'Allar

The village stood on the northeastern slope of a mountain range and overlooked a tributary of Wadi al-Sarar that ran parallel to this range. A secondary road connected it to a road that linked Bayt Jibrin to Bethlehem and that ran 1 km south of 'Allar. In 1596 'Allar was a village in the nahiya of Jerusalem (liwa' of Jerusalem) with a population of 204. It paid taxes on wheat, barley, olive trees, molasses, goats, and beehives. The traveler Edward Robinson saw it in 1838 when he passed through the area. He said it was on a hill, slightly above its sister village, 'Allar al-Sufla (see Khirbat al-Tannur, Jerusalem sub-disctrict). By 1875 it had a population of approximately 400. In the late nineteenth century, 'Allar was built on the slope of a ridge with a well to the south and rock-cut tombs to the north. The village stretched out along an approximately east-west axis. Its houses, built of stone, were connected by narrow, winding streets. Small village shops were built along those streets. The residents of 'Allar were Muslims and maintained four maqams (shrines) in the vicinity. Their children were educated in the village elementary school.

The villagers relied mainly on agriculture for their livelihood, and cultivated grain, vegetables, olives, and grapes. Most of these crops were rainfed, but some were irrigated with water drawn from the several springs around the village, including 'Ayn al-Tannur. In 1944/45 a total of 2,234 dunums was allocated to cereals; 353 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. Wild trees and grass also grew on village lands. The village also had several khirbas in its vicinity, including Khirbat al-Shaykh Ibrahim (156125), named after one of the local religious teachers whose tomb had been made into a maqam.