Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate مُتَصَرِّفِيَّة جَبَل لُبْنَان | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Deir el Qamar[1] | |||||||||||||
Demonym | أَهْل الْجَبَل; "Ahl al-Jabal", lit. 'People of the Mountain' | ||||||||||||
Population | |||||||||||||
• 1870[2] | 110,000 | ||||||||||||
• 1895[3] | 399,530 | ||||||||||||
• 1913[3] | 414,747 | ||||||||||||
• 1918[4] | 200,000 | ||||||||||||
Historical era | 19th–20th century | ||||||||||||
3 August 1860 9 June 1861 | |||||||||||||
• Ottoman occupation | 1915 September 1918 | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Today part of | Lebanon |
History of Lebanon |
---|
Timeline |
Lebanon portal |
The Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
This system came during the era of
The Mutasarrifate era is also characterized by the beginning of the Lebanese emigration to Egypt, Western European countries, North and South America, where a number of immigrants achieved great success that weren't possible to achieve in their homeland, and many of these immigrants contributed to the revival of the Arabic Language and
Background
Mount Lebanon as an emirate
Prince Bashir Shihab II had been ruling since 1788,[9] and he consolidated his authority over the country by eliminating his rivals from the feudal lords. His political cunning always managed to absorb the resentment, and the Druze and Christians alike continued to willingly submit to him. At the end of the reign of Bashir II, the Egyptian army entered modern-day Lebanon after May 1832,[10] expelling the Ottomans from it, and Bashir had allied with the governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha before the Egyptian occupation, and his supporters enthusiastically assisted the Egyptian army and fought under its banner and fought the battles that he fought,[11] subsequently, Ibrahim Pasha rewarded Bashir for the assistance provided to him by his supporters.
He restored to him his previous position and left him free to dispose of his emirate, subsequently, Bashir continued to pursue his opponents from the feudal lords and eliminated their influence, confiscated their property and displaced them, and established on their fiefs some of his supporters and relatives, Ibrahim Pasha improved the situation of Christians and brought them closer to him and helped them in his work and included them in his entourage. He also confiscated the feudal lords’ weapons and contributed to reducing their power, and since most of the feudal lords were from the Druze, and they were originally fewer in number than Christians, they hated and resented the Egyptian rule, since they believed it distinguished them from the Christians. He reduced their influence and confiscated the weapons they needed to defend themselves, for these reasons, tensions rose up between the Druze and the Christians.[11]
The Egyptians remained in Lebanon and the rest of the Levant for 9 years, and eventually the Egyptian army was defeated by an international alliance consisting of Britain, Austria, Russia and the Ottoman Empire,[12] after the withdrawal of the Egyptian army, Emir Bashir II was exiled to Malta and then to Constantinople when he died in 1850, thus, those who had emigrated from the Druze leaders and their fiefs, fleeing from the oppression of the previous Emir and the Egyptians, returned to Lebanon.[11]
At that time, the Ottomans appointed Prince Bashir bin Qasim bin Melhem al-Shihabi (r. 1840–1842) as the country's emir. He was known as Bashir III, and his first weakness was that the Ottomans chose him, and he was not elected by native Muslim and Christian notables, as was the case in choosing most of the previous princes, The Ottomans chose him because he was weak-willed, therefore making it easy for them to direct him to implement their policy without objection, especially since foreign interference in Lebanese and Syrian affairs, especially the French and British interference, had intensified since the era of Egyptian rule in the Levant, which made the Ottomans suffer greatly in preserving Arab lands from European ambitions.[13] The situation worsened matters for Bashir III, as the nine years of Egyptian rule had left an atmosphere of suspicion between the Druze and the Maronites that was not easy to forget, furthermore, the Druze, led by their feudal lords, had been demanding the new prince to return to the old regime during the days of the former emir, that is, that system that ensured that their weapons would remain in their hands and the return of their lands to them, while the Maronites demanded to maintain the new system established by the Egyptians, which is to reduce the authority of the feudal lords and disarm them and not to submit the peasant to the authority of the owner of the land, and since most of the farmers were Maronite Christians, this seemed to be a challenge to the entire Druze community.[13]
Bashir III did not care about the demands of the Druze, as he refused to extract the land from the new owners who bought it from the previous emir, and he was not satisfied with that, but stripped a number of other feudal lords of their remaining privileges in collecting taxes, maintaining security in their areas, and exercising judicial authority.[13] And since this prince was among the Shehab princes who converted to Christianity at an earlier time,[14] the Druze considered him an apostate, a traitor to Islam and the Druze community in particular, before others, and the mutual hatred between them and Christians increased, until it turned in the year 1841 into a bloody conflict between Druze and Maronite peasants because of a dispute over the eligibility of a Maronite crossing and hunting partridge on land owned by a Druze.[13]
Usually, in these types of incidents, the sheikhs and the 'Uqalā' ("Those of Good-Will") would have intervened to solve it, and if they were not successful, they would raise the matter to the emir, who would issue his ruling and restore things to normal, but anxiety and tension among the population and the emir being unable to impose his will on a party that does not recognize him prevented such solutions. The conflict moved to some areas in the Beqaa, and it reached its climax when some Druze besieged the emir in the Deir al-Qamar Palace and then stormed him and arrested the emir and mistreated him. The Ottomans seized this opportunity and dealt their final blow. On 13 December 1842, that is, three months after the start of the unrest, the governor of Beirut summoned Prince Bashir III from Deir al-Qamar to Beirut, from which an Ottoman ship took him to Constantinople.[13]
The double Qa’im-Maqamate of Mount Lebanon
