Al-Haffah, the Ridge Town on the Road to Saladin Castle

Al-Haffah is a town on a narrow, wooded ridge between 350 and 400 metres above sea level, 33 kilometres east of Latakia. It runs as a strip along the Latakia–Slunfeh road, with orchards of olives, figs, pomegranates, apples and pears all around. It is the centre of al-Haffah District and lies 7 kilometres west of Saladin Castle, so most people heading for the castle pass through it.

Getting there

From Latakia it is 33 kilometres east by mountain road. The road runs through the town and keeps climbing towards Slunfeh. Public transport does not go up to Saladin Castle; people going there take a taxi from Al-Haffah.

What to see in the town

Al-Haffah is not a town of monuments, and there are no archaeological remains nearby. The reason is geography: from Byzantine times onward, building in the area was concentrated in the far more defensible castle at Sahyun. What there is to see is the town itself. Houses of two or three storeys press together in the centre with no open space between them. Orchards line the road. From the ridge you look out over the coastal plain of Latakia on one side and the northern mountains on the other.

From the Middle Ages to French rule

In the early 13th century the geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi recorded al-Haffah as a district of many villages and the place where a cloth called haffiyya was made. Many families around Sahyun descend from Turkmen and Kurdish tribesmen whom the Mamluk sultan Baybars and his successors settled in the mountain forts to control the road between Aleppo and the coast. In 1860 the American missionary R. J. Dodds described it as a beautiful village in a fertile district and counted about 2000 inhabitants. In 1919 the town joined the Sahyun uprising against the French occupation, led by Umar al-Bitar; it was part of the wider Hananu Revolt in the north-west and allied with the revolt of Saleh al-Ali. In 1924 al-Haffah replaced Babanna as the capital of the Sahyun district.

What changed in the twentieth century

In 1960 the population was 2750. The town was small but did the work of a city, with government offices, a gendarmerie battalion and the main market of its mountain district. When the land reforms of the 1960s cut the rents of its landowning notables, most of them moved to the Saliba quarter of Latakia or to Damascus and kept their houses in al-Haffah as summer homes. New districts created between 1967 and 1970 took part of its hinterland. Deep ravines running east to west also mean that many villages in the district connect directly with Latakia, bypassing al-Haffah. The 2004 census counted 4298 people.

Recent years

In June 2012 the town saw eight days of heavy fighting. UN observers later reported burnt homes, shops and public buildings, and a destroyed hospital. In March 2025 the clashes and civilian killings that spread across the coastal countryside also reached al-Haffah District.

How long it takes

An hour is enough for the town itself. Most people put al-Haffah and Saladin Castle in the same day; together they fill half a day.

What most people miss

Both sides of the ridge. The town sits where it can watch the coastal plain on one side and the northern mountains on the other at the same time. Stop somewhere among the orchards along the road and look both ways, and it becomes clear why al-Haffah could oversee its countryside for centuries.