Nein

For other uses, see Nein (disambiguation).

Nein ניין‎ نين
View of Nein from entrance to the village
Nein
Coordinates:
Grid position	183/226 PAL
Council	Bustan al-Marj
Population (2005)	1,600

Nein (Arabic: نين‎‎, Na'in, lit. Charming, Hebrew: ניין‎, called in English Bibles Nain or Naim) is an Arab village in Israel that forms part of the Bustan al-Marj Regional Council in the Lower Galilee. Located 14 kilometers (8.7 mi) south of Nazareth, Nein covers a land area of approximately 1,000 dunums. Its total land area consisted of 3,737 dunums prior to 1962. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Nein had a population 1,600 in 2005. The city hall for the Bustan al-Marj Regional Council is located in Nein.

Location

Nein lies a short distance from Mount Tabor. A hill known in Arabic as Tell el-Ajul lay on the path that ran between Nein and nearby Indur, an Arab village destroyed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. While Edward Robinson describes Nein as lying on the northern slope of a hill called, "the little Hermon," and it is described in biblical guidebooks as lying at the foot of the Hill of Moreh.

Biblical associations

The raising of the young man of Nain, by Lucas Cranach, in 1569.

Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, who visited Palestine in the mid-19th century, identified Nein as, "the Nain of the New Testament," where, according to the Bible (Gospel of Luke 7:11-17), Jesus raised a young man from death and reunited him with his mother.

According to Luke, this young man was the only son of an unnamed widow. When Jesus saw the dead son being carried out and the mourning widow, he felt compassion for her. He walked towards the bier or stretcher, touched it, stopped the funeral procession and told the man: "Young man, I say to you, arise!" The man came alive, sat up, and began to speak. The people who were standing around were all struck by the event, seen as a sign that 'a great prophet' had arisen among them, and the report of it spread widely across Judea and the surrounding region.

Nain is not mentioned in the other canonical gospels.

History

Rock-sunk tombs have been found here, probably of Christian origin.

Nein is mentioned in the writing of Eusebius (c. 263–339) and Jerome (c. 347 – 420) as being situated near Endor (Indur). Its identity as a biblical site was recognized by the Crusaders, who built a church there to commemorate the site of the miracle, a church rebuilt by the Fransciscans.

In 1101, during the Crusader era, Tancred, Prince of Galilee granted Nein together with several other villages to the abbey of Mount Tabor. In 1153, it belonged to the Hospitallers. By 1263, the area was ruled by Baybars.

Ottoman era

In 1838 Robinson and Smith noted that Nein had decreased in size over the ages, and was at time a small hamlet, inhabited by a few families.

In 1875 Victor Guérin saw here a ruined building, measuring 18 times 12 paces.

In the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (1881), Nein was described as a small village made of stone and adobe, with a small mosque, named Mukam Sidna Aisa, to the north.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British authorities, Nain had a population of 157, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 189, still all Muslim, in a total of 34 houses.

In 1945 the population was 270 while the total land area was 4,687 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 87 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 3,602 for cereals, while 31 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

External links

• Welcome To Na'in
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 9: IAA, Wikimedia commons