The majority of the Greeks are silk-weavers and shoemakers, weaving girdles, scarfs and robes for different parts of Syria and Egypt, and supplying the Bedawin and the Nusairy villagers with coarse red-leather boots and shoes.
Hums early became the seat of a Christian Church, and in the reign of Diocletian, its bishop, Silvanus, suffered martyrdom.

In 636 A.D., it was captured by the Saracens, (or "Sherakiyeen," "Easterns," as the Arab Moslems were called,) and although occupied for a time by the Crusaders, it has continued a Moslem city, under Mohammedan rule.

The Greek population have been oppressed and ground to the very dust by their Moslem neighbors and rulers, and their women have been driven for protection into a seclusion and degradation similar to that of the Moslem hareems.
The Rev.D.M.Wilson, a missionary of the A.B.C.F.M., took up his residence in Hums in October 1855, and remained until obliged to leave by the civil war which raged in the country in 1860.

Mr.and Mrs.Aiken went to Hums in April, 1856, but Mrs.Aiken died June 20, after having given promise of rare usefulness among the women of Syria.
After Mr.Wilson left Hums, a faithful native helper, Sulleba Jerwan, was sent to preach in Hums.

His wife, Luciya Shekkoor, had been trained in the family of Rev.W.Bird in Deir el Komr, and was a devoted and excellent laborer on behalf of the women of Hums.