Considerable areas of cultivated land surrounded the town, with plenty of fig-trees, olives, pistachios, almonds and grapes.

After the crusaders, led by Raymond de Saint Gilles and Bohemond of Taranto, successfully besieged Antioch they found themselves with insufficient supplies of food.

This fact itself is not seriously in doubt, as it is acknowledged by nearly a dozen Christian chronicles written during the twenty years after the Crusade, all of which are based at least to some degrees on eyewitness accounts.

[9] Three other accounts, by Fulcher of Chartres (who was a participant of the Crusade though not personally present at Ma‘arra), Albert of Aachen and Ralph of Caen (both of whom based their accounts on interviews with participants) state that the cannibalism happened during the siege and suggest that it was a public spectacle rather than a shameful, hidden episode.

[10] Ralph states that "a lack of food compelled them to make a meal of human flesh, that adults were put in the stewpot, and that [children] were skewered on spits.

One interpretation in this tradition is the French poem The Leaguer of Antioch, which contains lines such as: In concluding his discussion of the various accounts of the cannibalism, historian Jay Rubenstein notes that the chroniclers clearly felt discomfort and tried to downplay what had happened, hence tending to give only part of the facts (but without agreeing on which part and interpretation to give).

[14] He also notes that the fact that only Muslims were eaten is at odds with hunger as sole or primary motive – presumably, desperate starving people would not have cared much about the religion of those they consumed.

[15] He concludes that the cannibalism at Ma‘arra likely went "beyond poor and hungry people eating from the dead" in secret, rather suggesting that "some of the soldiers must have recognized its potential utility [as a weapon of terror] and, hoping to drive the defenders into a quick surrender, made a spectacle of the eating, and made sure that Muslims were the only ones eaten.

Reports and rumours of their brutality in Ma‘arra and Antioch convinced "many Muslim commanders and garrisons that the crusaders were bloodthirsty barbarians, invincible savages who could not be resisted".

[17] Ibn al-Muqaddam received lands in Maarat al-Nuʿman in 1179 as part of his compensation for yielding Baalbek to Saladin's brother Turan Shah.

The defectors launched an assault on the government held roadblock in retaliation for a raid on their positions the previous night.

As the Syrian Civil War followed, the town's strategic position on the road between Damascus and Aleppo made it a significant prize.

Starting on 8 October 2012, the Battle of Maarat al-Numan (2012) was fought between the FSA and the government, causing numerous civilian casualties and severe material damage.