The earliest account of the 1138 earthquake comes from Damascene Ibn al-Qalanisi who reported that “the chronicles record that the citadel of Al-Atharib was taken by ʿImād al-Dīn Atabik on Friday 1 Safar [9 October 1138], and they report a strong earthquake in Syria during the night of Friday 8 Safar [15 October].” His terse phrasing suggests reliance on official reports rather than firsthand observation, yet the precision of his dates implies that the shock was well remembered.

A later Syriac source, Michael the Syrian, writing roughly half a century afterward and from farther north, noted that “Tarib [probably Atarib] was overturned in this tremor and the Church of Harim collapsed.” The anonymous compiler of Chronicon Ad Annum 1234, writing in the early thirteenth century, recorded that “the powerful citadel of Atarib sank into the earth as if it had never existed.” Finally, thirteenth-century historian Kemal ad-Din (also known as Ibn al-ʿAdim), writing from Aleppo or Cairo, offered a fuller and more localized account: “The citadel of al-Atharib collapsed, killing 600 Muslims, but the governor [ʿImād al-Dīn Atabik] survived with a few [other] men.” Kemal ad-Din's proximity to northern Syria and his interest in Aleppan history anchor the earthquake within a specific human context.