The author Sheikh Ali Mroue writes with sorrow that despite years of searching, he found almost no written records of Jbaa before the 8th century AH — not because nothing happened, but because what existed was deliberately destroyed. Jbaa's school ran for three continuous centuries, filling its libraries with thousands of volumes. What survived is a remnant rescued from the flames — carried away by scholars fleeing to Iraq, India, and Iran, embedded in traditions that persist there still.
Pre-Islamic Era
Ancient Semitic Settlement
The book documents that Jbaa shares its Aramaic root-name with villages in Palestine and greater Syria, pointing to continuous habitation since Phoenician times. The mountain's natural defenses made it a fortified settlement on ancient trade routes between the coast and the highland interior. Three thousand years of habitation left their mark in the soil, in the names of springs, and in the deep agricultural terracing of its slopes.
Before the 8th Century AH
Three Centuries of Scholarship — Lost
A school of legendary reputation operated in Jbaa for three centuries — drawing students in jurisprudence, philosophy, literature, and the sciences from across the Islamic world. The author writes that this school "raised the banner of learning for a long time, with students and teachers and great scholars filling its halls." Its records were lost — burned by al-Jazzar, hidden in the walls of other books, or carried away by fleeing scholars whose descendants still hold fragments in archives abroad.
787 AH · 1384 CE
Al-Shahid al-Awwal — The First Martyr
Sheikh Muhammad bin Maki al-Juba'i — the First Martyr — was arrested in Damascus after a campaign of legal persecution, imprisoned for a full year, then executed. In those final months in his cell, he composed al-Lum'a al-Dimashqiyya in seven days — one of the most influential texts in Shia jurisprudence, still taught across the Islamic world today. He wrote verses from prison asking to be buried near the Imam in Karbala. His death at the hands of state power for the crime of scholarship established the archetype that would be repeated, 174 years later, with al-Shahid al-Thani.
911–966 AH · 1506–1558 CE
Al-Shahid al-Thani — The Golden Age of Jbaa
Zayn al-Din al-Juba'i al-Amili, born in Jbaa in 911 AH, memorized the Quran by age nine and lost his father at fourteen. He traveled to Meis, Karak, Damascus — where he studied philosophy, medicine, logic, and jurisprudence — then to Egypt, Jerusalem, Mecca, Baghdad, Istanbul, and Rome, studying under masters of all five legal schools. He returned to Jbaa in 952 AH, and for the next fourteen years transformed it into an international seminary. Students arrived from Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. He was denounced to the Ottoman sultan and executed in Istanbul at age 55. He authored over 53 works — several of which remain mandatory texts in seminaries from Najaf to Qom today.
1175 AH · 1761 CE
Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar: The Burning
Al-Jazzar's forces descended on Jbaa and systematically confiscated every manuscript, every volume, every book they could find — from the libraries of five great families whose combined collection numbered five thousand volumes. The fires burned for six days. The author writes: "al-Jazzar, the black Ottoman tyrant, swept through the Amili lands with corruption and plunder, confiscating all the books and manuscripts from libraries full of every variety of knowledge and science." Al-Jazzar died in 1804. The ashes of those libraries remain one of the greatest losses in the history of Arabic learning.
1860 CE
Jbaa as Sanctuary
When sectarian violence erupted across Mount Lebanon in 1860, Jbaa opened its homes to Christian families fleeing from the lowlands. The book records this as an expression of the village's deepest character: the same mountain that had sheltered wandering scholars for centuries now sheltered frightened families. No blood was shed within its borders.
1920–1943
Resistance to the French Mandate
The French, determined to impoverish Jabal Amel and break its resistance, imposed heavy weapon-surrender taxes — demanding payment in gold. When they realized the taxes had been paid, they invented new levies: a "sword tax," a "war penalty" of one hundred thousand gold liras. The book states plainly: when taxation failed to crush the region, the French turned to inflaming sectarian tensions — arming some communities and disarming others. This strategy failed in Jbaa, defeated by the village's own vigilance and its tradition of inter-communal bonds.
1925 onwards
Cultural Revival
By 1925, the book records, Jbaa had begun to shake off the weight of its hardships — staging festivals of poetry, music, and folk performance, hosting summer celebrations that drew visitors from across southern Lebanon. The tradition of Shi'r Zajali — oral improvised poetry competitions — was held every summer without entrance tickets, open to all who came. Poets from all of Lebanon competed in Jbaa's arena.
1952–1966
The Municipal Renaissance
Sheikh Ali Mroue served as mayor beginning in 1952, inaugurating a period of documented civic renewal: water diversion projects (1955), road construction, three agricultural bridges (1956), pine grove restoration and replanting, agricultural fairs in 1955, 1957, and 1959, the founding of the Social Health Center, and the construction of a new school building (1958, expanded 1966). In June 1965, Jbaa's municipality stood out among all Lebanese municipalities at the National Development Conference at the Phoenicia Hotel, Beirut — praised by both the Prime Minister and the President.
