Сирияның Лажат аймағы: Лава даласы мен географиялық ерекшеліктері

Lava field and geographical region in Syria

The Lajat (اللجاة/ALA LC: al Lajāʾ), also spelled Lejat, Lajah, el Leja or Laja, is the largest lava field in southern Syria, spanning some 900 square kilometers. Located about southeast of Damascus, the Lajat borders the Hauran plain to the west and the foothills of Jabal al Druze to the south. The average elevation is between 600 and 700 meters above sea level, with the highest volcanic cone being 1,159 meters above sea level. Receiving little annual rainfall, the Lajat is largely barren, though there are scattered patches of arable land in some of its depressions. The region has been known by a number of names throughout its history, including "Argob" ( ’Argōḇ,) in the Hebrew Bible and "Trachonitis" (Τραχωνῖτις) by the Greeks, a name under which it is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 3, ). Long inhabited by Arab groups, it saw development under the Romans, who built a road through the center of the region connecting it with the empire's province of Syria. The pagan cults that predominated in Trachonitis during the Roman and pre Roman era persisted through much of the Byzantine era, until the 6th century when Christianity became dominant. During Byzantine rule, Trachonitis experienced a massive building boom with churches, homes, bathhouses and colonnades being constructed in numerous villages, whose inhabitants remained largely Arab. The region may have been abandoned at some point, only to be repopulated by refugees from other regions of Syria during the Mongol invasions in 13th century. This earned the region its modern Arabic name, al Lajāʾ, meaning "the refuge". During early Ottoman rule in the 16th century, al Lajat contained numerous agricultural villages and farms, but by the 17th century, the region was all but abandoned. Local Bedouin tribes, such as the Sulut, increasingly used the region for grazing their flocks, and Druze migrants from Mount Lebanon began settling the area in the early 19th century. Today, the population is mixed, with Druze inhabiting its central and eastern areas, and Muslims and Melkites living in villages along its western edge.

Lajat's ancient name "Trachonitis" signifies the land associated with the trachon, "a rugged stony tract." There are two volcanic districts south and east of Damascus, to which the Greeks applied this name: that to the northwest of the mountain of Jabal al Druze (Jabal Hauran) is called in Arabic, el Leja, which means "the refuge" or "asylum".

The Lajat is situated in southeastern Syria, spanning a triangle shaped area between the 45 kilometer Izra' Shahba line in the south 48 kilometers northward to the vicinity of Burraq. It is about 50 kilometers south of Damascus. Many of its volcanic cones are higher than 1,000 meters above sea level, with the highest, just west of Shahba, at 1,159 meters. Much of the Lajat is covered by gray, disintegrated lava fields that form jagged basalt boulders, though there are some areas of smoother, rocky ground punctured with holes. The holes were formed from gas bubbles caused by cooling lava that flowed over the uneven landscape. Thus, by the modern era, every village contained rectangular cisterns to store rainwater, which serves as the main source of water.

In ancient times, Trachonitis included the regions of Lajat and the Tulul as Safa to its east. in the first century CE.]] The Roman Empire conquered Syria and in 24 BC put Trachonitis, then inhabited by nomadic marauders and cattle herders who lived its caves and depressions, under the authority of Herod the Great; it was incorporated into the Herodian Kingdom of Judea. The main Nabatean tribes of the town were the Sammenoi and the Migdalenoi (migrants from nearby al Mujaydil). There are at least thirty sites in the Lajat with ruins tracing back to the Byzantine era. One of the earliest known Christian communities in Trachonitis was Sur (ancient name unknown), which had a Christian edifice dated to 458. Zorava was the cosmopolitan capital of Byzantine Trachonitis. There are no earlier indications of a Christian presence in Zorava. According to historian H. Gaube, the Lajat was likely settled by refugees from other parts of Syria due to the pressures of the Mongol invasions. Two Druze villages, Umm al Zaytun and Lahithah, existed in the interior of the Lajat in the early 19th century. Major Druze settlement began in the aftermath of the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war. Ismail al Atrash led the Druze in their battles with the Sulut, while the prominent Druze clans of al Hamdan and Bani Amer aligned with the Sulut against their chief rival, the Bani al Atrash. Lajat was designated a World Biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2009.

An extremely rugged region, sixty walled cities were on the island, which was ruled over by Og at the time of the Israelite conquest (Deuteronomy 3:4 (NIV); Kings 4:13 (NIV)). Later, Lajat, in Bashan, was one of Solomon's commissariat districts. In Luke's Gospel, the region was called Trachonitis ("the rugged region") (Luke 3:1). This region formed part of Herod Philip's tetrarchy it is only referred to once, in the phrase tes Itouraias kai Trachbnitidos choras, literally, "of the Iturean and Trachonian region". Here "sixty walled cities are still traceable in a space of 308 square miles. The architecture is ponderous and massive. Solid walls 4 feet thick, and stones on one another without cement; the roofs enormous slabs of basaltic rock, like iron; the doors and gates are of stone 18 inches thick, secured by ponderous bars. The land bears still the appearance of having been called the 'land of giants' under the giant Og." "I have more than once entered a deserted city in the evening, taken possession of a comfortable house, and spent the night in peace. Many of the houses in the ancient cities of Bashan are perfect, as if only finished yesterday. The walls are sound, the roofs unbroken, and even the window shutters in their places. These ancient cities of Bashan probably contain the very oldest specimens of domestic architecture in the world" (Porter, 1867).