Harfush dynasty
Harfush آل حرفوش | |
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Country | Beqaa Valley and Sidon-Beirut Sanjak briefly, Ottoman Empire |
Founded | 15th century (Beqaa) |
Founder | Ibn Harfush |
Final ruler | Ahmed |
Dissolution | 1865 |
Historical Arab states and dynasties |
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The Harfush dynasty (or Harfouche, Harfuch, Harfouch, or most commonly spelled Harfoush dynasty, all varying transcriptions of the same Arabic family name حرفوش) was a dynasty that descended from the
The Shia notables such as the Harfush emirs of Baalbek and Bekaa Valley were among the most sought-after local intermediaries of the Ottoman state. Later the Hamadas rose to power. They exercised control over multiple tax farms in the rural hinterland of Tripoli in the seventeenth century through complex relationships with both the Ottoman state authorities and the local non-Shiaa communities.
The Harfushes had been a regionally paramount dynasty since early Mamluk times and even served as patrons of local Shiaa shrines and scholars. To the Ottomans they were therefore always leading candidates for local fiscal and political offices, including for the military governorship of the sub-province of Homs, to which they were appointed to partially offset the influence of the increasingly hegemonic Druze emirate.[4]
History
Fifteenth century
The late Mamluk historian Ibn Tawq identifies an Ibn Harfush as a muqaddam of the Anti-Lebanon mountain villages al-Jebbeh and Assal al-Ward as early as 1483. Later, Ibn al-Himsi and Ibn Tulun mention one as deputy (na'ib) of Baalbek in 1498. The unnamed Ibn Harfush appears in an Ottoman archival source as early as 1516, when he and several other local notables signed a letter offering their submission to Sultan Selim I, but was executed in 1518 by Janbirdi al-Ghazali as a rebel.[5]
Sixteenth century
There is no further word on Musa Harfush's eventual participation in the Yemen campaign (which was in fact directed against the forces of the Zaydi Shiite imam), and in later years the Harfushes would be appointed
Turning Sidon-Beirut into a beğlerbeğlik
As elsewhere in the empire, administrative units such as
Seventeenth century
Battle of ‘Anjar
The Harfush leader Emir
Bekaa Valley before and after the battle of ‘Anjar can be obtained from a recently published register of
One of their well-known scholars
There was at least one Imami scholar from the Bekaa by the name of Harfush in the Ottoman period: Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Harfushi (died 1649), a cloth-maker, grammarian and poet from Karak Nuh, was apparently persecuted for rafd in Damascus and then moved to Iran, where he received an official state post.[5]
Eighteenth century
The battle of Ayn Dara and the role of Harfush's emir
The Harfushes appear to have been back in control of Baalbek by 1702, when local accounts indicate that a Christian shaykh of ‘Aqura in Mt Lebanon entered emir Husayn’s (Harfush) service as yazıcı, or secretary, on account of his Turkish skills. In 1711, French consular reports suggest, Husayn Harfush gave shelter to Haydar Shihabi and then supplied 2,500 troops to help him wipe out his Druze rivals in the Battle of Ain Dara, and establish himself as sole emir of the Shuf. curiously not addressed in H. A. al-Shihabi or any other chronicles of the period.[9]
Support to the Shiaa of Mount Lebanon
The Ottoman court historian Raşid (d. 1735) telescopes several important events into his official account (but omits the atrocities committed against the Shiaa villagers). The Hamadas, who were supported by the ʿAwjan as well as the Harfush, were caught in heavy snows while fleeing toward Baalbek. An estimated 150 men perished. Only the Khazins now prevented the wholesale slaughter of the survivors, by disingenuously claiming they had no permission from Maan to leave the province of Tripoli, and directed the imperial forces elsewhere. Still, Ali Paşa was not to be satisfied. A manhunt began for the Hamadas and their confederates, Shiaa or otherwise. Untold villages were torched, women enslaved, and severed heads brought back to Tripoli. In late August, he sent another army into the Ftuh just to pillage the farmsteads. In the course of an attempt to retrieve some of their animals, Husayn ibn Sirhan, his cousin Hasan Dib and several companions were caught and killed.[10] In late October, when Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi visited Tripoli, Ali Paşa was still out "battling the pertinacious heretics, the Hamada faction".[11][12]
