Jund Ḥimṣ (, "military district of Homs") was one of the military districts of the caliphal province of Syria. Geography The capital of Jund Hims was Homs, from which the district received its name. Its principal urban centres in the 10th century were Latakia, Palmyra, Jableh, Kafartab, Tarsus, Salamiyah, Bulunyas and the Fortress of Khawabi. The southern boundary line of Jund Hims laid immediately to the south of Qara, while its northern limit lay beyond the village of al-Qurayshiyya, a village on the Mediterranean coast. Eastward were the towns of Palmyra and al-Qaryatayn. History After the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century CE, Caliph Umar () divided Syria into four districts, in which Jund Hims became the northernmost district. It initially encompassed the territory of Jund Hims proper, the territory of the future district of Jund Qinnasrin in far northern Syria, and the Jazira (i.e. Upper Mesopotamia). During and immediately following the Muslim conquest of the city of Homs (Emesa to the Byzantines), the city became home to a substantial concentration of South Arabian tribesmen from the Himyar, Hamdan, Kinda, Khawlan, Alhan and Hadhramawt groups. These South Arabian tribes, excluding the Kinda, formed the core of the Qahtan faction in Syria, and were the first tribes to adopt Qahtan as a collective name, according to the historian Werner Caskel. A number of the urban Ansar of Medina also settled in Homs. After the conquest, tribesmen from the formerly Byzantine-allied Quda'a group of Kalb, Salih, Tanukh, and Bahra', all long-established in Syria before the conquests, settled in Jund Hims. The original leading Muslim households of Homs were those of al-Simt ibn Aswad of Kinda, the Dhu'l-Kala of Himyar, and the family of Hawshab Dhu Zulaym of Alhan, all of whom participated in the conquest of Syria. The head of the Dhu'l-Kala, Samayfa, led the troops of Jund Hims on the side of Syria's governor Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan at the Battle of Siffin against Caliph Ali (). Samayfa and Hawshab died in that battle, and Samayfa was succeeded by his son Shurahbil as leader of the troops of Jund Hims, until Shurahbil's death at the Battle of Khazir in 686. Al-Simt's son Shurahbil may have been the sub-governor of Jund Hims during Mu'awiya's overall governorship (646–661) and/or caliphate (661–680). The Quda'a, allied with the Kinda and Ghassan, were closely allied with the Umayyads and had significant presence in the