After the removal of Prince Bashir III, the Lebanese Chehab emirate, which had been the ruling entity of the country and its population for many years, collapsed. The Ottomans appointed one of the most senior officials as direct ruler on the mountain, with the ruler being a Sunni Muslim of Austrian origins named Omar Pasha, the Druze welcomed him and the Christians rejected him, and the majority of the Christians stood by the Maronite Patriarch Youssef Boutros Hobeish, who announced that he refused to cooperate with any non-Lebanese ruler or any ruler not chosen by the Lebanese themselves. The Pasha had hired agents to edit petitions that showed the people's support for him and their refusal to return to the Chehab rule. A number of people signed these petitions in exchange for a bribe, a promise or a threat, and some of them signed them with consent,[15] when the matter of the petitions was exposed in Constantinople and the Porte got determined to dismiss the Austrian, the Pasha tried to lure the Druze to him and persuade them to fight the Christians population, but the Druze, feeling that the Pasha had taken advantage of them, led forces against him and almost stormed his palace,[15] had it not been for a battalion of the Ottoman soldiers had rescued him, then he was sent to Beirut, where he was dismissed from his position, on the same day, the Porte and representatives of European countries reached in Constantinople a new project to govern Mount Lebanon, and to be implemented in early 1843.[16]
After dismissing Omar Pasha of his position, the Ottoman government tried to appoint two non-Lebanese Ottoman rulers in his place, one on the south of the mountain, that is, on the Druze-majority side, and the other on the north of the mountain, that is, on the Christian-majority side, with the rulers being the subject of the Governor of Beirut, but the Europeans stood in the way of the Ottoman plan, as it entailed strengthening the Ottoman Islamic grip on Mount Lebanon, and since the influence of the Ottoman Empire was weakening at the time and unable to compete with the European influence, the Sultan accepted the proposals of representatives of the great powers to divide the mountain into a Christian and a Druze side and on 1 December 1843, the Sultan agreed to the proposal of
The defects of the double Qa’im-Maqamate system became clear when sectarian strife continued under it,[19] the reason for this is that this system not only failed to eliminate the causes of discord among the inhabitants of the mountain, but also added to it a new factor of discrimination and conflict, the factor being the class struggle between the feudal lords and the common people, after taking away from the Druze and Christian feudal leaders their judicial and financial powers, and making them the prerogative of the Qaimaqam and the Qaimaqam Council.[19] In the year 1856, Sultan Abd al-Majid I issued his famous firman, in which he equalized all Ottoman subjects, regardless of their different religious beliefs, and abolished the political and social privileges enjoyed by a group or a sect. The Christians were at the forefront of those adhering to the provisions of this decree, as they constituted most of the peasants and the majority of the working class consisted of them. The peasants in the Christian areas, led by Tanyus Shahin, revolted against the feudal lords and burned their palaces and robbed their crops. Then the movement of revolution spread to the south of Mount Lebanon, where the farmers were a mixture of Druze and Christians, however, at that time, confidence was already lost between the two parties, making it impossible to unite the word of the peasants of the two communities for their common interest against their feudal leaders.[20] The Druze feudal leaders took advantage of religious ties, and they convinced their peasants of their own sect that conflict between them and the Christians exists and that they could not be trusted, and urged them to support their leaders and rally around them to defend their followers of their faith.[20]
Foreign countries played a major role in worsening sectarian hatreds. The British, after their Protestant missionaries were unable to win a large audience of native Lebanese Christians, supported and encouraged the Druze and supplied them with money and weapons, as did the French for the Maronites, with most of Britain and France's agents being Orientalists who spent many years in the Levant. For all of these reasons, the atmosphere in Mount Lebanon had become filled with tensions between the Maronites and the Druze, and was liable to explode at any moment for the most trivial of reasons.[20]
1860 civil war
The events of this civil war began in the summer of 30 August 1859, with a simple dispute, possibly over a game of
The number of dead reached twelve thousand,
When Sultan Abd al-Majid I feared that this sedition would lead to the military intervention of foreign countries in the Ottoman affairs, he instructed the Ottoman officials in Beirut and Damascus to put the civil war down immediately, and at the same time he dispatched the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
History
Creation of the Mutasarrifate
On 5 September 1860, an international commission composed of France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia and the Ottoman Empire met to investigate the causes of the events of 1860 and to recommend a new administrative and judicial system for Lebanon that would prevent the recurrence of such events. The mission of the committee included three fields: establishing security, punishing the guilty, providing relief and compensation to the afflicted, and establishing a new system of government in Lebanon. However, Fuad Pasha did not leave the committee much room to work in the first two fields, because he had established security, punished the guilty and provided some relief to the afflicted before the arrival of the international delegates to Beirut. Therefore, the committee spent little time on these matters, before moving on to the issue of the system of government, the preparation of which accounted for most of the delegates' efforts and time.[32]
Each delegate in the International Committee sought to make the decisions of the Committee serve the interests of their country in Lebanon. Fuad Pasha tried to narrow the scope of European intervention and remove all solutions that weaken the Ottoman sovereignty over Lebanon.[32] The delegate of France was asking for tougher penalties, an increase in the value of compensation for Christians, and an expansion of Lebanon's borders to attract Maronites and their support for France. As for the British delegate, unlike the French delegate, he sought to reduce the provisions and narrow the area of Lebanon for fear of the expansion of French influence in the Levant.[32] After several sessions that lasted a few months, the six countries participating in the committee agreed to make Mount Lebanon a "Mutasarrifate" and to narrow its borders by removing the cities of Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Akkar, the Bekaa, Marjayoun and Jabal Amel, and to be governed by a non-Lebanese and non-Turkish Ottoman Christian administrator appointed by the Sublime Porte with the approval of the five countries.[18]
Naming
The members of the international commission researched many names for the new administrative division and its governor. Many titles were considered;
Règlement Organique
In the 1861
The Protocol
The principles reached by the delegates were written in an official form known as the "Protocol of 1861" (also known as the
- Mount Lebanon shall be administered by a non-Turkish, non-Lebanese Ottoman Christian administrator who is appointed by the Ottoman government and whose source to follow is the Sublime Porte directly, that is, he is not affiliated with the governor of Sidon, Acre, Beirut or Damascus, as was the case with the Ma’anid princes, the Shihabis, and the previous double Qa’im-Maqamate. He must maintain security, appoint judges, and collect taxes.
