Deir Istiya

Deir Istiya
Other transcription(s)
• Arabic	دير إستيا
• Also spelled	Deir Istya (official) Dayr Istiya (unofficial)
Skyline of Deir Istiya, 2015
Deir Istiya Location of Deir Istiya within the Palestinian territories
Coordinates: 32°07′50″N 35°08′24″E / 32.13056°N 35.14000°E / 32.13056; 35.14000Coordinates: 32°07′50″N 35°08′24″E / 32.13056°N 35.14000°E / 32.13056; 35.14000
Palestine grid	163/170
Governorate	Salfit
Government
• Type	Village council
• Head of Municipality	Jamal Alfaris
Area
• Jurisdiction	36,000 dunams (36.0 km2 or 13.9 sq mi)
Population (2007)
• Jurisdiction	5,200
Name meaning	"Monastery of Istiya"

Deir Istiya (Arabic: دير إستيا‎‎) is a Palestinian town of 5,200 located in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) southwest of Nablus and 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) east of Salfit. The built-up area of Deir Istiya is 74 dunams, and its old city has about thirty families.

The town is named for the nearby tomb of Istiya which, according to ethnographer Tawfiq Canaan and historian Moshe Sharon, is the Arabic name for Isaiah.

Potsherds from Iron Age II, Crusader/Ayyubid and the Mamluk era have been found by at Deir Istiya.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, during the Crusader era, Deir Istiya was inhabited by Muslims, according to Ḍiyāʼ al-Dīn. In 1394 Deir Istiya was required to supply lentils, olive oil and flour as a religious endowment (waqf) to the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron on the orders of the Mamluk sultan Barquq. Since the Mamluk era in Palestine, Deir Istiya has been a center of olive-based agriculture. Today, it possesses one of the largest areas of land planted with olive groves, at nearly 10,000 dunams.

Potsherds from the early Ottoman period have been found. The village was a part of Sanjak Nablus in the Ottoman period beginning in the early 16th century. In 1596, Dayr Istya appeared in Ottoman tax registers being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 133 households and 12 bachelors, all Muslim. Villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, goats and/or beehives. In the early 17th century, Deir Istiya and nearby Beit Wazan were the ancestral seats of the Qasim family who controlled Jamma'in and most of eastern Sanjak Nablus. The Qasim fortified and made Deir Istiya their primary southern base. The Rayyan clan from Majdal Yaba also exercised some influence over the village. During the "civil war" period in Jabal Nablus (1853–57), the Qasim family, formerly led by Qasim al-Ahmad, vacated Deir Istiya and were said to have sought refuge with the Nimr family in Nablus.