Tafas, a Hauran Town North of Daraa

A large town about 13 kilometres north-west of Daraa, on the east bank of the Wadi al-Harir, between Muzayrib and Da’el. Today it is known for its tomatoes and for Daraa’s biggest wholesale market. For anyone interested in history it comes up for two reasons. The old mosque in the centre is built with Roman and Byzantine pieces. And in 1918 one of the worst episodes of the First World War on this front took place here. How much of the old fabric still stands has not been verified.

From Rome to Byzantium

A statuette found in the town shows that Isis Lactans, Isis nursing her child, was worshipped here before the Hellenistic period. There was a Jewish community in the Roman era, and funerary stelae have been found, the earliest dated 64 BC. A Roman bronze patera, a shallow offering dish, was also found but later stolen from the museum in Damascus. Byzantine crosses, small incised ones and large ones in relief (5th-6th century), survive in the stones of houses. The Arabic source records three churches in the town.

The old mosque

A 19th-century description records a Friday mosque of 14 by 12 metres. Its roof rests on three rows of columns, four columns to a row, with shafts 150 centimetres high, and steps on the west side lead up to the roof. Attached to it is a minaret tower 15 metres high, on a square base, in two storeys. Roman and Byzantine pieces are reused in the building. The sources differ on its history: the Arabic source says a Roman temple and then a church stood here first, while the English source says the mosque was largely built in the Islamic era. How closely the description matches what stands today has not been verified.

Destruction and refounding

The Ottoman tax register of 1596 lists 73 households in Tafas. According to Burckhardt, Wahhabi raiders ruined the town in 1810. The present village was refounded among the Byzantine ruins in 1838, and its first school opened in 1865.

27 September 1918

On 27 September 1918 retreating Ottoman troops killed many of the town’s civilians, including women and children. T. E. Lawrence then ordered the troops under his command to take no prisoners, and the prisoners, among them 250 German and Austrian soldiers, were killed. The events are also depicted in the film Lawrence of Arabia.

Getting there

Tafas is on the road north-west out of Daraa, between Muzayrib and Da’el, about 13 kilometres from the city. Sources for the town’s position differ by 230 metres and there is no map object for the old mosque, so no coordinates are given. The mosque is in the town centre; ask there.

Its condition now

The town was on a front line from 2012 to 2018 and saw renewed fighting in 2021. The governorate has been under the transitional government since December 2024. The present condition of the old mosque and the Byzantine remains, and access to the town, have not been verified.