As a village of roughly 1,000 inhabitants, Duraykish was chosen as the headquarters of Isma'il Bey, a chief of the Matawira, an Alawite tribal confederation, when he established control over the southern part of the coastal range under the Ottomans, who appointed him the governor of the Safita kaza (district).

This relatively short period, which ended with Isma'il Bey's assassination by rival chiefs, when Duraykish served as a regional seat of power, is partly credited by historian Fabrice Balanche as the foundation of its economic and demographic preeminence over other Alawite towns into the mid-20th century.

This left the area which became al-Maqla'a, located at the junction of the road connections with Safita (to the south) and Tartus (to the east), as the focus of development.

By the 1980s, the tourism stemming from Duraykish's mineral water sources began to diminish and the city also became less favored by visitors, who preferred the nearby, more modernized summer resort towns of Mashta al-Helu and Wadi al-Uyun.

Balanche attributes this decline to the state's top-down model of development and management of tourism and silk-processing in the city, which he considers stifling to private enterprise there.