This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.An-Nabi Samwil, also called al-Nabi Samuil (Arabic: النبي صموئيل an-Nabi Samu'il, translit: "the prophet Samuel"), is a Palestinian village in the Quds Governorate of the State of Palestine, located in the West Bank (Area C), four kilometers north of Jerusalem.

[3] The purported tomb itself is in an underground chamber of the mosque, which has been repurposed after 1967 as a synagogue, today with separate prayer areas for Jewish men and women.

Nabi Samwil is situated atop of a mountain, 890 meters above sea level, in the Seam Zone, four kilometers north of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat and southwest of Ramallah.

According to him, the Christian Crusaders had found the bones of Samuel "close to a Jewish synagogue" in Ramla on the coastal plain (which he misidentified as biblical Ramah), and reburied them at present-day Nabi Samwil.

[12] Jerusalem-born geographer al-Muqaddasi recounted in 985 CE, a story which he had heard from his uncle concerning the place: A certain sultan wanted to take possession of Dayr Shamwil, which he describes as a village about a farsakh from Jerusalem.

[4] King Baldwin II of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem entrusted Nabi Samwil to Cistercians religious order, who built a monastery there and then handed it over to the Premonstratensians in the 1120s.

[19] Jewish pilgrimage, which favoured visits in April and May each year, resumed after the Ayyubids conquered the area, and it became an important center for Muslim-Jewish interaction.

[20] During the Mamluk period, Christian pilgrims continued to visit the site, including the traveller known as John Mandeville, and Margery Kempe.

Though they occasionally encountered difficulties with local notables, the Jews' right to visit the shrine was reaffirmed twice by the Ottomans, and the sultan asked the qadi of Jerusalem to punish anyone who might obstruct their right and the long tradition of Jewish pilgrimage.

Mujir ad-Din referring to Jerusalem's size writes "From the north it reaches the village wherein is the tomb of the prophet Shamwil, may Allah bless him and give him peace.

[24] He further noted that the "mosk is here the principal object; and is regarded by Jews, Christians, and Muhammedans, as covering the tomb of the prophet Samuel.

[29] Nabi Samwil was heavily damaged by Turkish shells in 1917 while fighting British forces, but the village was rebuilt and resettled in 1921.

[4] After Israel's victory and occupation in the war, during which most of the village's 1,000 inhabitants[39][40] had fled, the shrine became predominantly Jewish, and settlers attempted to wrest control of the area.

[41][20] Throughout the 1970s, the Israeli authorities demolished the historic village built around the shrine, forcing its inhabitants into ramshackle buildings further down the hill.

[42] Since the mid-2000s, Nabi Samwil, excluding the shrine, became part of an area known as the "Seam Zone", which denotes the land between the separation barrier erected during the Second Intifada, and the borders of Jerusalem municipality.

A group of 90 Bedouins living in al Jib who had been evicted from Nabi Samwil were refused permission to move back because the village lies in Area C and it would be difficult for them to acquire building permits.