and still more exactly to the district between the towns of Nawâ and Edre'ât, which is accounted the most fertile portion of the country, covered with the ruins of villages, monasteries, and single courts, and is even now comparatively well cultivated. Among the nomads as well as among the native agricultural population, this district is called from its formation Nukra or Nukrat esh-Shâm,[1] a name by which this highly-favoured plain is known and celebrated by the poets in the whole Syrian desert, as far as ‘Irâk and Higâz.
But even the national writers are acquainted with and frequently make mention of the Hauranitish tradition of Job; yet they do not call Job's home Nukra, - for this word, which belongs only to the idiom of the steppe, is unknown to the literature of the language, - but Bethenîje (Betanaea). It is so called in a detailed statement of the legends of Job:[2]
After the death of his father, Job journeyed into Egypt[3] to marry Rahme (רחמה) the daughter of Ephraim, who had inherited from her grandfather Joseph the robe of beauty; and after he had brought her to his own country, he received from God a mission as prophet to his countrymen, viz., to the inhabitants of Haurân and Batanaea (Arab. b‛ṯh 'llh t‛ rsûlâ 'lâ qûmh whm 'hl ḥûrân w-'l-btnı̂t). The historian of Jerusalem, Mugîr ed-dîn el-Hambeli, in the chapter on the legend of the prophets, says: “Job came from el-'Ês,
- ↑ On this name, which belongs to the modern geography of the country, comp. my Reisebericht über Hauran u. d. Trachonen, S. 87.
- ↑ Catalogue of Arab. MSS collected in Damascus by J. G. Wetzstein. Berlin 1863, No. 46, p. 56.
- ↑ The connection with Egypt, in which these legends place Job, is worthy of observation. - Del.
