Muzayrib

A town north-west of Daraa on the shore of a lake fed by springs. Under the Ottomans this was the first major stop of the hajj caravan travelling from Damascus to Mecca: the column halted for several days, and in every pilgrimage season a large open market was held beside the water. The fort was built in the 16th century on the orders of Sultan Selim I by a man named Hatim Tay, of basalt quarried nearby.

Getting there

Thirteen kilometres north-west of Daraa. Minibuses run from Daraa and take half an hour. Everything inside the town is within walking distance.

How long it takes

An hour and a half. That covers the remains of the fort, the lakeshore and the older streets of the town.

What to see

Not much of the fort is left. By 1898 it was largely ruined, and within ten years about two thirds of its stone had gone into new buildings in the town. Inside it there had been a mosque, a small bathhouse and storerooms; the stores held dry biscuit for the pilgrims, which was all they had to eat crossing the desert. Its gate was unusual too: other hajj forts were entered straight on, but this one has a bent entrance, so you cannot see in from outside.

What most people miss

The basalt blocks in the house walls. The fort’s stone did not vanish; it went into the buildings around it, and large dressed blocks sit in ordinary walls where anyone looking can tell where they came from. One more thing worth knowing: in 1894 a narrow-gauge railway 103 kilometres long was run here from Damascus, and the year after it was linked to Beirut. The place where the caravan had stopped for centuries became the end of a line.