Saqba

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Saqba
سقبا
Sakba
Village
Saqba
Coordinates: 33°31′11″N 36°23′4″E / 33.51972°N 36.38444°E / 33.51972; 36.38444
Country  Syria
Governorate Rif Dimashq Governorate
District Markaz Rif Dimashq
Nahiya Kafr Batna
Elevation 650 m (2,130 ft)
Population (2004)[1]
  Total 25,696
Time zone EET (UTC+3)
  Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+2)

Saqba (Arabic: سقبا; also spelled Sakba) is a town in southern Syria, administratively part of the Markaz Rif Dimashq District of the Rif Dimashq Governorate, located just east of Damascus. Nearby localities include Jisrin to the southeast, Kafr Batna to the southwest, Hizzah to the southwest and Hammurah and Beit Sawa to the north. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Saqba had a population of 25,696 in the 2004 census.[1]

History

Study and recitation of the Quran was held in the mosque of Saqba as early as the 12th-century when its khatib was Ahmad ibn Hasan al-Kafatabi.[2] Saqba was visited by Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in the early 13th-century, during Ayyubid rule. He noted that it was "a village of the Ghautah of Damascus."[3]

Modern era

In the 1950s Saqba served as a village center of a district which contained seven other villages, with a total population of 12,000.[4] Today Saqba has become a working-class eastern suburb of Damascus.[5]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 General Census of Population and Housing 2004. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Rif Dimashq Governorate. (Arabic)
  2. Talmon-Heller, p. 69.
  3. le Strange, 1890, p. 527.
  4. Money-Kyrle, 1956, p. 43.
  5. Starr, 2012, p. 192.

Bibliography

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