Darʿā

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درعا / Darʿā
Darʿā
Darʿā (Syria)
Red pog.svg
Coordinates 32 ° 38 ′  N , 36 ° 6 ′  E Coordinates: 32 ° 38 ′  N , 36 ° 6 ′  E
Basic data
Country Syria

Governorate

Darʿā
ISO 3166-2 SY-DR
height 520 m
Residents 97,969 (2004)
politics
governor Mohammad Khaled al-Hannus

Darʿā ( Arabic درعا, DMG Darʿā , also Dera, Dera'a ; in the Old Testament 'Edre'î אֶדְרֶעִי, in antiquity Adraa in Greek  Ἀδράα , in Arabic in the Middle Ages  أذرِعات Adhri'at , DMG Aḏriʿāt ) is the capital of the Darʿā governorate in southwest Syria .

location

Darʿā is located 530 meters above sea level in the Hauran region, a little over 100 kilometers south of Damascus on the expressway to Amman , 5 kilometers north of the Jordanian border.

Darʿā
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.
 
 
61
 
13
3
 
 
49
 
15th
4th
 
 
42
 
18th
6th
 
 
15th
 
24
9
 
 
3.4
 
29
13
 
 
1
 
31
16
 
 
0
 
33
18th
 
 
0
 
33
19th
 
 
0.4
 
31
17th
 
 
9.4
 
28
13
 
 
23
 
21st
8th
 
 
46
 
15th
5
Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm
Source: WMO
Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Darʿā
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 13.3 14.7 18.0 23.6 28.5 31.3 32.6 32.6 31.3 27.8 21.0 15.2 O 24.2
Min. Temperature (° C) 3.2 4.0 6.0 9.3 12.5 15.8 18.3 18.6 16.5 12.8 7.8 4.6 O 10.8
Precipitation ( mm ) 60.9 49.4 42.3 15.2 3.4 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 9.4 22.9 45.9 Σ 250.8
Rainy days ( d ) 10 11 7th 4th 1 0 0 0 0 2 5 8th Σ 48
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
13.3
3.2
14.7
4.0
18.0
6.0
23.6
9.3
28.5
12.5
31.3
15.8
32.6
18.3
32.6
18.6
31.3
16.5
27.8
12.8
21.0
7.8
15.2
4.6
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
N
i
e
d
e
r
s
c
h
l
a
g 		60.9
49.4
42.3
15.2
3.4
1.0
0.0
0.0
0.4
9.4
22.9
45.9
  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Source: WMO

Demographics

The city has 97,969 inhabitants according to the 2004 census, mostly Sunnis . In 1942 there were 10,000 inhabitants.

Infrastructure

At Darʿā there is a Palestinian refugee camp with around 6000 refugees.

Since 1908 the city was a railway junction of the Hejaz Railway . Here the branch line to the Mediterranean port of Haifa branched off from the main line Damascus - Medina (interrupted since 1946) and another branch line in an easterly direction to Bosra, which is about 40 km away . The city's economic base is agriculture . The city is the market town for the surrounding region, which mainly grows wheat and barley .

The Al-Omari Mosque is located in the city .

history

Early history (Edreï)

According to the biblical tradition, Edreï was a city of the Amorite king Og before it was conquered by the Israelites when they took the land ( Num 21.33–35  EU ; Dtn 1.4  EU , 3.1–11 EU ; Jos 12.4  EU ). It became part of the settlement area of ​​the Manasse tribe ( Jos 13,12.31  EU ). Until the conquest of Aram-Damascus in 733 BC BC by the Assyrians , the Israelites rivaled the Damascus for supremacy in this area. The city was an important trading center, especially for grain , and known for its wine and oil .

Antiquity (adraa)

218 BC Adraa, now the capital of Batanea , was taken over by the Seleucids under Antiochus III. conquered.

In the Hellenistic-Roman period, Adraa belonged to the Decapolis and became part of the Nabatean Empire . Along with this, it became part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea in AD 106 . The city minted its own coins with depictions of the deities Tyche , Dusares , Athene and Heracles . Both Greek and Roman antiquities can be seen near the city , including a ruined theater .

In late antiquity, the city was the seat of a bishop who took part in the councils of Seleucia and Chalcedon. The titular bishopric of Adraa of the Roman Catholic Church goes back to the diocese .

