@IKON1436 Hey there, I a Jordanian Shia married a Palestinian Sunni woman so now we have two little Shia Palestinian kids running around.
Hope that helps 😸
@FurkanGozukara That doesn't track. What do you think is so different this time that makes you truly believe that no other jobs will be created either intentionally or as a side effect
The Phantom Border: The Seven Villages and the Erasure of Palestine’s Shia
History often hides its most critical lessons in the margins of maps. If you look at the modern border between Lebanon and Palestine, you see a sharp, militarized line that supposedly separates two distinct worlds. But the archives of Jabal 'Amil reveal a different reality. For centuries, the hills of Southern Lebanon and the Galilee of Palestine formed a single ecosystem of families, trade, and faith. The current division is a colonial scar that severed a living body in two. The story of the "Seven Villages" stands as the ultimate proof that the Shi'a presence in Palestine was real, ancient, and deliberately erased.
The Unity of the Soil
Before the French and British empires carved up the Levant, the people of Jabal 'Amil looked south for their livelihood and safety. The connection ran so deep that when the great resistance leader Sayyid Abdu l-Husayn Sharafu d-Din issued his fatwa of jihad against the French in 1920, he sought sanctuary in the most natural place available. He traveled south to Palestine, eventually moving to Egypt, while his family scattered across the region. This flight proves the fluidity of the land. For the Sayyid and his contemporaries, Palestine served as an extension of their own home, a sanctuary from the colonial encroachments beginning to strangle the north.
The Colonial Theft of 1922
The tragedy began in when the colonial powers decided to formalize their spoils. In 1922, Britain and France signed an agreement that fundamentally altered the demographic landscape. They transferred sovereignty of seven specific Shi'a villages from the sphere of Jabal Amil to the British Mandate of Palestine. This bureaucratic stroke transformed thousands of indigenous Shi'a Muslims into subjects of a foreign project.
These "Seven Villages" (Qura Sab'a) became the forgotten victims of the partition. The annexation stripped them of their Lebanese identity without granting them safety in Palestine. When the State of Israel solidified its borders in 1948, the residents of these villages faced a catastrophic dispossession. They watched as their homes became part of a new state that viewed them as enemies. The annexation expanded beyond the original seven by 1949, the fertile lands and orchards of nearly 23 villages in Southern Lebanon had been seized and annexed to the south. The wire fences went up, cutting farmers off from their groves and families from their kin.
The Architecture of Resistance
This theft of land sparked the fire of resistance that continues to burn today. The movement born in Southern Lebanon emerged directly from this experience of dispossession. Sayyid Musa as-Sadr, who arrived in Tyre in 1959, understood this dynamic. He saw a community that had been marginalized by the Lebanese state and preyed upon by its southern neighbor.
Sadr diagnosed the problem as geopolitical rather than purely religious. He declared that the conflict was existential, stating that the Israelis desired the land itself rather than peace. His solution involved building independent institutions to restore dignity and power to the "dispossessed." He established the Supreme Council of Shi'a Muslims to organize the community politically and founded the "Council of the South" to support those enduring the daily reality of the occupation.
From Victimhood to Power
The invasion of 1982 proved Sadr’s warnings. When Israeli forces advanced all the way to Beirut, supposedly to drive out the PLO, the illusion of a temporary security operation vanished. The invasion triggered a transformation within the Shi'a community. The vacuum left by the collapse of the state and the flight of traditional leadership allowed a new, disciplined force to emerge.
Hezbullah rose from the ashes of the 1982 invasion. It began as a force utilizing basic tactics but evolved into a sophisticated organization capable of defending the territory.
The Lost Archive: The Golden Dinar of Palestine
If you walked through the markets of Jerusalem, Tiberias, or Ramla in the 10th century to buy a loaf of bread, you would not pay with a Byzantine coin or an Abbasid dirham. You would pay with a gold coin that declared the leadership of the Ahlul Bayt.
This is the Fatimid Dinar of Filastin. For two centuries, the official currency of the Holy Land carried the name of Imam Ali.
This specific artifact is a gold dinar minted in the year 369 AH (979 AD) in the city of Ramla (referred to on the coin as Filastin). Ramla was the provincial capital of Palestine at the time. The coin is struck from high-purity gold, a standard that made Fatimid currency the "Dollar of the Mediterranean," accepted by merchants from Venice to India.
