Brital () is a village located in the

Baalbek District Baalbek District () is an administrative district in the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate of the Republic of Lebanon, having the city Baalbek as its capital. It is by far the largest district in the country comprising a total of . Major towns of the d ...

of the

Baalbek-Hermel Governorate Baalbek-Hermel () is a governorate of Lebanon and is the largest by area in the country. It comprises the districts of Baalbek and Hermel, which in turn are subdivided into a total of 74 municipalities. The capital is at Baalbek. The governorate ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

History

In 1838,

Eli Smith Eli Smith (September 13, 1801 – January 11, 1857) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. Biography Smith was born in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (née Whitney) Smith. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from A ...

noted Brital (under the name of ''Bereitan'') as a

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 ...

village in the

Baalbek Baalbek (; ; ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In 1998, the city had a population of 82,608. Most of the population consists of S ...

area. Brital has been a well-known town for its rebellious people in the times before and after the creation of Lebanon in 1924. Due to the town's mountainous landscape, multiple revolutions against any occupation were born in Brital. The revolution against the French mandate was led by a prominent Britali and his local men (Melhem Kassem al-Masri), also Brital is the birthplace of the

Amal movement The Amal Movement () is a Lebanese political party and militia affiliated mainly with the Shia community of Lebanon. It was founded by Musa al-Sadr and Hussein el-Husseini in 1974 as the "Movement of the Deprived." The party has been led by ...

and

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

. Brital is the home village of Sheikh Subhi Tufayli one of the early leaders of Hizbollah who was later expelled from the group and set up his own organisation, “the Hunger Revolution”. Brital's municipal land boundaries span over vast areas of the

anti-Lebanon mountains The Anti-Lebanon mountains (), also called Mount Amana, are a southwest–northeast-trending, c. long mountain range that forms most of the border between Syria and Lebanon. The border is largely defined along the crest of the range. Most of ...

, east to Syria, south to Anjar and to

Arsal Arsal (also spelled Aarsal, Ersal or 'Irsal; ), is a town and municipality situated east of Labweh, northeast of Beirut, in Baalbek District of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Lebanon.

in the north. Its population is made of a number of large families: Azki, Mazloum, Ismail, Saleh, Tlais, Jaafar, Masri, Affi, Ahmar, Youness and Ghadban are the main ones. By the end of 2022, there were 4,224 Syrian refugees living in the settlement.

References

Bibliography

External links

Brital
localiban Populated places in Baalbek District Shia Muslim communities in Lebanon {{lebanon-geo-stub