Dhruma or Darma () is a small town located by road northwest of
Riyadh
Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the Riyadh Governorate. Located on the eastern bank of Wadi Hanifa, the current form of the metropolis largely emerged in th ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
.
It is the center of the small Dhurma Governorate of
Riyadh Province, and had a population of 10,267 people according to the 2004 census.
It lies in the wide Al-Batin valley, which it shares with its larger twin,
Muzahmiyya.
History
The town appears in the 7th century poetry of
Jarir as "Qarma" or "Garma", and is also mentioned by the same name in
Yaqut's encyclopedia. It is unknown, however, when exactly the name evolved into "Dhurma". The village was important in pre-20th century
Nejd as a western gateway to the region of
Wadi Hanifa, which includes Riyadh and
Diriyah
Diriyah (; formerly romanization of Arabic, romanized as Dereyeh and Dariyya) is a towns in Saudi Arabia, town and governorate in Saudi Arabia. Located on the northwestern outskirts of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, Diriyah was the original home of t ...
, and often bore the brunt of the military campaigns directed at the region. Its traditional rulers were distant cousins of the
Al Saud
The House of Saud ( ) is the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia. It is composed of the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the Emirate of Diriyah, known as the First Saudi State, (1727–1818), and his brothers, though the ruling fac ...
family, and Dhurma joined the
First Saudi State at the end of the 18th century. A large invasion of Saudi-ruled territory by the
Yam tribe of
Najran, some 1000 km to the south, was repelled by the people of Dhurma in 1775 after an intense battle fought in a nearby forest of palm trees.
Later, the
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
ian-
Ottoman forces of
Ibrahim Pasha placed the town under siege on their way to the Saudi capital of Diriyah (see
Saudi-Ottoman War). Dhurma offered remarkably stout resistance to the invading army, and even rejected Ibrahim's offer of a truce in exchange for allowing him to proceed to Diriyah. The town, however, surrendered in early 1818 and Ibrahim's retribution was especially harsh, allowing his troops to pillage the village with impunity. The town revived somewhat after those events, and was reported by
Philby to have had a population of nearly 6,000 in 1917. Its fortunes have fallen dramatically in recent decades, however, because it was bypassed by the modern Riyadh-Mecca highway, and most of its original inhabitants have moved to neighboring Riyadh.
Climate
References
*
Yaqut Al-Hamawi, ''
Mu'jam Al-Buldan''
*Ibn Ghannam, ''Rawdhat Al-Afkar wal Afham'' (a history of
Nejd)
*Philby, St. John B., ''The Heart of Arabia: A Record of Travel & Exploration'', Vol. 1, p. 126, G.P. Putnam's Sons, NY and London, 1923.
External links
Website
{{Portal, Saudi Arabia
Populated places in Riyadh Province