Daraa
The village of al-Shaykh Sa'd in the Hawran, a few kilometres south of Nawa, has been linked with Nabi Ayyub, the prophet remembered for his patience in…
The village of al-Shaykh Sa'd in the Hawran, a few kilometres south of Nawa, has been linked with Nabi Ayyub, the prophet remembered for his patience in affliction, since at least the fourth century. The geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing in the early thirteenth century, called the place Dayr Ayyub and recorded that his grave is here. Shrines honoured as his are also found at Niha in Lebanon, near al-Salt in Jordan and near Salalah in Oman. Nearby is Hammam Ayyub, a spring where tradition says he bathed and was healed, and a mosque dedicated to him holds a basalt stone known as the Rock of Ayyub, on which he is said to have sat during his illness. The village later took its name from Shaykh Sa'd, a local holy man, and it is usually visited together with the grave of Imam al-Nawawi in Nawa.