- The mountain shall have a board of directors of twelve members as follows: 4 for the Maronites, 3 for the Druze, 2 for the Greek Orthodox, and one for each of the Sunnis, Shiites, and Melkite Greek Catholics.[26][18] Its task is to distribute taxes, regulate imports, and express an opinion on issues presented to it by the administrator.
- All feudal privileges are abolished, and the equality of all before the law is proclaimed. All other articles of the Basic Law provide for the various court systems, the method for appointing judges, etc. The fourteenth article stipulates that security shall be preserved by Lebanese soldiers,[40] as for the Beirut-Damascus road, and the coastal road between Sidon and Tripoli, they are maintained by the Ottoman soldiers. The currency in circulation was the same as that of the Ottomans.
The era of the legitimate administrators
After the adoption of the Basic Law of Mount Lebanon, the Mutasarrifate became legally and effectively existent, and it was ruled by eight legitimate Mutasarrifs, with their legitimacy being ruled according to the laws stated in the Protocol of 1861. The mnemonic word "DaFRuWNaMYO" (in Arabic, دفرونميا) helped school children memorize the name of the mutasarrifs,[41] and these rulers are:
Daoud Pasha (1861–1868)
He is Garabet Artin Davoudian, better known as Daoud Pasha. Armenian in origin, and Catholic in faith, he was highly educated and was holding the position of post and telegraph director in Constantinople when, in 1861, a decision was issued to appoint him as administrator of Mount Lebanon for a period of three years. He was welcomed by leading Roman Catholic clergy as well as by Greek Orthodox clergy. However, the Maronite community did not welcome him during his tenure. Youssef Karam was the last Maronite mayor to aspire to become the mutasarrif.[42] As soon that Daoud Pasha assumed his position in Deir al-Qamar, several feudal lords and clerics opposed him, he was able to satisfy them by appointing them to senior positions in the government of Mount Lebanon. But Youssef Karam, one of the young sheikhs of the town of Ehden and one of the national leaders, who was calling for the restoration of national rule, stood in the face of Daoud Pasha stubbornly and resisted him vehemently, and refused the positions he was offered. The members of the International Committee promised him to reconsider his demands, and persuaded him to calm down until the end of Daoud Pasha's term, the rebel was taken by Foreign Minister Fuad Pasha to be exiled to Turkey.[43]
In the year 1864, when some articles of the Basic Law were amended, and the mandate of Daoud Pasha was renewed for five years, contrary to what Youssef Bey Karam expected, he left Turkey for Ehden and declared his opposition to the Mutasarrifate government and allied himself with Prince Salman ibn Melhem Al-Harfushi , he gathered around him men for the resistance, and many battles took place between him and the soldiers of the Mutasarrif.[43] Finally, he went at the head of a force to Beiteddine to overthrow the Mutasarrifate government, and while he was on his way to Beiteddine, the Consul of France intervened and convinced him that he should stop resisting, otherwise the signatory states would have to help the Mutasarrifate. At that time, Youssef Bey Karam decided to leave Lebanon, he traveled to France and Belgium, and finally settled in Italy, where he died in 1889,[43] his embalmed body was taken to the town of Ehden, where it is still preserved in its church in a glass box.[44]
In addition to achieving security and stability in the country, Daoud Pasha had to organize the organs of the government according to the text of the Basic Law, and he carried out these tasks efficiently and quickly. He appointed officials in the various departments, conducted elections for Sheikhs who solved disputes in villages and mayors in cities, gathered them to elect members of the Mutasarrifate board of directors, counted the population and surveyed land, and took over the collection of Bekaa revenue for the Lebanese treasury, as well as supervising its management. Daoud Pasha composed a national force of a thousand Lebanese soldiers, and contracted with French officers to organize and train its personnel. He also obtained from the Ottoman government a warship that he called "Lubnān" (Lebanon).[43] In the field of culture, he established the official "Lubnān" newspaper, in both Arabic and French, and established the Lebanese printing press in Deir al-Qamar, and established several free schools, the most famous of which was a school in the town of Aabey, known as the "Al-Madrasah al-Dāwūdiyyah."[43]
Daoud Pasha wanted to conclude his work by expanding the boundaries of the Mutasarrifate, to include Beirut, Sidon, Bekaa and Wadi al-Taym, but the Ottoman government opposed him in that, so when he insisted on his opinion, Fuad Pasha deluded him that if he wanted to achieve his demand, he had only to wave his resignation from the Mutasarrifate, and then the government is forced to implement what he demanded. Daoud Pasha fell into the trap set by Fouad Pasha and submitted his demands accompanied by his resignation, but the Ottoman government rejected the demands and accepted the resignation immediately, thus ending Daoud Pasha's rule in the Mutasarrifate.[43]
Franko Pasha (1868–1873)
