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97-577: The Buhturids' peak of power occurred under the Circassian Mamluk sultan Barquq ( r.  1382–1389, 1390–1399 ), whom they supported during his seizure of power from his Turkic predecessors . During this period, the Buhturids grew their wealth through commercial enterprises, exporting silk, olive oil, and soap to Mamluk officials in Egypt from Beirut and attaining the governorship of Beirut twice, in

194-801: A clerk for the Shihab emir Salman Ali and assisted him in conscription efforts in Shahhar , near Beirut. In 1813 Tannus was sent to learn at the Maronite monastic institution of Ayn Warqa , the most prestigious Maronite school at that time whose pupils included Butrus al-Bustani . Several bouts of headaches compelled him to end his studies there before the end of the year, after which his brother As'ad took his place. After As'ad graduated in 1818 Tannus studied ethics with him. Tannus began his career in commerce in 1818, engaging in business in Damascus where he also represented

291-589: A decade marked by strife between the Druze and Maronites of Mount Lebanon, Tannus advocated for the Maronite notables. Tannus began writing historical works in 1833, starting with Tarikh al-ta'ifa al-Maruniyya (History of the Maronite Sect), a now lost summary of the Maronite historian and patriarch Istifan al-Duwayhi 's 17th-century history of the Maronites. He also wrote a Lebanese colloquial Arabic dictionary, which

388-598: A new sultan. During this period, the Mamluks fought Timur and conquered Cyprus . Over the course of the 15th century, the sultanate was weakened by infighting and economic decline brought about by multiple factors. Although militarily powerful, they were eventually unable to compete with the more modern army of the Ottoman Empire , leading to their eventual conquest in 1517 by the Ottomans. From 1250, Egypt had been ruled by

485-597: A potential trap to kill him by avoiding summons from the governor of Damascus in 1568; the emir of the Banu al-Hanash was executed in Damascus after responding to the same summons. The Ottoman imperial government issued orders to the governor of Damascus to confiscate Sharaf al-Din Ali's rifles, and those of the Assafs, Ma'ns, and Sawwaf in 1572. The Ottomans launched a punitive campaign against

582-465: A prominent Arabic author from Mount Lebanon. Unlike his better known brothers As'ad, who became a Protestant , and Faris, who converted to Islam and adopted the name Ahmad, Tannus remained a devout Maronite. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to dissuade As'ad from embracing Protestant teachings; As'ad eventually died in the custody of the Maronite Church for his beliefs. In his career during the 1840s,

679-662: A raid against the Beqaa Valley with the Sawwaf and Abu al-Lama families of the Matn. As Fakhr al-Din's power in Syria grew, he was considered as a threat by the Ottoman authorities in Damascus and Constantinople and was targeted in an expedition led by the Damascus governor Hafiz Ahmed Pasha in 1613. Muhammad's son Hasan at the time shared the tax farm of the subdistricts of southern Mount Lebanon with

776-642: A wedding by the lord of Beirut where they were executed. The deaths of Karama, his sons and the subsequent assault on Sarhammur by the Crusaders nearly marked the end of the Buhturids. Karama's youngest son, Jamal al-Din Hajji, was a young boy and escaped Sarhammur with his mother, relocating to the Gharb village of Tirdala, where Nur al-Din bestowed on him a small iqta in compensation for his father's and brothers' deaths. Hajji's paternal uncle, Sharaf al-Dawla Ali, also survived

873-597: Is not known if Muhammad obliged. The Ayyubids of Damascus had conceded the Gharb and the nearby Chouf to the Crusaders in a treaty in 1240. The Buhturid emirate in the Gharb passed to Muhammad's sons Jamal al-Din Hajji II (d. 1298) and Sa'd al-Din Khidr (d. 1314) and their father's cousin, Zayn al-Din Salih (d. 1296). Their leadership coincided with a particularly turbulent period in the Levant:

970-427: Is the earliest known text about the Buhturids. It acknowledged Buhtur's command of the Gharb, control of its villages, ownership of their revenues, and protection of its ru'asa (village chiefs) and peasants. It is probable that Buhtur was among the frontier commanders called by Abaq to help repulse a Crusader raid against Damascus in 1148 , and his Druze warriors a component of the "many archers" who had come "from

1067-640: The Sijill al-Arslani hold that the slain Tanukhids belonged to the tribe's Arslan line led by Adud al-Dawla Ali, who was killed alongside most of his family. An Arslan emir, Majd al-Dawla Muhammad, survived and abandoned Sidon to the Crusaders before retiring to the Gharb where he took over the lands of his deceased kinsmen, holding them until his death in battle in 1137. The historian Kamal Salibi surmises that successive Muslim atabegs ( Turkic rulers) of Damascus resettled Mount Lebanon with Arab tribesmen to buttress

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1164-674: The Buhturids , the Ma'ns , the Assafs , the Sayfas and the Shihabs. His chronicle has been one of the main sources for modern-day histories of Mamluk and Ottoman Lebanon. Tannus was likely born around 1794. He was the eldest of five sons of Abu Husayn Yusuf al-Shidyaq, the other four being Mansur, As'ad, Ghalib and Faris . The Shidyaqs were learned Maronite laymen originally from ancient Syria and later resident in

