According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Beit Ara had a population of 1,878 in the 2004 census.

[2] In 1596 the village was listed under the name of Bayt Irr in the Ottoman tax registers, as part of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jawlan Sharqi in the Qada of Hauran.

[3] The German explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen passed through the region in 1808–1809 and found ruins in the Hauran at a site called 'Bethirra', which German geographer Carl Ritter suggested was the 'Bethura' fortress constructed by Herod the Great when he ruled Batanea (ancient Hauran) (c. 37–4 BCE.

The fortress town later served as a garrison at one point during Byzantine rule (4th–early 7th centuries CE).

[4] In the 1880s, Beit Ara was described by Schumacher as "a small village on the upper part of the western slopes" of Wadi al-Zayyatin.