 They were resettled there by Sultan Abdul Hamid II following the Greco-Turkish War in 1897-98, in which the Ottoman Empire lost Crete to the Kingdom of Greece.The most notable but still understudied Cretan Muslim village in Syria is al-Hamidiyah, many of whose inhabitants continue to speak Greek as their first language.There, of course, is also a significant Greco-Syrian population in Aleppo as well as smaller communities in Latakia, Tartus and Homs.