Waqfsand ṣūfī monasteries in the Ottoman pollicy of colonization: Sultān Selīm I's waqf of 1516 in favour of Dayr al-Asad

Abstract

A folktale current among the inhabitants of Dayr al-Asad, a little village in Western Galiee on the Acre-Safad road, repors that in the early sixteenth century a Ṣufī shaykh named al-Asad was once travelling towards Safad, when he came upon some inhabitants of cha Christian village of al-Bi‘na, which then contained a monastery (dayr) and a Crusader church, and was insulted by them; moreover, while he was praying by the village spring, a lion (asad) appeared and devoured his donkey. Nething daunted, the shaykh put his saddle on the lion's back, mounted and galloped eastward until he suddenly found himself face to face with the Sulṭān Selīm I (or according to others, Süleymān ‘Qānūnī’), Thesulṭān, to indemnify him for the insults of the Christians and in recognition of his courage and resourcefulness, permitted him to settle at Dayr al-Bi‘na. Some say that th shaykh returned to the village on the lion’s back after thesulṭān had expelled the Chrisians. Thereupon, so the story continues, Christian Dayr al-Bi‘na became Muslim Dayr al-Asad. The Christian Population established established a new settlement, called al-Bi‘na, about half a kilmetre south of Dayr al-Asad. There is today at al-Bi‘na a smal Christian minority, which in the opinion of the people of Dayr al-Asad originates from Dayr al-Bi‘na.