1261-684: The Burji dynasty , were the rulers of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt from 1382 until 1517. As with the preceding Bahri Mamluks , the members of the Burji Mamluk ruling class were purchased as slaves ( mamluks ) and manumitted , with the most powerful among them taking the role of sultan in Cairo . During this period, the ruling Mamluks were generally of Circassian origin, drawn from the Christian population of

1358-665: The House of Ibelin were more aggressive than the Brisebarres' in asserting their influence in Beirut's countryside. Hajji did not fare well during their lordship and may have refused to reach accommodations with them in light of the Crusaders' killing of his family and destruction of Sarhmoul. In 1222 he received confirmation of his iqta from the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, al-Mu'azzam Isa , to whom Hajji complained at one point about his maltreatment at

1455-532: The Keserwan area of central Mount Lebanon . Members of the family served as teachers and clerks for the Muslim, Christian and Druze nobility of Mount Lebanon and its environs from the early 17th century. Their education and relationships with the leading nobility placed them in the second strata of the local aristocracy and as such their members held the title of shaykh , a local rank below emir and equal to that of

1552-637: The Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. Although part of the confederation fled to Byzantine Anatolia , they primarily remained in their dwelling places around Aleppo and Qinnasrin (Chalcis) in the northern Levant and eventually allied with the Levant-based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) while largely retaining their Christian faith. After the execution of their preeminent chieftain Layth ibn Mahatta by

1649-516: The Sayfa and Alam al-Din families of Akkar and the Matn, respectively. His brother Sharaf al-Din was killed by Hafiz Ahmed Pasha's troops in a village near Jezzine in 1614. Fakhr al-Din, meanwhile, had escaped to Europe leaving his brother Yunus and son Ali in charge of the Ma'n's collapsing domains. They were reappointed over Sidon-Beirut Sanjak in 1615 and afterward installed their Buhturid allies Mundhir over

1746-633: The Zengid atabeg of Aleppo in 1154, and the resulting unification of the Islamic Levant under his leadership, the Buhturid emir Zahr al-Din Karama abandoned any arrangements that had possibly been made with the Crusaders and offered his services to Nur al-Din. The latter, in turn, recognized Karama as emir of the Gharb in 1157, and granted him control over most of its villages and other villages in southern Mount Lebanon,

1843-433: The colloquial Arabic of Mount Lebanon and his family, some of which were lost. The most important of his works was Akhbar al-a'yan fi Jabal Lubnan , which was supervised by Butrus al-Bustani , and published in separate parts in 1855 and 1859. In it he described the natural and political geography of Mount Lebanon, documented the genealogies of its feudal families, and chronicled the history of its rule by families, such as

1940-608: The lord of Sidon granted Hajji II agricultural land in Damour south of Beirut, likely in compensation for services to Sidon. In 1259 Hajji II and Salih submitted to the Mongol general Kitbuqa , who recognized their holdings in the Gharb. Upon hearing of the Mamluk sultan Qutuz 's campaign into Syria the two Buhturid emirs agreed that Salih would join the Egyptian camp, while Hajji II would remain with

2037-531: The northern Caucasus . The name Burji , meaning 'of the tower', refers to the traditional residence of these Mamluks in the barracks of the Citadel of Cairo . Although sultans typically designated their sons to succeed them after death, the latter rarely lasted more than a few years before being usurped by one of the powerful Mamluk commanders, usually from among the Mamluks purchased by previous sultans. Political power-plays often became important in designating

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2134-589: The " Mardaite " rulers of the northern parts of the mountain before proceeding in separate chapters, not in chronological order, with the rule of the Buhturids of the Gharb , the Ma'nids of the Chouf , the Assafs of Keserwan, the Sayfas of Akkar , the Shihabs, the Abi'l-Lamas and the Arslans of the Gharb. Tannus cited as his sources the Maronite historian Ibn al-Qila'i (d. 1516),

2231-503: The 1420s and 1490s–1500s. They were respected by the peasants of the Gharb for safeguarding their interests against government measures, promoting agriculture, and checking their local rivals, the Turkmen emirs of the Keserwan . During the closing years of Mamluk rule, Buhturid influence receded to the benefit of their old allies, the Druze Ma'n dynasty of the Chouf . They continued to control

2328-523: The Abbasid caliph al-Mansur ( r.  754–775 ), who ordered a number of the tribe's chiefs to secure the coast and lines of communication around Beirut from Byzantine attack. Epistle 50, one of the Epistles of Wisdom composed by Druze missionaries in the early 11th century, was explicitly directed to three Tanukhid emirs settled in the mountainous Gharb area southeast of Beirut, calling on them to continue

2425-435: The Ayyubid emir of Damascus al-Nasir Yusuf , the Mamluk sultan Aybak , the Mongol ruler Hulagu , and the lords of Beirut and Sidon. In 1255, al-Nasir Yusuf sent a punitive expedition against the Buhturids of Gharb as a result of their duplicity. His army's regular troops and allied tribesmen from Baalbek and the Beqaa Valley were routed by the Buhturids at the village of Aytat , close to modern Aley . The following year,

