Samad (Arabic: صماد; transliteration: Ṣamād, also spelled Smad) is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate, located east of Daraa and immediately southeast of Bosra. Other nearby localities include al-Qurayya to the northeast, Hout to the east and Dhibin to the southeast. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Samad had a population of 3,098 in the 2004 census.[1]
Samad
صماد | |
|---|---|
Village | |
  Samad | |
| Coordinates: 32°28′34″N 36°31′16″E / 32.47611°N 36.52111°E | |
| Country |  Syria |
| Governorate | Daraa |
| District | Daraa |
| Subdistrict | Bosra al-Sham |
| Population (2004 census)[1] | |
| • Total | 3,098 |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
History
editAn inscription dating back was found in Samad dating back to the Roman era testifying that a "public speaker's rostrum" was built by the local Arab tribe of Daban (Dabanenoi) in the village of Samad.[2]
During the late Mamluk era in the 15th century, Samad was the home of the Samadiyya branch of the Qadiriyya Sufi order founded by a certain Shaykh Salim, a student of Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani (died 1166).[3][4] Leadership of the Samadiyya order was hereditary and led by Shaykh Salim's descendants from their zawiya (Sufi lodge) in Samad.[3][4] In 1520 the Samadiyya order's sheikh (religious leader) Muhammad ibn Khalil ibn Ali ibn Isa ibn Ahmad al-Samadi (1505–1541) gained an audience with the Ottoman sultan Selim I and secured imperial support for his order.[3] He also relocated its principal zawiya to the as-Salihiyya suburb of Damascus in 1520 and then erected a new principal zawiya in the Shaghur neighborhood in 1525.[3] The order was named after Samad and maintained its name after the move of its main headquarters to Damascus during the early Ottoman era.[3]
Samad is possibly the place named Garita al-Janahiyya in the 1596 tax registers, being part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Bani Malik as-Sadir in the Qada Hauran. It had an entirely Muslim population consisting of 32 households and 13 bachelors. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 40% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 11,000 akçe.[5]
In 1838, it was noted as a ruin, Sumad, situated in "the Nukra [Hauran plain], south of Bosra".[6]
Modern era
editAs of 1980, Samad was a village with an estimated population 1,500, consisting of eight clans.[7] Between 1925 and at least 1980, the office of shaykh al-balad (village headman) has been filled by members of the al-Shuyukh clan.[7]
References
edit- ^ a b General Census of Population and Housing 2004. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Daraa Governorate. (in Arabic)
- ^ MacAdam 1986, p. 59.
- ^ a b c d e Nahrawali 2005, p. 65.
- ^ a b Bakhit 1982, p. 183.
- ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 211. They do not give the grid number of the village, but on the map they place it in Samad's location with a ?
- ^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 154
- ^ a b Batatu 1999, p. 24.
Bibliography
edit- Bakhit, Muhammad Adnan (1982). The Ottoman Province of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century. Librairie du Liban.
- Batatu, H. (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691002541.
- Hütteroth, W.-D.; Abdulfattah, K. (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
- MacAdam, Henry Innes (1986). Studies in the History of the Roman Province of Arabia: The Northern Sector. British Archaeological Reports.
- Nahrawali, Muhammad ibn Ahmad (2005). Blackburn, Richard (ed.). Journey to the Sublime Porte: the Arabic Memoir of a Sharifian Agent's Diplomatic Mission to the Ottoman Imperial Court in the Era of Suleyman the Magnificent: The Relevant Text from Quṭb al-Dīn al-Nahrawālī's al-Fawāʼid al-sanīyah fī al-riḥlah al-Madanīyah wa al-Rūmīyah. Orient-Institut.
- Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.