Al-Funduq and Jinsafut are located 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) east of Qalqiliya. It is bordered by Immatin to the east, Deir Istiya to the south, Wadi Qana (in Salfit Governorate) to the west and Hajja to the north.[1]
Ceramics from the Byzantine era have been found here,[5] and it has been suggested that this was the place Fondeka, once inhabited by Samaritans.[6][7]
During the Crusader period the village was inhabited by Muslims, according to the historian Diya al-Din al-Maqdisi. A Hanbali scholar named Ahmad ibn Abd al-Daim al-Maqaddasi al-Hanbali was born in the village in 575 AH/1180 CE, dying there in 668 AH/March 1270 CE.[8][9] Followers of the Hanbali scholar Ibn Qudamah (1146/47-1223) also lived in the village,[10] and during this period al-Funduq was home to a well-known Muslim sheikh named Abd Allah.[11][12]
The place appeared in 1596 Ottomantax registers as Funduq, being in the Nahiya of Bani Sa'b of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 86 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, goats and beehives, and a press for olives or grapes, in addition to occasional revenues and a fixed sum for people of the Nablus area; a total of 10,500 akçe.[13]
In 1870/1871 (1288 AH), an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Bani Sa'b.[17]
In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village as "a small poor village by the main road, with wells to the north and two sacred places; it stands on high ground," and located in the Beni Sab district.[7]
In the 1945 census El Funduq had a population was 100 Muslims,[20] with 1,619 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[21] Of this, 43 dunams were for plantations or irrigated land, 1,026 for cereals,[22] while 14 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[23]
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 18
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 59Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 106
^Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 156
^Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 26
^Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 353
Avi-Yonah, M. (1976). Gazetteer of Roman Palestine. QEDEM 5. Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and CARTA. p. 89. (Avi Yonah, 1976, p. 89)
Dorsey, David A. (1987). "Shechem and the Road Network of Central Samaria". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (268): 57–70. doi:10.2307/1356994. JSTOR1356994. S2CID163292710. ("a ruin with Iron II pottery"; citing a 1972 Hebrew source.)