The Sublime Porte appointed Nasrallah (Nasri) Franco Coussa, a Melkite Greek Catholic of Aleppine origin, to succeed Daoud Pasha in agreement with the Six Nations, for a period of ten years, but he died before completing it.[43] During his reign, calm and stability prevailed, and the Lebanese appreciated him for his justice, integrity, and humility, and because he did numerous works for the country such as setting up schools, planting barren lands, and sending a team of young men to Europe to complete their high studies. However, he is also blamed for giving up the Bekaa tax to the Ottoman government, depriving the Lebanese treasury of the important financial resource, and he was forced to reduce employees’ salaries by 10% to find a balance in the budget which led to the spread of bribery among employees.[43] When he died, as demanded on his will,[45] he was buried in the locality of Hazmieh, where his grave is still known today as the Pasha's grave.
Rüstem Pasha (1873–1883)
After the death of Franco Nasri Pasha, Rüstem Mariani Pasha, who was the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire in Moscow,[46] was appointed in his place, he was of Roman Catholic Florentine Italian roots, and a naturalized Ottoman citizen, and was known for his firmness and severity in applying the law, establishing justice, and fighting bribery. He made Mount Lebanon and Beirut respectively his place of stay during the summer and for the winter,[47] and he did several construction projects such as opening schools, building roads, and building bridges and establishing outposts to consolidate security, which necessitated an increase in expenditures.
Since the budget was in a
Wassa Pasha (1883–1892)
During his reign, the Ottoman government adopted a modern system of the judiciary, this system was ordered for application in Lebanon, in violation of the Basic Law. The Lebanese objected to the new system, because it made Constantinople a center for the Court of cassation, and considered this an attempt to weaken the independence of the Lebanese judiciary, and as a burden on the Lebanese, who had to return to Constantinople in their cases, when in the past they all ended in Lebanon.[50] In the last years of his tenure, chaos prevailed alongside corruption, bribery spread, and European interference in the affairs of the Mutasarrifate increased more than before,[48] positions and ranks were sold to the person who increased the price the most to the son-in-law of the Mutasarrif and his wife. This situation prompted the Lebanese to demand the punishment of those responsible of corruption, however, Wassa Pasha died in 1892, eleven months before the end of his term, and was buried in Hazmieh.[50]
Naoum Pasha (1892–1902)
Of Aleppine origins, and Melkite in faith, Na'oum Coussa Basha was the nephew of Franco Nasri Pasha. He was known as honest, and firm. He began his tenure by reforming the administration, dismissing employees who were accused of bribery. And he organized the mutasarrifate's finances. Naoum Pasha launched several construction works, repairing bridges, constructing more than 480 kilometers of roads, and erecting several Sarayah in Baakleen, Jezzine, Jounieh, Batroun, Amioun and Bhannes. His reign was characterized by security, calm, and stability, and during this period, migration from Mount Lebanon to abroad began on a large scale. He was known for treating both Christians and Muslims equally, he returned to Constantinople after the end of his mandate in 1902.[50]
Muzaffar Pasha (1902–1907)
Władysław Czajkowski, known as Muzaffar Basha, was a Roman Catholic Polish count who was appointed to succeed Naoum Pasha, despite his good start, he soon dismissed employees, imposed new taxes, and tampered with the rights of the council. The members of the council resisted him with the help of the clergy, until they forced him to cancel his measures. Here a violent struggle arose between him and the Christian clergy, and he worked to establish non-religious associations to weaken their influence.[51] What increased the corruption of his reign was the interference of his son and his wife in the affairs of the state until they had the power to appoint and dismiss employees according to the willingness of these employees to pay the money. Fearing the renewal of his mandate, his opponents tried to send a delegation to Constantinople to prevent this, but he died three months before its expiry.[51]
Yusuf Pasha (1907–1912)
Of Aleppine origins and Melkite in faith, Yusuf Pasha was the son of second mutasarrif Nasri Franco Coussa (Franko Pasha), his reputation was not better than that of his predecessor, although he had a good start, and was thoughtful about his relations with various parties and trends, with the clergy helping him,[52] this situation did not last long, as he violated the Basic system, interfered in judicial affairs, assaulted the powers of the Administrative Council, abolished some opposition newspapers, and tried to force every Lebanese resident of the mountain to take an Ottoman identity card. But the strong opposition that stood in his face forced him to make it optional for whoever wanted.[52]
When the Ottoman constitution was published in 1908, some groups in Lebanon demanded that the Mutasarrifate be included in the Wilayah of Syria and that two members would be sent to represent it in the "Chamber of Deputies" (the Ottoman parliament that was established under the new constitution). However, the strong resistance that arose against this idea did not allow it to come into being, despite the encouragement of Yusuf Franco Pasha. His constant conflict with members of the Administrative Council was the cause of the public's resentment against him, and this resentment did not subside until the end of his term of office in 1912.[52] One of the prominent events that occurred during the era of the Mutasarrif was the introduction of the first modern car into Beirut from Alexandria on 24 June 1908, it crossed the Beirut-Sidon road in two and a third hours, which astonished the population of Lebanon at the time.[53]
