The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% agricultural products, including on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and/or beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 5,200 akçe.

[7] Modern Sanur was founded by a branch of the Jarrar family that migrated to the site from Jaba', during the late Ottoman era.

[10] In 1785, under the leadership of Sheikh Yusuf al-Jarrar, a formidable fortress was built in the village,[11] which guarded access to Nablus from the north.

[10] Unlike the other roughly two dozen throne villages in Palestine's central highlands, Sanur was completely encircled by fortified walls.

[12] In the mid and late 18th century, the Arab sheikh Zahir al-Umar emerged as the autonomous ruler of the Galilee and the coastal town of Acre, which he fortified.

The Jarrar family entered into a coalition with the Beni Sakhr tribe, but failed to prevent Zahir from taking over Nazareth and the Jezreel Valley in 1735.

Zahir pursued the Jarrar family's forces into Jabal Nablus but once he reached Sanur, he realized he would not be able to overcome its fortress.

[14] In 1764, the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Uthman Pasha al-Kurji, attempted to subdue Sanur, and battled the Jarrar family under the leadership of Muhammad al-Jarrar in Jabal Nablus.

When some of the rural landlords, led by the Jarrar and Qasim families, revolted against Abdullah's appointment, he laid siege to Sanur with the help of reinforcements sent by Emir Bashir Shihab II of Mount Lebanon.

As retaliation for the casualties inflicted on Abdullah Pasha's men during the siege, he had the fortress's walls and towers torn down.

[15] In the summer of 1838, Biblical scholar Edward Robinson visited the village and noted that it was "once considerable", but following its destruction by Abdullah Pasha, it "was a shapeless mass of ruins, among which a few families still find a home, living chiefly in caves.

"[17] Robinson also noted that Sanur was not mentioned in medieval sources,[17] and that it was located in the esh-Sharawiyeh esh-Shurkiyeh (the Eastern) district, north of Nablus.

[25] In the 1945 statistics, during the last years of the British Mandate, the population of Sanur (including the hamlet of Nukheil) was 1,020 Muslims.

The nearest localities to Sanur are Meithalun to the east, Misilyah to the northeast, Zawiya to the north, Anzah and Ajjah to the west, and Jaba' to the southwest.