Kfar Silwan (, also spelled Kfar Selouane, Kfarselwan or Kfar Silwen) is a municipality in the

Baabda District Baabda District (, transliteration: ''Qada' Baabda''), sometimes spelled ''B'abda'', is a district (''qadaa'') of Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon, to the south and east of the Lebanon's capital Beirut. The region is also popularly known as "Sou ...

Mount Lebanon Governorate Mount Lebanon Governorate () is one of the nine governorates of Lebanon, of which it is the most populous. Its capital is Baabda. Other notable towns and cities include Aley, Bikfaya, and Beit Mery. This governorate is named after the mount ...

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 ...

. It is north of

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

. Kfar Silwan has an average elevation of above sea level and a total land area of 1,471

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s. It had 2,736 registered voters in 2010. Its inhabitants are predominantly

Maronites Maronites (; ) are a Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant (particularly Lebanon) whose members belong to the Maronite Church. The largest concentration has traditionally resided near Mount ...

and

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

History

Kfar Silwan was the ancestral village of the Abu'l-Lama ''

muqaddam () is an Arabic title, adopted in other Islamic or Islamicate cultures, for various civil or religious officials. As per the Persian records of medieval India, muqaddams, along with khots and chowdhurys, acted as hereditary rural intermediaries ...

s'' (local chiefs), a

family affiliated with

Fakhr al-Din II Fakhr al-Din Ma'n (; 6 August 1572 13 April 1635), commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II (), was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon from the Ma'n dynasty, an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sanjak-bey, governor of Sidon-Beirut Sanj ...

(), which later moved to Mtain and Salima and embraced

Maronite Christianity The Maronite Church (; ) is an Eastern Catholic ''sui iuris'' particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. The head of the Maronite ...

. The village later served as the headquarters of the Banu Hatum, a Druze clan. From Kafr Silwan, the Banu Hatum led a peasants' revolt in the early 1790s against the taxation attempts of

Bashir Shihab II Bashir Shihab II (, also spelled Bachir Chehab II; 2 January 1767–1850) was a Lebanese people, Lebanese emir who ruled the Mount Lebanon Emirate, Emirate of Mount Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. Born to a branch of the Shihab dy ...

, the paramount tax farmer of

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon (, ; , ; ) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It is about long and averages above in elevation, with its peak at . The range provides a typical alpine climate year-round. Mount Lebanon is well-known for its snow-covered mountains, ...

and its environs, forcing his troops to withdraw from the

Matn Matn () is an Islamic term that is used in relation to Hadith terminology. It means the text of the hadith, excluding the isnad. Use A hadith is made of both an isnad (chain of transmission) and a matn. A hadith would typically adopt the f ...

area. In 1794 the revolt was suppressed by the forces of the Ottoman governor

Jazzar Pasha Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar (, c. 1720–30s7 May 1804) was the Acre-based Bosniak Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet from 1776 until his death in 1804 and the simultaneous governor of Damascus Eyalet in 1785–1786, 1790–1795, 1798–1799, and 1803 ...

, the village was destroyed and part of its inhabitants, including the Banu Hatum, migrated to the

Hauran The Hauran (; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...

. 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 ''Kefr Selwan'' as a village located in ''Aklim el-Metn; East of

''.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p
193
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References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Baabda District Maronite Christian communities in Lebanon Druze communities in Lebanon Populated places in Baabda District

History

See also

References

Bibliography