Qal'at Ja'bar is a hilltop fortress that Salim ibn Malik ibn Badran received from the Seljuks in 1086. The article considers him a likelier builder than the Numayr tribe. It credits Nur ad-Din with the current structures, which he rebuilt from 1168, and names no architect or style. The layout resembles the Citadel of Aleppo. The walls are stone, with upper parts of baked brick.
The site measures 1,210 by 560 feet (370 by 170 m) and has 35 bastions around a rock core and a partial dry moat. Crusaders briefly held it in 1102, and Zengi was murdered there in 1146. It was a Turkish exclave from 1921 to 1973, when the reputed tomb of Suleyman Shah was moved.
It is now an island in Lake Assad, reached by a causeway, and a partially restored ruin. ISIL captured it in 2014, and the SDF took it on January 6, 2017.
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