User:Al Ameer son/Jazr

The Jazr is a fertile plain in in the Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria.

Geography
The Jazr plain is located within the Idlib Governorate. It is bordered by the Jordan Rift Valley and the Zawiya Mountains to the west, the Mount Simeon massif to the north, the plain of Aleppo to the northeast, the limestone plateau of Ebla to the south and the Rouj plain of the Orontes River valley to the southwest.

History
According to the 9th-century historian al-Ya'qubi, al-Jazr was a district of the Aleppo region. During the medieval period the Jazr served as Aleppo's breadbasket. It contained the fortress towns of Zardana and Atarib. In 1100, the Crusader prince Bohemond I of Antioch occupied the Jazr and Atarib. The first Crusader lord of Atarib granted the Muslim scholar Hamdan ibn Abd al-Rahim (d. 1059) control of a village in the Principality and he effectively administered the Jazr on behalf of Antioch. The Jazr's Muslim inhabitants fled eastwards towards Aleppo in the wake of Antioch's victory over Ridwan of Aleppo at the Battle of Artah in 1105 and their subsequent attempts to consolidate control over the Principality's eastern frontier; many of the Jazr's refugees were killed en route to Aleppo by the Prinicipality's forces.

In 1121 Ilghazi of Aleppo ceded the Jazr to Antioch following increasing military pressure by the Crusaders against his domains, though the Muslim garrisons in Zardana and Atharib refused to surrender the fortress towns. Zardana was ultimately captured, but Atharib remained in Muslim hands, leading to an unofficial demarcation through the Jazr between Aleppo and Antioch. In 1128 Hamdan ibn Abd al-Rahim defected to the Muslim ruler Zangi after the latter took Aleppo in 1128 and was appointed governor of the Jazr which was recaptured from the Crusaders.