Ma'ariya
Ma'ariya, also known as Umm Sharq, is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate, located west of Daraa. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Ma'ariya had a population of 1,083 in the 2004 census.
History
Ottoman period
In 1596 Ma'ariya appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as part of the nahiya of Jawlan Sharqi in the Qada of Hauran. It had an all Muslim population consisting of 5 households. A fixed tax−rate of 25% was paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and/or beehives, in addition to taxes occasional revenues ; a total of 900 akçe.In 1884, American archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher described Ma'ariya as an "uninhabited spot, where there are scattered ruins of considerable extent, but no remains of archaeological interest". He noted it laid just east of Arqub al-Rahwa, which called the presumed Biblical Argob, and that both sites were built on the same hill shoulder. The name 'M'arri' was that of a Muslim saintly figure buried in a close-by cavernous area underneath a terebinth tree. Bedouins from the local Manadhira tribe grew tobacco, grain and vegetables on the slopes by the site.