Srifa () 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 ...

. It is located 20.8 kilometres east of the city

Tyros Tyre (; ; ; ; ) is a city in Lebanon, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa, her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix, and Carthage's ...

and 90 kilometers south of the capital

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 ...

. It is the birthplace of

Rima Fakih Rima Fakih Slaiby (; born September 22, 1985) is an American former professional wrestler and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss USA 2010. Having previously been crowned Miss Michigan USA 2010, Fakih was the first Arab American wo ...

Miss USA Miss USA is an American beauty pageant that has been held annually since 1952 to select the entrant from United States in the Miss Universe pageant. The Miss Universe Organization operated both pageants, as well as Miss Teen USA, until 2020. ...

2010.

Etymology

According to E. H. Palmer, the origin of the name is Sref. It has been suggested that the name means melting and purifying metals(the place of purification and smelting of metals)or it means "casting dirhams”.

History

In 1875, during the late Ottoman era,

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 here an ancient

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

, and a few cut stones, proving that the place was an ancient site. Guérin found that the village had 150

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 ...

villagers. In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described it: "A village, built of stone, containing about 200

, it is situated on a hill, and surrounded by olives, figs, and arable land. Water from a spring; and

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." The village was heavily bombed during the

2006 Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, thoug ...

. On July 12, the Israelis killed 4 civilians in the village, while on July 19, they killed 17

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 ...

fighters and 5 civilians.

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 99.52% of registered voters in Srifa. 98.64% 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 ...

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

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