The plantation was originally worked by Egyptian migrant farmers who purchased and permanently settled the lands in 1894 and developed Sahab into an agricultural estate.

[1] Beginning in the 1870s, Egyptian families mostly from the eastern villages of Egypt migrated to Transjordan to avoid corvée labor for the digging of the Suez Canal.

[2] In 1894, three of the Egyptian clans, the Zyoud, Maharmah and Taharwah, purchased the fields around the khirba (ruined or abandoned village) of Sahab and turned the site into a major farming estate.

In the 2015 census, Sahab had a population over 169,000, of whom 76,000 were Jordanian citizens, 40,000 were Syrian refugees, 20,000 were migrant laborers from Southeast Asia and 15,000 were Egyptian expatriate workers.

[9][10] The initiative envisions eleven projects, among which are the transition to solar energy for electricity needs, the establishment of a museum, the creation of green areas, the painting of the city's buildings and the erection of an arabesque gate at the entrance of the town.