[2] According to French geographer Robert Boulanger, writing in the early 1940s, Kafartab was "an abandoned ancient site" located 2.5 mi (4.0 km) northwest of Khan Shaykhun.

[4] During the Abbasid era, in the late 9th century CE, Kafartab was noted by medieval Arab geographer al-Ya'qubi as a town "in a thirsty desert plain" with no springs in its vicinity.

[6] In 1026, when the region around the town was ruled by the Kilabi Mirdasid dynasty, the emir of Aleppo, Salih ibn Mirdas, awarded Kafartab to the Banu Munqidh as a feudal territory.

[13] The Zengid leader Imad ad-Din Zengi conquered Kafartab and other fortress cities along the eastern frontier of Antioch's territories, such as Atarib, Maarrat al-Numan and Zardana in the spring of 1135.

[14] In the summer of 1157, a massive earthquake nearly destroyed Kafartab and other major towns in the region and killed most of the Banu Munqidh family, including its chief Taj al-Dawla Nasir al-Din Muhammad.

As his forces approached the Zengid stronghold of Aleppo in 1176, he entered a truce with them that preserved their territory other than Kafartab, which he demanded be ceded back to him.

[17] In 1178/9, Saladin handed the villages near Maarat al-Numan including Kafartab to be ruled by the Ayyubid emir Shams ad-Din ibn al-Muqaddam,[18] as he took Baalbek instead.