Umm ash Shauf
village in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine
Umm al-Shawf or Umm ash Shauf (Arabic: أُم الشوف, Umm esh Shauf) was a Palestinian Arab village located 29.5 km south of Haifa, on the sloping section of Wadi al-Marah. It was depopulated as a result of a military assault between May 12–14, just before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
History
In 1859 the population was 150, and the cultivation was 21 feddans.
In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Umm ash Shuf as: "a small village well supplied with water from two springs on the north, on which side is a little garden."
A population list from about 1887 showed that Umm esh Shuf had about 375 inhabitants, all Muslim.
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Umm al-Shuf had a population of 252 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 353 Muslims, in a total of 73 houses.
In 1945, it had a population of 480 Muslim inhabitants, with 7,426 dunams of land. Of this, 107 dunums of land were for plantations and irrigable land, 6,175 for cereals, while 31 dunams were classified as built-up land.
1948 and aftermath
Umm ash Shauf became depopulated after an assault from IZL troops in early May, 1948.
IZL troops searched some refugees from Umm ash Shauf, and found one pistol and one rifle. They took seven young men from the refugees aside, and when none of them admitted to owning the weapons, they were all executed.
“Umm ash Shauf” enters the record as village in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Shauf, village and Haifa can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Umm ash Shauf” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Shauf, village and Haifa provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7881674. Authority coordinates are 32.553, 35.049. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1859, 1882 and 1887.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Umm ash Shauf”, its source revision and the description used here.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Umm ash Shauf” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.