Isawiya 3.65

Al-Issawiya is an urban, Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem. It is located on Mount Scopus near Hadassah Medical Center.HistoryA burial cave, with pottery dating to the Early Roman period, has been found at Isawiya.Ottoman eraIsawiya, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the 1560s the revenues of al-Isawiya were designated for the waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. In the 1596 tax registers it appeared as Isawiyya, in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds, with a population of 35 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. Taxes were paid for wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives.In the 19th century the village was described by sources as a small village, located on the eastern slope of Mount Scopus or the "chain of Olivet", with a spring to the south, surrounded by wheat and barley crops, olive trees and fruit orchards (pomegranate and apricot). Another source states the locals grew vegetables, which were sold in Jerusalem. An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Isawiya had a population of 178, (or 78), in 29 houses, though the population count included men, only. In 1896 the population was estimated to be about 210 persons.