Aleppo, Also Halab, Beroea

CityAlso Halab, Beroea

Aleppoحلب

A great citadel city of northern Syria, seat of Sayf al-Dawla and Nur al-Din.

Taken by the Muslims in 637, it flourished under the Hamdanid prince Sayf al-Dawla, whose court in the 900s gathered the poet al-Mutanabbi and the philosopher al-Farabi. Nur al-Din made it a base against the Crusaders, and its citadel withstood many sieges before the Mongols sacked it in 1260.