Qinnasrin in the context of "Aleppo Governorate"

Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (fl. 705 – 24 December 738) was an Umayyad prince and one of the most prominent Arab generals of the early decades of the 8th century, leading several campaigns against the Byzantine Empire and the Khazar Khaganate. He achieved great fame especially for leading the last Arab siege of the Byzantine capital Constantinople.

He launched his military career leading the annual summer raids against the Byzantines in Anatolia. By 709, he was governor over Qinnasrin (northern Syria), the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), Armenia, and Adharbayjan, giving him control over the Caliphate's northern frontier. From this position, he launched the first Arab expeditions against the Khazars across the Caucasus. Maslama's brother, Caliph Sulayman, appointed him to lead the campaign to capture Constantinople in 715, but it ended in disaster for the Arabs and he was ordered to withdraw by Sulayman's successor, Umar II, in 718.

Jund Qinnasrīn (Arabic: جُـنْـد قِـنَّـسْـرِيْـن, "military district of Qinnasrin") was one of five sub-provinces of Syria under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, organized soon after the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century CE. Initially, its capital was Qinnasrin, but as the city declined in population and wealth, the capital was moved to Aleppo. By 985, the district's principal towns were Manbij, Alexandretta, Hama, Shaizar, Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Samosata, Jusiya, Wadi Butnan, Rafaniyya, Lajjun, Mar'ash, Qinnasrin, al-Tinat (possibly ancient Issus), Balis, and Suwaydiyya.

The Tanukh (Arabic: تنوخ, romanized: Tanūkh, sometimes referred to as the Tanukhids (التنوخيون, al-Tanūkhiyyūn), was an Arab tribal group whose history in the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent spanned the 2nd century CE to the 17th century. The group began as a confederation of Arab tribes in eastern Arabia in the 2nd century and migrated to Mesopotamia during Parthian rule in the 3rd century. The confederation was led around this time by its king Jadhima, whose rule is attested by a Greek–Nabatean inscription and who plays an epic role in the traditional narratives of the pre-Islamic period. At least part of the Tanukh migrated to Byzantine Syria in the 4th century, where they served as the first Arab foederati (tribal confederates) of the empire. The Tanukh's premier place among the foederati was lost after its rebellion in the 380s, but it remained a zealous Orthodox Christian ally of the Byzantines until the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 630s.

Under early Muslim rule, the tribe largely retained its Christian faith and settlements around Qinnasrin and Aleppo. The Tanukh was an ally of the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate and became part of the Umayyads' main tribal support base, the Quda'a confederation. The Tanukh's fortunes, like that of Syria in general, declined under the Iraq-based Abbasid Caliphate, which forced its tribesmen to convert to Islam in 780. As a result of attacks during the Fourth Muslim Civil War in the early 9th century, the Tanukh's area of settlement shifted to Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and the coastal mountains between Latakia and Homs, which by the 10th century were called 'Jabal Tanukh'.