Yazur
| Yazur | |
|---|---|
Tomb (Maqam) of Imam ´Ali, now housing the Sha´arei Zion Synagogue
|
|
 Yazur
|
|
| Arabic | يازور |
| Name meaning | Yazur |
| Subdistrict | Jaffa |
| Coordinates | 32°01′44″N 34°47′58″E / 32.02889°N 34.79944°ECoordinates: 32°01′44″N 34°47′58″E / 32.02889°N 34.79944°E |
| Palestine grid | 131/159 |
| Population | 4,030 (1945) |
| Area | 9742 dunams 9.7 km² |
| Date of depopulation | 1 May 1948 |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Secondary cause | Influence of nearby town's fall |
| Current localities | Azor,Holon |
Yazur (Arabic: يازور, Hebrew: יאזור) was a Palestinian Arab town located 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) east of Jaffa. Mentioned in 7th century BCE Assyrian texts, the village was a site of contestation between Muslims and Crusaders in the 12th-13th centuries.
During the Fatimid period in Palestine, a number of important people were born in Yazur. In modern times the town was the birthplace of Ahmed Jibril, the founder and current head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).
The Israeli town of Azor now stands on the former town lands of Yazur, which was depopulated and mostly destroyed during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.
The village is mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (704 – 681 BCE) as Azuro.
The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179–1229) described Yazur as a small town that was the birthplace of several important figures during the Fatimid period, most prominent among them, al-Hasan ibn ´Ali al-Yazuri, who became a Fatimid minister in 1050 CE. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, Muslim and Crusader forces fought for control of the village and it changed hands several times, before finally falling under the control of the Mamluks.
During early Ottoman rule in Palestine, the revenues of the village of Yazur were in 1557 designated for the new waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1586, the Maqam Imam ´Ali in Yazur was seen by Zuallart, who described it as follows: "....a little further was a square mosque with nine little cupolas. Across the road there is a well or cistern." In 1596, Yazur was a village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla ( liwa' ("district") of Gaza), with a population of 275. Villagers paid taxes to the authorities for the crops that they cultivated, which included wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame as well as on other types of property, such as goats and beehives. In 1602, Seusenius described the Maqam Imam ´Ali as "a mosque with nine cupolas the one in the middle being the highest".
...
Wikipedia