring near."

Demographics

In 2014

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

made up 99.42% of registered voters in Barish. 98.26% of the voters were

Shiite Muslims Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood to ...

.https://lub-anan.com/المحافظات/الجنوب/صور/باريش/المذاهب/

Education

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Barich (archive.org)
localiban *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 2
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Tyre District Populated places in Tyre District Shia Muslim communities in Lebanon