Al-Riqama ( ar, الرقاما, also spelled ar-Raqamah) is a town in central

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 ...

, administratively part of the

Homs Governorate Homs Governorate ( ar, مُحافظة حمص / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥimṣ'') is one of the fourteen governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is situated in central Syria. Its area differs in various sources, from to . It is thus geographical ...

, located 34 kilometers southeast of

Homs Homs ( , , , ; ar, حِمْص / ALA-LC: ; Levantine Arabic: / ''Ḥomṣ'' ), known in pre-Islamic Syria as Emesa ( ; grc, Ἔμεσα, Émesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level ...

. Nearby localities include

Dardaghan Dardaghan ( ar, دردغان, also spelled ''al-Dardaghan'') is a village in central Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate, located southeast of Homs. Nearby localities include Jandar to the west, Hisyah to the southwest and al-Riq ...

to the southwest,

Shayrat Shayrat ( ar, الشعيرات, ash-Shuʿayrāt, also spelled Sha'irat) is a village in central Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate, located southeast of Homs on the western fringes of the Syrian Desert. Nearby localities include ...

to the southeast and Tell al-Naqa further to the north. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), al-Riqama had a population of 3,900 in the 2004 census.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Homs Governorate. Its inhabitants are predominantly

Alawites The Alawis, Alawites ( ar, علوية ''Alawīyah''), or pejoratively Nusayris ( ar, نصيرية ''Nuṣayrīyah'') are an ethnoreligious group that lives primarily in Levant and follows Alawism, a sect of Islam that originated from Shia Isla ...

. Many of al-Riqama's inhabitants work in agriculture, cultivating dry cereals, grapes and almonds in irrigated fields, and raise sheep. The town's traditional houses are built from stone and have wood roofing. Al-Riqama had been classified as an abandoned village or ''khirba'' by English scholar

Eli Smith Eli Smith (born September 13, 1801, in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (Whitney) Smith, and died January 11, 1857, in Beirut, Lebanon) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from Andov ...

in 1838.Smith, 1841, p. 175. The town contains ruined historic structures noted for the dominant cone-shaped dome roofs. The structures have square bases with two-meter-high walls and are built from red

mud brick A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also been fi ...

References

Bibliography

* Alawite communities in Syria Populated places in Homs District Towns in Syria {{HomsSY-geo-stub