Daniyal

The village was situated on flat terrain on the central coastal plain, It was linked by two secondary roads to Lydda and Ramla, and by dirt tracks to several neighboring villages. The village took its name from the Hebrew prophet Dani'el, called al-Nabi (the prophet) Daniyal in Arabic. It was not uncommon for Palestinian Muslims to honor such Old Testament prophets by building shrines for them; there was a shrine for the prophet Moses, for example, south of Jericho, not far from the region in which he is said to have been buried. Some of these shrines were built over the supposed tombs or birthplaces of these prophets, while others Simply commemorated the appearance of a prophet to a local believer in a dream,

In the late nineteenth century British Royal Engineers described the village as a small settlement built around a shrine for al-Nabi Daniyal.  All of the residents were Muslims. The village houses, made of adobe brick or stone, were arranged along an east-west axis in a rectangular plan whose center consisted of shops. During the last years of the Mandate, house construction increased; the village expanded but followed the original layout. Daniyal had an elementary school with an enrollment of about forty-five students at the time of its founding in 1945. A well supplied the village with drinking water. The rainfed crops cultivated by the villagers included wheat, olives, and citrus. In 1944/45 a total of 2,599 dunums was allotted to cereals; 37 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.