Qanawat قَنَوَات Kanatha, Canatha | |
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  Qanawat Location in Syria | |
| Coordinates:32°45′20″N36°37′00″E / 32.75556°N 36.61667°E /32.75556; 36.61667 | |
| Grid position | 301/240 |
| Country |  Syria |
| Governorate | Suwayda |
| District | Suwayda |
| Subdistrict | Suwayda |
| Elevation | 1,200 m (3,900 ft) |
| Population (2004 census) | |
• Total | 8,324 |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | +3 |
Qanawat (Arabic:قَنَوَات,romanized: Qanawāt) is a village inSyria, located 7 km north-east ofSuwayda in theJabal al-Druze region.[1] It stands at an elevation of about 1,200 m, near a river and surrounded by woods. According to theSyria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Qanawat had a population of 8,324 in the 2004 census.[2] Its inhabitants are predominantly from theDruze community, with aSunni Muslim Bedouin minority.[3][4]
Qanawat is one of the earliest cities in theBashan andHauran areas. It is probably evidenced in theHebrew Bible as Kenath (Hebrew: קְנָת,Numbers 32:42,1 Chronicles 2:23). Possible earlier evidence, is fromAncient Egyptian documents like theexecration texts (second group) of the 20th-19th century BC, and theAmarna letters of the 14th century BC (as Qanu, in EA 204).[5][6]
The ancient Hellenistic-Roman city ofCanatha (alsoKanatha, Κάναθα inAncient Greek), is mentioned for the first time in the reign ofHerod the Great (1st century BC), whenNabatean Arab forces defeated a Jewish army. It remained an issue of contention between the two powers. FromPompey's time untilTrajan's, it was a city of theDecapolis, a loose federation of cities allowed by the Romans to enjoy a degree of autonomy. In the 1st century AD it was annexed to the Roman province of Syria, and in the 2nd century it was rechristened Septimia Canatha bySeptimius Severus, aRoman colony, and transferred to the province ofArabia.[7]
At S'ia, near Canatha, Herod patronized the temple ofBa'al Shamim perhaps as late as 9 BCE.[8]
Only one of the bishops of Canatha is known by name: Theodosius took part in theSecond Council of Ephesus in 449, in theCouncil of Chalcedon in 451, and in asynod called byGennadius of Constantinople in 459 againstsimony.[9][10]
No longer a residential bishopric, Canatha is today listed by theCatholic Church as atitular see.[11]
A center of Christianity in the area, Canatha was captured by the Muslim Arabs in 637, and declined in importance until in the 9th century it was reduced to a poor village.
In 1596 Qanawat appeared in theOttoman tax registers as part of thenahiya (subdistrict) of Bani Nasiyya of theHauran Sanjak. It had a population of twelve Muslim and five Christian households. Among the inhabitants were a group of settledBedouin. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and/or beehives; a total of 4,750akçe.[12] Qanawat was abandoned between the 17th and 18th centuries. However, by the 1820s, it was among the first villages in the Jabal Hauran to be repopulated byDruze migrants fromMount Lebanon.[13] At the time, five or six Druze families settled the village.[13] Because of its Roman past, Qanawat already had paved pathways, readily available empty houses and water sources.[14] However, its population had only incrementally increased between 1830 and 1850.[14] Though during that period it became the home of Druze religious sheikhs, it was not until the 1850s that was Qanawat established as the seat of the preeminentshaykh al-aql (Druze religious leader) and the center of local Druze politics.[14] Following further Druze migration to the area after the1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, Qanawat grew into a large village.[13]
The firstshaykh al-aql of Qanawat was Ibrahim al-Hajari who played a key role in mobilizing Druze resistance to the conscription orders of the Egyptian governorIbrahim Pasha in the late 1830s.[15] Ibrahim died in 1840 and was succeeded by his son Husayn.[15] Qanawat at the time was under the control of theAl Hamdan, the leading Druze family of the Hauran.[15] However, under Husayn’s leadership, the Hajari family formed themashaykat al-aql, which gradually became the main religious institution recognized by the Druze of Hauran.[15] The Al Hamdan used it to further their influence among the Druze,[15] but lost Qanawat to theBani al-Atrash in the 1860s.[16] The latter only nominally controlled Qanawat with the al-Hajari family running the village’s affairs independently through themashaykhat al-aql.[17]
The city's extensive ancient ruins are 1500 m in length and 750 m in breadth. Among them are a Roman bridge and a rock-hewntheatre, with nine tiers of seats and an orchestra nineteen meters in diameter, also anymphaeum, anaqueduct, and a large prostyle temple with portico and colonnades. North-west of the town is a late 2nd- or early 3rd-century peripteral temple, built on a high platform surrounded by a colonnade. For years, this temple was believed to honourHelios, but an inscription discovered in 2002 shows that it was dedicated to a local god, Rabbos.[18]
The monument known as Es-Serai (alsoSeraya, "palace") dates from around the 2nd century AD and was originally a temple, and then, from the 4th/5th centuries, a Christianbasilica. It is 22 m long, and was preceded by an outside portico and an atrium with eighteen columns.
The German explorerHermann Burchardt visited the town in 1895, taking photographs of its antiquities, photographs which are now held in theEthnological Museum of Berlin.[19]
Capital:Suwayda | |||||||||||||||
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32°45′20″N36°37′0″E / 32.75556°N 36.61667°E /32.75556; 36.61667