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. In 1810 al-Qurayya contained a few
Druze families and was the chief village in the areas south and southwest of
Ira in
Jabal al-Arab. Between the 1830s and 1840s, the prominent
al-Atrash clan chose the village as their principal residence. It was still subject to raids by
Bedouin nomads at that time. In April 1838, while young Druze fighters from al-Qurayya
were confronting the
Egyptian army of
Ibrahim Pasha, the village was looted and several of its inhabitants were killed in a raid by Sheikh Ibn Sumayr and his 'Anza Bedouin tribe. Further major raids against al-Qurayya occurred in 1842 and 1846. In 1838 al-Qurayya was reported to be populated with
Druze and
Christians. Only in the 1850s did relative stability take root. According to Porter, who visited al-Qurayya in 1853, the village had shrunk from one of the major towns of the
Hauran plain to a small village. Many of its houses were built from ancient materials. Its chief in the 1850s was Sami Faruq Pasha al-Atrash, the most powerful Druze
sheikh in the Hauran. During the
Great Syrian Revolt of 1925-27, which was spearheaded by Sultan Pasha, al-Qurayya served as the chief meeting place for the sheikhs of local rebel clans. ==Demographics==