Kfeir and the valley
Kfeir ez-Zeit
Kfeir sits at about 900 metres on the western slopes of Mount Hermon (Jabal el-Sheikh). Its name comes from the Syriac kafra, “village”, and for generations it was known as Kfeir ez-Zeit — Kfeir of the oil — for the quality of its olive oil and the groves that cover its hills. Summers are mild; winters bring snow to the mountain above. By old custom, neighbours here sign each other's land deeds to witness the boundaries.
Kfeir on the old roads
Kfeir lies in Wadi al-Taym, at the foot of Mount Hermon, on routes that have linked the coast, the Bekaa and the lands beyond the mountain since Roman times.
Roman Hermon
Between Damascus, Sidon and Paneas
From the end of the first century, the Hermon region was governed jointly by three cities: Damascus, Sidon and Paneas (Banias). Between about 150 and 300 CE a ring of temples was built around the mountain. The southernmost stands at Hebbariyeh, on Kfeir's side of Hermon, its door turned east to the first sun rising over the summit. In 2024 UNESCO placed it under enhanced protection.
Kfeir
The ruins on the eastern hill
Kfeir keeps its own trace of that age: Roman ruins on the hill at the eastern edge of the village, looking towards Mount Hermon.
Souk el Khan
A crossroads market by the Hasbani
Below Hasbaya, where the roads from Hasbaya, Rashaya, Kawkaba and Marjayoun meet by the Hasbani river, stands a weekly market whose origins go back to the fourteenth century. Its khan was a caravan inn, where merchants and travellers rested with their horses and livestock on the way between the northern Bekaa, the Hula valley, the Golan and Jabal Amil. Trade was once done by barter, and the market ran for three days, Monday to Wednesday. It still opens every Tuesday.
1632
The battle at the khan
In 1632 an Ottoman army marched from Damascus to bring down Emir Fakhr al-Din II. Near Khan Hasbaya, in Wadi al-Taym, it met the Ma'n forces led by his son Ali, who was killed in the battle.
In the same years, olive oil was one of the main sources of the region's wealth, and Fakhr al-Din opened the port of Sidon to European merchants. Kfeir's olive groves stood along these routes, and the village has long been known as Kfeir ez-Zeit, Kfeir of the oil.
Sources: Al Jazeera, “Souk el Khan in Lebanon” (2023), quoting historian Ghaleb Saliqa; encyclopaedic entries on the Temples of Mount Hermon, Hebbariyeh, Hasbaya and Fakhr al-Din II. The ruins on Kfeir's eastern hill are recorded from village knowledge.
Faiths of the valley
In old Arabic, a taym is a devoted servant. The word comes from a root that also speaks of love: mutayyam is one whose heart is held captive by devotion. Wadi al-Taym, the valley of Kfeir, takes its name from the Taym Allah, “the servants of God”. Over the centuries the valley has lived up to its name, as one faith after another has taken root on the slopes of Mount Hermon.
The Taym
Servants of God
The Taym Allah were an Arab tribe, known in older records as Taym al-Lat after a goddess of ancient Arabia. They were Christian before Islam, became Muslim after the conquests of the seventh century, and in the early Islamic period part of the tribe settled in the valley that still bears their name.
Druze
Where the faith began
The valley is often called the birthplace of the Druze faith. In the eleventh century it was one of the first centres of the Druze call. Near Hasbaya stands Khalwat al-Bayada, the Druze community's central sanctuary and place of study. Tradition holds that one of the first teachers of the faith taught there.
Muslims
The Shihab emirs
In the 1170s the Shihabs, a Sunni family who had come with Saladin's army, took Hasbaya from the Crusaders. They governed the valley from Hasbaya for centuries. They were allies of the Druze Ma'n emirs and kept their own faith.
Christians
Orthodox and Protestant
Most of the valley's Christians are Greek Orthodox. In the nineteenth century, American missionaries opened a mission in Hasbaya, and part of the town's Orthodox community became Protestant.
The valley has known hard times as well. In 1860 the conflict that swept Mount Lebanon reached Hasbaya and cost many lives. The records of those days also tell of people who stood by their neighbours across the lines of faith. Today Kfeir is still almost evenly Christian and Druze. In one of the family's oldest groves, two great olive trees stand side by side: by long custom, the harvest of one goes to the Druze endowment and the other to the Orthodox church. Each is tended, in its own way, by servants of God.
Sources: Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (entry taym); encyclopaedic entries on the Taym Allah, Wadi al-Taym, Hasbaya and Khalwat al-Bayada. The custom of the two trees comes from the family's land records.