al-Dawayima

The village was spread along the top of a wide rocky ridge on the western side of the Hebron Mountains. It overlooked Wadi Qubayba to the north and commanded a view of higher mountains to the east. Although the entire area generally sloped down toward the south coastal plain, this was not obvious from the village because hills to the west of it blocked the view of the plain. A secondary road connected al-Dawayima to the village of Idna, to the northeast. Yet another secondary road led from al-Dawayima to al-Qubayba, to the northwest, and this in turn was linked to the al-Faluja-Bayt Jibrin highway.

The site of al-Dawayima has been tentatively identified with the Old Testament village of Bozqat or Bosqat. In the late nineteenth century, al-Dawayima stood on a high stony ridge that had olive groves beneath it. On a higher ridge to the west stood a shrine that was topped by a white dome.

The people of al-Dawayima were Muslims. They maintained several religious shrines, chief among them the shrine of a Shaykh Ali. This shrine had a large courtyard, a number of rooms, and one large hall for prayers, and was surrounded by fig and carob trees and cactuses. It attracted visitors from neighboring villages. A mosque was located in the village center; it was maintained by the followers of al-tariqa al-khalwatiyya, a Sufi mystic order founded by Shaykh Umar al-Khalwati, who died in 1397. The villagers expanded and renovated the mosque in the 1930s, and added a tall minaret.

The village had a star-shaped layout, which permitted construction to expand in all directions, particularly northeast and northwest along the above-mentioned roads. Shops were scattered throughout the various neighborhoods of the village center. Houses were made of stone and mud, separated by narrow streets and alleys. The older houses were clustered closely together. Each set of houses shared a hawsh, a large courtyard that provided space for women to do their domestic chores, for children to play, and for families to gather in the evening and on special occasions. As the village expanded people began to build new houses outside of the village core. These new houses were larger and built of whitewashed stone some of them had thick, stone walls and were called jidaris (from the Arabic word for wall, jidar). Typically, each of these houses stood apart from the others and did not form part of a hawsh. However, the floor plan of the new houses was the same as that of the old. Each house had two levels: the upper level was occupied by the family members and the lower level by their animals. The houses of the well-to-do villagers had their own courtyards and large guest rooms, in addition to animal stables.

Al-Dawayima had an elementary school that was opened in the village in 1937. The villagers obtained part of their drinking water from wells that collected rainwater. In the 1940s they drilled three new wells. During this period they also built numerous cisterns for collecting rainwater.

Rainfed agriculture was an important basis of al-Dawayima's economy. The chief crops included a variety of grains, especially wheat, barley, and maize vegetables and fruits, especially figs and grapes, were also cultivated. In 1944/45 the villagers allotted a total of 21,191 dunums of their land to cereals; 1,206 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The rugged terrain around the village was covered with trees, such as oaks and suwayd (Rhamnus Palestina).

Equally important to the village economy was animal husbandry. There were twenty-seven clans, or hamulas, in the village , and every hamula owned an average of 200 to 300 head of goats or sheep, and a few camels and cows. The villagers pastured their animals on the large blocs of uncultivated land nearby.

In addition to agriculture and animal husbandry, the villagers engaged in the spinning and weaving of tents and sacks for storing grain. They also tanned hides and wove baskets for the market. Al-Dawayima had about thirty to fifty small shops, ten butchers, and two grain mills. The economy of the village became more dynamic in 1944 with the introduction of a weekly Friday market. The market brought in residents from other villages and towns, including Bayt Jibrin, Hebron, and Gaza, who traded in produce, clothes, pastry, and other goods. The market was held on the village's threshing floor and was called the suq al-barrayn ('the market of the two terrains') because it was believed to combine the trade of the mountains and the plains.

Al-Dawayima was built on an archaeological site. In addition, a large number of khirbas lay in the vicinity. This suggests intense occupation of the area in the past.