Ohannes Pasha (1912–1915)
The era of the Turkish Mutasarrifs
The
Due to the big number of French, British and Russian orientalists who were residing in the Levant, including Mount Lebanon, and due to the presence of a significant number of missionaries and dispatches affiliated with the Allied Powers, the Ottomans decided to invoke military necessities to enter Mount Lebanon, due to the fear of what these foreigners could do to incite the public against the Ottomans.[54] The Federal Government sent the Minister of the Ottoman Navy, Ahmed Jamal Pasha (one of the "Three Pashas" of the World War I-era Ottoman leadership, he is also known as "As-Saffāḥ" ; lit. 'the Blood-Shedder'), to the Levant at the head of the Fourth Army, to attack the British, drive them out of Egypt, and seize the Suez Canal, through which most of the war supplies to the allies from Australia, Asia, and eastern and southern Africa passed.[55] In the Wilayah of Beirut, compulsory conscription was imposed on young people, while in the Mutasarrifate, Jamal Pasha carried out several actions that violated the Mutasarrifate system, Jamal Pasha considered all the Lebanese to be enemies of the Sultanate, and he persecuted the intellectuals. He closed newspapers, dissolved associations, put everyone under the watch of spies, imposed forced labor and disrupted transportation.,[56] he also feared that the British and French would invade Mount Lebanon from the sea to strike the rear of the Ottoman army and cut off its communications, so he decided to occupy Lebanese lands, effectively turning the Mutasarrifate into a Vilayet (Wilayah).[56] On 22 November, the first Ottoman regiment arrived from Damascus to Zahlé, and from there it set off westward, climbing the mountain to Dhour al-Shwer, the regiment reached it in the midst of a severe snow storm. It did not take long after that, until the whole of Mount Lebanon came under the control of the Ottoman army and martial law. On 28 November, Jamal Pasha broadcast from his command center in Damascus a statement addressed to the people of Mount Lebanon telling them to implement martial law on their mountain and recommending that they be loyal to their state, remain calm, and go about their business.[54]
Jamal Pasha assumed power, and the mutasarrif Ohannes Pasha and all the employees of the Government of Mount Lebanon became subject to his orders, acting on his instructions.[54] Jamal Pasha established the "customary court" in Aley, which is a supreme military court, to try those accused of being disloyal to the Ottoman Empire, and confiscate the property of foreign nationals of hostile countries after the federal government had announced the abolition of foreign privileges, and transformed some Lebanese facilities into military barracks and government departments.[57] Jamal Pasha interfered in the internal affairs of the religious sects, he led an abolition of the privileges of the Maronite clergy, during which he forced the patriarch of the Maronite community and its metropolitans, to request a firman[b] for the appointment of the Patriarch from the Ottoman Sultan, the Pasha also practiced several pressures on the Maronite clergy. Bishop Boutros Shebli was exiled to Adana, where he died, and the seventy-two years old Patriarch Elias Howayek was forced to visit him in Sofar in which he was threatened with exile.[56] Thus, Jamal Pasha has eliminated the old privilege granted by Sultan Selim I to the Maronite community during his conquest of the Levant in 1516. The Unionists went even further in undermining the autonomy of Mount Lebanon when they disrupted the work of the Basic System and made it practically nullified, although Ohannes Pasha tried to preserve the privileges of Mount Lebanon and resisted the interference of the military authority in its affairs as much as possible, but he did not succeed, and he had lost the confidence of the federal government due to his Armenian origin, so the rulers and soldiers harassed him until he submitted his resignation in the month of June 1915. After the departure of Ohannes Pasha, Three Turkish Muslim administrators were appointed to succeed him: Ali Munif Bey, Ismail Haqqi Bey, and Mumtaz Bey.[41]
Ali Münif Bey (1915–1917)
In September 1915, a royal decree was issued appointing Ali Münif Bey, one of the senior officials of the Ottoman Ministry of Interior, as administrator of Mount Lebanon,[58] Ali Munif arrived in Beirut (where he took residence in Zuqaq al-Blat) on 20 September of the same year and began his work as an administrator on Mount Lebanon under the command of the Wali of Beirut.[59] Ali Munif devoted his works to the abolition of the Mount Lebanon regime and its privileges. He reorganized the districts of the Mutasarrifate, following the example of what was happening in the other Ottoman provinces. And he made many changes between employees, in coordination with the Ministry of Interior. He also began appointing secondary jobs to individuals who were not from Mount Lebanon whom he brought from the Wilayat of Beirut, with some of them being Lebanese or Turks.[58] To complete the nullification of the Basic Law and the elimination of Lebanese autonomy, the government decided that Mount Lebanon, like all other states, would be represented in the Council of Representatives in Constantinople, and due to the difficulty of holding general elections in times of war, the administrator Ali Munif took the initiative to appoint Prince Haris Shehab, Prince Adel Arslan and Rashid Al-Rami appointed deputies to represent Lebanon in the aforementioned council, and they carried out this task until the end of the war.
