Ammatour is a town and municipality in the Shouf District in Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon. It lies 57 km southeast of Beirut, at an elevation of between 800 and 1,050 meters above sea level. The name "Ammatour" is derived from the words 'Ain Maa Tour', meaning the spring of the mountain. Ammatour is one of Lebanon's richest villages in sources of water with more than 365 springs, fountains, and a river located within its jurisdiction.
History
Politically and administratively, Ammatour was in 1711 declared one of the five "Special status" villages in Mount Lebanon, which were outside the control of any "iqta'". Instead, its inhabitants paid their land tax directly to the treasury of the office of the Ottoman governor of Mount Lebanon. Ammatour occupies a significant religious position as the birthplace of five shuyukh uqqal, who serve as the religious leaders of the Druze community. Furthermore, the first Patriarch of the Melkite GreekCatholic Church in the Middle East was anointed and appointed in Ammatour in 1724. In recent years, a descendant of a Melkite family from the town, Bishop Joseph Gebara, was appointed the Melkite Catholic Bishop of São Paulo, Brazil. In 1927, the municipality of Ammatour was founded, and documented records indicate that the town had mayors since 1870.
Demographics
Ammatour has about 5,000 registered residents made up of a Druze majority and a Christian minority consisting ofMelkite Catholics and Maronites. Its communities have lived together in harmony for centuries. The largest and best known of its Druze families are Abou Chakra and Abdel Samad, both of which have played major political, economic and religious roles in Lebanon's history, particularly during the 19th century. The largest Christian families are Salem, Jebara, Lutaif and Bou Raad.
Culture
Ammatour enjoys one of the highest literacy and higher education rates in Lebanon; many of its inhabitants hold prominent political, educational, cultural, financial and military jobs in Lebanon and abroad. Its public school, founded in 1926, is one of the oldest public schools in Lebanon, and the second to have its students sit for the intermediate certificate examinations. In 1936 a group of young, educated people from Ammatour founded one of Lebanon's first public libraries, and named it "Ghurfat Al-Mutala'a Ad-Dimuqratiyya". Within a few years, in 1943, they published their own magazine “Beit Ath-Thaqaafa”, which was one of the first of its kind in the country. The town's cultural activities are undertaken by its social and sporting clubs and associations, including: The Social Sporting Club of Ammatour - Amigos Ammatour sports association, The Ammatour Women's Association, and The Cultural Meeting Association . The Amigos are one of the bestsport clubs in the region, and has had a great era during the 1970s and 1980s, winning a lot of trophies in several sports, including: volleyball, basketball, swimming, chess, table tennis. In mid-September Ammatour celebrates its annual festival “Eid Az-Zaitoun”, which usually has rich musical and singing programmes marking the end of summer and welcoming the approaching oliveharvest season. Furthermore, Ammatour is now home to one of the world’s largest tree nurseries. It’s only half-finished at the moment, but when it is complete it will be a place where a million trees can be grown at a time and then transported to areas at risk of desertification and other threats to the environment.
