Buṣrā

Bosra stands on the southern edge of the fertile Hauran, where caravan roads from Arabia meet the routes towards Damascus and the Mediterranean. Once a Nabataean city and later the capital of Roman Arabia, it was built largely of the region's dark basalt. Its great Roman theatre survived within a later fortress, while early churches and mosques reflected the long succession of communities that inhabited the city. Bosra also served travellers on the pilgrimage road from Damascus to Mecca.

Medieval rulers strengthened the theatre as a citadel, enclosing its stage and auditorium within towers and walls. The city remained a southern gateway to Syria under the Ayyubids and Mamluks, though its fortunes changed with the political struggles of the region. After the Ottoman conquest of Syria in 1516, Bosra formed part of the Hauran district administered from Damascus.

Ottoman tax records at the end of the sixteenth century describe a small town with seventy-five Muslim and fifteen Christian households, as well as unmarried taxpayers. The scale of this settlement was modest beside the ancient monuments around it. Fields of the rich volcanic Nuqra plain lay to the north of the town, and the old caravan routes still gave Bosra a place in the movement of pilgrims and merchants between Syria and Arabia.