2522-594: The Bedouin Bani al-Hansh emir Nasir al-Din Muhammad from the governorship of Beirut. Jamal al-Din was appointed in his place. Nasir al-Din Muhammad revolted in 1505 and raided Beirut, destroying Jamal al-Din's soap warehouses. The Ma'n under Emir Fakhr al-Din Uthman supported Nasir al-Din against the Buhturids. The Mamluks reinstated Nasir al-Din to Beirut in 1512. The growing influence of the Ma'ns under Fakhr al-Din Uthman came at

2619-414: The Beqaa Valley, and Wadi al-Taym in the form of an iqta , as well as the provision of forty horsemen from Damascus and whatever taxes he could levy in time of war. As a result of his support by Nur al-Din, Karama established headquarters in the Gharb fortress of Sarhammur (modern Sarhmoul), from which he harried the Crusaders along the coast. Karama's close proximity to Beirut disturbed its lords from

2716-460: The Brisebarre family and a series of raids and counter-raids between them and Karama lasted until 1166 following Gautier III of Brisebarre's sale of the fief of Beirut to the king of Jerusalem . Tensions between Beirut and the Buhturids continued until Karama's death and the subsequent killing of his three eldest sons, both occurring sometime before 1170. Ibn Yahya holds that the sons had been lured to

2813-454: The Buhturid emir Izz al-Din Sadaqa the mutawali (governor) of Beirut, the first member of the family to attain the post, while Ibn Yahya was promoted to the rank of amir ashrin (commander of twenty mamluks). Ibn Yahya and an emir from the rival Banu al-Hamra participated in a naval expedition against Cyprus in 1425, after which the Banu al-Hamra emir was awarded property in Beirut by Barsbay; when

2910-506: The Buhturids to "have a foot in every camp and thus ingratiate all the parties concerned". To that end, the family maintained cordial ties with the Crusader lords of Beirut and Sidon, declared their loyalty to the Ayyubid emirs, attempted negotiations with the Mamluks of Egypt, and pondered accommodating the Mongols. Ibn Yahya records and dates letters recognizing Buhturid leadership of the Gharb from

3007-600: The Buhturids to his sons Shihab al-Din Ahmad (d. 1382) and Sayf al-Din Yahya (d. 1388), who ruled jointly. The former successfully ignored a Mamluk order to cut down the plums trees of the Chouf to make arrows, saving the Druze peasants of agricultural losses and forced labor; it contributed to the Bunturids' respect among the local population. Their successors mostly did not attain the prominence of

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3104-656: The County of Tripoli the following year, Qalawun designated these as an income reserve for the halqa (free, non- mamluk cavalries) garrisoned in Tripoli . Khidr, the main Buhturid chief at the time, passed leadership over to his son, Nasir al-Din Husayn. Qalawun's successor, his son al-Ashraf Khalil , conquered the remaining Crusader holdouts along the coast, including Beirut and Sidon, in 1291. He balanced his father's centralization drive with

3201-633: The Crusader assault and reestablished himself in Aramoun where he founded a cadet branch of the Buhturids. Nur al-Din died in 1174 and his former dependent, Saladin , founded the Ayyubid Sultanate , which spanned Egypt and much of the Islamic Levant by 1182. On 6 August 1187, Saladin conquered Beirut. On his approach to the town, he was welcomed by Hajji at the coastal village of Khalde . Upon his capture of Beirut, Saladin summoned Hajji, declared that he avenged his family's losses, and confirmed his emirate in

3298-411: The Crusader lords of Beirut and the nearby coastal town of Sidon to the south, who "were always willing to pay well for Buhturid good will", according to Salibi. At the same time, the emirs were careful to demonstrate their protection of the frontier with religious zeal to maintain financial support and avoid attacks from the Muslim rulers of Damascus. After the capture of Burid Damascus by Nur al-Din ,

3395-710: The Crusaders had regained control of the Levantine coastlands amid Ayyubid infighting, the Mamluks had toppled the Ayyubids of Egypt in 1250 and moved to wrest control of Ayyubid emirates in the Levant, while the Mongols conquered and destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq in 1258 and afterward invaded the Levant . According to Salibi, the unstable political circumstances of the region left

3492-622: The Druze Mountain in 1585. Sharaf al-Din Ali's son Muhammad and the Buhturid emir Mundhir of Abeih in the Gharb, the grandson of Nasir al-Din Muhammad, were captured by the Ottoman vizier Ibrahim Pasha and imprisoned in Constantinople for a short period. The following year Muhammad had his iltizam in the Gharb reinstated. The campaign's main target, the Ma'nid emir Qurqumaz, died in hiding in 1586. His son Fakhr al-Din II , whose mother Sitt Nasab

3589-503: The Druze historian Ibn Sibat (d. 1520), al-Duwayhi, Haydar al-Shihabi (d. 1821), the biography of Fakhr al-Din II by al-Khalidi al-Safadi (d. 1624), Father Joseph Assemanus (d. 1782), Father Hananiyya al-Munayyir (d. 1820) of Zouk Mosbeh , the Melkite poet Butrus Karami of Homs (d. 1851), and oral and printed histories and court registers of the Shihab, Jumblatt , Khazen , Hubaysh and Talhuq genealogies. The first and second parts of

