The management of internal balances of power
Historiographers have not dwelt on the organisation of finances or the administration of the emirate. They were more impressed by the conquests and the riches held in the palace. According to Ahmad al-Khalidi al-Safadi, Fakhr al-Din acted like a ruler who brooked no argument, he was regarded as the sovereign owner of the land. Conversely he respected customs : each lord had the charge of administering his fief and collecting the tax. He sought to reinforce his links with the leaders of the qaysite clans: his main allies were the Shihab, Sunni emirs of Wasi al-Taym, the Druze Abil Lama from the Matn, the Harfouche and Hamadeh, Shia families from the Bekaa and the Maronite Khazen from the Kersouan. As for the Yemenites, they remained his most obdurate enemies, openly or otherwise, turning to the Sublime Porte in their opposition to the Emir. Such were the Alam al-Din Druze from the Chouf and the Sayfa a Sunni clan from the Akkar based in Tripoli.
The emir fulfilled the functions of justice. According to Ahmad al-Khalidi al-Safadi, Fakhr al-Din was a stern judge, especially in matters of public order or foreigners' safety but he also showed « piety and equity »
. He passed judgment on religious, civil and military affairs of major import. Faced with difficult cases, he was prompt in consulting his advisers from the diverse faiths. The codes concerning personal status (essentially marriage and birthright) were left to clerics and ulama.
The image of the Emir emerging from religiously diverse historiographers' accounts highlights his toleration of the different denominations. On the one hand, for Ahmad al-Khalidi al-Safadi, Fakhr al-Din (his Druze identity obscured) was a pious Muslim: He encouraged his family to fast during Ramadan, he sent one of his sons to lead a group of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca; he had mosques built, attended prayer on the occasion of major Muslim festivals and kept ulama at his court, some of whom would escort him on his Italian tour, in order to lead worship. On the other hand the Emir's sympathies for the Christians induced some European Catholic clerics to assign a Christian origin to the Druze tradition: this thesis is at the bottom of dubious tales of the Emir's baptism in 1633 by Father Adrien de la Brosse, a Capuchin friar[1] whereas, Ahmad al-Khalidi al-Safadi writes that the Emir rejected every inducement to convert to Christianity. Whatever the case may be, Estephan al-Douaihy stressed the fact that under the Emir's rule, Christians benefited from privileges hitherto reserved for Muslims: they were invited to take part in the running of the country and to enlist in the army. They enjoyed a religious freedom that permitted their relative prosperity.
Fakhr al-Din's religious policy was influenced to some extent by his rivalry with the Safya pashas in Tripoli. According to Estephan al-Douaihy, the latter oppressed the Maronites, weighing them down with heavy taxes and targeting them with military expeditions. Some of them, the butt of a particularly violent persecution in 1609, came, lead by Patriarch Youhanna Makhlouf[3] to seek refuge with the Emir. Fakhr al-Din welcomed them in the Chouf and seized on inter-Sunni rivalries to buy the village of Majdel meouch and to grant it to the Maronites and their patriarch. Meanwhile the Sayfas supported the Ottomans against the Emir and took advantage of his exile in the Italian Peninsula to join in the conquest of the Chouf and seize Deir al Qamar. After 1618 and until the end of their emirate (1697), the Ma'ans took in Maronite peasant farmers seeking refuge on their territory, and granted them some liberties.
