A town of over 6,000 inhabitants,[1] Bani Zeid was founded when the villages of Deir Ghassaneh and Beit Rima merged to form a municipality in 1966 during the Jordanian rule.

[2] Bani Zeid owes its name to the Arab tribe that was granted the area as a fief by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in the 12th century for having served in the Muslim army during the first Crusades.

When Fathiya Barghouti Rheime was elected mayor in 2005, Bani Zeid became the first Palestinian locality with a woman as head of the municipality, in concurrence with nearby Ramallah.

In Beit Rima, sherds from the Iron Age I and IA II, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader/Ayyubid, Mamluk and Early Ottoman remains have been found.

[7] In the compendium of Jewish oral law known as the Mishnah (compiled in 189 CE), Beit Rima is mentioned as a place where they formerly produced a high-quality grape wine, and which was brought as an oblation (contribution) to the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Bani Zeid were granted the villages of Deir Ghassaneh and Beit Rima, as well as the nearby towns of Kafr Ein and Qarawa.

[2] It was not until 1293, after the Bahri Mamluks under Sultan Baibars conquered the coastal strip of Palestine and expelled the last of the Crusaders, that the Bani Zeid tribe settled in the villages offered to them a century earlier by Saladin.

Specific examples include the use of the ablaq technique of alternating stones of different colors, particularly red and white, that decorate the facades and gates of some houses.

[12] In 1480 Deir Ghassaneh-based tribesmen from the Bani Zeid attacked Jerusalem as retaliation for the governor's execution of some of its members who had been accused of revolting against the Burji Mamluk authorities.

Olive oil was the primary commodity that Bani Zeid Nahiya produced and the product was sold to local Ottoman officials and soap factories in Nablus.

[20] In 1838 English biblical scholars Edward Robinson and Eli Smith noted that the Bani Zeid Nahiya consisted of 18 inhabited localities and four khirbas (abandoned or ruined villages).

[24][25] Its members were generally referred to as Baraghithah and the clan consisted of nine branches whose collective power extended beyond the Bani Zeid sheikdom to the coastal plain of Palestine.

In one day of fighting, 20 men were killed, prompting Sureya Pasha, the governor of Jerusalem, to personally intervene with a detachment of Ottoman troops which forced both factions to withdraw.

The home of Deir Ghassaneh's sheikh, who maintained a level of sovereignty over about 15 villages and hamlets in the area, and the members of his family, were particularly large and sturdily built.

This allegation was evidenced by the disruption of Jerusalem's water supply by the peasant fighters of the Bani Zeid led by Sheikh Salih, who closed off the aqueduct from Solomon's Pools to the south of Bethlehem.

[25] In 1936, during the Arab revolt in Palestine, the British Air Force struck a group of 400 local militiamen gathered outside of Deir Ghassaneh, killing about 130 of the fighters.

[38] The British Mandate Antiquities Authority noted in a January 1947 report that Deir Ghassaneh was "built on a medieval site", and on a hill 500 meters (1,600 ft) west of the village was a two-domed shrine dedicated to a Sheikh Khawas.

[45] Bani Zeid is situated in the central highlands of the West Bank, off the southwestern cliffs of the mountainous spine that runs from the Hebron Hills to Jenin.

[52][53] In the Ottoman census of 1887, Deir Ghassaneh's population of 196 households (roughly 1,200 people) was homogeneous, everyone being Muslim, and with the exception of five individuals, all the males had been born in the village.

[47][59] In a 1961 census by Jordanian authorities, Deir Ghassaneh's population reached 1,461, but it declined drastically after more than half of the residents fled during the Six-Day War in June 1967.

According to the Bani Zeid Municipality, there are 26 grocery stores, 26 public service venues, 11 workshops, a bakery, a butchery and two olive oil presses in the town.

[64] Prior to the British Mandate period, boys would normally receive education in a kuttab, an elementary-type school with Islamic law and tradition having a major influence on the curriculum.

According to author and ethnographer Johann Bussow, their locations near Jerusalem also "contributed to the image of an Islamic Holy Land," which brought further prosperity to the inhabitants of the villages of Bani Zeid who benefited from providing services to pilgrims.

"[71] The veneration of the wely's tombs, a common feature in peasant life, did not derive from the orthodox Islam which was practiced more strictly in the urban centers, and was rooted in local pre-Islamic, including Christian, tradition.

The latter types consisted of a domed mausoleum known as a qubba, a shelter known as a makan nawm, a garden, a well and either a distinguishable olive or oak tree.

[73] The maqam honored what was locally considered to be the meditation site of al-Khawass, believed to be a Sufi holy man (wely) from Egypt who often visited the residents of the area.

[75] According to Palestinian architecture expert Suad Amiry, Maqam al-Khawwas's isolation and the ritual of having to travel uphill to reach the sanctuary added to the tranquil feeling of the visit.

[74] The late 19th-century chief of the Bani Zeid sheikhdom, Sheikh Salih al-Barghouti, resided in a large palace-like manor in Deir Ghassaneh.

The salamlek included a reception area, dining halls and a guesthouse while the khazeen consisted of workshops, food depots and horse stables.

[81] According to Amiry, Sheikh Salih's manor, along with other Barghouti family palace compounds, "was strongly influenced by urban architecture" in light of its "majestic scale, ornate fine stone work and the introverted spatial organisation."