'Islin

The village stood on a hill on the southern slope of a mountain, facing southeast. A wadi ran along its western and southern perimeters. 'Islin was about 1 km west of the highway between Bayt Jibrin (a large village in the Hebron sub-disctrict) and the Jerusalem−Jaffa highway. Dirt paths linked it to nearby villages. 'Islin was divided into two main sections, one to the east and one to the west. New construction extended to the north. The village is identified with the sixteenth-century village of 'Islit which was mentioned in the Ottoman tax records for that time. It was in the nahiya of Ramla (liwa' of Gaza) and had a population of seventy-seven. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, and fruit trees as well as on goats and beehives. In the 1870s the village was uninhabited; the ruins of the sixteenth-century village were still visible. It was probably repopulated sometime around the beginning of the twentieth century.

The residents of 'Islin were Muslims, and they built their houses of stone and mud. Springs and wells provided drinking water and crops were rainfed. The economy was based on grain, fruit trees, olive trees, and vineyards. In 1944/45 a total of 830 dunums was allotted to cereals; 104 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The agricultural lands lay north and southeast of the village site.