3686-620: The Gharb by the Burid atabegs or had entered the area on their own initiative, but in either case were also recognized as emirs of the area. The Buhturids were consistently the stronger clan, but their struggles with the Banu Abi al-Jaysh for supremacy in the Gharb recurred throughout the Crusader period and into the Mamluk era in Mount Lebanon. The Buhturids frequently maintained profitable accommodations with

3783-424: The Gharb in 1120 and established political and marital ties with the Buhturids, and the Banu Shihab , which was established in Wadi al-Taym between Mount Lebanon and the western countryside of Damascus in 1173. Nahid al-Dawla Buhtur was recognized as the emir of the Gharb in June 1147 by the last Burid atabeg of Damascus, Mujir al-Din Abaq . The latter's written declaration, as recorded verbatim by Ibn Yahya,

3880-448: The Gharb through Ottoman rule until the family was massacred by the Druze chief Ali Alam al-Din in 1633. The Buhturids were a clan of the Tanukh , an Arab tribal confederation whose presence in the Levant dated to at least the 4th century CE when they served as the first Arab foederati (tribal confederates) of the Byzantine Empire . At the time, the Tanukh were ardent Orthodox Christians , and remained in Byzantine service until

3977-474: The Gharb. Seven villages were attached to Hajji's iqta and recognized as property inherited by his father and grandfather. Saladin's son and successor in Damascus, al-Afdal , was ousted by Saladin's brother, al-Adil of Egypt, in 1196 and exiled to Salkhad , from which he solicited the assistance of Hajji and the Buhturids in retaking the sultanate. It is not known if Hajji responded to al-Afdal. The Crusaders recaptured Beirut in 1197 and its new lords from

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4074-439: The Iraq-based Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi ( r.  775–785 ) for refusing to embrace Islam, the tribe converted and their churches were destroyed. During the reign of al-Mahdi's son, Harun al-Rashid ( r.  786–809 ), the Tanukh's settlements were raided by rebels, forcing their flight from the Qinnasrin area to the northern Levantine coastal mountains , which were thenceforth called 'Jabal Tanukh' or 'Jabal Bahra' after

4171-421: The Keserwan with the Assafs in 1565–1568, much of Beirut with the Assafs in 1566–1570, and the salt revenues from the ports of Beirut, Sidon and Acre with their Buhturid kinsman Nasir al-Din Muhammad ibn Sayf al-Din Abu Bakr in 1568–1569. Sharaf al-Din Ali and Muhammad were also recorded as timar (land grant) holders in the Gharb in 1569, grants which were reconfirmed in 1576. Sharif al-Din Ali may have avoided

4268-433: The Mamluk Sultanate grew to its widest territorial extent. In 1426, he invaded the Kingdom of Cyprus and forced its kings to become Mamluk vassals . However, Barsbay also introduced a number of economic policies that were damaging in the long term, such as a state monopoly on the spice trade . During Barsbay's reign Egypt's population was greatly reduced from what it had been a few centuries before, with only one fifth of

4365-531: The Mamluk army was routed. In 1517, the Ottomans completed their conquest with the capture of Cairo on January 22. The centre of power transferred from Cairo to Constantinople . However, the mamluks continued to exist as a political and military class in Ottoman Egypt . While the governors were appointed by the Ottoman sultan, the mamluks vied for influence within the country and held many high political positions. They were finally destroyed and exterminated by Muhammad Ali Pasha during his rise to power in Egypt in

4462-415: The Mamluk viceroy of Damascus, to restore the family to their iqtas in Mount Lebanon lest the troops in their district "shall perish, for it is their home and that of their men and clan, and they can benefit of no other property". The Mamluks agreed to leave the Buhturid iqtas intact, thereby formalizing a hereditary system of feudal land tenure which had become traditional in southern Mount Lebanon. Husayn

4559-460: The Mamluks. Qutuz's successor, Baybars , confirmed their iqtas in the Gharb and employed them as auxiliaries in his engagements against the Crusaders and as intelligence gatherers. Baybars imprisoned Hajji II, Salih and Khidr for alleged collaboration with the Crusader Count of Tripoli between 1268 and 1270, but they were released by Baybars's successor, his son Baraka Khan , in 1278. Buhturid relations with Beirut were not abandoned, and in 1280

4656-532: The Mongols and whichever emir was on the winning side would intercede on behalf of the other. Salih fought reputably with the Mamluks when they routed the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine and was pardoned by Qutuz for his initial allegiance to Kitbuqa. In the early decades of Mamluk rule, while the Crusaders continued to control the coastlands, the Mamluk government remained suspicious of Buhturid loyalties. The Buhturid emirs maintained an outward appearance as Sunni Muslims and were accepted as such by

4753-469: The Northern March of Damascus Province, to which the Beirut District was subordinate. After Karama ibn Buhtur's death in 1307, Husayn obtained his rank and iqta . The Buhturids lost their iqtas in the 1313 cadastral survey of the Levant ordered by al-Nasir Muhammad. Iqtas were redistributed throughout the region, with holders being reassigned smaller iqtas in line with their rank and often in areas far from their abodes. Husayn lobbied Emir Tankiz ,

