Qibar (alternatively spelled ''Qaybar'', ''Qeibar'' or ''Qibare''), officially called al-Hawa ( ar, الهوى), is a village in northwestern Syria in the

Afrin District Afrin District ( ar, منطقة عفرين, manṭiqat Afrīn) is a district of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. The administrative centre is the city of Afrin. At the 2004 census, the district had a population of 172,095. Also available i ...

of the

Aleppo Governorate Aleppo Governorate ( ar, محافظة حلب / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥalab'' / ) is one of the fourteen governorates of Syria. It is the most populous governorate in Syria with a population of more than 4,867,000 (2011 Est.), almost 23% of t ...

. The village is also known as Arshqibar (''Arsha wa Qibar'') as it absorbed the adjacent village of 'Arsha. It is located in the plain of Jouma (Guma) at an elevation of 360 meters above sea level. Nearby localities include Afrin city to the west and Maryamin to the west, while Aleppo is 40 kilometers to the northwest. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Qibar had a population of 743 in the 2004 census.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Aleppo Governorate. Archived a

The population in 2016, during the Syrian Civil War, was estimated at over 6,000. In 2009, researcher Fermaz Gheribo recorded seventy

Yazidi Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...

families in the village and author Sebastian Maisel asserts half of the families in the village are Yazidis. It serves as the traditional seat of the chief Yazidi family of the Afrin area, the Darwish clan. The name of the village was officially changed to "al-Hawa" during the Arabization campaign of President Hafez al-Assad during the 1970s. The vicinity of Qibar contains abundant archaeological remains from ancient settlements and several caves containing ancient inscriptions. There are three nearby Yazidi shrines, namely the Cave of Cilmera, Melekadi Shrine and Hercerka Sheikh Huseyn Shrine. The village was the scene of a battle between the Byzantines and the Arabs which preceded the Battle of Azaz in 1030. The medieval Syrian geographer

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known for ...

mentioned the village in his 13th-century work. For ten years during French Mandatory rule in Syria, a Yazidi school operated in Qibar with a Christian and a Yazidi teacher and a Yazidi religious instructor from

Sinjar Sinjar ( ar, سنجار, Sinjār; ku, شنگال, translit=Şingal, syr, ܫܝܓܪ, Shingar) is a town in the Sinjar District of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. It is located about five kilometers south of the Sinjar Mountains. Its p ...

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Bibliography

* {{Aleppo Governorate, afrin Populated places in Afrin District Villages in Aleppo Governorate Yazidis in Syria Yazidi villages in Syria Kurdish settlements in Aleppo Governorate