Hibran, also spelled Hebran or Hubran (), is a village in southern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, administratively part of the Suwayda Governorate, located south of Suwayda. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Hibran had a population of 3,166 in the 2004 census.

History

Hibran was noted in the 1596 Ottoman

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

under the name of ''Hubran an-Nasara'', being located in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, 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 divisi ...

'' of ''Bani Nasiyya'' in the Liwa of Hawran. It had a population of 23 households and 14 bachelors; all

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

. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 40% on various agricultural products, including wheat (=1500

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

), barley (900), summer crops (900), goats and beehives (100); a total of 3,400

. Ottoman tax records indicate the revenues of Hibran were farmed out to Muhammad Alam al-Din, a

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

emir Emir (; ' (), also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as amir, is a word of Arabic language, Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocratic, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person po ...

who fled

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon (, ; , ; ) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It is about long and averages above in elevation, with its peak at . The range provides a typical alpine climate year-round. Mount Lebanon is well-known for its snow-covered mountains, ...

in 1667, in 1669–1671. According to the historian Kais Firro, Hibran was one of twenty-eight villages in the

Hauran The Hauran (; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...

settled by Druze before 1812; in 1838 Hibran was noted as Druse village by

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

. The Druze chieftain Ismail al-Atrash encouraged further Druze migration to Hibran, among a number of other Hauran villages, from Mount Lebanon in the 1850s.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{As-Suwayda Governorate, suwayda Populated places in as-Suwayda District Druze communities in Syria