Politics Religion and State building (11th – 16th/19th centuries)

First war and end of the Shihab Emirate (1841-1842)

The causes of division were plentiful; driven by politics, demographics, religion and culture, they were exacerbated by external interventions. Two problems loomed large. The first, related to taxation, regarded the amount to be paid to the Porte. The latter had promised an exemption to the Christians in recognition of their opposition to Muhammad Ali[1] by way of a compensation for the losses suffered during the spring-summer 1840 revolt. However in view of the state of imperial finances, the Porte backtracked on its word and demanded a rise in the levy. The Christians refused to pay whilst it irked the Druze[2] to find themselves alone subjected to taxation. The British dithered. Before this wavering Patriarch Hubaysh[3] drafted a fiscal plan specific to the Mountain wherein he stated a maximal rate of 3500 purses. This corresponded to the amount paid before the Egyptian occupation: between 1000 and 1200 purses would be paid to the Porte but the most part was to go to the local administration. The British diplomatic representatives, Richard Wood[4] among them, remarked on the bold but infeasible nature of a project that heightened the Mountain's autonomy. The Patriarch stuck to his guns observing that the rise in taxes under the Egyptians had the merit to bring more security and tranquillity whereas the Ottomans did not fulfil their promises or their duties. And he further represented that some clauses of the 1838 treaty, particularly beneficial to British trade, had a negative impact on the economy. A specifically religious dispute poisoned relations between Patriarch Hubaysh and the British. In order to protect the unity, autonomy and individuality of the Maronite church, he had, as from 1823, forbidden the activities of Protestant missionaries[5], excommunicating if need be the Maronites who had had contacts with them and whom he considered “heretical”. As a result the missionaries had been driven out of exclusively Maronite sectors and had moved towards mixed districts whereupon London got closer to the Druze community.

The second problem was political, resulting from Bashir III's weakness and his inability to govern Mount Lebanon. The Porte and Consul Wood sought to remedy their protégé's impotence by suggesting the creation of a 12 member-council representing all the communities pro rata. The Maronite patriarch accepted it under condition of preserving the legitimacy of power as exercised according to tradition, one and undivided by the Shihabs on a unified Mount Lebanon. The Druze rejected it, they demanded their own governor and protested their readiness to fight the Christians in the name of their loyalty to the sultan and their attachment to Islam. In the absence of a decision from Istanbul, the Patriarch developed a 12 points project pushing the Mountain's autonomy even further. This program, which contemporaries thought revolutionary would have equipped Mount Lebanon with a mini-constitution towards an autonomous state, governed by a Shihab emir, associating the people to each institutional component: legislative, legal and financial.

The five months of negotiation conducted with the local overlords, Ottoman officials and diplomatic personnel yielded no solution to tax distribution or the kind of power to be set in place in the Mountain, quite the reverse: tensions grew, insecurity set in in every region. In the spring of 1841 a hunting or sporting incident became the pretext to sectarian violence resulting in 17 deaths, all Druze. The patriarch offered apologies in the name of the Maronites and sent delegations to Druze overlords to settle the dispute but the reconciliation was purely cosmetic. The meeting of Mountain lords organised by Bashir III at Deir al Qamar presented the Druze with an opportunity for revenge. They besieged and pillaged the city after Christian reinforcements were defeated by Ottoman-backed Druze troops. Selim Pasha[6]'s intervention, supported by the British Consul, Colonel Rose[7] put an end to the hostilities. But clashes affected other places: Zahlé, the largest Christian town in the Bekaa was targeted but received support from the Shia emir Khanjar Harfush[8], Mutassilim[9] of Baalbek even as diplomats Wood and Basili[10] were stepping in. Everywhere else the Christians were defeated but the 1500 victims were Druze in their majority.

