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43-748: The town of Baakleen was the seat of local power during the Ma'an period until Fakhr-al-Din II chose to live in Deir el Qamar due to a water shortage in Baakleen. Deir el Qamar remained the seat until Bashir Shihab II ascended to the throne and moved its court to the Beiteddine palace. Beiteddine remains the capital of the Chouf District today. Fakhr-al-Din II , the most prominent Druze tribal leader at

86-736: A vilayet after an administrative reform in 1865, and by 1867 it had been reformed into the Syria Vilayet . The Ottoman Empire conquered Syria from the Mamluks following the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516 and the subsequent pledges of allegiance paid to the Ottoman sultan, Selim I , in Damascus by delegations of notables from throughout Syria. The Ottomans established Damascus as

129-657: A Druze family who was a close ally of the Shihabs, also became Christians around the same time. After the death of Cezzar Ahmed in 1804, Bashir II moved to destroy the feudal families his predecessors had relied upon as allies. When Ibrahim Pasha moved his army into Syria in 1831, Bashir II offered his allegiance to the Egyptian forces and was granted extensive authority over much of Lebanon. He used his power to channelize taxes to create an effective military and administrative structure, which were extremely unpopular measures for

172-584: A portion of the Lebanese feudal chiefs that led to wide-scale revolts by Druze and Christian tribal groups which he successfully suppressed. However, Bashir II was deposed by the British fleet anchored off Beirut and went into exile to Turkey. Up to this day his descendants live in Turkey . After Bashir II went into exile, the Ottoman sultan appointed Bashir III, Bashir II's distant cousin, as emir in 1841, but it

215-573: The multazims were never reigning princes. The relations between the Porte and the Shihab emirs revolved around the payment of taxes, and the official legitimation of their position as multazims. Such was the precariousness of their position that over the more than three centuries of the two dynasties (1516–1840) only two significantly strong leaders emerged, Fakhr-Al-Din I (1516–1544) and his grandson Fakhr al-Din II (1591–1635). Bashir Shihab II (1788–1840)

258-462: The 12th century by the Maan emirs , Baakline served as their capital until the early 17th century when its most famous Emir Fakhreddin II , moved to Deir el Qamar . Today, Baakline is an important Druze town and seat of the sect's religious leader. The beautiful grand serail, the main administrative building of Baakline before World War II , has been restored and transformed into a public library . In

301-567: The Druze lost most of their political and feudal powers. Also, the Druze formed an alliance with Britain and allowed Protestant Christian missionaries to enter Mount Lebanon, creating tension between them and the native Maronite Church . Haydar was a Sunni, though his mother was a Druze from the Maan clan. He spent the next decade trying to win the support of various Druze and Shia clans in southern and central Lebanon. His rivals called in help from

344-729: The Lebanese mountains were relatively quiet, although feuds between individual families still frequently flared into violence. The status quo was shattered with the Mamluk invasion of Syria in 1770. Yusuf al-Shihab aided the Mamluks and his troops even briefly occupied Damascus. But in the aftermath of the Mamluk withdrawal, Sultan Mustafa III appointed Cezzar Ahmed Pasha to the governorship of Sidon . From his stronghold in Acre, Cezzar Ahmed steadily acquired territories that had been held by vassals of

387-517: The Mamluks, but was strong enough under the Ottomans to be in charge of dividing the tax-farms assigned to it among a number of lesser local notables. By the end of his reign, Fakhr al-Din I's authority extended from the borders of Jaffa to Tripoli . Fakhr al-Din was succeeded by his son Korkmaz, who was involved in frequent conflicts both with his neighbours and with the Ottomans, as the tax-farming system involved constant power struggles. In 1544

430-634: The Ottomans in 1711, but before the Ottoman expeditionary force could arrive, Haydar defeated his local rivals at the Battle of Ain Dara and seized the former Mann capital of Deir el Qamar. Through intermarriage, Haydar effected an alliance with two powerful Druze groups, the Abu-Lamma family and the Janbulad Family. That alliance lasted for most of the 18th century. Milhim al-Shihab succeeded Haydar in 1732. Milhim repeatedly succeeded in avoiding

473-636: The Ottomans. In an attempt to achieve independence for Lebanon, he concluded a secret agreement with Ferdinand I of Tuscany , pledging to support each other against the Ottomans. After discovering the agreement, the Ottomans ordered Ahmad al Hafiz , governor of Damascus, to attack him. Fakhr al-Din temporarily abdicated in favour of his brother Yunus and his son Ali, and spent the next five years in exile in Europe. He only returned when his friend Silihdar Mehmed Pasha became governor of Damascus in 1618. When he returned to Lebanon he ruled more or less unchallenged for

