Al-Samaqiyat, also spelled al-Summaqiyat or Smaqiyat (Arabic: السماقيات), is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate, located east of Daraa and south of Bosra. Other nearby localities include al-Mataaiya to the west and Samad to the northeast. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Samaqiyat had a population of 511 in the 2004 census.[1]

Al-Samaqiyat
السماقيات
Village
Al-Samaqiyat is located in Syria
Al-Samaqiyat
Al-Samaqiyat
Coordinates: 32°25′46″N 36°23′38″E / 32.42944°N 36.39389°E / 32.42944; 36.39389
Country Syria
GovernorateDaraa
DistrictDaraa
SubdistrictBosra al-Sham
Population
 (2004 census)[1]
 • Total
511
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)

History

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Samaqiyat had been an abandoned village as of 1890, but was resettled by Christians by 1895, when the village had about eleven families.[2][3] The population grew to twenty-five families by 1905.[3] Because its location in the Hamad desert steppe, its land was dry. It also experienced raids by the Druze from the neighboring Jabal al-Druze mountain and by the Bedouin tribes active in the area.[3] The Bedouin overran the area surrounding the village in 1909.[3] Since the Ottoman era, the village has been dominated by the Miqdad clan.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b General Census of Population and Housing 2004. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Daraa Governorate. (in Arabic)
  2. ^ Schumacher, 1897, pp. 150-153
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Norman (2000). "The Syrian Steppe during the Last Century of Ottoman Rule: Hawran and the Palmyrena". In Mundy, Martha; Musallam, Basim (eds.). The Transformation of Nomadic Society in the Arab East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0521770576.
  4. ^ Batatu, H. (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Princeton University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0691002541.

Bibliography

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