The Mardaites or al-Jarajima, inhabit the highland regions of the Nur Mountains.

The Mardaites are early Christians following either Miaphysitism or Monothelitism and bear a possible, but unconfirmed, relation to the Maronites.

Little is known about their ethnicity, it has been speculated that they might have been Persians or Armenians, yet other sources claim them to have been native to the Levant or possibly even from the Arabian peninsula.

Their other Arabic name, al-Jarājimah, suggests that some were natives of the town Jurjum in Cilicia.

They are joined later by various escaped slaves and peasants during their insurgency and are said to have claimed territory from "the Holy City" to the "Black Mountain".