Idlib

Idlib lies amid the olive-growing country southwest of Aleppo. In the early Ottoman period it was a small fief, but its orchards and presses supplied oil for an expanding soap industry. The town became known as Idlib al-Sabun, or Idlib of the Soap, as workshops turned local oil into a product sold in the markets of northern Syria and beyond.

Court records describe a large soapworks built in the northern quarter in 1654–55 by Ahmad and Baha al-Din al-Zahrawi. It had a great copper cauldron and numerous oil storage tanks; the family also endowed a nearby mosque. Oil from neighbouring villages supplied the works, while other presses and soap boilers operated throughout the district. Idlib's soap reached markets including Aleppo, Antioch and Hama, and was carried as far as Istanbul.