Rama or Ramle is a important city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded around 705–715 AD by the Umayyad governor and future caliph Sulayman Ibn Abd al-Malik.

Rama was founded to substitute Lod(Lydda) as most important city in the region. Ramla lies along the ancient roman road called Via Maris that connects Cairo to Damascus, in the intersection with the road between Jaffa to Jerusalem.

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According to the 9th-century Arab geographer Ya'qubi, Ramla was founded in 716 by the governor of the Ummayad District of Palestine, Sulayman Ibn Abd al-Malik, brother and successor of Caliph Walid I.

Its name was derived from the Arabic word raml (رمل), meaning sands or dunes. The first residents came from nearby city of Ludd (Lydda, Lod).

Ramla was the capital of Palestine Province, which was one of the five districts of the Syrian Ummayad empire.

The forces of the First Crusade took the hastily evacuated town without a fight. In the early years of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem though, control over this strategic location led to three consecutive battles between the Crusaders and Egyptian armies comes from Ascalon. As Crusader domination was stabilised and Ramla became the seat of a seigneury in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (the Lordship of Ramla within the County of Jaffa and Ascalon). It was a important economic city and an way station for pilgrims travelling to the Holy City of Jerusalem.

The Crusaders identified Ramla with the biblical region of Ramathaim and called Ramle, Arimathea.

About 1163, the rabbi Benjamin of Tudela also mistook it for a more ancient city, visited "Rama, or Ramleh, where there are remains of the walls from the days of our ancestors, for thus it was found written upon the stones. About 300 Jews dwell there. It was formerly a very great city; at a distance of 3 km there is a large Jewish cemetery."

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Ramla is the only city in the Land of Israel that was originally built in the 8th Century by the Arabs, the city continue to be of extreme importance.

Ramla also contain a most unique historical medieval sites, the Pool of the Arches.

Today, visitors ca enter in the the Pool of the Arches, there are small row boats at your disposal to gain access to this magical and historical experience.