LEBANESE HEROES AND

OTTOMAN VILLAINS: THE MA’NS

OF LEBANON, 16-17TH

CENTURIESABDUL RAHIM ABU HUSAYN

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

1

Outline

Disagreement over the history of Lebanon;

The Ottomans, the Long Rebellion, the Ma’ns, and the History of

Lebanon;

Fakhr al-Din I: a Fictitious meeting with the Sultan;

Kurkmaz Ma’n;

Fakhr al-Din Ma’n II;

Ahmad Ma’n;

Bulus Nujaym and the resurrection of Fakhr al-Din’s Lebanon.

2

Safar Barlik

Safar Barlik is a 1967

Lebanese musical and a war

film directed by Henry Barakat. The

film stars Fairuz, Nasri

Shamseddine, Huda, Assi

Rahbani, Berj Fazlian, Salah

Tizani and Salwa HaddadThe film is

set in 1914. It displays the struggles of

a Lebanese village to smuggle wheat

under Ottoman oppression.

3

History of Lebanon

Major events and milestones in the making of Lebanon:

[1516]

Ottoman

Conquest of

Bilad al-Sham

[1633]

Fakhr al-Din is captured

by the ottomans &

subsequently executed

[1667]

Ahmad Ma’n

becomes the

Multazim of the Shuf

[1591]

Fakhr al-Din Ma’n II

appointed Sanjak

Beyi of Sidon Beirut

[1585]

Ottoman Attack on

the Shuf & Death of

Korkmaz Ma’n

[1683]

The 2nd Ottoman Siege

of Vienna & the

beginning of the

Ottoman Habsburg War

[1697]

The Death of Ahmad

Ma’n & the Succession

of the Shehabs

[1842]

The Extinction of the

Shehabi Emerate

[1861]

The Establishment

of the

Mutasarifyya of

Mount Lebanon

[1920]

the State of

Greater Lebanon

4

The Declaration of the state of

Greater Lebanon

September 1, 1920,

the French General

Henri Gouraud

proclaims the state

of Greater

Lebanon.

5

The Days of Fakhr al-Din

Ayyam Fakhr al-Din is a 1967

Lebanese musical play Written and

Produced by: Rahbani Brothers,

Director: Sabri Sharif. It is about

seventeenth-century Lebanese

patriots. It begins in 1618 with Prince

Fakhr al-Din's return to Lebanon from

exile.

6

Fakhr al-Din II

Emir Fakhr al-Din

Ma’n (d. 1635).

7

Fortress of Niha, Shuf –Lebanon 8

Deir al-Qamar 9

YAVUZ SELIM

9th Sultan, (1512 to 1520)

10

Sultan al-Barr “sultan of the mountain”

“O Lord, perpetuate the life of him whom Thou hast chosen to administer

Thy domain, installed as the successor (khalifa) of Thy covenant,

empowered over Thy worshippers and Thy land and entrusted with Thy

precept (sunna) and Thy command; he who is the supporter of Thy

luminous Shari’a and the leader of Thy righteous and victorious nation

(umma), our lord and master of our favors, the commander of believers

(amir al-mu’minin)…. Padishah, may he live long. May God respond to

our prayer for the perpetuity of his dynasty, in happiness and felicity and

in might and glory. Amen”.

As quoted and translated in Phillip Hitti, Lebanon in History

from the Earliest Times to the Present, London,1957

11

“The Sultan inquired of Khayir bey as to who this person was.[Khayir

bey] informed him that he is an emir who lives in the wilderness and

controls villages and [such] places in narrow (sic) Mountains in the

iqta’ of Damascus. Sultan Selim liked the man…and said this man

must actually be called sultan al-barr. Since then he came to

known by this title. At that time any one who was put in charge of

a district (wilaya) was called sultan”

Haydar al-Shihabi, Al-Ghurar al-Hisan,Cairo, 1900

Sultan al-Barr “sultan of the mountain” 12

Ottoman Archival Documents 13

Salibi’s Reassessment of Fakhr al-Din II

“Fakhr al-Din did control a large area that encompassed the

Lebanese regions as well as parts of Galilee, Palestine, Transjordan,

the Syrian interior to Palmyra etc. But this expansion was not in

pursuit of a specific plan toward uniting all the Lebanese areas in

one state. Second, Fakhr al-Din actually enjoyed a status in the

Lebanese areas that was different from his status in the other areas.

But he was not aware of the difference and he never thought of

uniting the Druze and the Maronite regions in a unitary Lebanese

emirate.”