4850-471: The Notables in Mount Lebanon). He was born in the Keserwan area of Mount Lebanon to a long line of clerks serving the Shihab emirs and other local chieftains. Tannus was taught Arabic and Syriac grammar and throughout his career serving the Shihab emirs and as a merchant, he pursued education in the fields of medicine, jurisprudence, logic, ethics, natural sciences, Turkish and Italian. Tannus wrote manuscripts about his Maronite sect, Arab and Islamic history,

4947-422: The Ottoman sultan Bayezid II by harboring his rebellious brother, Cem . Bayezid II later seized Adana , Tarsus and other places within Mamluk territory, but was unable to defeat the Mamluks during a prolonged war that ended in 1491. Qaitbay also tried to help the Muslims in Spain by threatening the Christians in Syria, but without effect. He died in 1496, leaving several hundred thousand ducats in debts to

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5044-451: The Ottomans and the Mamluks became more adversarial after this time. Both states constantly vied for control of the spice trade , and the Ottomans aspired to eventually take control of the Holy Cities of Islam . Under the reign of Khusqadam , of Greek origin, tensions increased. Both Khusqadam and Mehmed II supported different candidates to the principality of Karaman . After the death of Mehmed II in 1481, Sultan Qaitbay offended

5141-401: The Ottomans were free from other concerns — Sultan Selim I had just vanquished the Safavid Persians at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514 —and turned their full might against the Mamluks, who still ruled in Syria and Egypt, to complete the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East . Al-Ghuri led his army to confront Selim I's invasion of Syria in 1516, but he died in the Battle of Marj Dabiq and

5238-451: The Shidyaqs). The most important of Tannus's works was Akhbar al-a'yan fi Jabal Lubnan (The History of the Notables in Mount Lebanon), which he completed in 1855. The printed work was 770 pages and divided into three parts. The first part centered on the natural and political geography of Mount Lebanon and its surroundings and consisted of five chapters: the first chapter defined the boundaries of Mount Lebanon and surveyed its population;

5335-456: The Shihab emir Hasan ibn Umar, who moved him back to the Shidyaq ancestral village of Ashqout in Keserwan. Tannus was about 10 years old when his family relocated to Ashqout and there is no information about his early education; the modern historian Kamal Salibi presumes he was homeschooled. He was taught rudimentary Arabic and Syriac by teacher Yusuf al-Hukayyim in the nearby village of Ghosta in 1809. His studies were interrupted before

5432-578: The Shihabs in a minor political embassy that year. He continued his mercantile career until his death and was also employed by the Shihabs as a political agent and spy, giving him significant insight into the political intrigues of his age. He participated with Bashir II's forces in battle against the Ottoman governor of Damascus in 1821. As a result of the death of his father in 1821, Tannus became financially responsible for his mother, his two younger sisters, Adla and Wardiyya and his brother Faris. Sometime afterward he married and had two sons, Faris and Naja,

5529-408: The Tanukh and the tribe of Bahra . The Tanukh's entry into the area of modern Lebanon, which was just south of Jabal Tanukh, was "the last stage of their historical role in Bilad al-Sham [the Islamic Levant]", according to the historian Irfan Shahid . The Sijill al-Arslani (genealogical registers of the Arslan family of Choueifat ) states that the Tanukh began moving into Mount Lebanon under

5626-500: The Tanukh entered the Gharb as Sunni Muslims and afterward became Druze. Their leaders in the Gharb may have received and embraced the Fatimid Isma'ili da'wa (mission) as early as the late 10th century. When Beirut was captured by the Crusaders in 1110 after a three-month siege, its Muslim garrison and the Muslim tribal chiefs of the adjacent mountains who aided in its defense were massacred. The 19th-century history of Mount Lebanon's notable families by Tannus al-Shidyaq and

5723-424: The balance of the Buhturids' former iqtas to the family in 1294. Five years later, the Buhturids gave refuge to Mamluk troops fleeing the Mongol advance after the Mamluk defeat at the Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar near Homs , in contrast to the local attacks the Mamluks encountered as they crossed the Keserwan. The Buhturid emirs were assigned a rank and given command over a number of mamluk troops, depending on

5820-421: The book were published on 13 June 1855 by the American Press under the oversight of Butrus al-Bustani. The third part was published on 26 May 1859. According to the historian Youssef Choueiri, Tannus's "reputation as a chronicler largely rests on his Akhbar al-a'yan ". Salibi interprets Akhbar al-a'yan as the work of a Maronite layman, who wrote "as a Lebanese rather than a Maronite", without consideration to

5917-465: The conspiracy was discovered before agitators could mobilize. Permanently in power, he founded the Burji dynasty. Faced with a common enemy, Timur , Barquq joined with Bayezid I and Toktamish in a combined resistance and executed Timur's peace envoys . In the following months Timur was engaged in Georgia and unable to respond to Barquq's actions, while Barquq had died by 1399. In 1401, Timur invaded Syria and sacked Aleppo and Damascus . Syria

