Having inspected the ruins, I proceeded to the hills of Umm al-ʻAẓâm, as I supposed that I should certainly find a necropolis there, but my search was in vain.
Fig. 18—An ʻAlâwi and our guide For two hours I scrambled from hill to hill, making my way through deep gaps, and in the šeʻîb of al-Ḥaẓar I found numerous stone quarries and artificially smoothed walls of rock, but I did not see a single rock tomb. My endeavors won me nothing but a brief inscription in Greek and Nabataean. As I was returning, I heard a shot. It was an alarm signal with which my native companions were recalling me. Running out from the rocks, I saw my companions and the camels surrounded by a crowd of the ʻAlâwîn (Fig. 18). The latter had been reaping barley southeast of al-Ḥomejma and, hearing of our arrival, had rushed up to my baggage, where they were begging for food and presents from Šerîf and Mḥammad. Mḥammad despised them and had warned me against them even before we had encamped at al-Ḥomejma, declaring that they were all rogues. “Those of them who are strong, steal; those who are weak, beg (ḳawwîhom
portion of a tree trunk rooted in a certain place. It was upon this spot that Obodas founded the city of Auara. As this narrative does not contain the slightest reference to the sea and the harbor city of Leukekome (Auara in Syriac and Arabic), which was known before Obodas’ time, I would identify Uranius’ city of Auara with the city of Auara which Ptolemy, Geography, V. 17: 5, places in Arabia Petraea and which, according to the Tabula Peutingeriana (Vienna, 1888), sheet 8, was situated on the highroad from Aila to Petra and is identical with our ruins of al-Ḥomejma.
Notitia Dignitatum (Seeck), Oriens, 34, Nos. 12 and 25, refers to a place Hauare or Hauanae in Palestine, which contained a garrison of mounted native bowmen.Assemanus, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Vol. 3, Part 2, fol. 593, notes, according to Nilus Doxopatrius (1143 A. D.). that in the sixth century of our era the bishopric of Avara belonged to the metropolitanate of Bostra.Al-Jaʻḳûbi. Ta’rîḫ (Houtsma), Vol. 2, p. 347, relates that in the year 713—714 A. D. al-Walîd I set out for the settlement of al-Ḥumajma in the district of aš-Šera’, which was situated in the administrative region of Damascus. The mother of Salîṭ ibn ʻAbdallâh ibn ʻAbbâs complained to him that ʻAli ibn ʻAbdallâh had killed her son and buried him in a garden in which he lived, and had built a little shop above his grave. Al-Walîd punished him for it. ʻAli settled down permanently in al-Ḥumajma, and his children also remained there until Allâh entrusted them with authority over the Moslems.Al-Masʻûdi, Tanbîh (De Goeje), p. 338, records that in the year 716—717 A. D. the Alide pretender Abu-l-Hâšem proceeded to the Caliph Sulejmân ibn ʻAbdalmalek, from whom he departed with rich gifts to al-Medîna. While on the road poison was administered to him. When it began to take effect, he hastened to the Abbasside Muḥammed ibn ʻAli—who,