Mi'ilya (; ), also called Mi'elya, is an Arab local council in the western Galilee in the Northern District of Israel. Its name during the Kingdom of Jerusalem era in Galilee was Castellum Regis. In it had a population of , all of whom are Melkite Greek Catholics. The town is located immediately to the northwest of Ma'alot-Tarshiha. Archaeological excavations have found remains from the Late Bronze Age through to the Ottoman period.
History Archaeological excavations in Mi'ilya gives indication of inhabitation from the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, as well as Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.Porat, 2009, Mi‘ilya, the Church Square Preliminary Report Remains include a mosaic carpet with a Greek inscription, dating from the fifth or early sixth century CE.
Crusader period
In the Crusader period, Mi'ilya and its castle, Castellum Regis ('King's Castle') were first mentioned in 1160, when they and several surrounding villages were transferred to a Crusader named Iohanni de Caypha (Johannes of Haifa).Strehlke, 1869, pp. 2-3, No. 2; Cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 89, No. 341; Cited in Pringle, 1993, p. 30 and in Ellenblum, 2003, p. 41 It was probably built during King Baldwin III's reign and possessed one of the largest wineries in the Crusader states.
By 1179 the castle had apparently been rebuilt, as it was then called Castellum Novo ('New Castle'). That year, Viscountess Petronella of Acre sold the houses, vineyards and gardens of Mi'ilya to Count Jocelyn III, uncle of King Baldwin IV.. In 1182, Baldwin IV granted the castle to his uncle, Jocelyn III. At this time it was called "The new castle in the mountains of Acre".Strehlke, 1869, pp. 13-15, No. 14; cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 162-163, No. 614, cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 30 In 1183, Baldwin IV transferred a house that he had bought in Mi'ilya from the scribe, John of Bogalet, in addition to other possessions in the vicinity of Mi'ilya to the same uncle, Jocelyn III.Strehlke, 1869, p. 16, No. 17; cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 165-6, No. 625; Cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 30
In 1187 Mi'ilya and its castle fell to the Ayyubid sultan Saladin.Abu'l-Fida, in R.H.C. Or. I., p. 56, Ali ibn al-Athir, 1231, Kamel-Altevarykh, as given in R.H.C. Or. I., p. 690 and Al-Maqrizi, all cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 30 In 1188 it was granted by Conrad of Montferrat to the Pisans who were defending Acre,Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 180, No. 674, cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 30 but it is unclear if they ever took control of it.
In 1220 Jocelyn III's daughter Beatrix de Courtenay and her husband Otto von Botenlauben, Count of Henneberg, sold Mi'ilya to the Teutonic Knights on 31 May, for the sum of 7,000 marks of silver. This included Mi'ilya with its dependencies, and a third of the fief of St. George de la Beyne (see Deir al-Asad and Bi'ina).Strehlke, 1869, pp. 43-44, No. 53; pp. 47-49, Nos. 58-59; Cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 248, No. 934; Cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 30Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 190 By then, the castle of Mi'ilya was superseded by the Teutonic-built Montfort Castle. In 1228, Jocelyn III's grandson James of Mandale sold his part to the Teutonic Knights.Strehlke, 1869, pp. 51-53, No. 63; pp. 53-54, No. 65; Cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 263, No. 1002; p. 265, No. 1011; Cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 30 Between 1220 and 1243, the Teutonic Knights bought a number of properties from private owners around the castle.Strehlke, 1869, pp. 120-128, No.128; Cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 134-135, No. 510; Cited in Pringle, 1998, p. 31 and Ellenblum, 2003, pp. 42-44 Another document from the year 1257 mentions a house and other property in Mi‘ilya that belonged to the Bishop of Acre.Strehlke, 1869, pp. 91-94, No. 112; Cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 331, No. 1260; cited in Ellenblum, 2003, p. 149 and Khamisy, 2013, Mi‘ilya
Mamluk period
By 1268–1271 Mi'ilya was conquered by the Mamluk sultan Baybars.Pringle, 1997, p. 71 The Mamluks founded a mosque out of the Crusader church in Mi'ilya. The Syrian geographer al-Dimashqi noted Mi'ilya's "fine castle", and that close to it was a very pleasant valley, where musk-pears and large citrons were grown.Le Strange, 1890, p.495 The castle village became the seat of a qadi (Islamic judge) and in 1372 was noted as the administrative center of a district, 'Ma'ilya wa Shaghurayn' (Mi'ilya and the two Shaghurs).
Ottoman period
The Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine from the Mamluks in 1516. In 1548/1549 or 1596, Mi'ilya appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the nahiye of Acre, part of Liwa Safad (district of Safed), with a population of 15 Muslim households and 2 Christian households. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olives, and goats or beehives, a total of 2,151 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 194Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied from the Safad-district was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9 In 1555/1556, the registers listed Mi'ilya as a (farm).
