Al-Qurayya

Al-Qurayya (; also spelled al-Qrayya or Kureiyeh) is a town in southern Syria, administratively part of the Suwayda Governorate, located south of Suwayda. Nearby localities include Bosra to the southwest, Hout to the south, Salkhad to the southeast, al-Kafr, Hibran and Sahwet al-Khudr to the northeast, Sahwet Blatah and Rasas to the north and Ira and al-Mujaymer to the northwest. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), al-Qurayya had a population of 6,789 in the 2004 census. The town is also the administrative center of the al-Qurayya nahiyah which consists of four towns with a combined population of 9,892. In Al-Qurayya, Druze make up the predominant population, while Christians and Sunni Muslim Bedouins represent a minority.

==History== Western scholar Josias Leslie Porter identified al-Qurayya with biblical "Kerioth" mentioned by Jeremiah as one of the cities in the plain of Moab. The prophet Amos wrote that he would "devour the palaces of Kerioth." The city is later mentioned in the 4th-century CE as "Koreath," a village belonging to Bosra in the Roman province Arabia Petraea. However, this "Koreath" has also been identified with the nearby palace of Ein Qarata to the south of the Lejat plain. On streets and alleyways throughout the village were the remains of several columns. A Greek inscription was found on one of the stones and dated back to 296 CE.