Usually left masters of the ground, and encouraged by the British who favoured the creation of districts on religious lines in the region, the Druze re-stated their demand for self-rule. On two occasions, they physically attacked Bashir III who, finally deposed by the Porte and replaced by Omar Pasha[11] was forced into exile in Istanbul: on 16 January 1842 in Beirut, Mustapha Pasha[12] declared the end of the Shihab emirship, thus acting in line with the Tanzimat[13] which was predicated on a more direct Ottoman control.

  1. Muhammad Ali or Mehmet ali (1769-1849)

    Born in Albania, he founded the dynasty that would govern Egypt between 1805 and 1952. After crushing the Mamluks, he sought to introduce reforms in all sectors of Egyptian activity. Allied to the Sultan to fight the Wahhabi and the Greek independentists, he became his enemy as he asserted his personal domination over the regions of Palestine and Syria between 1832 and 1840, seeking thereby to make up for his losses in Greece and to create an Arab kingdom. The 1840 revolt and the support of the European powers, co-signatories of the Convention of London (15 July 1840), would give the Sultan the chance to drive him out of the invaded territories whilst granting him a hereditary title over Egypt.

  2. Druze

    Followers of a Shi'a doctrine derived from Ismailism to which are added specific texts and references; they became organised under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty in the 11th century. The esoteric content of their teaching revolves around Caliph al-Hakim identified as universal intellect or ‘aql. The first figures to preach the new doctrine are Nashtakin ad-Darazi (hence the term “Druze”), a Turk and Hamza ibn Ali, native of Persia. The death of the Caliph in 1021 saw the disappearance of the movement in Egypt and its spreading around Mount Hermon's peasantry. The Druze form a closed community with its own customs. It is divided between the “knowledgeable initiate” and the “ignorant”, the former duty-bound to observe seven commandments. The Druze have upheld some features of the Muslim faith but they attend secret meetings in specific places of worship. They await the return of al-Hakim and Hamza who must restore justice in this world.

    The Druze flourished mostly on Mount Lebanon were a few families such as the Buhturs / Tanukhs settled on the heights of Beirut and gained notoriety in the fight against the Franks (Europeans). The Ma'ans established an actual dynasty upon the advent of the Ottomans, they co-opted aristocratic families like the Jumblatts, the Arslans, set up an emirate in Lebanon and some of its neighbouring regions and integrated the Christians in the regime's fabric. Under the Shihabs, aristocratic families exercised power over regions of henceforth mixed populations. The Egypto-Ottoman conflict and the interference of the European powers broke the union between Druze and Maronites and brought about the fall of the emirate in 1840. A part of the community moved to Hauran in Syria in the 19th century and managed to hold their own against the Turks on the eve of the First World War and against the French Mandate between 1925 and 1927. Their name has passed to the region known as Jabal al-Druze and they have continued to play a key role at each turning point of Syria's history. Another community thrived in Palestine and sided with the State of Israel where the Druze are the only Arabs to serve in the IDF. The three communities have their own spiritual hierarchy which gives primacy to the Lebanese branch; they maintain with each other and with the Diaspora an exemplary solidarity.

  3. Yusuf Hubaysh (1787-1845)

    He studied at the seminary of Ayn Warqa. He became a patriarch in 1823. He reformed Maronite discipline and liturgy. He took upon himself an arbitration role in the internecine developments affecting his community between 1830 and 1845. He opposed Protestant proselytising and developed an autonomist and far-sighted political project.

  4. Richard Wood (1806-1900)

    His diplomatic career took him to Constantinople, Damascus and Tunis before he retired in 1865. Starting in 1832-33, he had built up a sound knowledge of the area and instigated the Lebanese uprising against Muhammad Ali in 1840. His action in favour of Zahlé in 1840 may have contributed to the “subtle diplomat” image he has left in the collective Lebanese mindscape. Because he was a Catholic, Palmerston refused to appoint him to the consulate general in Beirut making him a Consul at Damascus instead. He has left an enormous diplomatic correspondence (published in part) relating his experiences.

