This article is about the Palestinian village. For Jarba in southern Jordan, see Bedul. For the Syrian village, see Al-Jarba. For the Chalcolithic settlement, see Ein el-Jarba.
Pottery sherds from the Byzantine (10%), early Muslim (30%) and the Middle Ages (30%) have been found at Jarba.[3]
Ottoman era
Jarba, like all of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517. About 30% of the pottery sherds found in the village date back to this period.[3] In the 1596 Ottoman tax registers, it was located in the nahiya of Jabal Sami, part of Sanjak of Nablus. Jarba was listed as an entirely Muslim village with a population of 11 households and 2 bachelors. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, and goats and/or beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a tax on people from the Nablus area, a total of 1,500 akçe.[4]
In 1838 el-Jurba was noted as a village in the District of esh-Sha'rawiyeh esh-Shurkiyeh, the eastern part.[5][6]
In 1870, Victor Guérin noted it as a small village situated on a neighboring hill from Misilyah.[7]
In 1882 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Jurba as: "a small village on the side of a slope, with olives to the south."[8]
In the 1944/5 statistics the population was 100, all Muslims,[11] with 3,530 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[12] 100 dunams were used for plantations and irrigable land, 1,553 for cereals,[13] while 2 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[14]