Deir al-Asad (; ) is an Arab village in the Galilee region of Israel, near Karmiel. Together with the adjacent village of Bi'ina it formed the site of the Crusader monastery town of St. George de la Beyne, an administrative center of the eponymous fief which spanned part of the central Galilee. Control of the fief changed several times from the noble Milly family to Joscelyn III of Courtenay and ultimately to the Teutonic Order before the area passed to Mamluk rule in the late 13th century. Settlement continued under the Mamluks and the village's St. George monastery was mentioned as treating the mentally ill in the late 14th century. The modern Muslim village of Deir al-Asad, previously known as Deir al-Bi'ina or Deir al-Khidr, was established in 1516 when the Ottoman sultan Selim I granted its monastery as a waqf (religious endowment) to the Sufi sage Shaykh Muhammad al-Asad, who settled in it with his family and devotees. The village's original Christian population was expelled by the same order and relocated to Bi'ina, while a Druze community which established itself in the village emigrated to the Hauran by the late 1870s.
The village was captured by Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, immediately after which it was temporarily emptied of its inhabitants and looted by Israeli troops before its residents were allowed to return, although a number of inhabitants became Palestinian refugees in the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon. A significant part of its agricultural lands were confiscated by the authorities in 1962 and formed part of the new Jewish city of Karmiel. Most of Deir al-Asad's residents belong to the clans of Asadi, descendants of Shaykh Muhammad al-Asad, and Dabbah, established in the village in the 18th century. In 2003 Deir al-Asad was merged with Bi'ina and nearby Majd al-Krum to form the single municipality of Shaghur, the name of the Ottoman district in which the towns had once been part, but the municipal union was dissolved in 2008.
Etymology
Deir al-Asad means "the lion's monastery" in Arabic.
History
Crusader and Mamluk period
In the Crusader period, the immediate region operated as a fiefdom, known as St. George de la Beyne. Deir al-Asad and Bi'ina were the actual village of St. George de la Beyne and Deir al-Asad likely served as the administrative center of the fief, which included Sajur and Buqei'a. According to the historian Joshua Prawer, the Crusader name "la Beyne" was from the Arabic name of the village "al-Bi'ina" and St. George was likely a corruption of the Arabic word sajara, which means "grove". It was exchanged by a certain Philip, head of the Milly family from Champagne, for lands in Transjordan and the hills around Hebron. The king of Jerusalem became the fief's seigneur and the services of Henricus de Milly, a wealthy relative of Philip, were transferred to the king as well. Henricus and his household continued to reside in St. George de la Beyne. A Crusader building still exists in the center of Deir al-Asad and Bi'ina which was identified as a Carthusian abbey. St. George de la Beyne was bequeathed to Henricus's daughter Helvis.
By 1182, St. George de la Beyne came under the control of Joscelyn III of Courtenay. In 1187 the area was captured by Muslim forces under Saladin before passing again to Crusader control. While it was still under Muslim rule, the fief was transferred to the Pisans of Conrad de Montferrat. At a later point it was transferred to a descendant of Henricus and Josceleyn III. Between 1220 and 1249 the fief came under the full control of the Teutonic Order.
The combined site of Deir al-Asad and Bi'ina remained inhabited under the Mamluks. The historian al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) noted it was a village of the Sajur district and contained a monastery. A Mamluk source active as the Islamic head judge of Safad in the 1370s, Shams al-Din al-Uthmani, noted that the monastery treated the mentally ill.