Homs or Emesa (mod. Hims, Syria) is a city situated on the eastern bank of the river Orontes in the center of a cultivated plain.
At the start of the crusading period, it was held by Ridwân, the ruler of Aleppo. Ridwān’s atabeg, Janāh al- Dawla Husayn, made himself independent there in 1097. After his death in 1103 it passed under the control of the rulers of Damascus, although at times this control was only nominal. The city became a major Muslim military camp, supplying large numbers of troops, and was also used as an assembly point and a depot for weapons and siege equipment.
In 1138, after a number of attempts to subjugate it by force, ‘Imād al-Dīn Zangī received the city as part of a matrimonial alliance. Upon his death in 1144, Homs passed under the control ofMu‘īn al-Dīn Unur of Damascus. In 1148 it proved to be a valuable rallying point for the Zangid troops assembling to oppose the Second Crusade. It came under the control of Nûr al-Dīn in 1149 and of Saladin in 1175. The latter gave the city to his cousin, Nasīr al-Dīn Muhammad, who founded the Asadī dynasty (named after Saladin’s uncle, Muhammad’s father, Asad al-Dīn Shirkûh). The Asadīsruled almost without interruption until 1262, after which the importance of the city declined. The great victory won by the Mamlûk sultan Qalâwûn over the Mongols in 1281 was fought at Homs, but the city remained merely a minor governorship in the Mamlûk sultanate until the Ottomans took over Syria in 1516.