Al-Mazraa

Al-Mazraa (المزرعة, alternatively spelled al-Mazra'a or al-Mezra'ah), also known as as-Sijn (السجن alternatively spelled Es-Sijine, Sijne or Sijni) is a village in southeastern Syria, administratively part of the as-Suwayda Governorate, located 12 kilometers (7 miles) northwest of as-Suwayda. Nearby localities include al-Hirak, Khirbet Ghazaleh and Da'el to the west and Umm Walad and Bosra to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), al-Mazraa had a population of 2,596 in the 2004 census. The town is also the administrative center of the al-Mazraa nahiyah of the al-Suwayda District which consists of 12 villages with a combined population of 16,627. The modern town was formerly known as "as-Sijn", and a site called "al-Mazraa", which means "the farm" in Arabic, was situated nearby to the southeast. A stone with an inscription dating from 179/80 CE. has been found in the town. Although the inscription dates from the Roman era in Syria, there is no other indication that the immediate region surrounding as-Sijn was part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea at the time, and historian Glen Bowersock suggests the inscription was on "a wandering stone which had made its way to Sijn from some other place that was actually within the province of Arabia". In 1596 the village appeared under the name of "Sijni" in the Ottoman tax registers as part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Bani Nasiyya in the qadaa of Hauran. It had an all Muslim population, consisting of thirty-nine households and eleven bachelors. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 20% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; the taxes totalled 5,500 akçe. In the mid-19th-century, al-Mazraa was described by Irish missionary Josias Leslie Porter as a "small ruined village ... beside which there is a large fountain." It was inhabited by Ghawr Arabs who encamped at the site. Porter described as-Sijn as "a small Druze village situated on a low hill, contains some old houses of great solidity.