Tulkarm

Tulkarm, Tulkarem or Tull Keram (طولكرم, Ṭūlkarm) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located in the Tulkarm Governorate of the State of Palestine. The Israeli city of Netanya is to the west, and the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Jenin to the east. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2007 Tulkarm had a population of 51,300 while its adjacent refugee camp had a population of 10,641. Tulkarm is under the administration of the Palestinian Authority (as part of Area A). The Canaanite name, which survived through to Roman times, was Birat Sorqa ('well of the chosen vine'), The Arabic name translates as "mountain of vines" and may be derived from the Aramaic name Tur Karma ("vineyard hill") which was used for Tulkarm by the Crusaders and by the mediaeval Samaritan inhabitants. It has been suggested that Tulkarm is Birat Soreqah, a place mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud. It has also been identified with Tur Kerem. During the Ayyubid era, after the Muslim reconquest of Palestine under Sultan Saladin in 1187, the first families to settle in Tulkarm were from the Kurdish clan of Zaydan. A military group, the Zaydan were dispatched to the Wadi al-Sha'ir area, which includes Tulkarm, by Saladin to buttress the defense of the western approaches of Muslim-held Palestine from the Crusaders who dominated the coastal area. The Zaydan would come to politically dominate Tulkarm and the vicinity until the early 17th century. Around 1230, during the late Ayyubid period, a group of Arabs from southern Palestine immigrated to Tulkarm. They had originally migrated to Palestine from Arabia many generations prior and had become semi-nomadic farmers and grazers. Among the Arab families were the Fuqaha clan, who were considered ashraf (related to the Islamic prophet Muhammad) and served as the "ulama" (religious scholars) of the village. During the Ayyubid, and later the Mamluk era (1260-1517), the majority of Tulkarm's lands were made part of a waqf ("religious trust") to support the , an Islamic religious school in Jerusalem, located north of the Masjid Al-Aqsa compound.