User:Al Ameer son/Askar

Askar is a neighborhood or suburb of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the northern West Bank. It was formerly a small village, identified as the possible site of the 4th-century CE Samaritan town of Sychar. Under the Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries it was home to a priory. It was mentioned in Ottoman tax records in the 16th century and visited by Western travelers in the 19th century. It became the site of the Askar refugee camp for Palestinians displaced in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The village was annexed by the municipality of Nablus during the Jordanian period (1948–1967).

History
Askar (meaning "army"); has been identified as the Samaritan town of Sychar, which was mentioned by the Bordeaux Pilgrim in 333 CE and Jerome (d. 420). The Survey of Western Palestine considers it to be the same "Sychar" mentioned in the Gospels and the town of Iskar mentioned in the Samaritan Chronicle (c. 1300).

Crusader period
During Crusader rule, Askar, called "Aschar", was granted to the abbey of St. Mary in the Valley of Jehoshuafat by the Crusader count Garnier of Grez (d. 1100). The grant was confirmed on four different occasions; 1108, 1115, 1130  and 1152. The grant included the former market of Askar's old town. The abbey of St. Mary had its rights to the tithes of Askar confirmed by Pope Anastasius IV in 1154 and Pope Alexander IV in 1255. A priory was established in the village by the abbey in the 12th century, evidenced by the mention of monks and priors from Askar in documents dated to 1177,  1180 and 1187. No structures in Askar have been definitively traced to the Crusader period.

Ottoman period
In the Ottoman tax census of 1525–1526 Askar had forty taxpayers, of whom fifteen were Christians. By 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 21 households and 8 batchelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat (7,100 akçe), barley (1,500), summer crops (3,540), olive trees (2,000), "agnam" (250), "occasional revenues" (500), beehives (250), and "customary tax on subjects" (840); a total of 16,500 akçe.

In 1870, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited Askar. In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine noted that Askar was a small hamlet in the Mashariq Nablus district whose structures were built of mud and stone on the slope of Mount Ebal. Askar contained a spring, called Ain Askar, on a hill beneath the hamlet. Near the spring were "the remains of ancient sepulchres".

British Mandate period
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Askar had a population of 215, all Muslims, increasing at the time of the 1931 census to 276, still all Muslim, in 64 houses. In the 1945 statistics 'Askar had a population of 340, all Muslims, with 3,715 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 8 dunams were for citrus and bananas, 99 were plantations and irrigable land, 2,825 used for cereals, while 47 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian period
During the Jordanian period (1948–1967) Askar was annexed to the municipality of Nablus. The Askar camp for Palestinian refugees was established on 100 dunams in the village in 1950 and a new camp, called New Askar, was established to accommodate an increas in the refugee population. The refugees hailed from 36 villages around Haifa, Jaffa and Lydda.