Jindas

Ancient site in Israel

Jindas (Arabic: جنداس; Hebrew: ג'ינדאס) is an archaeological site in modern-day Israel, 2 kilometers east of the city of Lod in Israel's Central District.

## History

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The site has been inhabited since at least the Roman period.[1] Its name derives from the Greek personal name Γεννάδις < Γεννάδιος (Gennadios).[2]

During the Crusader-period, it was known as "Casal of Gendas",[3] mentioned in a Latin charter dated 1129 CE. Jisr Jindas, named after the village, is the most famous of the several bridges erected by Sultan Baybars in Palestine, which include the Yibna and the Isdud Bridges.[4]

Jindās is mentioned in the 15th and 16th centuries as a flourishing village whose lands belonged to different religious endowments.[5]

In 1552 Haseki Hürrem Sultan, the favorite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, endowed a quarter of the tax revenues of Jindas to its Haseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem. Administratively, the village belonged to District of Gaza.[6]

In 1596 Jindas was home to 35 Muslim households. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% for the crops that they cultivated, which included wheat, barley, as well as on other types of property, such as goats and beehives, a total of 5,372 akce, all paid to different waqfs.[7] Among these waqfs, revenues were distributed according to the following partition:

• Waqf Banī ‘Alī Abūghā 4/24

• Waqf Muḥammad Aḥmad al-Miṣrī 5/24

• Waqf al-‘Imāra al-‘Āmira 7/24

• Waqf Khalīl al-Raḥmān 8/24.[8]

In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of al-Sawālima from around Jaffa attacked the villages of Subṭāra, Bayt Dajan, al-Sāfiriya, Jindās, Lydda and Yāzūr belonging to Waqf Haseki Sultan.[9]

The desertion of Jindas in the 17th or early 18th century, as well as of its neighbors villages like Kafr Jinnis, reflects the unsettled conditions around Lydda as a result from the migrations of nomadic groups and local manifestations of the Qays and Yaman rivalry.[10]

Jindas was resettled in the 19th century, but was abandoned before the end of the century. The inhabitants of Jindās were scattered throughout Palestine's central hill country. The lands of Jindas were cultivated by the inhabitants of Beit Nabala and Lydda. According to Roy Marom, when Jewish settlement organizations expressed an interest in the region in 1878, the Ottomans declared the land waqf, putting an end to efforts to purchase land there for the establishment of Jewish farm colonies.[6]

In 2012, an urban renewal organization established in Lod took the name "Jindas."[11]

## References

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1. ^ Vered Eshed, Ron Toueg, Shahar Krispin, et al. The_Late_Islamic_Cemetery_in_Jindas_Final_Report (Ariel: 2023)
2. ^ Marom, Roy; Zadok, Ran (2023). "Early-Ottoman Palestinian Toponymy: A Linguistic Analysis of the (Micro-)Toponyms in Haseki Sultan's Endowment Deed (1552)". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 139 (2). Retrieved 2024-04-23.
3. ^ Clermont-Ganneau, 1896, vol.2, p. 117, who quotes the Cartulaire général de l'ordre des Hospitaliers, no.84
4. ^ Petersen, 2008, p. 297
5. ^ "Jindās: A History of Lydda's Rural Hinterland in the 15th to the 20th centuries CE". escholarship.org. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
6. ^ a b Marom, Roy (2022-11-01). "Jindās: A History of Lydda's Rural Hinterland in the 15th to the 20th Centuries CE". Lod, Lydda, Diospolis. 1: 8. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
7. ^ Hütteroth, W-D; Abdulfattah, K(1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft, 155.
8. ^ Marom, Roy. "Jindās: A History of Lydda's Rural Hinterland in the 15th to the 20th Centuries CE". escholarship.org. p. 11. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
9. ^ Marom, Roy (2022-11-01). "Jindās: A History of Lydda's Rural Hinterland in the 15th to the 20th Centuries CE". Lod, Lydda, Diospolis: 13–14.
10. ^ Marom, Roy (2022). "Lydda Sub-District: Lydda and its Countryside During the Ottoman Period". escholarship.org. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
11. ^ [1]