Prodded by the pleas of some citizens of Aleppo and spurred by the Byzantines, the Sultan ordered a major offensive against the Frankish possessions in northern Syria for the year 1111.
At the approach of the large Muslim army, the small Frankish forces of the County of Edessa withdrew within the walls of their two major towns.
By this time Tancred had called up his Antiochene army and based it at the castle of Rugia near Jisr ash-Shughur, a bridge over the Orontes River about 50 kilometers south of Antioch.
Receiving a plea for help from the independent Munqidh rulers of Shaizar, Mawdud's army moved 120 kilometers south-southwest from Aleppo to camp outside that town.
At Tancred's call for assistance, King Baldwin I brought both his own army from the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Count Bertrand's forces from the County of Tripoli.
Mawdud's army "employed their normal harassing tactics, which were directed to the objects of cutting off supplies from the Franks, and of preventing their watering their horses in the Orontes.