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516-626: The Safavids could use local Shiite political leverage against the Ottomans. To reduce the Shiite danger, the Ottomans turned to the Maans, who stood chastened and subservient after the successful Ottoman expedition sent against them in 1586. Their choice fell on Fakhr al-Din Maan, the son of Qurqumaz. In about 1590, Fakhr al-Din was appointed governor of the Sanjak of Sidon , to which the Sanjak of Beirut

559-518: The Shihab clan. In 1789, when there was an attempted coup against Cezzar Ahmed, he became convinced that Yusuf al-Shihab was behind it. In reprisal, he moved his army into Lebanon where he defeated the Shihabs in a battle in the Bekaa Valley . In defeat, Yusuf abdicated, and his vassals then chose his cousin Bashir. Bashir (usually referred to as Bashir II to distinguish him from Haydar's father)

602-648: The Tanoukhyeen. Amir Maan was married to the daughter of Amir Noaaman Al Tanoukhy. Historians agree that Baakleen was the capital of the Maani Emirate. Due to water shortages in Baakline, the Maani Amirs were attracted to Neighboring Deir Al Kamar (according to Druze archives, called Dar Al Kamar), where they built many palaces and a mosque that still stands in the middle of the town square carrying

645-515: The administration was run by Mansur and Ahmad al-Shihab for several years (1753–1763), and then by Qasim al-Shihab. A power struggle ensued, and in the 1760s Yusuf al-Shihab emerged as administrator of the Shuf. Yusuf , son of Mulhim, gained the title of emir in 1770. It is not clear whether or not Yusuf converted to Christianity, as he participated in both Muslim and Christian religious services and visited Druze and Christian shrines. During this period,

688-520: The area of the Serail are some Druze religious buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, including, ancient tombs and Ain Aldiaa water source. The roots of Lebanon as we know it today go back to Baakline. Around the year 1120 A.D., Amir Maan Ibn Rabeaah, the great grandfather of Amir Fakher Eddine Al Maani the second who established “Lubnan Al Kabeer”, settled in Baakleen. He was supported by his in-laws,

731-552: The center of an eyalet (Ottoman province) whose territories consisted of the mamlakat (Mamluk provinces) of Damascus, Hama , Tripoli , Safad and Karak . The mamlaka of Aleppo , which covered much of northern Syria, became the Aleppo Eyalet . For a few months in 1521, Tripoli and its district were separated from Damascus Eyalet, but after 1579, the Tripoli Eyalet permanently became its own province. At

774-666: The civil unrest in Lebanon in 1861, but they were unsuccessful. In the mid-1840s, the population of the Emirate was estimated at around 300,000, of which less than 100,000 lived in "mixed districts". Following continued animosity and fighting between the Maronites and the Druze, representatives of the European powers proposed to Sultan Abdülmecid I that the Lebanon be partitioned into Christian and Druze sections. The Sublime Porte

817-532: The close of the 16th century, the Damascus Eyalet was administratively divided into the sanjaks (districts) of Tadmur , Safad , Lajjun , Ajlun , Nablus , Jerusalem , Gaza and Karak , in addition to the city of Damascus and its district. There was also the sanjak of Sidon-Beirut , though throughout the late 16th century, it frequently switched hands between the eyalets of Damascus and Tripoli. Briefly in 1614, and then permanently after 1660,

860-501: The devolution of functions to local rulers was nothing exceptional in the framework of indirect administration in Ottoman Syria . Partisan narratives gave different names to this entity (including "Shuf Emirate", "Emirate of Jabal Druze", "Emirate of Mount Lebanon", as well as "Ma'an Emirate"), whose boundaries were not well defined, mostly because of its rather vague juridical and administrative status. The Ma‘ans came to power in

903-463: The early 16th century, and both Fakhr al-Din I and Fakhr al-Din II greatly expanded the territory while acting as the principal local tax farmer (multazim) for the Ottoman state. In general, the tax-farming system meant that the multazims always served at the sultan's pleasure, and given this degree of insecurity they would try to collect as much tax as they could, within the limits of the taxpayers' physical ability to pay. Fakhr al-Din I (1516–1544),