The Design of Dissent
Unlike the coins of the rival Abbasid empire in Baghdad, which featured long, linear lines of text, this coin features a revolutionary design, the Bull’s Eye. The text is written in concentric circles, spinning around a central point. This was a deliberate artistic choice to symbolize the Ismaili Shia concept of the Imam being the "Center" of the universe around whom all truth revolves.
The true power of the artifact lies in what it says. While Sunni coins of the era listed the four Caliphs, this dinar minted in Palestine explicitly challenges that narrative.
The Inner Margin: Reads “La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah, Ali Wali Allah” (There is no God but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God, Ali is the Friend of God).
Some variations from this era even bore the phrase “Ali Khayr al-Wasiyyin” (Ali is the Best of Successors).
This coin destroys the modern myth that the Levant has always been monolithically Sunni. For over 200 years, the economic engine of Jordan and Palestine ran on Shia currency. Every time a merchant in Tiberias (Jordan) or Nablus (Palestine) closed a deal, they exchanged a physical token of loyalty to the family of the Prophet.
The Discovery
In recent years, hoards of these coins have been found in excavations near the Western Wall in Jerusalem and in the port city of Caesarea. They are often found in small juglets, hidden by families hoping to protect their wealth during the Crusader invasions that eventually ended Fatimid rule.
Today, these coins sit in museums, often labeled simply as "Islamic Gold." But if you read the Kufic script circling the edge, the history is undeniable. The name of Ali was once the gold standard of the Holy Land.
#ShiaHistory #Palestine #TheLostArchive #Numismatics
The Lost Archive: The Shrine of the Two Domes - Shia History in Palestine
Hidden in the Upper Galilee, overlooking the Hula Valley, stands a structure that modern maps label "Metzudat Koach" (The Fortress of Strength). Visitors today encounter a British-style police fort and a memorial to the 28 Israeli soldiers who died capturing it in 1948. Yet just a few meters past the barbed wire and the weeds, a stone building with two crumbling domes remains standing, bearing an inscription that testifies to its original identity.
This is the Maqam of Nabi Yusha (The Shrine of Prophet Joshua). For two centuries, this site functioned as the spiritual heart of Shia Islam in Palestine.
The Architecture of Devotion
The Al-Ghul clan, a prominent Shia family from the region, constructed this complex in the 18th century to honor the burial site of Prophet Yusha. They established a complete religious center including a tomb, a courtyard, and lodging for pilgrims. The main structure exemplifies late Ottoman architecture, featuring a rectangular courtyard surrounded by arched lodging rooms. The sanctuary itself stands to the south, crowned by two distinct domes that served as a recognizable landmark of the Galilee skyline.
The Pilgrimage of the Fifteenth
For generations, this stone complex served as a beacon for the region. Every year on the 15th of Sha'ban, thousands of "Metawalis" (Levantine Shia) descended from the villages of Jabal Amil in Lebanon and the "Seven Villages" of Palestine to celebrate the Mawsim (season) of the Prophet. The courtyard, now silent and overgrown, once echoed with poetry, theological debates, and the cooking fires of families who traversed the Galilee and the South as a single connected territory.
The Fortress and the Fall
The strategic location of the shrine eventually led to its militarization. Commanding a view of the entire valley, the site attracted the attention of the British Mandate authorities, who built a massive concrete police fortress directly adjacent to it in the 1930s.
In May 1948, the shrine became a battlefield. The villagers of Nabi Yusha, descendants of the Al-Ghul builders defended their home alongside the Arab Liberation Army. Following the fall of the village during Operation Yiftach, the inhabitants were expelled into Lebanon. The mesjid, which had welcomed worshippers since the 1700s, was locked.
The Ghost in the Park
The site exists today as a paradox. The Israeli government designated the area a National Park to commemorate the capture of the British fortress. The shrine stands in the shadow of this narrative, fenced off and labeled merely as an "antiquity." Yet the stones continue to testify. The white-washed mihrab (prayer niche) remains visible through the cracks in the masonry, and the arches still point toward Mecca.
This structure stands as a ruin and as evidence. It remains a stone witness to the history of the Shia in this land, proving they were the architects of its landscape.
#ShiaHistory #Palestine #TheLostArchive