Kaftin

Kaftin is a village in northern Syria, administratively part of the Idlib Governorate, located northwest of Idlib. The village is situated at the southern approach of the A'la Mountain. Nearby localities include Killi to the north, Hizano to the east, Kafr Yahmul to the southeast, Maarrat al-Ikhwan to the south, Haranabush to the southwest and Qurqania to the northwest. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Kaftin had a population of 2,346 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are predominantly members of the Druze community, one of the few Druze villages situated in northern Syria. Kaftin's inhabitants work primarily in agriculture and cultivate olives and cumin.HistoryOttoman eraDuring the late Ottoman era, in the late 1840s, Kaftin was a Druze village headed by a sheikh ("local chief") named Abu Sharif Nasif. At the time most of the once-large Druze community of A'la Mountain had fled the area after being embroiled in a feud between the two Muslim villages of Kafr Takharim and Armanaz in the early 19th-century. The weaker Muslim party had taken up safe haven with the Druzes of the area and the Druze consequently launched an attack on the stronger Muslim village. Soon after, however, the two Muslim factions declared a truce and together with Muslim fighters from Antioch they assaulted the Druze of A'la Mountain. The Druze were decisively defeated and their sheikh was killed resulting in a mass flight towards Mount Lebanon, the Hauran and Damascus. A small number of Druze had returned to Kaftin and A'la Mountain by the mid-19th-century.