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946-402: The embryo of Lebanese statehood and national identity. Historians and intellectuals such as Salibi and Beydoun have questioned many of these assumptions, suggesting a more balanced and less ideological approach to this period. The Maan and Shihab government of different parts of Mount Lebanon, between 1667 and 1841, was an Ottoman iltizam , or tax farm , rather than a dynastic principality, and

989-520: The emir Qurqumaz succeeded his father Fakhr al-Din. In 1585, a caravan transporting the taxes collected in Egypt and Syria was plundered at Djun 'Akkar . The Ottomans, suspecting the Ma‘an of complicity and of having sheltered the criminals, invaded Mount Lebanon . The emir Qurqumaz shut himself up in the inaccessible rock of Shakif Tirun near Jezzine and died there, 'of chagrin or poison', in 1585. Qurqumaz

1032-521: The end of the 16th century, was given leeway by the Ottomans to subdue other provincial leaderships in Ottoman Syria on their behalf, and was himself subdued in the end, to make way for a firmer control by the Ottoman central administration over the Syrian eyalets . In Lebanese nationalist narratives, he is celebrated as establishing a sort of Druzes – Maronite condominium that is often portrayed as

1075-560: The governor of Sidon , who resided in Beirut. Baakleen Baakleen , Baaqlîne or Baakline ( Arabic : بعقلين ) is a major Druze city located in Mount Lebanon , Chouf District , 45 kilometers southeast of Beirut . Altitude 850 – 920 meters high, population is 30,000, area 14 square km, number of homes 2,870. Bordering Towns: Deir al-Qamar , Beit ed-Dine , Aynbal, Deir Dourit, Symkanieh , and Jahlieh . Founded in

1118-423: The larger administrative divisions. However, they farmed out the task of tax collection to powerful local leaders, who maintained their positions by a combination of bribing local Ottoman officials and asserting themselves over less local power-holders. The Ma'an family holdings ( muqata'ah ) were originally divided among the three wilayas of Damascus , Tripoli , and Sidon . The family had not been prominent under

1161-522: The name of Amir Fakher Eddine Ibn Othman Ibn Al Hajj Younis Al Maani (1493 AD). The last of the Maan family Amirs was Amir Ahmad who died in 1697 A.D. and with his death, the rulers of the Emirate became the Shihab family who were tied to the Maan family through intermarriages and alliances. Under the Ottoman rule , Baakline came back to the forefront as one of the “Qasabat” or major towns. It served as

1204-641: The next fifteen years, as the Ottomans were too engrossed in their wars with the Safavids to give any serious attention to the situation. In 1623, Mustafa Pasha, the new governor of Damascus, engaged him in battle, and was decisively defeated at Battle of Anjar near Anjar in the Biqa Valley. Impressed by the victory, the Ottoman Sultan gave him the title of "Sultan al Barr" (Sultan of the Mountain). Fakhr al-Din, in his later years, came to control

1247-493: The payment of the regular amount of taxes to the Ottoman authorities, and in 1748 the governor of Damascus launched a punitive expedition against him. In the 1750s, Milhim attempted to acquire a firman confirming his authority over the Shuf and that of his nephew Quasim over Byblios, but the attempt failed, as the political climate in Istanbul changed after the death of Sultan Osman III in 1757. After his abdication in 1753,

1290-559: The summer capital for the Druze “Qaem Makqam” or the local governor in the name of the Ottoman Sultan . On 21 April 2020, nine people were killed . The blue waterfall is called Shallalat Al Zarka, by which the restaurant in this place holds the same name. One can also see other magnificent waterfall and river in the village of Baakline. Eyalet of Damascus Damascus Eyalet ( Arabic : إيالة دمشق ; Ottoman Turkish : ایالت شام , romanized :  Eyālet-i Šām )

1333-586: The whole territory of modern Lebanon. Even then, the Shuf remained his power base. The control of the Sanjak of Safad , and also of the Sanjak of Ajlun and other parts of Transjordan, were at least as important, politically, as the control of the sanjaks of Beirut and Sidon, or the different mountain nahiyas of the Sanjak of Tripoli, in the Eyalet of Tripoli . Eventually, however, the Wāli of Damascus, Kücük Ahmed Pasha ,

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1376-542: Was also an important prince but he was viewed as a tyrant at the period rather than a leader. That led to the 1840 revolution against Bashir and his Egyptian allies. Although Lebanese nationalist historiographies tended to portray the Emirate as a sort of historical precursor of the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate established in 1861, later historians and intellectuals such as Kamal Salibi and Ahmad Beydoun have contested these narratives, and argued that

