Dar'ā

Dara, known in Arabic sources as Adhriat, lies in the Hauran south of Damascus. The town was an ancient settlement of the fertile basalt country and stood on the route followed by pilgrims travelling south towards the holy cities of Arabia. Under the Mamluks and Ottomans it belonged to the province of Damascus. An Ottoman tax register of 1596 recorded it as Madinat Idra'a, among the settlements of the Hauran district.