History of Ramallah

Haddadin was attracted to the mountainous site of Ramallah because it was similar to the other mountainous areas he came from, as well as being a heavily forested area which could supply him with plenty of fuel for his forges.

 According to modern living descendents of original Haddadin family members, Rashid's brother Sabra Haddadin was hosting Emir Ibn Kaysoom, head of a powerful Muslim clan in the region, when Sabra's wife gave birth to a baby girl. According to Islamic custom, the Emir proposed a betrothal to his own young son when they came of age. Sabra believed the proposal was in jest, as Muslim-Christian marriages were not customary, and gave his word. When the Emir later came to the Haddadins and demanded that they fulfill their promise, they refused. This set off a bloody conflict between the two families. The Haddadins fled and settled on the hilltops of Ramallah, where only a few local Christian and Muslim families lived at the time.

In 1596, Ramallah appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 71 Christian households and 9 Muslim households. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives.

Today, a large community of people with direct decent from the Haddadins who founded Ramallah live in the United States. The town is now predominately Muslim, but still contains a Christian minority. This is due mostly to new immigration of Muslims to the area, and Emigration of Christians from the area.

Christian town

Ramallah grew dramatically throughout the 17th and 18th centuries as an agricultural village; thus, attracting more (predominantly Christian) inhabitants from all around the region. In 1700, Yacoub Elias was the first Ramallah native to be ordained by the Eastern Arab