Mashhad is located on the site of Gath-hepher, an ancient Israelite town mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the home of Jonah; its supposed tomb is still pointed out by locals.[6]
Archaeological findings in Mashad include a third-century Aramaic gravestone, indicating Jewish settlement at the site during the Late Roman period, and a stone inscribed with Greek letters now reused in Mashad's mosque.[7]
Ottoman Empire
In 1517, the village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the Ottoman tax registers under the name of Mashad Yunis, as being in the nahiya (subdistrict) of Tabariyya, part of Safad Sanjak. It had a population of 31 households and 6 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on agricultural products, which included wheat and barley, fruit trees, vegetable and fruit garden, orchard, as well as on goats and/or beehives; a total of 865 Akçe. All of the revenue went to a waqf.[8][9]
In 1838 it was noted as a Muslim village in the Nazareth district.[11][12]
In 1875, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, which he estimated had at most 300 inhabitants.[13]
In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Meshed as "A small village, built of stone, surrounding the traditional tomb of Jonah -a low building surmounted by two white-washed domes. It contains about 300 Moslems, and is situated on the top of a hill, without gardens. The water supply is from cisterns."[14]
A population list from about 1887 showed that el Meshed had about 450 inhabitants; all Muslims.[15]
In the 1945 statistics the population was 660, all Muslims,[18] with 11,067 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey.[19] Of this, 378 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 4,663 for cereals,[20] while 24 dunams were built-up land.[21]
^"This place is probably the Gittah-Hepher or (Gath ha Hepher of (Joshua 19:13), and (2 Kings 14:25). Jerome says that the prophet Jonah was buried at Gath, about two miles from Sepphoris. Benjamin of Tudela says that the prophet's tomb was on a hill near Sepphoris. Conder and Kitchener, 1881, p. 413
^Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied from the Safad-district was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
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