At the beginning of the reign of Ali Munif, a natural disaster befell on Mount Lebanon, dense locust swarms appeared in the skies of the Levant
During the era of the Turkish administrators, the resistance of the Lebanese to the Turkification policy pursued by the federalists intensified, and the Lebanese, like most Arabs before the war and since the Unionists declared their desire to Turkify all non-Turkish Ottomans, resisted this policy with all possible means. Some educated youth formed secret societies that called for political and social reform in the Ottoman Empire. These associations used to cover up for scientific, literary, and religious goals to escape the monitoring and persecution of the authorities.[61] In terms of their goals, the patriots were divided into two parts: a section demanding autonomy within the Ottoman League, and the advocates of this view were generally known as the Decentralization Party, and another section that wanted complete independence and complete separation from the Ottomans. The unionists hated both sides, and persecuted them and anyone they suspected of belonging to them.[61]
Among the associations that were established during this era was the "
As a result of these executions and the propaganda against the Lebanese political assosiations and the policy of Turkification, the saw that there was no way for their movement to succeed except by relying on an external support. The nationalists opinions differed in alliances, as some of them considered cooperating with the
Ismail Haqqi Bey (1917–1918)
The Ottoman rule in Lebanon continued during the reign of Ismail Haqqi with the political rules that had been established during the reign of his predecessor. However, the treatment of the new administrator towards the local population was characterized by understanding of their position and their circumstances, leniency and tolerance with them, and a tendency towards improving Lebanon's conditions and advancing it in various respects.[58] Ismael Haqqi was religious, was known for being committed to generous morals, and he turned a blind eye to the food-smuggling to the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon who were ravaged by famine during his reign, and tried to lighten the burden on those who were beset by misfortunes during the war, and encouraged the affluent to establish associations to aid the needy.[58] Therefore, the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon had a positive outlook towards Ismail Haqqi, and were saddened by decision of the Ottoman government to transfer him as governor of Beirut in July 1918[59] after only a year and a few months before he assumed the position of Mutasarrif of Mount Lebanon.
Despite Ismail Haqqi's tolerance and understanding of the conditions of the locals, his reign was marked by the suffering of the inhabitants, a severe suffering they had never experienced before. As soon as the year 1917 came, the economic crisis had reached its climax, and the Lebanese economic life had completely changed.[65] Many of the Lebanese were forced to wear rags to cover their bodies and ward off the cold, and they returned to using pottery saddles lit with olive oil, due to the inability to obtain fuel,[65] they roasted barley and made it into qahwah instead of using coffea. Anxiety dominated people's thoughts, visits were cut off, parties were neglected, holidays lost their significance, and life became harsh and monotonous, causing fear and anxiety. Because of the disappearance of foodstuffs and the inability to obtain them, many Lebanese did not find anything to eat. So they abandoned their homes and villages in the mountain, and scattered in various parts, some of them reached the Bedouin ranches in the Syrian Desert, and some of them took refuge in Hauran, and most of them went to coastal cities such as Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon, and set out on its streets searching the dumps and piles of waste near the palaces of the rich for leftovers. Some of them went hunting for stray cats and dogs, or even ate dead ones.[65] With reports going as far as recording stories of starving inhabitants kidnapping children, slaughtering them, and eating them, these types of incidents of this kind occurred in Mount Lebanon and the nearby areas.
In addition to famine, epidemics and diseases struck the inhabitants.[65] The lack of food and clothing weakened the body's immunity, and the lack of attention to hygiene helped spread epidemics and diseases that utterly killed the population, the poor and the rich alike. Flies transmitted typhoid fever, lice transmitted typhus, rats transmitted the plague, and contaminated drinking water spread dysentery. Doctors were not available because they were conscripted to look after the health of the Ottoman army, and medicines were not available to the general public. Because of starvation and disease, people were dying by the hundreds and thousands, so that many of them did not have the opportunity to pray for them or bury them. The bodies were collected from the streets and roads in special vehicles and thrown into large pits that were made graves for the homeless. As soon as the war ended, death had claimed a hundred thousand people and afflicted Lebanon with nearly a quarter of its population.[65] Dr. George Hanna, a doctor from the town of Choueifat, who served in the Fourth Army during the First World War, describes the misery he found in the mountain upon his return in December 1917 on a short vacation to see his family, saying:
"In the three days I spent in Lebanon... I saw what I did not imagine that I would see, in a country like Lebanon, which is the paradise of the East. I saw a yellow face like the peel of a sweet lemon, eyes that lost the light, swollen and puffy feet, worn and filthy clothes on the body, and weakness in the body is a harbinger of death. I watched boys, biting their mothers' breasts, whose milk dried up, sucking and sucking, without their mothers' breasts producing a drop of milk for them. I watched mothers begging for food for their children, so they were blessed with sustenance...Wheat is sold by rationing in the most unfair form... A kilo of rice or sugar, if available, costs thirty Syrian pounds. Meat was eaten by the rich only, coffee was absent from the markets... People, however they went and wherever they came, spoke only about bread... There was only one cheap thing in Lebanon at that time, and that thing was death... Typhus was killing the old and the young. Malaria was a heavy guest in every family. And the ghost of Azrael hovered over every house. The dead were buried wholesale. The poor among them, and o' were they many, are piled up in the drums, and they are buried one on top of the other in the pits, not coffins, nor shrouds, nor mourners, nor those for whom the death prayer is offered."[66]
Mumtaz bey (1918)
Mumtaz Bey assumed the position of Mutasarrif on 31 July 1918, after Ismail Haqqi, however, as soon as he took over his duties, the Ottoman army began to retreat, defeated by the allied armies advancing from Egypt and Palestine. On 30 September, he left his work station in Baabda, fleeing to Zahle, and from there he went to the railway station in Rayak, where he joined the remnants of the Ottoman army retreating to the north. With the withdrawal of Mumtaz Bey, the era of the Turkish Mutasarrif ended, as did the Ottoman rule in Mount Lebanon and the rest of the Levant, after it lasted a little more than four centuries,[58] and the French and British mandate over the countries of the region began.
