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Qanawat قَنَوَات
Village
QanawatLocation in Syria
Coordinates: 32°45′20″N 36°37′00″E / 32.75556°N 36.61667°E / 32.75556; 36.61667
Grid position	301/240
Country	Syria
Governorate	as-Suwayda
District	as-Suwayda
Subdistrict	as-Suwayda
Elevation	1,200 m (3,900 ft)
Population
• Total	8,324
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	+3

Qanawat (Arabic: قَنَوَات, romanized: Qanawāt) is a village in Syria, located 7 km north-east of al-Suwayda. It stands at an elevation of about 1,200 m, near a river and surrounded by woods. Its inhabitants are entirely from the Druze community. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Qanawat had a population of 8,324 in the 2004 census.

History

Qanawat is one of the earliest cities in the Bashan and Hauran areas. It is probably evidenced in the Hebrew Bible as Kenath (Hebrew: קְנָת, Numbers 32:42, 1 Chronicles 2:23). Possible earlier evidence, is from Ancient Egyptian documents like the execration texts (second group) of the 20th-19th century BC, and the Amarna letters of the 14th century BC (as Qanu, in EA 204).

Hellenistic and Roman history

The ancient Hellenistic-Roman city of Canatha (also Kanatha, Κάναθα in Ancient Greek), is mentioned for the first time in the reign of Herod the Great (1st century BC), when Nabatean Arab forces defeated a Jewish army. It remained an issue of contention between the two powers. From Pompey's time until Trajan's, it was a city of the Decapolis, 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 by Septimius Severus, a Roman colony, and transferred to the province of Arabia.

At S'ia, near Canatha, Herod patronized the temple of Ba'al Shamim perhaps as late as 9 BCE.

Bishopric

Only one of the bishops of Canatha is known by name: Theodosius took part in the Robber Council of Ephesus in 449, in the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and in a synod called by Patriarch Gennadius I of Constantinople in 459 against simony.

No longer a residential bishopric, Canatha is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

Early Islamic era

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.

Ottoman era

In 1596 Qanawat appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Bani Nasiyya of the Hauran Sanjak. It had a population of twelve Muslim and five Christian households. Among the inhabitants were a group of settled Bedouin. 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 4,750 akçe. 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 by Druze migrants from Mount Lebanon. At the time, five or six Druze families settled the village. Because of its Roman past, Qanawat already had paved pathways, readily available empty houses and water sources. However, its population had only incrementally increased between 1830 and 1850. 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 preeminent shaykh al-aql (Druze religious leader) and the center of local Druze politics. Following further Druze migration to the area after the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, Qanawat grew into a large village.

The first shaykh al-aql of Qanawat was Ibrahim al-Hajari who played a key role in mobilizing Druze resistance to the conscription orders of the Egyptian governor Ibrahim Pasha in the late 1830s. Ibrahim died in 1840 and was succeeded by his son Husayn. Qanawat at the time was under the control of the Al Hamdan, the leading Druze family of the Hauran. However, under Husayn’s leadership, the Hajari family formed the mashaykat al-aql, which gradually became the main religious institution recognized by the Druze of Hauran. The Al Hamdan used it to further their influence among the Druze, but lost Qanawat to the Bani al-Atrash in the 1860s. The latter only nominally controlled Qanawat with the al-Hajari family running the village’s affairs independently through the mashaykhat al-aql.

Main sights

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-hewn theatre, with nine tiers of seats and an orchestra nineteen meters in diameter, also a nymphaeum, an aqueduct, 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 honour Helios, but an inscription discovered in 2002 shows that it was dedicated to a local god, Rabbos.

The monument known as Es-Serai (also Seraya, "palace") dates from around the 2nd century AD and was originally a temple, and then, from the 4th/5th centuries, a Christian basilica. It is 22 m long, and was preceded by an outside portico and an atrium with eighteen columns.

The German explorer Hermann Burchardt visited the town in 1895, taking photographs of its antiquities, photographs which are now held in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.

