Harran ( ar, حران) is a village in the

as-Suwayda Governorate As-Suwayda or Al-Suwayda Governorate ( ar, مُحافظة السويداء / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat as-Suwaydā’'') is one of the fourteen governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is the southernmost governorate and has an area of 5,550 km ...

in southwestern

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. It is situated in the southern Lajah plateau, northwest of the city of

as-Suwayda As-Suwayda ( ar, ٱلسُّوَيْدَاء / ALA-LC romanization: ''as-Suwaydāʾ''), also spelled ''Sweida'' or ''Swaida'', is a mainly Druze city located in southwestern Syria, close to the border with Jordan. It is the capital of As-Suwayda ...

. Harran had a population of 1,523 in the 2004 census.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Al-Suwayda Governorate. During the early

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

era, Harran's Arabic-speaking inhabitants were pagans, but by the late 6th century, the population had become

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

. A bilingual

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and Arabic inscription found in the village is among the earliest known appearances of written Arabic in Syria. In the early Ottoman era (16th century), Harran was a grain-producing Muslim hamlet. It was later abandoned, and then in the mid-19th century it was settled by

Druze The Druze (; ar, دَرْزِيٌّ, ' or ', , ') are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of ...

, who still inhabit the village.

History

Byzantine era

Harran was inhabited during the

era in Syria, as attested by an inscription found in the village dedicated to the goddess Athena dating from 212–375 CE.Trombley, 1995, p
369
/ref> A public hostel was built by four of the village's administrators in 397/98. It is unlikely that a majority of the Arabic-speaking inhabitants of Harran were Christians at that time. By the late 6th century, Harran's inhabitants were Christians and the village was part of the

Ghassanid The Ghassanids ( ar, الغساسنة, translit=al-Ġasāsina, also Banu Ghassān (, romanized as: ), also called the Jafnids, were an Arab tribe which founded a kingdom. They emigrated from southern Arabia in the early 3rd century to the Lev ...

tribal kingdom, a vassal of the Byzantines. A bilingual Arabic and Greek inscription was found in Harran dating from 568/69 CE.Fowden, 1999, p
163
��164 The inscription describes a

martyrium A martyrium (Latin) or martyrion ( Greek), plural ''martyria'', sometimes anglicized martyry (pl. martyries), is a church or shrine built over the tomb of a Christian martyr. It is associated with a specific architectural form, centered on a cen ...

built by an

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

phylarch A phylarch ( el, φύλαρχος, la, phylarchus) is a Greek title meaning "ruler of a tribe", from '' phyle'', "tribe" + ''archein'' "to rule". In Classical Athens, a phylarch was the elected commander of the cavalry provided by each of the ...

(equivalent to sheikh, chieftain) named Sharahil ibn Zalim. Sharahil may have been associated with the Ghassanids, since his name is not found in records mentioning the tribe. The inscription of Harran, along with two other Arabic inscriptions found in Zabad near

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

and Jabal Usays mountain east of Damascus depict the earliest known appearance of Arabic in

.Robin, 2012, p
307
/ref> The development of written Arabic in Syria at this time was likely to facilitate the spread of Christianity among Arab tribesmen living in the region's desert fringes. The Harran inscription read:

I, Sharahil, son of Zalim, have built this martyrium in the year 463 (568 CE).

Ottoman era

In 1596 Harran appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as part of the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' (subdistrict) of Bani Abdullah in the

Sanjak Hauran Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ) * Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province") * Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region") * el, Διοίκησις (''dioikēsis'', meaning "province") ...

. It had an entirely

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

population consisting of four households. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 40% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; the taxes totaled 3,350

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is der ...

. In 1838, Harran was noted as a ruin, situated "in the

Lejah The Lajat (/ALA-LC: ''al-Lajāʾ''), also spelled ''Lejat'', ''Lajah'', ''el-Leja'' or ''Laja'', is the largest lava field in southern Syria, spanning some 900 square kilometers. Located about southeast of Damascus, the Lajat borders the Hauran ...

itself". Harran was among five villages in the heart of the Lajah plateau that was settled by Druze by 1862; the villages were settled sometime between the early 19th century and 1862.Firro, 1992, p
175
/ref>

References

Bibliography

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External links