The end of the Mutasarrifate
The Ottoman rule collapsed in Beirut, Damascus and Baabda in one day, and before Ismail Haqqi, the governor of Beirut, withdrew, he handed over the means of state rule to
During the first ten days of October 1918, the British army advancing from Palestine reached Beirut, following the coastal road, with a French detachment led by Colonel De Piépape. The French fleet landed in Beirut a group of French soldiers as well. Upon a French protest, the Commander in Chief, General Edmund Allenby, ordered the lowering of the Arab flag, the return of Major General Shukri al-Ayyubi, Faisal's representative, to Damascus, and the dissolution of the Arab governments in Beirut, Baabda, and other coastal cities, and appointing French military governors there. Thus, the Arab rule in these areas ended after only a few days of its establishment.[67]
The victorious Allies held a conference in the city of
Economy
Before the First World War, the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate economy was based on three main pillars: olive cultivation, silk production, and expatriate money. However, these three elements were not enough to make the mountain's economy strong, sound, and integrated. The weakness of Lebanon's economy was highlighted in a number of respects, the most important of which were the weakness of grain production, the backwardness of industry and restrictions on trade.[69]
Agriculture
Most of the residents of the Mutasarrifate were farmers who practiced agriculture using traditional methods and with a characteristic specific to Mount Lebanon, in harmony with the nature of the mountainous land and its surface, its soil and the seasons of the year.[70] The olive groves spread widely on the coasts and foothills of the West Lebanon mountain range, providing work for workers and a decent income for their owners. Olive is an important component of the mountain people's diet and a raw material for oil production and soap industry. The largest part of olive production and its derivatives was consumed in Lebanon, while the surplus was exported abroad, generating an important financial profit for the country.[69] The Lebanese considered the olive tree a sacred tree and its oil sacred, due to its frequent mention in the Bible and in the Qur’an, they also produced different types of the olive tree, most notably: Al-Ṣūrī (lit. 'Of Tyre'), Al-Baladī (lit. 'Of the country'), Al-Shatawī (lit. 'Of the winter'), and Al-Bustānī (lit. 'Of the garden').[71]
In the spring days, the majority of the Lebanese were devoted to raising
In addition, grapes and what was extracted from them were among the main produce on which a large part of the villagers depended. The wine industry of Lebanon is among the
Some mountain peasants raised pine trees, as these trees had a great economic benefit, and the richest mountain peasants were the ones who owned the pine forests, in addition to the fact that its fruit is expensive, it provides the farmer with firewood and timber for the roof of his house, and wooden panels for his furniture and seats, and other things necessary for his life. Most of the pine was consumed locally, and very little of it was exported.[75]
As for wheat, spelt, and grains, their production was very weak in the lands of the Mutasarrifate, due to the narrowness of the lands and the harsh climate,[69] after the 1861 Protocol separated from Mount Lebanon the plains of Akkar, the Bekaa and the south, the mountain's production of wheat has become so small that it only fills a very small part of the people's need for this basic material in their daily diet. Therefore, they had to buy wheat from Houran, Dara'a and other areas to secure their essential sustenance.[69] Dr. Anis Freiha, one of the Lebanese historians who lived through the era of the Mutasarrifate, talks about the necessity of wheat in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, he mentions the presence of wheat sellers coming from the Bekaa, Hauran and Jabal al-Druze to Lebanon: "Bread is the basic food item... So the first thing the villager took care of was the wheat supply... In every Lebanese village, few people produce their own wheat. But most of them buy wheat from abroad... Those who do not produce their own wheat are accepted [by the wheat sellers] and buy what is sufficient for them for at least half a year. And some of them do not have their heart reassured until they buy for a whole year. But some of them can't."[76]
Industry and commerce
The industry in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate was primitive and backward, confined to villages for local consumption. Almost every home had a loom to sew what they needed from the fabric.[77] With the exception of the oil, soap and silk industries, there was no advanced industry in Lebanon that could provide for the needs of the population. It was necessary for the people to import basic commodities such as sugar, rice, medicine, clothing, household appliances, machinery and other modern manufactures. Since the ports were outside the borders of the Mutasarrifate, trade flourished far from the mountain, and with the advancement of sea and land transportation, European goods began to flow into these ports. The arrival of European machinery-made goods led to the weakening and demise of the local handicraft, and only the valuable fabrics that are made in the town of Zouk Mikael and a few other places remain, table covers, clothes, mattresses, curtains, and others are produced in these places.[77]
In 1913, the Mutasarrif Ohannes Pasha tried to establish 3 commercial ports belonging to the Mutasarrifate to revive the movement of imports and exports, but the outbreak of the First World War a year later prevented that.
