[1] In the 1880s, Gottlieb Schumacher noted that Ayn Zakar was "a miserable-looking village ... situated on a stony hill", consisting of thirty stone and mud-built huts.

There were about sixty Muslim inhabitants, all members of the Wuld Ali branch of the Anaza, a large Bedouin tribe which was numerous in the Hauran plain.

[2] The Wuld Ali had been present in the Hauran since at least the early 18th century, often cooperating with the Ottoman provincial authorities in Damascus as guards and guides for the annual Hajj caravans which passed through the region on the way to Mecca.

[3] The Wuld Ali began settling down in Ayn Zakar during this period, engaging in farming, a practice traditionally disdained by the tribe (and the Bedouin in general), in contrast to previous decades when they lived off collecting tribute from the region's peasants.

[4] At the time of Schumacher's visit in the 1880s, the village was owned by a leading sheikh of the Wuld Ali, Muhammad al-Smeir (or Ismayr or Smayr), who settled his tribesmen there.