Deir Sharqi (, also spelled Dayr al-Sharqi), historically called Dayr al-Naqira or Dayr Sim'an, is a village administratively belonging to the

Idlib Governorate Idlib Governorate ( / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Idlib'') is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in northwestern Syria, bordering Turkey's Hatay province to the north, Aleppo Governorate to the east, Hama Governorate to the sou ...

in northwestern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. Nearby localities include the '' mantiqah'' ("district") center of Maarrat al-Numan located to the northwest, Maar Shamshah to the north, Maar Shamarin and Tell Mannas to the northeast, Jarjnaz to the east, al-Tah to the south, Hish to the southwest and Basqala, Hass and Kafr Nabl to the west. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Deir Sharqi had a population of 4,429 in the 2004 census. Deir Sharqi contains a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

-era church dated to 361 CE. A notable mosaic was found in the building. Deir Sharqi was historically known as Dayr al-Naqira, taking its name after a nearby hill. The historian Irfan Shahid theorized that the village had been a 4th-century Tanukhid settlement named after the Naqira (or Nuqayra) in Iraq that was likewise settled by the Tanukh and other Arab tribesmen. Dayr al-Naqira in turn is identified with Dayr Sim'an, the village where the Umayyad caliph

Umar II Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (; February 720) was the eighth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 717 until his death in 720. He is credited to have instituted significant reforms to the Umayyad central government, by making it much more efficient and ...

died and was buried. Also buried in Dayr al-Naqira, in the same tomb structure as Umar II, was the 12th-century Muslim ascetic Abu Zakariya Yahya ibn al-Mansur al-Maghribi, who had been visited by

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

. Abu Zakariya had secluded himself in the village. The date of the structure's construction is not known. Around 1970, the headstone bearing Umar's name had been relocated the house of the village's

mukhtar A mukhtar (; ) is a village chief in the Levant: "an old institution that goes back to the time of the Ottoman rule". According to Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the mukhtar "for centuries were the central figures". They "were ...

(headman) until the Syrian government completed its planned renovation of the site. The graves were vandalized during the Syrian civil war.

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* * * * {{Idlib Governorate, maara Populated places in Maarat al-Numan District Villages in Idlib Governorate