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Sinjil () is a Palestinian town northeast of Ramallah in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the central West Bank.
Doubt over the Crusader origin of the name was raised by historian Levy-Rubin. A Samaritan chronicle (ostensibly by Abu l-Fath), written in the 14th century but based on much older sources, twice refers to a location Sinḥil in the 8th or 9th century. The Arab geographer Zakariya al-Qazwini in his Athar al-bilad cited a 10th-century mention of Sinḥil, though this cannot be verified from extant manuscripts. Levy-Rubin proposes that Sinḥil was the original name of Sinjil, and that the Crusaders' association of the place with St Gilles was prompted by the Arab name rather than the reverse.
In the 1220s Yaqut al-Hamawi described Sinjil as "a small town of the province Filastin. Near it is the pit of Yasuf as Sadik (Joseph)".Le Strange, 1890, p. 538
Only thirty years later, in 1175, the parish church and tithes were sold back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as the distance from Mount Tabor and expenses were too high.de Roziére, 1849, pp. 257-8, No. 141, cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, pp. 141 -142, Nos. 529, 530 A month later the sale was confirmed by Baldwin, lord of Sinjil.Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 142, No. 531
During the early 19th century, Sinjil was a village of 206 taxable men, roughly 800 people. One-eighth of the population were conscripted into the Ottoman army, but were still taxed for 800 people.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, pp. 82 -83
French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1870, and described it as "quite crowded", with an estimated 1200 villagers. The village had two abundant springs, with a reservoir connected to the largest.Guérin, 1875, pp. 34-35 Guérin further noted, "On the summit of the hill are observed the foundations of two strongholds, built of great blocks, evidently ancient, one of which is called the Kasr ("Fort"), and the other the Keniseh ("Church"). The latter is built east and west, and may have been a church. On the lower flanks of the hill I found several ancient tombs cut in the rock. One of the largest, preceded by a vestibule, contains two loculi."Guérin, 1875, pp. 34-35, 166, as translated in Conder and Kitchener, 1882, p. 370 An Ottoman village list of about the same year, 1870, showed that "Sindschil" had 161 houses and a population of 513, though the population count included only men.Socin, 1879, p. 161 Noted it in the Beni Murra districtHartmann, 1883, p. 115, also noted 161 houses
In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Sinjil as being of moderate size, with several houses of two storeys, on a hill side with fine Ficus gardens below.Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 292
The village mosque is laid out on the lines of the Frankish Crusader church (see section above). Other historical sites in the town include a well for Joseph and a holy site for Jacob. The maqam (shrine) of a holy man, Abu Auf, is also there. Abu Auf is from the time period of Caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab.
In 1896 the population of Sinjil was estimated to be about 1,131 persons.Schick, 1896, p. 122
In 1922, Tawfiq Canaan documented the belief among some of the villagers that the biblical Joseph was thrown into a pit in the proximity of Sinjil. Locals attributed significance to a well called Bir Sinjil. Some said it was the abode of a saint named Sheikh Saleh, while others said it was connected to the prophet Yusuf.
In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,320 MuslimsGovernment of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 26 while the total land area was 14,186 , according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 65 Of this, 4,169 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 4,213 for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 113 while 47 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) areas.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 163
In 1961, the population of Sinjil was 1,778 persons.Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 24 It was further noted (note 2) that it was governed through a village council.
Under the Oslo Accords of 1995, 13.8% of village land was classified as Area A, 34.7% as Area B, while the remaining 51.5% is Area C. Israel has confiscated 447 dunams of Sinjil land in order to construct the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Levona. In addition four outposts, including Givat Harel, have been established on Sinjil land. Sinjil Town Profile, ARIJ, p. 17
In September 2024, Israel began construction of a metal wall around Sinjil. The wall cut off access to farmland owned by the town's residents. Only one entrance to the town, a military gate controlled by Israeli soldiers, remains open.
Sinjil was the site of the killing of Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian American from Florida, on 11 July 2025. He was beaten to death by Israeli settlers, who also shot and killed another 23-year-old man with him. Musallet, also known as Saif, had driven to the town with dozens of other Palestinians seeking to reach their land after the Friday prayer that day when they were attacked by armed settlers. He was the fifth U.S. citizen to be killed in the West Bank since the Gaza war started on October 7, 2023.
His daughter, Naomi Shihab Nye, who stayed there in 1966, aged 14, and recalls her sojourn as having a formative influence on her poetics.Deborah Brown, Annie Finch, Maxine Kumin (eds.) Title Lofty dogmas: poets on poetics,University of Arkansas Press, p.393.
Crusader church (present mosque)
The village paid ecclesiastical to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem while a Frankish parish, until they were transferred in 1145 to the monastery on Mount Tabor.Ellenblum, 2003, pp. 106-107Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 59, No. 234Pringle, 1998, pp. 329-332
Ottoman period
In 1517 the village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. In 1596 it appeared in the Defter as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. It had a population of 55 households, all Muslim, and paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on wheat, barley, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives; a total of 9,900 akçe.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 114Toledano, 1984, p. 298, gives the location as 32°02′10″N 35°15′35″E The Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Sinjil about 1650. He described it as a village of 200 houses in the district of Jerusalem, populated by rebellious Muslims.Stephan, 1939, p. 144
British Mandate
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Sinjil (called: Senjel) had an entirely Muslim population of 934,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-District of Ramallah, p. 17 while in the 1931 census, the village had 266 occupied houses and a population of 1071, still all Muslims.Mills, 1932, p. 50.
Jordanian period
In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Sinjil came under rule. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950.
Post-1967
Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Sinjil has been under Israeli occupation. The population of Singil in the 1967 census conducted by the Israeli authorities was 1,823, of whom 18 originated from the Israeli territory.
Urban development
According to Amira Hass, Jewish settlers have hampered villagers' access to their traditional lands. In August 2012, the Red Cross helped the villagers to coordinate with the Israeli Civil Administration and the Israel Defense Forces, enabling them to work on 100 hectares of the land accompanied by an escort. 'Otherwise Occupied / Caught between Price Tag and red tape,' Haaretz, August 6, 2012 In January 2012, the United States Agency for International Development financed road work and renovations of the Abu Bakr as-Saddeeq boys' school in Sinjil. Remarks by the Consul-General Rubinstein
Demography
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 5,742 in 2017. The gender makeup consisted of 2,668 males and 2,568 females. There were 1,029 housing units and the average household size was 5.4. 2007 PCBS Census. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p. 112
Literary references
In 2007, Aziz Shihab whose family was from Sinjil, wrote a memoir of his journey to the village Does the Land Remember Me? (2007).Aziz Shihab, Does the Land Remember Me?: A Memoir of Palestine, Syracuse University Press, 2007 p.Wail S. Hassan, Immigrant Narratives: Orientalism and Cultural Translation in Arab American and Arab British Literature, Oxford University Press, 2011 p.116.
Bibliography
(1997). 9789654400077, Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Publications Section. . ISBN 9789654400077
(1977). 9783920405414, Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. . ISBN 9783920405414
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