[3] Nearby localities include Mardikh and Maar Dibsah to the south, Tronba and al-Nayrab to the west, Sarmin to the northwest, Taftanaz to the north, Talhiyah to the northeast, Tell Touqan to the east and Kafr Amim to the southeast.

[8] On 26 February 1959, former president Gamal Abdel Nasser addressed the city's residents in a speech commemorating the union between Egypt and Syria forming the United Arab Republic.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, from at least April 2011, the town has seen popular opposition to Bashar al-Assad's government.

[12] Between 30 October and 1 November 2012, al-Nusra and Liwa Dawud—then a sub-unit of Suqour al-Sham—coordinated an attack on three government checkpoints at entrances to the town.

[16] On 3 February 2018, Russian military pilot Roman Filipov's Su-25SM jet was shot down by Tahrir al-Sham and Jaysh al-Nasr militants over the Idlib Governorate, near the town of Maarrat al-Nu'man (57 km (35 mi) north of the city of Hama), or the town of Saraqib, according to other sources,[17][18] with a shoulder launched surface to air missile.

On 15 October 2018, the Guardians of Religion Organization which is al-Qaeda's branch in Syria published a video in Saraqib which showed the group's religious police, the hisbah, driving around the city with loudspeakers calling on people to adhere to sharia.