[7] The castle named in Frankish chronicles as Chastel Neuf (in medieval French) or Castellum Novum (in Latin), and known as Qal'at Hunin in Arabic, and as (Horvat) Mezudat Hunin in Modern Hebrew, was built in two phases by the Crusaders during the 12th and 13th centuries (1105–7, 1178 and 1240) and refortified by Mamluk sultan Baibars in 1266.

The dedicatory inscription has been tentatively read as saying that the prayer house was consecrated to Ja'far al-Sadiq, the sixth Shia Imam.

[12] In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Hunin as "[a] village, built of stone, joining on to ruined Crusading castle [..], and containing about 100 Moslems.

[16][17] British forces had advanced to a position at Tel Hazor against Turkish troops in 1918 and wished to incorporate all the sources of the River Jordan within British-controlled Palestine.

[21] In the 1945 statistics the population of Hunin (with Hula and Udeisa[dubious – discuss]) was 1620 Muslims,[2] with a total of 14,224 dunams of land.

[24] During a meeting in August 1948, the mukhtars of Hunin and other Shi'ite villages met with the Jews of kibbutz Kfar Giladi, declaring their willingness to be good citizens of Israel.

[6][24] Their proposal was conveyed to the Israeli government, where it received enthusiastic support from the Minorities Minister Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit.