The village stood on the southern, gently sloping section of Wadi al-Marah in the bilad al-rawha' (see Daliyat al-Rawha', Haifa sub-disctrict) and faced north. It was linked by a number of secondary roads to the coastal highway and the Haifa-Jenin highway, as well as to the neighboring villages. In the late nineteenth century, Umm al-Shawf was a small village that extended from the southeast to the northwest. Two springs north of the village supplied it with water. Its estimated 150 residents, who were Muslims, cultivated 21 faddans (1 faddan
= 100-250 dunums). 
The houses were made of stone with either mud or cement. The village had a mosque and a shrine for a local sage, Shaykh Abd Allah. The village economy was based on agriculture and animal husbandry; the most important crops were grain and olives. In 1944/45 a total of 6,175 dunums was allocated to cereals; 107 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 32 dunums were used for growing olives.