  5. Protestant missionaries

    The presence of Protestants in the Near-East goes back to the first third of the 19th century. Confronted to sciences' advances, academics, mostly of the Protestant faith found themselves compelled to study the Bible within its original context and thus discovered the traditions of ancient Eastern communities. At the same time, their faith directed them to spread the “Good News”. Lebanon's singular political situation lead to the installation of early protestant missionaries in Beirut and in Mount Lebanon. The American Board's Congretionalists arrived first and were almost alone operating in the region until the 1870s followed by protestant Armenians in 1846. Congregationalist action would among other things yield the first translations of the Bible in local languages. The publishing of the first full translation of the Bible in Arabic came out in Beirut in 1867, 10 years before the Jesuits'. The method used whereby readers were consulted on the text's legibility before finalising the translation contributed to the renewal of Arabic and to the modernisation of typographic and printing techniques. The educational drive would achieve higher education status with the Syrian Protestant College, later known as the American University of Beirut. The Protestants became recognised by the Sublime Porte with a Millet status in 1850. The Lebanese constitution included the Protestants in the 15 communities in which the Lebanese people is founded.

  6. Selim Pasha

    Wali of Sidon in 1841, he handed out arms to Mount Lebanon's population, encouraging discord, worsening the situation and thereby reinforcing the view that an Ottoman presence was essential as direct control alone could secure peace.

  7. Colonel Hugh Rose (1801-1885)

    Colonel Rose's military career spans England, Ireland, Malta, Lebanon, Syria, Crimea, India. In 1841, Palmerston appointed him Consul-General in Beirut, a position he held until 1848. He assisted in the establishment of American missionaries in Lebanon, was party to extending British protection to the Druze and was broadly involved in the events of the time. The Foreign Office holds his voluminous correspondence which reflects the British perspective on the “Eastern Question”.

  8. Khanjar Harfush

    Shia lord, he was in charge of the Baalbek region under the Pasha of Damas.

  9. Mutassalim

    Official who managed a small town in the name of the Wali.

  10. Constantine Basili (1809-1884)

    Russian diplomat, writer and Orientalist, born in a well-off family known for its opposition to the Ottomans. In 1772, his grand-father was backing the Albanian uprising and his father supported the Greek movement for independence in 1821. He was appointed minister for Asia at the Russian Foreign Office in 1833 , then, in 1838, consul in Beirut against a background of competition between the Powers for the control of the Ottoman Empire. Basili defended his country's interests and those of his Orthodox coreligionists. He put it to them that only the Russians could protect them and that they must stick together. He remained in post from 1839 to 1845 and handled the Egypto-Ottoman crisis and the prodromes of the Crimean war. He wrote a book about Syria and Palestine under the Ottomans.

  11. Omar Pasha (1806-1871)

    Born in Bosnia under the name of Mihajlo Latas, he converted to Islam and became an Ottoman general. He started a career in the Ottoman administration eventually becoming a governor. He may have been known as al-Namsawi (the Austrian), but Metternich had little time for the man he considered a deserter.

  12. Mustafa Pasha

    Wali of Sidon in 1841, he was tasked with restoring order in Mount Lebanon after Bashir II's exile and bringing the Shihab mandate to a close. This task which the soldiers' economic situation made difficult was compounded by the rumour that his presence was designed to help the Druze and weaken the Maronites.

  13. Tanzimat

    From an Arabic word meaning “reform/ refounding/ reorganisation”. In Ottoman history, it refers to the Westernisation period which, between 1839 and 1876 brought in reforms considered revolutionary. They reached nearly every sector: politics, law, administration, the army, finance, trade, transport. The first phase opened on Sultan Abdul Hamid's firman in November 1839 known as the Hatti-i sherif of the Gul-Khane or Rescript of the Rose Chamber (see window Hatt-ı Hümayun of Sultan Abdülmecid I in II C 3) then the Hatti Humayun (imperial rescript) at the end of Crimean War: equality between all the Sultan's subjects, be they Muslim or Christian or any other faith was proclaimed. The second phase concerns the proclamation of the constitution in 1876 which limits the powers of the sultan. However this “fundamental law” was suspended a few months later.

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