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6014-447: The direction of the Biqa' [Beqaa Valley] and from elsewhere" to defend the city during that battle referenced by the Damascene historian Ibn al-Qalanisi (d. 1160). The Buhturids' principal local rival in the Gharb during the wars with the Crusaders were the Banu Sa'dan or Banu Abi al-Jaysh, a clan of the Bedouin Banu al-Hamra from the Beqaa Valley whose headquarters was in Aramoun . The Banu Abi al-Jaysh may have also been settled in

6111-454: The domains of his Buhturid allies and kept the Turkmens in place in the Keserwan, possibly to avoid affording too much local power to the Buhturids or prevent their forces from being strained. The Buhturids grew their commercial enterprises, exporting silk, olive oil and soap from Beirut and forming business ties with Mamluk officials in Egypt. They reached the peak of their power during the sultanate of Barsbay (1422–1438). The sultan appointed

6208-425: The earlier Buhturids, though this may have been associated with the general decline and political instability of the Mamluk realm following the death of al-Nasir Muhammad in 1343. Yahya entered into conflict with the Mamluk viceroy of Damascus after the latter accused him of incompetence in repulsing a Genoese raid on Beirut in 1382 and demonstrating sympathies for local Shias in a dispute with Sunnis in Beirut. During

6305-407: The early 19th century. Tannus al-Shidyaq Tannus ibn Yusuf al-Shidyaq ( c.  1794 – 1861), also transliterated Tannous el-Chidiac , was a Maronite clerk and emissary of the Shihab emirs, the feudal chiefs and tax farmers of Ottoman Mount Lebanon , and a chronicler best known for his work on the noble families of Mount Lebanon, Akhbar al-a'yan fi Jabal Lubnan (The History of

6402-433: The emir was assassinated by a Mamluk officer, Ibn Yahya was granted the property. The Banu al-Hamra responded by assaulting the Buhturids' residence in Beirut and planning an ambush against Ibn Yahya in the Beqaa Valley. The plot was foiled and the chief of the Banu al-Hamra was arrested and executed by the viceroy of Damascus. In 1496 the paramount Buhturid emir Jamal al-Din Hajji persuaded the governor of Damascus to dismiss

6499-446: The emir's rank. Husayn was made emir of three while his cousin, Salih's grandson Shams al-Din Karama ibn Buhtur, was made emir of ten. In 1305 Husayn and his cousins Muhammad and Ahmad, both sons of Hajji II, participated in the government campaigns in the Keserwan against Druze, Alawite , Shia Muslim, and Maronite rebels. The deaths of Muhammad and Ahmad during the campaign strengthened Husayn's leadership position. The following year,

6596-430: The expense of the Buhturids' preeminence among the Druze of Mount Lebanon. At the time of the Ottoman conquest of the Levant in 1516, the preeminent leader of the Buhturids was Sharaf al-Din Yahya, who gave homage to the Ottoman sultan Selim I in Damascus in 1516 and 1517. On the first occasion, the sultan confirmed the Buhturid iqtas in the Gharb. The Gharb-based Druze historian Ibn Sibat (d. 1520) records Yahya as

6693-404: The family's emirs were officially charged with protecting the harbor of Beirut, notifying the authorities of naval raids from Cyprus , and assisting the government in repulsing naval raids. Turkmen settlers were stationed in the Keserwan and militarily coordinated with the Buhturids. The Buhturids were assisted and overseen by rotational halqa units from Baalbek, the administrative capital of

6790-483: The feudal chieftains of the area. Tannus's grandfather Mansur left Keserwan to serve the Shia emir of Baalbek , Haydar al-Harfush in 1741 for two years, and then moved to Hazmiyeh near Beirut in 1755 where he served the Shihab emir Qasim ibn Umar, the father of Bashir II . He eventually settled in Hadath , continuing to work for Qasim until the latter's death in 1768, after which he worked for two other Shihab emirs. Tannus's father succeeded Mansur and later served

6887-414: The feudal families of Mount Lebanon, with each family entitled to a chapter and grouped into three categories: Muslims, Maronites and Druze—the originally Muslim and Druze Shihab and Abi'l-Lama families, at least parts of which converted to Christianity, were grouped with the Maronites. The third and longest part of Akhbar al-a'yan dealt with the dynastic and feudal rulers of Mount Lebanon, beginning with

6984-571: The first Mamluk dynasty, the mostly Cuman - Kipchak Turkic Bahri dynasty . In 1377 a revolt broke out in Syria which spread to Egypt, and the government was taken over by the Circassians Barakah and Barquq ; Barquq was proclaimed sultan in 1382, ending the Bahri dynasty. He was expelled in 1389 but recaptured Cairo in 1390. Early on, the Zahiri Revolt threatened to overthrow Barquq though

7081-696: The first of whom died in infancy. After the deaths of his brothers Ghalib in 1840 and Mansur in 1842, he also became responsible for the former's young sons Zahir and Bishara and Ghalib's son. His mercantile business reported deficits for most of the period between 1821 and 1856 and to meet the needs of his increased dependents, he earned extra income as a teacher and copyist. He also began studying medicine in 1823 and began practicing six years later. Tannus continued his education in different fields, studying logic in 1832, Turkish and Italian in 1835, natural sciences in 1848 and jurisprudence in 1849. During that last year he also studied rhetoric with Nasif al-Yaziji ,

