As-Suḵna

Sukhnah is an oasis in the Syrian desert between Palmyra and the Euphrates. Its springs and gardens offered a place of cultivation amid the dry steppe, and the settlement stood on routes used by caravans crossing the interior. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Sukhnah served as a trading centre for nearby villages and Bedouin tribes, bringing together people of the oasis and those who moved through the surrounding desert.