1419-420: Was always precarious, yet they remained at the top of the feudal hierarchy. Under their government, the Druze and Maronite sheikhs of the different cantons worked in cooperation. Even the Druze sheikhs who were most vehemently opposed to the Shihab regime could not find a workable alternative to the Shihab system, for as long as this system remained in place. The " Druze-Christian alliance " during this century

1462-465: Was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire . Its reported area in the 19th century was 51,900 square kilometres (20,020 sq mi). It became an eyalet after the Ottomans took it from the Mamluks following the 1516–1517 Ottoman–Mamluk War . Janbirdi al-Ghazali , a Mamluk traitor, was made the first beylerbey of Damascus. The Damascus Eyalet was one of the first Ottoman provinces to become

1505-478: Was despatched at the head of an army against Fakhr al-Din, who was defeated, captured and taken to Istanbul, where he was executed in 1635 along with Yunus and Ali. The dynasty continued, greatly weakened, until the death of Ahmad (reigned 1658–1697) when its functions were taken over by the Shihab family. The Shihab Emirs: When the last male descendant in the Maan family line died in 1697, his vassals chose Haydar al-Shihab as emir. The Shihab (or Chehab) family

1548-515: Was emir until 1841, making him the longest-reigning emir of the Lebanese mountains. He was viewed as a just but tough prince at the time. In this period, Lebanon began to modernize its administrative institutions. He made the Emirate stronger because he eliminated bickering petty feudal leaders and united the country with a tight grip. Bashir openly acknowledged that he was a Christian but at the same time he respected his Muslim subjects reminding them of Qureishi roots of Shihab princes. The Abi-Lamma clan,

1591-429: Was finally compelled to relinquish its plans for the direct rule of the Lebanon, and on December 7, 1842, the sultan adopted prince Metternich 's proposal and asked Assad Pasha, the governor ( wali ) of Beirut , to divide the Mount Lebanon , into two districts: a northern district under a Christian Kaymakam and a southern district under a Druze Kaymakam, both chosen among tribal leaders. Both officials were to report to

1634-629: Was not a popular choice. Not long after his appointment the new emir called the principal Druze families to Deir el Qamar to discuss his tax policies. The families showed up armed and besieged him in his palace in October 1841. The stalemate ended in January 1842 when the sultan withdrew his appointment and Bashir III went into exile in Constantinople . With that, the Shihab dynasty collapsed. There were attempts to restore Bashir III as Emir after

1677-466: Was somewhat unusual in a region politically dominated by Druze dynasties, as they were nominally practitioners of Sunni Islam . The Shihabs, starting in 1711, introduced a unique system of fiscal cantons in the Shuf mountains and Kisrawan, and later in the northern Lebanon, giving their regime a special character within the Ottoman system. The Shihab emirs were appointed as multazims of their territories on an annual basis, and their position in this respect

1720-439: Was subsequently attached. In 1598, as the wars between the Safavids and the Ottomans broke out again, he was also appointed governor of the Sanjak of Safad , which gave him direct control over the pro-Safavid Shiites of Jabal Amil. In the 1610s he defeated his two principal opponents, Yusuf Sayfa and Amir Mansur ibn Furaykh . This, coupled with his attack on Damascus in 1607 (together with other local lords), evidently alarmed

1763-529: Was succeeded by his thirteen-year-old son, who became Fakhr al-Din II in 1591, after a hiatus of six years. Fakhr al-Din II (1591–1635) was the most renowned of the Maanid rulers, although his position was as precarious as that of his predecessors and his successors. In 1587, with the accession of Shah Abbas I , Safavid power began to revive, and the Ottoman–Persian Wars were soon resumed. In Syria,

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1806-410: Was supposedly awarded with the emirate of the Shuf after fighting on the side of Selim I at the Battle of Marj Dabiq . In any case, he emerged soon afterwards as a local force, and was the first member of the Ma'an dynasty to serve the Ottomans. The Ottomans divided the territories they conquered from the Mamluks into wilayas , sanjaks and nahiyas , and assigned qadis and military governors to

1849-661: Was the major factor enabling the Shehab dynasty to maintain power. By the middle years of the eighteenth century, the Shihabi amirs converted to Christianity, so did several Druze amirs and prominent Druze clans, like the originally Druze Abi-Lamma clan (a Druze family who was a close ally of the Shihabs) which also converted to Christianity and joined the Maronite Church . After the Shehab dynasty converted to Christianity,

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