Deir al-Asad (; ) is an Arab town in the Galilee region of Israel, near Karmiel. Together with the adjacent town of Bi'ina it formed the site of the Crusader monastery town of St. George de la Beyne, an administrative center of the eponymous fief which spanned part of the central Galilee. Control of the fief changed several times from the noble Milly family to Joscelyn III of Courtenay and ultimately to the Teutonic Order before the area passed to Mamluk rule in the late 13th century. Settlement continued under the Mamluks and the village's St. George monastery was mentioned as treating the mentally ill in the late 14th century. The modern Muslim town of Deir al-Asad, previously known as Deir al-Bi'ina or Deir al-Khidr, was established in 1516 when the Ottoman sultan Selim I granted its monastery as a waqf (religious endowment) to the Sufi sage Shaykh Muhammad al-Asad, who settled in it with his family and devotees. The village's original Christian population was expelled by the same order and relocated to Bi'ina, while a Druze community which established itself in the town emigrated to the Hauran by the late 1870s. The village was captured by Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, immediately after which it was temporarily emptied of its inhabitants and looted by Israeli troops before its residents were allowed to return, although a number of inhabitants became Palestinian refugees in the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon. A significant part of its agricultural lands were confiscated by the authorities in 1962 and formed part of the new Jewish city of Karmiel. Most of Deir al-Asad's residents belong to the clans of Asadi, descendants of Shaykh Muhammad al-Asad, and Dabbah, established in the village in the 18th century. In 2003 Deir al-Asad was merged with Bi'ina and nearby Majd al-Krum to form the single municipality of Shaghur, the name of the Ottoman district in which the towns had once been part, but the municipal union was dissolved in 2008. Etymology Deir al-Asad means "the lion's monastery" in Arabic. History Crusader and Mamluk period In the Crusader period, the immediate region operated as a fiefdom, known as St. George de la Beyne. Deir al-Asad and Bi'ina were the actual village of St. George de la Beyne and Deir al-Asad likely served as the administrative center of the fief, which included Sajur and Buqei'a. According to the historian Joshua Prawer,