7178-453: The frontier with the Crusader states; the most prominent of the settler families were the branch of the Tanukh led by Ali ibn al-Husayn. The early 15th-century chronicler Salih ibn Yahya , a member of the Buhturids, noted that Ali's grandfather was Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abi Abdallah, who was the commander of a place called 'al-Bira' in 1027. While Salibi identifies al-Bira with the fortified town of

7275-442: The great Venetian trading families. Following another several years of political instability and succession disputes, the last major Mamluk sultan was Qansuh al-Ghuri , who came to power in 1501. While he attempted some reforms, including the introduction of the first military regiment with gunpowder weapons, he was unable to fully integrate them into the Mamluk army and he could not fix the country's economic problems. By 1516,

7372-518: The hands of the Ibelins. The year of Hajji's death is not known, though his son and successor, Najm al-Din Muhammad, and another of his sons, Sharaf al-Din Ali, were slain in battle on 3 October 1242 in the Keserwan , north of Beirut, by the Crusaders or their local allies. Before his death, Muhammad's support was sought by the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, al-Salih Ayyub , in the latter's bid to gain control of Damascus from his uncle, al-Salih Isma'il , though it

7469-465: The hills around Beirut, exterminating the Abi al-Jaysh emirs and attacking the Arslans. They proceeded to raid the Buhturids in the Gharb following Barquq's reinstatement in 1390, but were unable to capture their strongholds of Ainab and Aramoun. Barquq sent against the Turkmens the Buhturids, Bedouin tribesmen from the Beqaa Valley and regular Mamluk troops, who routed them. Nonetheless, Barquq did not expand

7566-512: The lesser chiefs Mahmud, Nasir al-Din and Sayf al-Din (Nasir al-Din's son), followed by the killing of their three young sons in a nearby tower, "leaving no child to succeed them". Harris called the elimination of the Buhturid family the "extinguishing [of] an illustrious name in Lebanon's medieval history." The Buhturids maintained a significant degree of local autonomy in Mount Lebanon for nearly four hundred years preceding Ottoman rule. Their rule set

7663-405: The lord of Beirut, Humphrey of Montfort , granted Salih lands near Choueifat in exchange for extraditing fugitives from Beirut who took shelter in the Gharb and protecting Beirut from attacks by the Gharb's inhabitants. Sultan Qalawun ( r.  1279–1290 ) confiscated the Buhturids' iqtas , along with the iqtas of other local chiefs in the coastal mountains, in 1288. After conquering

7760-551: The name Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abdallah as one of the three Tanukhid emirs addressed in Epistle 50 and places his death in 1029. The historian William Harris questions Salibi's theory of the Buhturids' origins and considers it more probable that the family was already established in the Gharb and was at least distantly related to the Arslan Tanukhids who were slain in 1110, though the family may have been reinforced by Druze settlers from

7857-449: The northern Levant. The Buhturids had been known as the 'Banu Abi Abdallah' after Ali ibn al-Husayn's great-grandfather. They became known as the 'Banu Buhtur' after the ascent of Ali ibn al-Husayn's son, Nahid al-Dawla Buhtur. Clans independent of the Buhturids were settled in neighboring districts, including the Banu Ma'n (Ma'nids), which was established in the Chouf immediately south of

7954-612: The number of towns. He frequently raided Asia Minor , but died in 1438. During the reign of Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq an attempt to conquer Rhodes in 1444 from the Knights of St. John was repelled. Sayf ad-Din Inal came to power in 1453 and had friendly relations with the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II , who captured Constantinople later that year, causing great celebration in Egypt. The relationship between

8051-496: The realization that the militarily experienced peasant warriors of the Gharb and the other mountain frontier districts, who formed a key component of the Muslims' coastal defenses, were only effective under their traditional chiefs. Al-Ashraf Khalil's solution was the restoration of the Buhturids to part of their former iqtas and their incorporation into the halqa in 1292. Al-Ashraf Khalil's successor, al-Nasir Muhammad , restored

8148-575: The same name on the Byzantine–Islamic frontier in Anatolia where Ibrahim's clansmen and descendants would have gained significant experience in frontier warfare, the historian Nejla Abu-Izzedin considers Salibi's theory incorrect and holds that al-Bira was the Gharb village of the same name mentioned in the Druzes' Epistle 48. Abu-Izzedin further notes that the 1061 entry of the Sijill al-Arslani records

8245-462: The second summarized the histories of the eight principal coastal towns of the Phoenicians , namely Tripoli , Batroun , Byblos, Jounieh , Beirut, Sidon , Tyre and Acre ; the third described the mountain's nine main rivers ; the fourth detailed the feudal districts of the mountain and the fifth was a table of the population. The second part of Akhbar al-a'yan was devoted to the genealogies of