Middle Ages (Adhri'at)

In 613 or 614 the city was captured by the Persians and the olive groves destroyed as part of the conflict between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Sassanids .

An important Jewish community in Adhri'at is also reported from this period . The Banu Nadir , who were finally expelled from the Arabian Peninsula by Mohammed in 628 , joined the community.

Already during the caliphate of Abū Bakr (632–634), however, the inhabitants of the city submitted to the Muslims. A short time later, in 636, the Battle of Yarmuk , the decisive battle between Byzantines and Muslims, was fought near Adhri'at. The struggle ended with a clear victory for the Muslim side. The third Umayyad caliph Muʿāwiya II (683–684) is said to have been born in Adhri'at.

In 906 the population fell victim to a massacre by the rebellious Qarmatians .

In the writings of the Crusaders , Adhri'at is mentioned as "the city of Bernard d'Étampes ". Another common name at this time is Adratum.

The al-Omari Mosque was built in 1253 using ancient building materials during the Ayyubid rule .

In the Mamluk and Ottoman times, Adhri'at was part of the Damascus province as the capital of Bathaniyya.

Modern (Darʿā)

As an important stop on the Muslim pilgrimage and an important trading center, Darʿā was a traffic junction that became even more important with the construction of the Hejaz Railway in 1908.

As part of the Arab revolt during the First World War, Arab fighters of the Sherif of Mecca attacked the traffic routes around Darʿā from September 1918. They used explosives to destroy the tracks of the Hejaz Railway, which is important for transport, in order to tie up the Ottoman troops. Led by TE Lawrence and supported by British Air Force fighter planes, the Bedouins managed to isolate the city. Because of this siege and the setbacks on the Amman Front, the Ottoman troops withdrew from Darʿā to regroup to defend Damascus. The rebels could repeatedly attack the retreating troops and disrupt the retreat. In a letter, Lawrence later described that he had been betrayed while secretly exploring Darʿā and that he had been arrested by the Turkish commandant. In his custody he was tortured and sexually abused. However, this representation is doubted by some historians.

civil war in Syria

Protest 2013

Darʿā was the starting point for the first protests against the government of Bashar al-Assad and thus also the starting point for the civil war in Syria . In February 2011, 15 children were arrested in Darʿā and accused of writing slogans critical of the regime on the school building. The children's parents reported that their children were beaten and tortured in prison.

In March 2011 protests followed in the area of ​​the Al-Omari Mosque and the mosque was stormed by security forces. There were several dead and injured. The death of the 13-year-old boy Hamza Ali al-Khatib, who went to a demonstration in the village of Jisa near Darʿā on April 29, 2011 with his father, became a symbol of the brutality of the Assad regime. The teen's arrest and subsequent murder sparked outrage and demonstrations across the country.

On February 5, 2016, with the help of Russian air strikes and the Hezbollah militias operating in Syria, the government succeeded in retaking the rebel-occupied town of Athman, north of Darʿā.

After an offensive that began on June 19, 2018 and was accompanied by air strikes, the rebels remaining in the city gave up Darʿā on July 12 and the Syrian army marched in.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Syria protest town 'has new governor'. arabia.msn.com, April 24, 2011.
  2. ↑ General Census of Population and Housing 2004. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Daraa Governorate. (Arabic)
  3. ↑ Syria: Security forces kill six demonstrators. In: ORF . March 23, 2011, accessed March 23, 2011 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Frants Buhl, Nikita Elisséeff: Adhriʿāt . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition , Vol. 1, Leiden 1960, p. 194.
  5. ↑ Lea Frehse: Daraa . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 19, 2015, p. 10.
  6. ↑ Raniah Salloum: Four years of war in Syria: It started with a childish prank . Spiegel Online , March 15, 2015.
    Joe Sterling: Daraa: The spark that lit the Syrian flame . In: CNN, March 1, 2012; accessed on March 15, 2015.
  7. ↑ Mark MacKinnon: Signs on the Wall. How a couple of teenage sprayers started the civil war in Syria. In: The magazine No. 13 from April 1, 2017.
  8. ^ Escalation between demonstrators and regime . ( Memento from March 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 23, 2011.
  9. ↑ Boy as a martyr of the uprising. In: Tagesanzeiger , May 31, 2011
  10. ↑ Syrian army conquers an important town near Daraa . Zeit Online, February 5, 2016.
  11. ↑ Syrian government troops march into rebel district. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine , July 12, 2018