Kamal Salibi, ‘’Fakhr al-Din al-Thani wa al-Fikrah al-Lubnaniyyah’’,

in Ab’ad al-Qawmiyyah al-Lubnaniniyya (Beirut, 1970)

14

“When a Lebanese entity appeared in a clear form in the reign of

emir Bashir Shihab II, the Lebanese looked for a historical

explanation for this entity. Thus emerged the legend of Fakhr al-Din,

the Druze emir who was brought up in Maronite lands and spent his

whole life in the heroic, conscious pursuit to bring about Lebanese

unity. This legend started small and grew up with the growth of

Lebanon until Fakhr al-Din became to the Lebanese today, the

pioneer of Lebanese independence and the symbol of national

unity.”

Kamal Salibi, ‘’Fakhr al-Din al-Thani wa al-Fikrah al-Lubnaniyyah’’,

in Ab’ad al-Qawmiyyah al-Lubnaniniyya (Beirut, 1970)

Salibi’s Reassessment of Fakhr al-Din II 15

“In the circumstances [of the first half of the seventeenth century], there was

nothing unusual about the career of Fakhr al-Din Ma’n in the southern Lebanon. He

was a Druze chief or notable who was appointed by the Ottomans to govern the

sanjaks of Beirut and Sidon on their behalf, and then the sanjak of Safad and other

parts of Syria. The man being highly intelligent, alert and enterprising opened the

seaports under his control to European commerce and developed the silk

production in the Druze country and its environs as a cash crop for export to

Europe. The Tuscans approached him and fanned his ambitions,…., so began his

problems with the Ottoman overlords. More cautious and circumspect than the

Janbulads, Fakhr al-Din managed to mend his fences with the Ottomans every

time they were broken. In the end, however, his ambitions led him too far, and the

Ottomans finally realized that they had no choice but to deal with him as a rebel.”

Kamal Salibi, A house of Many Mansions, the history of Lebanon

Reconsidered

Salibi’s Reassessment of Fakhr al-Din II 16

“Fakhr al-Din fashioned a powerful and well organized state with

Lebanon as its center…It was no longer a Turkish province but a

state with a life of its own, resembling more the civilized countries of

Western Europe than a vilayet of the sublime Porte. Led by an

Enlightened Despot it experienced the splendor of an (Italian)

Renaissance.”

Bulus Nujaym first published his book La question du Liban, etude d’histoire diplomatique et de droit

international in 1908 under a pen name (M. Jouplain), 111, as quoted in quoted in Marwan Buheiry, “Bulus

Nujaym and the Drand Liban Ideal 1908-1919”, in Marwan Buheiry (ed), Intellecual Life in The Arab East,

1890-1939, Beirut, 1981

Bulus Nujaym and the resurrection of Fakhr

al- Din’s Lebanon

17

“His genius is indisputable. He has left lasting monuments. This is First and

foremost the economic prosperity of Beirut and Lebanon which is his work

and which today also places them in the first rank of the countries of the

Levant. It is next the creation of the political unity of Lebanon and a

Lebanese state, capable of playing a great role in Syria and in all the East. A

prosperous state which had attracted to him the attention and Good will

even of Europe. No doubt he had failed, but he had shown the way to the

Lebanese-Druzes and Maronites who, in their unity, provided the defense of

the autonomy. He had cemented this unity with the glorious traditions of his

government. He had awakened in all the mountaineers the consciousness

of their national unity. He had placed them in the first rank of all the peoples

of Syria.”

Nujaym as Quoted in Buheiry

Bulus Nujaym and the resurrection of Fakhr

al- Din’s Lebanon

18

Duwayhi’s Tribute to Fakhr al-Din II

“In the state (dawla) of Fakhr al-Din, the Christians held their heads

high; They built churches, rode caparisoned horses, wore turbans

of muslin and inlaid belts,…and carried jeweled muskets.

Missionaries from the land of the Franks came and established

themselves in Mount Lebanon. This is because most of his troops

were Christians, and his stewards and servants Maronites.”

Istafan al-Duwayhi, Tarikh al-Azmina, ed. F. Tautel (Beirut, 1951)

19

Istifan al-Duwayhi,

The 57th Patriarch of

the Maronite

Church, (1670 –

1704).

20

History of Lebanon

Major events and milestones in the making of Lebanon:

[1516]

Ottoman

Conquest of

Bilad al-Sham

[1633]

Fakhr al-Din is captured

by the ottomans &

subsequently executed

[1667]

Ahmad Ma’n

becomes the

Multazim of the Shuf

[1591]

Fakhr al-Din Ma’n II

appointed Sanjak

Beyi of Sidon Beirut

[1585]

Ottoman Attack on

the Shuf & Death of

Korkmaz Ma’n

[1683]

The 2nd Ottoman Siege

of Vienna & the

beginning of the

Ottoman Habsburg War

[1697]

The Death of Ahmad

Ma’n & the Succession

of the Shehabs

[1842]

The Extinction of the

Shehabi Emerate

[1861]

The Establishment

of the

Mutasarifyya of

Mount Lebanon

[1920]

the State of

Greater Lebanon

21

THANK YOU

22