Gallery

• Roman building, Al Quanawat in 2008
• Roman building, Al Quanawat in 2008
• Window reliefs
• Temple of Rabbos, Al Quanawat in 2008
• Roman nympheum, Al Quanawat in 2008
• Roman tower, Al Quanawat in 2008

References

1. Betts, 2010, p. 22.
2. "General Census of Population 2004". Retrieved 2014-07-10.
3. Ewing, W (1915). "Kenath". In James Orr (ed.). International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-05-27.
4. Moran, William L, ed. (2002). The Amarna letters. The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 124, 391. ISBN 0801842514.
5. Burns, 2009, pp. 246-247
6. Rogers, Guy MacLean (2021). For the Freedom of Zion: the Great Revolt of Jews against Romans, 66-74 CE. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 29, 535. ISBN 978-0-300-24813-5.
7. Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. II, coll. 867-868
8. Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 435
9. Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 857
10. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 218.
11. ^ Firro 1992, p. 149.
12. ^ Firro 1992, p. 151.
13. ^ Firro 1992, p. 182.
14. Firro 1992, p. 183.
15. Firro 1992, p. 184.
16. Burns, 2009, p. 249
17. General view of Qanawat (click on photo to enlarge); Qanawat, Serail (click on photo to enlarge).

Bibliography

• Betts, Robert Brenton (2010). The Druze. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300048100.
• Burns, Ross (2009). The Monuments of Syria. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0857714893.
• Firro, Kais (1992). A History of the Druzes, Volume 1. Brill. ISBN 9789004094376.
• Hütteroth, W.-D.; Abdulfattah, K. (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites-Canatha

External links

• Map of the town, Google Maps

v t e Suwayda Governorate
Shahba District Shahba Subdistrict Shahba Amrah Braykah Majadel Mardak al-Matunah Nimreh Salakhid Suwaymrah Taymah Umm Dubayb Umm al-Zaytun Ariqah Subdistrict Al-Ariqah Dama Deir Dama Harran Jirrin al-Kharsa Lubayn Sumayd Waqm Shaqqa Subdistrict Shaqqa Arajah Barik al-Buthainah Duma al-Hayyat Hit al-Junayneh al-Qasr al-Rudaymah Ta'lah Surah Saghirah Subdistrict Al-Surah al-Saghirah Dhakir Hazm al-Huquf al-Khalidiyah Khalkhalah Lahithah Rudaymat al-Liwa al-Salmiyah al-Surah al-Kabirah Umm Haratayn al-Ushayib
Suwayda District Suwayda Subdistrict Suwayda Aslihah Attil Dara Hibran Ira Jubayb al-Kafr Kafr al-Luhf Kanakir Kharaba Maf'aleh Masad Miyamas al-Mujaymer Qanawat al-Ruha Rasas Rimat Hazm Sahwat Balatah Sahwat al-Khudr Sakakah Slaim al-Tha'lah Walghah Mazra'ah Subdistrict Al-Mazra'ah al-Dur al-Duwayri Jidiyah al-Majdal Najran Qarrasa Rimat al-Luhf Sami' Ta'ara Tirah Mushannaf Subdistrict Al-Mushannaf Busan al-Ghaydah al-Kassib al-Ajaylat Rami al-Rushaydah Sa'nah Salah Shbeiki al-Shurayhi Tarba al-Tayyibah Umm Riwaq
Salkhad District Salkhad Subdistrict Salkhad al-Annat Awas al-Karbis Imtan al-Mashquq al-Munaydhrah Urman al-Uyun al-Rafqah Sama al-Bardan Shanirah Tahulah Qurayyah Subdistrict Al-Qurayya al-Afinah Burd Hout Ghariyah Subdistrict Al-Ghariyah Anz Khirbet Awad al-Mughayyir Dhibin Subdistrict Dhibin Bakka Umm al-Rumman Malah Subdistrict Malah Abu Zurayq Baham al-Harisi al-Huwayya Khazmah Qaysamah Sha'af al-Shi'ab Tell al-Lawz Tulaylin

32°45′20″N 36°37′0″E / 32.75556°N 36.61667°E / 32.75556; 36.61667

• Decapolis
• Roman towns and cities in Syria
• Archaeological sites in as-Suwayda Governorate
• Populated places in as-Suwayda District
• Former populated places in Syria
• Druze communities in Syria