South of Damascus The Hauran travel guide

Background

The Hauran was for a time colonized by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, before the conflicts of the rival Seleucid and Ptolomid Empires opened the region to competing Nabatean and Jewish claims. Thus in 23 BC Augustus, ruler of the newly expanding Roman Empire, granted control over it to Herod the Great, the king of Judaea. Then in AD 34 it was briefly made part of the Roman Empire before being handed over to Herod Agrippa I by Caligula. In AD 70 the Nabateans made Bosra the new capital of their empire, although they never succeeded in extending their control over the whole region.

In AD 106 the Romans, who until then had exercised for the most part only nominal control over much of Syria, established the province of Arabia, with Bosra as its capital. Subsequently the Hauran flourished under the new stability brought by the Pax Romana. Agriculture was developed, making this one of the great granaries of the empire, while the important trade routes which passed through Bosra brought further prosperity. The rise to power of Philip the Arab as emperor in the mid-third century AD ensured that the Hauran maintained its importance, with Shahba being developed into a prosperous imperial city alongside Bosra.

During the Byzantine period the Hauran continued to prosper as an important centre of Christianity. However, following the Muslim Arab invasions of the seventh century the region fell into relative decline, becoming an unstable zone of conflict, first between the rival Fatimid and Abbasid dynasties and later the Muslims and Crusaders.

In the 18th and 19th centuries large numbers of Druze migrated into the area, first from Mount Lebanon and later from Damascus and surrounding areas. Thus the mountainous massif in the southeast became known as the Jebel Druze, and today this region remains something of a Druze enclave.

Ins and outs

Getting there and away

There are regular direct bus services from Damascus to each of the major places of interest. If you’ve crossed the bord er from Jordan by local public transport and want to visit Bosra on the way to Damascus, you need to be dropped in Deraa and catch a microbus from there. If you’ve caught a bus or service taxi direct from Amman they will use the Nasib/Jabir border crossing that bypasses Deraa and you won’t be able to do this.

Unfortunately public transport services between the towns in the Hauran are less reliable than connections to Damascus. The main problem is with the trip between Bosra and Suweida. For some reason there is no public transport along this route, making it very difficult to visit all the sites in one loop from Damascus. Instead it is more practical to make two separate day trips: one to Bosra (and perhaps Ezraa) and another to Shahba, Qanawat and Suweida.

With your own transport you are free to visit the sites in any order, although covering them all in one day would involve a pretty hectic schedule.