Badra

Badra lies east of the Tigris plain near the foothills leading toward Iran. The district was known in Syriac as Beth Daraye and in Arabic as Badaraya; an old site near the town has been identified with its earlier centre. Its date palms produced fruit praised by medieval writers, and grain was also cultivated in the surrounding country. Beth Daraye had a Christian bishopric in late antiquity, recorded again in the twelfth century after a period of incorporation into another diocese.