Hibran, Syria

Hibran, also spelled Hebran or Hubran (Arabic: حبران, romanized: Ḥibrān), is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Suwayda Governorate, located south of Suwayda. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Hibran had a population of 3,166 in the 2004 census.^[1]

Hibran حبران Hebran, Hubran
Village
Hibran dam
Hibran
Coordinates: 32°36′20″N 36°38′21″E
Grid position	303/224
Country	Syria
Governorate	Suwayda
District	Suwayda
Subdistrict	Suwayda
Population  (2004 census)[1]
• Total	3,166
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)

History

Hibran was noted in the 1596 Ottoman census under the name of Hubran an-Nasara, being located in the nahiya of Bani Nasiyya in the Liwa of Hawran. It had a population of 23 households and 14 bachelors; all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 40% on various agricultural products, including wheat (=1500 akçe), barley (900), summer crops (900), goats and beehives (100); a total of 3,400 akçe.^[2]

Ottoman tax records indicate the revenues of Hibran were farmed out to Muhammad Alam al-Din, a Druze emir who fled Mount Lebanon in 1667, in 1669–1671.^[3]

According to the historian Kais Firro, Hibran was one of twenty-eight villages in the Hauran settled by Druze before 1812;^[4] in 1838 Hibran was noted as Druse village by Eli Smith.^[5]

The Druze chieftain Ismail al-Atrash encouraged further Druze migration to Hibran, among a number of other Hauran villages, from Mount Lebanon in the 1850s.^[6]

References

1. "General Census of Population and Housing 2004" (in Arabic). Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). 2013-01-12.
2. Hütteroth & Abdulfattah 1977, p. 220.
3. Hourani 2010, p. 951.
4. Firro 1992, p. 150.
5. Robinson & Smith 1841, p. 158.
6. Firro 1992, p. 189.

Bibliography

• Firro, Kais (1992). A History of the Druzes. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09437-7.
• Hourani, Alexander (2010). New Documents on the History of Mount Lebanon and Arabistan in the 10th and 11th Centuries H. Beirut.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• 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.
• Robinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.