the later ones, who recognised the idea of Gêdûr, always so define the position of a locality situated in Gêdûr, that they say it is situated in the Haurân. Thus Jâkût describes the town of el-Gâbia, situated in western Gêdûr, and in like manner, as we have seen above, Nawâ and the Monastery of Job, etc.[1]
There is no doubt that, as the Gêdûr of the present day is reckoned in the Nukra, so this country also in ancient days, at least as far as its northern watershed, has belonged to the tetrarchy of Batanaea.
The Monastery of Job is at present inhabited. A certain sheikh, Ahmed el-Kâdirî, has settled down here since the autumn of 1859, as partner of the senior of the Damascene ‘Omarîje (the successors of the Chalif 'Omar), to whose family endowments (waqf) the Monastery belongs, and with his family he inhabits a number of rooms in the inner court, which have escaped destruction. He showed us the decree of his partner appointing him to his position, in which he is styled Sheikh of the Dêr Êjûb, Dêr el-Lebwe, and ‘Ashtarâ. Dêr el-Lebwe, “the monastery of the lion,”[2] was built by the Gefnide Eihem ibn el-Hârith; and we shall have occasion to refer to ‘Ashtarâ, in which Newbold,[3] in the year 1846, believed he had found the ancient capital of Basan, ‘Ashtarôt, further on. But the possessor of all these grand things was a very unhappy man. While we were drinking coffee with him, he related to us how the inhabitants of Nawâ had left
- ↑ Jâkût says under Gêdûr, “It is a Damascene district, it has villages, and lies in the north of Haurân; according to others, it is reckoned together with Haurân as one district.” The last words do not signify that Gêdûr and Haurân are words to be used without any distinction; on the contrary, that Gêdûr is a district belonging to Haurân, and comprehended in it.
- ↑ The name of this monastery, which is about a mile and a half north-east of the Dêr Ejûb, is erroneously called D. el-lebû in Burckhardt's Travels in Syria (ed. Gesenius, S. 449). The same may be said of D. en-nubuwwe in Annales Hamzae, ed. Gottwaldt, p. 118.
- ↑ C. Ritter, Geogr. v. Syr. u. Pal. ii. 821 [Erdk. xv. Pt. 2, p. 821].
