Nabi Shu'ayb

Nabi Shu'ayb (also transliterated Neby Shoaib or Nabi Shuaib, meaning "the Prophet Shu'ayb") is a Druze and Muslim religious prophet, traditionally identified with the biblical Jethro, whose possible shrine/tomb is believed to be located near Kfar Zeitim, the depopulated Arab village of Hittin not far from Tiberias, Israel. The identity of Shu'ayb with the Jethro, however, is a Muslim and Druze tradition rather than historical fact (see Shuaib). Prophet shu'ayb is the 14th prophet.

Nabi Shuayb was an object of traditional veneration by Druze and Sunni Muslims through Palestine. The shrine figured down to Israeli-Arab war of 1948 as a place where both Sunni Muslims and Druze took vows (nidhr) and made ziyarat ("pilgrimages"). After the 1948 war, Israel placed the maqam or shrine under exclusive Druze care. A central figure in the Druze religion, the tomb of Nabi Shuaib, has been a site of annual pilgrimage for the Druze for centuries. Shrines dedicated to Nabi Shuaib are common throughout the Greater Syria region.

In the final years of the British Mandate in Palestine, a dispute had raged over the shrine between Sunni and Druze communities. On the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Tarif family applied for the maqam to be registered a Druze waqf, and Israel complied in part to promote the separation of the Druze from other Arabic-speaking communities. Sole custodianship of the tomb was transferred to the Druze community by the Israeli authorities, and Sunni Muslims have largely ceased their pilgrimages to Nabi Shuaib.

In Islamic and Druze tradition, it is believed that towards the end of his life, Shu'ayb took refuge in a cave outside Hittin (a village just west of Tiberias), where he eventually died of old age. His followers buried him at the site and placed a tombstone at his grave. Another Druze tradition holds that the Ayyubid sultan Saladin had a dream the night prior to the Battle of Hittin in which an angel promised him victory on the condition that after the battle, he would ride his horse westward; then, where the horse would stop, the angel said he would find the burial site of Shu'ayb. The tradition holds that when Saladin's dream was realized, the Druze built a shrine for Shu'ayb at the site.

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