8342-566: The sole Druze chief to have welcomed Selim in Damascus, contrary to the chronicle of Duwayhi who lists the chiefs of the Ma'n as also having welcomed Selim, which Salibi considers doubtful. In 1518, Yahya was imprisoned by the governor of Damascus, Janbirdi al-Ghazali , for allegedly supporting the revolt of Nasir al-Din Muhammad of the Bani al-Hansh against Selim. They were transferred to Selim's custody in Aleppo and were then released after being reprimanded by

8439-633: The stage for Ma'nid dominance of Mount Lebanon and its environs in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to Salibi, the Buhturids' staying power made Mount Lebanon "essentially different from other regions in Syria", their preservation "in southern [Mount] Lebanon [of] a hereditary feudal system ... was to serve later as the basis of Lebanese autonomy under the Ottomans". Burji dynasty The Burji Mamluks ( Arabic : المماليك البرجية , romanized :  al-Mamalik al-Burjiya ) or Circassian Mamluks ( Arabic : المماليك الشركس , romanized :  al-Mamalik al-Sharkas ), sometimes referred to as

8536-421: The sultan. The following year Jamal al-Din Hajji was imprisoned in Damascus by Janbirdi's deputy and was never heard from again. The Buhturid emirs of the Gharb were granted by the Ottomans iltizam (limited-term tax farms ) in the Gharb and Beirut and neighboring subdistricts. Jamal al-Din's son Sharaf al-Din Ali and the latter's son Muhammad together held the tax farms of the Gharb in 1562–1565 and 1566–1569,

8633-537: The tax farm of Beirut and his nephew Nasir al-Din (likely Sayf al-Din's son) over the Gharb and the Jurd. Three years later Mundhir and Nasir al-Din had a dispute with Ali over Mundhir's former residence in Beirut, but the matter was dropped when Fakhr al-Din II returned from exile. Nasir al-Din's son later had a dispute with Ali Ma'n over the tax farm of the Gharb in 1622 and temporarily gained refuge in Nablus . In 1633 Fakhr al-Din

8730-518: The tradition of their ancestors in spreading Druze teachings. The Gharb was less rugged than the neighboring areas to the north and south, and its strategic value stemmed from its control of Beirut's southern harbor and the road connecting Beirut with Damascus . The warrior peasants who inhabited the Gharb subscribed to the Druze faith, an esoteric offshoot of Isma'ilism, the religion of the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt ( r.  973–1171 ). Shahid holds that

8827-619: The transition in the Mamluk Sultanate from the Turkish sultans to the Circassian sultans under Sultan Barquq in 1382, the Buhturids threw in their lot with the latter. The Turkish government was restored in 1389, during which Barquq, supported by various Syrian emirs, including the Buhturids, besieged Damascus. The Turkmens of Keserwan, who supported the Turkish sultans, used the opportunity to raid

8924-615: The year's end when Bashir II, who had become the paramount strongman and tax farmer of Mount Lebanon, appointed Tannus's father the mutasallim (tax collector) of Shuweir in the Matn area south of Keserwan and soon after of Zahle in the Beqaa Valley as well. The family consequently moved back to Hadath where Tannus taught As'ad the Arabic and Syriac grammar he had learned in Ghosta. In 1810 he served as

9021-471: Was Mundhir's sister, succeeded him as chief of the Chouf in c.  1590 . He had been protected during the preceding six years by his uncle, Mundhir's brother Sayf al-Din. Fakhr al-Din was appointed over the tax farms of the Chouf, the Gharb and most of the Druze Mountain, along with Beirut and Sidon through the 1590s. In 1593 he was made governor of the Sidon-Beirut Sanjak . That year Muhammad led

9118-458: Was captured and imprisoned by the Ottomans, who appointed in his place over the Chouf Ali Alam al-Din . That year Alam al-Din moved against Fakhr al-Din's supporters and family. He massacred the entire Buhturid family in a surprise attack during a meeting with the family's leaders in their headquarters at Abeih. Duwayhi details Alam al-Din's slaying of the preeminent Buhturid chief Yahya al-Aqil,

9215-450: Was promoted to emir of twenty in 1314, but his iqta was not increased. Between 1306 and his retirement in 1348 Husayn helped repulse several Cypriot and Genoese raids against Beirut and in 1343 participated in an expedition against the deposed Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Ahmad in al-Karak . Husayn was succeeded by his son Zayn al-Din Salih II (d. 1377). In 1373 Salih II passed leadership of

9312-595: Was read by the American missionary Eli Smith but whose whereabouts are currently unknown. He penned an unfinished book on the Turkish language in 1835 and summarized another work of al-Duwayhi's, Tarikh al-azmina (History of the Times), in 1845. Three years later he wrote a history of Arab and Islamic rulers, which is also lost. In 1850 Tannus wrote a history of his family, the principal source of his biography, entitled Tarikh wa a'mal banu ash-Shidyaq (History and Achievements of

9409-562: Was regained by Barquq's son, sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj , after Timur died in 1405, but Faraj continually faced rebellions from the emirs there and he was forced to abdicate in 1412. After Faraj, the Abbasid caliph al-Musta'in was permitted to rule the sultanate in Cairo for several months, but the role of sultan was soon taken by another Mamluk, Al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh . Under the reign of Sultan Barsbay ,

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