Hamama
| Hamama | |
|---|---|
People of Hamama with governor Aref al Aref, in 1943
|
|
 Hamama
|
|
| Arabic | حمامة |
| Name meaning | "dove" |
| Also spelled | Hamameh |
| Subdistrict | Gaza |
| Coordinates | 31°41′29″N 34°35′24″E / 31.69139°N 34.59000°ECoordinates: 31°41′29″N 34°35′24″E / 31.69139°N 34.59000°E |
| Palestine grid | 111/122 |
| Population | 5,070 (1945) |
| Area | 41,366 dunams 41.4 km² |
| Date of depopulation | 4 November 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Current localities | Nitzanim,Beit Ezra,Eshkolot |
Hamama (Arabic: حمامة; also known in Byzantine times as Peleia) was a Palestinian town of over 5,000 inhabitants that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It was located 24 kilometers north of Gaza, between Ashkelon and Ashdod.
Remains from the fifth and sixth century CE have been found here, together with Byzantine ceramics. Hamama is identified as the fifth century CE Byzantine town of Peleia. Peleia translates as "dove", and when the Arabs conquered it through the Rashidun Caliphate in the seventh century, the town received its Arabic name Hamama meaning "dove", reflecting its Byzantine roots.
Hamama was located near the site of a battle between the Crusaders and the Fatimids in 1099, resulting in a Crusader victory. Later Hamama passed into Muslim Mamluk hands, and by 1333/4 CE (734 H.) some of the income from the village formed part of a waqf of the tomb (turba) and madrasa of Aqbugha b. Abd Allah in Cairo. In 1432, it is reported that the Mamluk sultan Barsbay passed through the village. In this period, a renowned scholar and preacher at the al-Aqsa Mosque, Ahmad al-Shafi'i (1406–1465), was born there.
Hamama, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the tax registers of 1596 it appeared as being in the a village in the nahiya of Gaza (Sanjak Gaza), with a population of 462. It paid taxes on goats and beehives. The seventeenth-century traveller al-Nabulsi recorded that the tomb (qabr) of Shaykh Ibrahim Abi Arqub was located in the village, while the Syrian Sufi teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688-1748/9) visited Hamama in the first half of the eighteenth century, after leaving al-Jura.
...
Wikipedia