The Melkite denomination was founded in 1724 when it broke away from the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. Melkites began moving to northern Palestine in great numbers during the 18th century under the auspices of regional strongman Sheikh Daher al-Umar. Daher captured the Jiddin fortress in Mi'ilya's vicinity in 1738 and gained control of its dependencies, including nearby Tarshiha. In the 1740s, Daher invited the Shufani family, Melkites from the Shuf area of Mount Lebanon, to farm silkworms in Tarshiha. The Shufanis were patronized by a leading family of that village and when they successfully defended them against another family, they were granted residency in Mi'ilya's castle. The conventional oral histories attribute Mi'ilya's establishment as a Melkite village to the Shufanis' settlement at that time. A 1753 correspondence to Pope Pope Benedict XIV concerning disputes between the Melkites and the Franciscans in the parish of Acre includes three signatories from Mi'ilya, the priest Sulayman Sa'ada, Ilyas Sa'ada, and Isa Sammur. According to historian Rabei Khamisy, this suggests the Sa'ada and Sammur families were earlier established Melkite families, perhaps living alongside Mi'ilya's handful of Muslim residents. The Shufanis likely joined them in the 1740s but the two families disappear from the record sometime after 1753 while Mi'ilya's Muslims moved to Tarshiha; thus, the Shufanis are more accurately the earliest of Mi'ilya's extant families.
Over a roughly ten-year period from the time that the Shufanis settled in Mi'ilya's castle, more Melkite families joined them there, namely the Abu Uqsa, Assaf, Qassis and Arraf. Each of these families gained property within the castle walls or clustered around it, until the village gradually expanded beyond the walls. The Shufanis possessed the bulk of the castle precincts, while the Abu Uqsa possess the northeastern interior space of the castle. The Assaf own the northeastern tower and the areas bordering it outside the castle walls; the Qassis own the northwestern tower and the areas west of it along the walls; the Arraf's area is near the southern entrance to the castle. Mi'ilya was mentioned by the Italian Giovanni Mariti, who described it as a hamlet where Greek Catholics sometimes used its ancient church.Mariti, 1792, 339 Not long after 1820, the Sabbagh family moved to Mi'ilya and gained possession of the southwestern corner of the castle precincts, which Khamisy assumes they purchased from the Shufanis, who continue to own most of the castle area. In 1838, Mi'liya was noted as a village in the al-Jabal district west of Safed.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. 3, 2nd appendix, p. 133 Referring to Mi'ilya, Victor Guérin found in 1875 that "on the highest part of the hill we remark the remains of an ancient fortress, flanked by four square towers; considerable portions remain, showing that it was built of regular blocks, some levelled plane and some embossed; the latter were reserved for the angles. The ruins and interior of this fortress are now inhabited by about twenty families, which have built their little habitations in the midst of the debris."Guérin, 1880, pp. 60-61, as translated in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, pp. 190-191
A population list from about 1887 showed Mi'ilya to have about 775 inhabitants, all Christians.Schumacher, 1888, p. 191 In the 1881 PEF's Survey of Western Palestine Mi'ilya was described as being a large and well-built village of stone, containing 450 Christians, surrounded by olives and arable land.Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p.149 In 1890, Missionary Père Angelil requested the help of the nuns from the Lebanese village of Ain Ebel to teach the people of neighboring Mi'ilya for eight days. Following this, two nuns from Ain Ebel stayed behind to oversee the operation of the newly established school.Relations d'Orient: Liban, Syrie, Egypte, Arménie, "Travaux et Missions Dans Le Belad-Bechara et le District de Saphad: Extrait de Lettres du P. Angelil au P. Supérieur de la Mission," Imprimerie Polleunis et Ceuterick, Bruxelles, Janvier 1891, page 37-38
British Mandate In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandatory authorities, Mi'ilya had a population of 442 inhabitants; 429 Christians and 13 Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Acre, p.36 Of the Christians, 3 were Orthodox, 2 Catholics and 424 Greek Catholic (Melkite).Barron, 1923, Table XVI, p. 50 The population had increased in the 1931 census to 579; 553 Christians, 25 Muslims and 1 Druze, in a total of 138 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 102
In the 1945 statistics, the population had increased to 900; 790 Christians and 110 Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 4 while the total land area was 29,084 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 41 Of this, 1,509 dunams were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,883 for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 81 while 123 dunams were classified as built-up areas.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 131
Israel In the early part of 1948 the village suffered from food shortages and harassment from neighbouring Jewish areas. It was captured by the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Hiram at the end of October. After a short fight, most of population fled into the countryside. The following day the local IDF commander allowed them to return to their homes. This was one of the few occasions when villagers were allowed back into their villages after they had left.Morris, 1987, p. 228 The Ministry for Minority Affairs reported that a further 25 villagers were expelled in March being suspected of passing information to the enemy.Morris, 1987, p. 352
Mi'ilya became a local council in 1957. It was connected to the national electricity network in 1962. Mi'ilya remained under martial law until 1966.
Demographics In 2022, 99.8% of the population was Christian, 0.1% was Druze and 0.1% was Muslim.
Transportation Mi'ilya is located on Highway 89 which connects Nahariya with Elifelet via Safed.
Church of St Mary Magdalen
Giovanni Mariti passed by in 1761, and noted "an ancient church, in which the Catholic Greeks perform divine service."Mariti, 1792, p. 339; 1769 edition noted in Pringle, 1998, p. 31
Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and noted that "The Greeks had just rebuilt their church on the foundations of another much more ancient, which was decorated with monolithic columns with capitals imitating Corinthian columns.“Guérin, 1880, pp. 60- 61, as translated in Pringle, 1998, p. 31
See also Arab localities in Israel Arab Christians