Kafr Buhum كفر بهم Kfarbo | |
|---|---|
 Skyline of Kafr Buhum | |
  Kafr Buhum Location in Syria | |
| Coordinates:35°3′40″N36°41′50″E / 35.06111°N 36.69722°E /35.06111; 36.69722 | |
| Country |  Syria |
| Governorate | Hama |
| District | Hama |
| Subdistrict | Hama |
| Elevation | 330 m (1,080 ft) |
| Population (2004) | |
• Total | 12,194 |
Kafr Buhum (Arabic:كفر بهم,romanized: Kafr Buhum; also transliteratedKfarbuhum andKafr Bihem), commonly referred to asKfarbo (Arabic:كفربو), is a town in centralSyria, administratively part of theHama Governorate, located 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) southwest ofHama.[1] Nearby localities includeal-Rabiaa andMatnin to the northwest,Tayzin to the north,al-Khalidiyah to the east,Tell Qartal to the southeast,Birin to the south andal-Muah to the southwest. According to theSyria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Kafr Buhum had a population of 12,194 in the 2004 census.[2] Its inhabitants are predominantly Christian.[3] It is 330 meters (1082 ft) above the sea level.
Kafr Buhum was the birthplace of PatriarchIgnatius III Atiyah of theGreek Orthodox Church of Antioch (r. 1619–1634). In the mid-17th century, the village was noted as wealthy and had a population of 1,025 men, according to PatriarchMacarius III Ibn al-Za'im (r. 1647–1672).[4]
Due to its access to irrigation from theOrontes River, Kafr Buhum was one of the cotton-growing villages of the Hama region in the 18th century.[5] The date of the Monastery of St. George in Kafr Buhum is not known, though its oldest dated manuscript, penned by a local deacon, is from 1805.[4] By the 19th century, duringOttoman rule (1516–1918), Kafr Buhum was one of the older-established villages in the environs ofHama. In a tax record from 1828–1829, it consisted of 72feddans, making it one of the largest villages in theHama Sanjak. Kafr Buhum andMaharda, the two large Christian villages of the area, paid thejizya (poll tax for Christians), though this accounted for 2% of its overall taxes, suggesting a relative clemency by the authorities on the rural Christian communities at that time.[6]
Kafr Buhum contained a small Jewish community earlier during Ottoman rule but most had emigrated by the mid-19th century;Aleppine Jews maintained commercial interests in the village up to the mid-1830s.[7] Kafr Buhum was also invested in by theurban elite of Hama, including theagha Abdallah Agha Tayfur, in the early 1840s.[8]
In 1961 a cement factory was built in Kafr Buhum and at the time of its nationalization later in the decade it employed about 260 workers.[9] Kafr Buhum's bid to become its ownnahiya (subdistrict) center, instead of part ofHama Nahiyah, was denied in 1991 due to opposition from the local administration of Hama city, which sought to avoid a weakening of its administrative influence in the area.[10]
