Irbid

Irbid was an agricultural settlement and district centre in the northern Jordanian country of the Hauran. The Ottoman register of 1596 placed it in Bani Juhma and assessed wheat, barley, summer crops, fruit trees, goats and beehives, together with a market toll. These entries give a more concrete picture of its economy than its later reputation as a large city: cultivated land and market activity sustained a relatively small community.

In May 1812 Johann Ludwig Burckhardt visited the place he called Erbad. He described a castle on a low hill with the village at its foot. Houses and the castle walls used the dark stone characteristic of the Hauran. An old stone-built reservoir stood among ancient sarcophagi, showing how earlier remains persisted within the inhabited settlement. Irbid was then the residence of the district's sheikh, from the Bottein family. Burckhardt also found troops quartered there, linking its local authority to the wider Ottoman provincial administration.