Sirmaniyah ( ''Sirmāniyah'', also spelled ''Sarmania'', ''al-Sarmaniyah'', ''Sermaniye'') is a village in northern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, administratively part of the

Hama Governorate Hama Governorate ( / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥamā'') is one of the 14 Governorates of Syria, governorates of Syria. It is situated in western-central Syria, bordering Idlib Governorate, Idlib and Aleppo Governorates to the north, Raqqa Gove ...

, northwest of

Hama Hama ( ', ) is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located north of Damascus and north of Homs. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 996,000 (2023 census), Hama is one o ...

. Nearby localities include

Jisr al-Shughur Jisr ash-Shughūr (, , also rendered as ''Jisser ash-Shughour'' and other spellings), known in antiquity as Seleucobelus (), is a city in the Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria. Situated at an altitude of above sea level on the Orontes rive ...

12 kilometers to the north,

Qarqur Qarqur (, also spelled Qarqar or Karkour) is a village in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located northwest of Hama. It is situated in the al-Ghab plain, on the eastern bank of the Orontes River. Nearby localities in ...

to the northeast, al-Ziyarah to the southeast and Farikah to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Sirmaniyah had a population of 2,087 in the 2004 census.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Hama Governorate. Its inhabitants are predominantly

Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...

History

Sirmaniyah has been identified as the village of "Sarum" where

John Maron John Maron (, ''Youhana Maroun''; ; ; 628, Sirmaniyah or Sarmin, Byzantine Empire – 707, Kfarhy, Umayyad Caliphate), was a Syriac monk. and the first Maronite Patriarch. He is revered as a saint by the Catholic Church, especially the Maron ...

, the first

Maronite Maronites (; ) are a Syriac Christianity, Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant (particularly Lebanon) whose members belong to the Maronite Church. The largest concentration has traditionally re ...

patriarch was born. However, the Syrian village of

Sarmin Sarmin ( also spelled Sarmeen) is a town in northwestern Syria, administratively part of the Idlib Governorate, located 15 kilometers southeast of Idlib. It has an altitude of about 390 meters. Nearby localities include Binnish to the north, Tal ...

to the north has also been identified as "Sarum." In the 12th century Sirmaniyah served as a

Crusader Crusader or Crusaders may refer to: Military * Crusader, a participant in one of the Crusades * Convair NB-36H Crusader, an experimental nuclear-powered bomber * Crusader tank, a British cruiser tank of World War II * Crusaders (guerrilla), a C ...

fortress and

fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...

known as "Sarmania", part of the

Principality of Antioch The Principality of Antioch (; ) was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and History of Syria#Medieval era, Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of ...

. Its name derived from the Sarmani family who controlled the castle. The Sarmani were a Germanic family, many of whose members occupied high-ranking offices within the Principality, including Gervais of Sarmania.Moosa, 1986, p. 329. The fortress was captured by

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

, the Muslim sultan of the

Ayyubid dynasty The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

, on 19 August 1188 after a brief siege. Sirmaniyah has seen violence during the ongoing Syrian civil war between the government and opposition forces. According to opposition activists, the village was assaulted by

Syrian Army The Syrian Army is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. Up until the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian Arab Army existed as a land force branch of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, which dominanted the military service of the fo ...

tanks on 10 June 2011, early in the uprising. Fleeing residents of Sirmaniyah were reportedly pursued by Syrian troops. Activists stated that the Syrian Army entered with hundreds of soldiers and "cleaned out three villages," including Sirmaniyah. At least one person was reportedly killed in the village. On 23 April 2015, heavy clashes were reported in the village as part of a rebel campaign to capture Jisr al-Shughur. On 14 October, the Syrian Army took over the village. Eventually, the village was captured by the Jihadist

Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war. It was formed on 28January 2017 as a merger between several armed groups: Jaysh al-Ahrar (an Ahrar al-Sham facti ...

, who rule over much of Idlib governorate. On 15 April 2022, a militant of Ansar al-Islam blew himself up in a

suicide attack A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is ofte ...

aimed at destroying Syrian army positions near the village. One Syrian soldier was killed and 4 others were wounded in the attack.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Hama Governorate, suqaylabiyah Populated places in al-Suqaylabiyah District