The Saadeh Family Website

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The Saadeh Family and Birzeit


The Saadeh family is part of the Abdallah clan, one of six clans that are the founders of Birzeit. Of the six clans whose descendants comprise the inhabitants of modern Birzeit, four clans; Abdallah, Im 'Eid, Shahin and  Musallam share lineage going back to one ancestor called Numeir (1450 AD).


The other two clans of Birzeit, Awwad and Al-Washaha are not related by lineage to each other or to any of the other four clans.


The Saadeh and Shehadeh families' affiliation with the Abdallah clan is matrilineal rather than patrilineal, hence the two families have been dubbed 'Al-Tayaha', the Incomers ( Literally Tayaha means 'Those who came upon us' ) by Birzeit townsfolk.


Tradition holds that the origin of both the Saadeh and Shehadeh families goes back to Nazareth, where a member of the Farah family, a family that still thrives in Nazareth and who share lineage to Numeir with Birzeit clans, had married a woman from Birzeit belonging to the Abdallah clan. Ostensibly due to mistreatment by her husband's family, possibly also to escape a vendetta, her brothers went to Nazareth and brought her back to Birzeit along with her children. Although nothing is known of her female offsprings (if any), her two male sons, Saadeh and Shehadeh are the founders of our two families.


Saadeh and Shehadeh were allotted lands in Birzeit in line with what their kin owned, and were affiliated to the Abdallah clan, the clan of their mother.