The name of the village was shared with that of an Islamic fort constructed there early in the period of Arab Caliphate rule (638–1099 CE) in Palestine.

According to the Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, the town of Kafr Lam was established near Qisarya by the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn ´Abd al-Malik (AD 724-743).

[7][8] The fort built, in the shape of a Roman castrum, was erected during the late Umayyad or early Abbasid period, as a ribat meant to guard against attacks from the sea and invasion by the former rulers, the Byzantines.

[12][14] In 1232, the Casal of Cafarlet was sold to the Hospitallers for 16,000 Saracen besants, the increased value being a result of it having been fortified after a raid on the lordship of Caesarea by troops from Damascus in 1227.

For example, Mary Rogers, the sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, visited Kafr Lam in 1856 and wrote that its houses were built of mud and stone and that the fields around the village abounded in Indian wheat, millet, sesame, tobacco, and orchards.

[20] French explorer Victor Guérin visited in 1870 and noted that Kafr Lam was situated on top of a small hill and was inhabited by about 300 villagers.

[21] In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Kafr Lam as a small village of adobe hovels crowded within the ancient walls.

On 15 May 1948, the first day of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, troops from the Carmeli Brigade occupied Kafr Lam and neighbouring Sarafand, and briefly garrisoned the two villages.

Thus, on 7 October, Haifa District HQ ordered the 123rd Battalion to stop all demolition activities in "Qisarya, Atlit, Kafr Lam and Tiberias"; all of which contained Roman or Crusader era ruins.