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

The Keserwan Uprising (1858-1860)

Shekib Effendi gone, the fault lines in the system came into light. The Sheikhs – be they Druze or Christian – looked to recovering some of their lost authority. The British and the Russian, with the Crimean war (1853-1856) behind them, sought each in their own way to undermine the positions of the French who had done better out of the Règlement. Within the Christian Kaimakamate a power struggle had started for the highest position whilst peasant unrest rumbled especially against the Khazen[1]. It fed on the new ideas of « liberty » and « equality » that had inspired the European revolutions and that were passed on by Maronite monks. In that turmoil the clan chiefs tried to win over the peasants but they, meanwhile, had begun to organise in their Keserwan villages as early as February-March 1858. Each village elected a sheikh al shabab[2] to represent them and, on Christmas eve 1858, Tanios Chahine[3], self-styled Sheikh al shabab of Rayfoun was elected general representative for the whole of Keserwan.

Khorshid Pasha[4], wali of Sidon made no attempt to calm the situation and would be accused of having goaded the parties against each other before being cleared in court. Patriarch Boulos Massad[5] sought in vain to find a modus vivendi acceptable to the two parties. The Khazens refused any form of compromise. They were forced out by the peasants who confiscated their land and made it available to all. The family dispersed seeking refuge in Byblos, in the Matn and in Beirut, living in poverty for three years. Chahine, seen as a liberator, set up a style of government hitherto unknown in Keserwan. He was supported by a council made up with wakils from the villages. The council dispensed justice, enforced law and order and allocated the land. Decisions were taken « by virtue of the power of the people ... by virtue of the power of the government ». This “republican” spirit disquieted the Southern district's authorities.

Intent on preserving traditional social structures, alarmed by the European – notably French – support going to the Christians, prompted by their uqqals[6], and goaded on by Damascus Sheikh Abdallah al-Halabi[7]'s fatwa according to which the « Christians could not be treated as equal to the Muslims » and were fair game, the Druze started a war aimed at expanding their authority. They were supported by Ottoman troops and by the Sunni, notably in coastal towns and by the Shia, according to region. Everywhere, they had the upper hand: in the Chouf, the Bekaa and the Wadi al-Taym. The extent of the massacres (20000 killed, 100000 refugees) the importance of the destruction, the Ottoman authorities' failure to redress the situation and the fear of troubles spreading to other regions of Asia lead the European Powers to intervene militarily. On 16 August 1860, a French task force was dispatched with the mission to help the Ottomans restore order. Ships from the French and British navies patrolled the coast. In Damascus, Muslim dignitaries such as Abdel Kader[8] personally got involved to protect the Christians. An international commission was created to investigate the causes of the massacres, recompense the victims and establish a political regime liable to appease the region.

After negotiations stretching over six months, the Powers' representatives came to an agreement on a conflict resolution project. The European ambassadors and the Porte ratified the text. Under this Règlement organique (or settlement), a new regime, the mutasarrifiyya[9] was to run Mount Lebanon – and did so for half a century, from 1861 to 1915. It afforded relative peace and reasonable prosperity. Jamal Pasha[10] was to abrogate it in 1915 during WWI. Yet this regime allowed for the institutional transition that followed the war's upheavals and would serve as foundation on which to establish the Lebanese Republic.

The 7 cazas of Mount Lebanon © SA, ESO Le Mans, CNRS, 2012
  1. Khazen

    See Chap. I and Ammiyya in Chap. II part C.

  2. Sheikh al shabab

    “The leader among the young”. In our context the phrase refers to the leader of a village youths or a powerful young man”.

  3. Tanios Chahine (1815-1895)

    Semi-literate, once a muleteer and a blacksmith, he saw himself as a people's Robin Hood fighting feudal lords from the Mountain to the Keserwan. Much has been said of his harsh nature but he remains the herald of a democratic sentiment, asserting that time had come for the people to manage their own affairs and to take part in political life.

  4. Khorchid Pasha

    Wali of Sidon in 1860, he belonged to a party opposed to all the reforms implemented in the Tanzimat period.

  5. Boulos Massad (1806-1890)

    After studying in Rome, he became Patriarch Yusuf Hubaysh's secretary. He was elected Patriarch in 1854. Constantly pressed to intervene in public affairs, he went and sought support in several capital cities (Rome, Paris, Constantinople).

  6. Uqqal

    Within the Druze community they are “savants” or “knowledgeable initiate” as opposed to the Juhhal, the “ignorant”. The Uqqal are duty bound to observe the seven Druze commandments distinct from the five “pillars” observed by Sunni and Shi'-a Muslims.

  7. Abdallah al-Halabi (1808/09-1869/70)

    Hailing from Mesopotamia, the Halabi family settled in Damascus having first lived in Alepo in 1792-93. Abdallah al-Halabi held a teaching position at the Great Mosque of Damascus in 1844, after his father's demise. Appointed rais al ulama head of the Ulama (see this word), he kept open house. Biographers see him as the “leader of the aristocracy who was able to resolve the problems of the people and all the classes”. He had considerable influence over Istanbul's sheikh al Islam (highest religious authority). For the French Consul, he was the most enigmatic and the most compromised figure in the 1860 debacle master-minded by the anti-tanzimat forces in Istanbul. M Outrey avers that “it is materially impossible for a movement to have developed in Damascus without his assent”. An anonymous Christian chronicler wrote that the riots started after a meeting held by Halabi at the Great mosque. Following these events, he was exiled to Izmir (Smyrna). He returned to Damascus after the general amnesty. He died there a few years later and was buried with all due ceremony.

  8. Abdelkader, (Abd al-Qādir ibn Muḥyī al-Dīn 1808-1880)

    Emir of Mascara, Algeria, he was educated in a Sufi zawiya, he took up arms to oppose French colonisation until 1847. He was detained in France for five years. In 1853, he settled in Bursa in the Ottoman Empire before finally moving to Damascus in 1855. His intervention in favour of the Christians at the time of the Damascus massacres earned him the gratitude of the European Powers and the churches' authorities.

  9. Mutasarrifiyya

    “Governorship”. The 1860 massacres drove the Powers (France Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Russia) and the Ottoman Empire to devise a special administrative regulation establishing the autonomy of Mount Lebanon. This organic statute (al-nizam al-assassi) comprised of 17 articles was signed on 9 June 1861. Ruling over what had been the two kaimakamates, the governor (Mutasarrif), an Ottoman Christian but not a Lebanese, was to be supported by a central administrative council (majlis idari) made up with 12 members representing the populations and allowing for the representation of the six main communities: Maronite, Druze, Greek-Catholic, Greek-Orthodox, Sunni and Shia. Represented proportionally in this pluri-confessional organ they came to 7 Christians and 5 Muslims (4 Maronites, 3 Druze, 2 Greek Orthodox, 1 Greek Catholic, 1 Uniate, 1 Shia).

  10. Jamal Pasha al-Saffah (1872-1922)

    With a military background, he joined in the Young Turk's conspiracy within the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti). After the 1908 Revolution he was a member of the executive committee and took part in the repression of the counter-revolution in 1909. He fought in the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913. He joined Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha to form the officious triumvirate. From November 1914 to December 1917 he commanded the fifth Ottoman Army, governed the Syrian provinces and held the navy portfolio. He is responsible for the famine imposed on Mount Lebanon and for extrajudicial hangings.

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AccueilAccueilImprimerImprimer Elsa Ghossoub, Teacher-researcher at the Université Saint-Esprit of Kaslik (Liban) Paternité - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de ModificationRéalisé avec Scenari (nouvelle fenêtre)