Nearby localities include the mantiqah ("district") center of Maarrat al-Numan located 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) 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.

[2] 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.

[4] 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.

Around 1970, the headstone bearing Umar's name had been relocated the house of the village's mukhtar (headman) until the Syrian government completed its planned renovation of the site.