Close alliance to the Orthodox
Like the Hamadas, the Harfush emirs were involved on more than one occasion in the selection of church officials and the running of local monasteries. Tradition holds that many Christians quit the Baalbek region in the eighteenth century for the newer, more secure town of
Siege of Zahle
Says a contemporary Christian historian of the siege of Zahle' in 1841: "The harfushes did not credit Zahle' only, but also all Christians in Lebanon. The Christians would have been humiliated if they had lost their battle (Zahle’) against the Duruze, who had (the Duruze) earlier won the battle in Deir Al Qamar" (The Harfushes stood behind the Christians and defeated the Duruze in the battle field of Zahle').[14]
End
In 1865 the Ottoman government ordered to send the last Harfush emirs to Edirne in Turkey for exile;[5] later most of them returned to Baalbeck, but others could not and stayed in Istanbul; subsequently Emir Ahmad bin Mohamad bin Soultan El -Harfouche was transferred to Cairo.[15]
Effect of disappearance of the Harfush emirate
The abrupt disappearance of the Harfush emirate left the Shiite community of Baalbek bereft of any anciently rooted, indigenous social leadership, making it that much more of a likely venue for the rise of foreign-inspired, ideological mass movements such as Communism, Nasirism and the Hizb Allah in Lebanon's tumultuous 20th century.[16]
Present
Today, Al Harfouch still own large acres of lands in Baalbek, the main cemetery of Baalbek and two villages are left in their memory, the Harfouche village and the Mrah el Harfouch village.[citation needed] The name of Yunus al-Harfouche is also engraved on the oldest mosque in the city of Baalbek. Nowadays, in the city it is more frequently referred to as Al Harfouch family instead of Harfouch dynasty. However, in the local families of the bekkaa still hold Al Harfouch to their high standards as the heroic defenders of region and its people.
See also
- Shia Islam in Lebanon
Gallery
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Ottoman official Document of retirement to L'emir Ahmad Harfouche.
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Ottoman official Document of retirement to L'emir Moukheiber Harfouche.
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Cheque of banque credit mediterranean to the order of Fadaa Harfouche.
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A letter signed by Prince Ahmad Harfouche addressed to Habib Pasha El- Saad.
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The ancient city of Baalbec. Coloured lithograph in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia, after painting by David Roberts
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Kiepert Map of Lebanon 1856.
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Emir Alli Harfush from Baalbec 1896.
References
- ^ Nehme, Joseph; Nehme, Adonis (1995). Le Drapeau Libanais: A Travers les Siècles. Deir al-Qamar. p. 20.
وقد اختار آل حرفوش والأمراء الشيعة علماً لهم باللون الأخضر، الذي كان شعار المتشيعين للإمام علي - صهر النبي
[The Harfush family and the Shiite princes chose green as their flag, which was the emblem of the Shiite followers of Imam Ali - the son-in-law of the Prophet.]{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Winter, 2010, p. 5 (Argument).
- ^ Winter, 2010, pp. 31, 32.
- Stefan Helmut Winter, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois August 2002, page 15.
- ^ a b c Winter, 2010, p. 46
- ^ Winter, 2010, p. 43
- ^ Winter, 2010, 120
- ^ Winter, 2010, pp. 53, 54.
- ^ Winter, 2010, p. 148
- ^ Ibn Nujaym, "Nubdha", pp. 817-818.
- ^ Archivum Ottomanicum, Edited by György Hazai 18 (2000) page 215 and 216
- ^ ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731), al-Ḥaqīqa wa-’l-Mujāz fī Riḥla Bilād al-Shām wa-Miṣr wa-’l-Ḥijāz, ed. Riyāḍ ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād (Damascus: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1989), 202, 226.
- ^ Winter, 2010, 166
- ^ hoser al litham aan nakabat al sham, Makarios, p. 13.
- ^ Saadoun Hamada, the history of the Shiites in Lebanon, Volume I, 2013 edition, page 371.
- ^ The Shiaa Emirates of Ottoman Syria (Mid-17th -Mid-18th Century), Stefan Helmut Winter, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois August 2002, page 236.
Sources
- ISBN 978-1-139-48681-1.