Yarmouk in the year 636. In the eighth century, the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) made the city his favoured residence, and built several palaces around it. The city was finally abandoned in the 13th century when the Mongols and Turks invaded the area. Recent history In the Syrian Civil War, the town was occupied by ISIS, before being liberated by Government forces on 19 June 2017 during the Southern Raqqa Offensive. Ecclesiastical history Sergiopolis's first bishop was appointed shortly after 431 by John of Antioch, in spite of the opposition of the Metropolitan of Hierapolis Bambyce, on whom that church had till then depended. Later, Marianus attended a Council of Antioch. Sergiopolis obtained the title of metropolis from Emperor Anastasius I. With five suffragan sees, it figures in the Notitia episcopatuum of Antioch in the sixth century. A bishop named Sergius or George was an envoy of Justinian to the Lakhmids around 524. At the fifth general council (Second Council of Constantinople) in 553, Abraham signed as metropolitan. The favors of Anastasius obtained for the city the name of Anastasiopolis, which it still retained at the beginning of the seventh century. Bishop Candidus, at the time of the Sassanian Persian siege of the city by Khosrau I (in 543), ransomed 1,200 captives for two hundred pounds of gold, and, in 1093, Metropolitan Simeon restored the great Basilica ("Échos d'Orient", III, 238); which attests to the continuing existence of Christianity in Rasafa. Titular see(s) The (arch)diocese of Sergiopolis was nominally restored as a Roman Catholic titular bishopric, initially of the lowest (episcopal) rank, and under the curiate name Sergiopolis antea Resapha (having namesakes see Sergiopolis), and had the following incumbents as such: Titular Bishop Ján Gustíni-Zubrohlavský (1762.05.13 – 1763.11.29) Titular Bishop Eugenio Giovanni Battista Cerina, Friars Minor (O.F.M.) (1803.09.26 – 1827.05.30) Titular Bishop Adrien-Hyppolyte Languillat (郎懷仁), Jesuits S.J. (1856.05.27 – 1878.11.30) Titular Bishop Gaetano Blandini (1881.05.13 – 1885.02.02) Titular Bishop John Rooney (1886.01.29 – 1927.02.26) In 1925, it was promoted to titular archbishopric of the highest, Metropolitan rank, and its name was shortened to Sergiopolis. As such, it has had the following incumbents, the first two however still only as titular bishop : Titular Bishop Hector-Raphaël Quilliet (1928.03.23 – 1928.11.26) Titular Bishop François-Marie Kersuzan (1929.02.04 – 1935.07.23) Titular Archbishop Adolfo Alejandro Nouel y Boba-Dilla (1935.10.11 – 1937.06.26) Titular Archbishop Basile Khoury (1938.10.15 – 1941.11.21) Titular Archbishop Natale