Nawa, Syria

Nawa نوى
—  Town  —
Nawa Location in Syria
Coordinates: 32°53′20″N 36°02′35″E
Country	Syria
Governorate	Daraa Governorate
District	Izra' District
Nahiyah	Nawa
Elevation	563 m (1,847 ft)
Population (2007)
• Total	59,170

Nawa (Arabic: نوى‎, Nawā) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to the Daraa Governorate. It has an altitude of 568 meters (1,864 ft). It had a population of 59,170 in 2007, making it the 28th largest city per geographical entity in Syria.

History

Nawa has been defined as the city that Job dwelled in and is the burial place of Shem, the son of Noah. According to Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi, While under the Islamic Caliphate of the Rashidun, Umayyads, and Abbasids, it was a part of Jund Dimashq and the principal city of Hauran. Al-Mas'udi wrote in 943 CE that a mosque dedicated to Job was located three miles (5 km) from Nawa. By the 13th century, its status declined; Yaqut al-Hamawi recorded in 1225 that Nawa was "a small town of the Hauran", formerly being the capital of the region. He also recorded that Job's tomb was located there. In 1277, Imam Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi, a prominent Muslim scholar, was born in the city.

In 1596 Nawa appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as Nawi and was part of the nahiya of Jaydur in the Qada of Hauran. It had an entirely Muslim population consisting of 102 households and 43 bachelors. Taxes were paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and/or beehives.

Bibliography

• Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah (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. 
• le Strange, Guy (1890), Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund