Al-Jinan

Jinan is a village in central Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate. It is located east of Hama and west of Salamiyah.
According to the Central [Bureau of Statistics (Syria)|Syria Central Bureau of Statistics], Jinan had a population of 3,860 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are Sunni Muslim Arabs. As of 2009, they mainly relied economically on agriculture, particularly vegetables, especially dried mallow, as well as pomegranates and grapes. The other main trade in the village was motorcycle repair.

History

Jinan was abandoned or no longer cultivated by 1800 and this state of affairs was again acknoweldged in an 1805 Ottoman government record. That year, the village was granted by the governor Abdullah [Pasha al-Azm] to his relative Nasuh Pasha al-Azm as a malikane. By 1829, it had been repopulated and was listed as a tax-paying village. The scholar Eli Smith counted Jinan as the only inhabited place in the district of Salamiyah in 1838, noting its inhabitants to be Sunni Muslims. That year, the village had been settled by formerly sheepherding Bedouins.