Study and recitation of the Quran was held in the mosque of Saqba as early as the 12th century when its khatib was Ahmad ibn Hasan al-Kafatabi.[2] Saqba was visited by Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in the early 13th century, during Ayyubid rule. He noted that it was "a village of the Ghautah of Damascus."[3]
In the 1950s Saqba served as a village center of a district which contained seven other villages, with a total population of 12,000.[4] Today, Saqba has become a working-class eastern suburb of Damascus.[5]
During the Syrian civil war, Saqba was under Free Syrian Army control since 2012,[6] with splinter factions taking over eventually and would fall under siege by government forces from 2013[7] to 2018.[8] The town was heavily damaged during the course of the war.[9]
Syria
