Deir al-Asad

Deir al-Asad דייר אל-אסד‎ دير الأسد
Local council (from 2008)
View of Deir al-Asad, 2007
Deir al-Asad Show map of Northwest Israel Deir al-Asad Show map of Israel
Coordinates: 32°55′11″N 35°16′19″E / 32.91972°N 35.27194°E / 32.91972; 35.27194
Grid position	175/260 PAL
Country	Israel
District	Northern
Government
• Head of Municipality	Ahmed Dabbah[2]
Area
• Total	4,756 dunams (4.756 km2 or 1.836 sq mi)
Population
• Total	13,078[1]
Name meaning	the lion's monastery

Deir al-Asad (Arabic: دير الأسد; Hebrew: דֵיר אֶל-אַסַד; "The Lion's Monastery") is an Arab village in the Galilee region of Israel, near Karmiel.^[3] Together with the adjacent village of Bi'ina it formed the site of the Crusader monastery town of St. George de la Beyne, an administrative center of the eponymous fief which spanned part of the central Galilee. Control of the fief changed several times from the noble Milly family to Joscelyn III of Courtenay and ultimately to the Teutonic Order before the area passed to Mamluk rule in the late 13th century. Settlement continued under the Mamluks and the village's St. George monastery was mentioned as treating the mentally ill in the late 14th century. The modern Muslim village of Deir al-Asad, previously known as Deir al-Bi'ina or Deir al-Khidr, was established in 1516 when the Ottoman sultan Selim I granted its monastery as a waqf (religious endowment) to the Sufi sage Shaykh Muhammad al-Asad, who settled in it with his family and devotees. The village's original Christian population was expelled by the same order and relocated to Bi'ina, while a Druze community which established itself in the village emigrated to the Hauran by the late 1870s.

The village was captured by Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, immediately after which it was temporarily emptied of its inhabitants and looted by Israeli troops before its residents were allowed to return, although a number of inhabitants became Palestinian refugees in the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon. A significant part of its agricultural lands were confiscated by the authorities in 1962 and formed part of the new Jewish city of Karmiel. Most of Deir al-Asad's residents belong to the clans of Asadi, descendants of Shaykh Muhammad al-Asad, and Dabbah, established in the village in the 18th century. In 2003 Deir al-Asad was merged with Bi'ina and nearby Majd al-Krum to form the single municipality of Shaghur, the name of the Ottoman district in which the towns had once been part, but the municipal union was dissolved in 2008.