Currency
The Lebanese have been dealing with the Ottoman currency since the beginning of the Mutasarrifate era, and they called it the "El-lirah el-osmeliyyeh" or "Osmeliyyeh" for short, and the Ottoman lira was minted from gold and silver and divided into one hundred and sixty-two piasters.[79] The population also dealt with the Egyptian currency, from which the money acquired the words "Maṣāri" and "Miṣriyyāt" (from the Arabic name for Egypt, "Miṣr") which are still used in the Levant meaning "currency". The Turkish currency was also divided into a matleek (smallest Ottoman coin) and a bashlik,[80] a matleek is minted from iron, copper or bronze, and a bashlik is a copper-bronze coin, which is equal to 10 matleeks or 3 piasters.[81]
During World War I, the federal government issued paper money and forced the people to circulate it. This is because the Ottoman Empire spent huge sums on the war, which led to it being forced to issue banknotes for the first time in the country's history, and to increase the quantities that it brought to the market, so the value of this paper currency in relation to gold and silver money fell significantly, but the government was insisting on considering the paper lira as equal to the gold lira, and it used to force people to take it and deal with it. The country's catastrophe with this cash was double, as it lost part of the wealth of the Lebanese, and caused a stagnation in the movement of buying and selling, because people were evading its grip and preferred to keep what they had of goods and grain instead of selling them with papers issued by a state burdened with exorbitant war expenses. The financial crisis was made worse by the loss of small coins from people's hands, making it impossible for citizens to pay the values of business and small things, such as a porter's fare, or the price of a postage stamp, or an electric locomotive ticket, or anything else.[79] Dr. George Hanna states:
"I had spent an entire night on the train with nothing to feed. When I got off at Daraa station, I met a seller of sesame Ka'aks, and I bought a Ka'ak from him for ten piasters. When I gave him the price of a banknote, he looked at me with the most contempt and threw the paper in my face, saying: “We do not take strips of papers… We do not issue letters with the post.” By this he means that the currency is only suitable for buying postage stamps. And since I did not have the coins, I was about to return the Ka'ak to the seller... However, the simple and generous seller refused to return it when he knew from my words that I am an Arab from Lebanon. He gave me the Ka'ak...He started insulting the Turks and the enemies of the Arabs, and praying to God to undermine the Ottoman Empire so that the Arabs could rid themselves of its rule, oppression, and colonization."[82]
Economic situation during World War I
The economic situation in Mount Lebanon worsened during the First World War due to the measures taken by the Ottoman military authorities. At the beginning of the war, the leadership of the Fourth Army prevented the transfer of grain of all kinds to Mount Lebanon, and since the mountain did not produce enough grain and relied on the Bekaa, Hauran and its surroundings to secure its needs, the grains disappeared from the market and their prices skyrocketed, until the price of a pound of bread reached a golden lira, and the poor and middle-income population could not get it, and they began to die of hunger.[79] People were enduring hardships and dangers in order to smuggle small quantities of wheat from Akkar, the Bekaa, or Hauran, in order to prevent the death of their families and loved ones, but the eyes of the observers were vigilant to prevent the smuggling of grain and punish the smugglers.[79]
After many revisions and extensive deliberations, Jamal Pasha allowed a number of Beiruti notables to establish a company to import and distribute grain at moderate prices under the supervision of military leaders.[79] At the beginning of 1917, the subsistence centers began their work in all Lebanese districts, giving two hundred and fifty grams of wheat to each person per day at the price of seven piasters per pound, while the price of a pound reached one hundred piasters on the black market. But the complicity of the military figures with the company's staff and the monopolists who sell wheat on the free black market, disrupted the catering business and made it useless. For example, they used various tricks and excuses to evade handing over the subsistence allowances to their owners, and when they had to deliver them, they covered the wheat with gravel, dirt, cornstarch and weeds.[79]
Society and culture
Demographics
Christians constituted the majority of the population of the Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon, and most of them belonged to the
Under the Mutasarrifate, the Shiites enjoyed stability, and security after a long period of constant persecutions and forced migrations, as they were given several rights. They also had two members in the Lebanese council, and had members in all the courts, and bodies affiliated to the Mutasarrifate. Notable Shias of the Mutasarrifate include: Sayyid Ali al-Husseini (a Qādi in Baabda and Jounieh), Shiite Keserwani members who held the position of membership of the board of directors: Sheikh Abbas Melhem Hamadeh, Abdullah Berro, Hajj Kazem Amr, Sheikh Hassan Awad, Sheikh Hassan Hamadar, Ali Hajj Hammoud, Muhammad Effendi Muhsin Abi Haidar, and Hajj Ali Muslim Amr.[85]
Language
The Arabic language was the language spoken daily among the population, and the Mount Lebanon dialect was grafted with many
Social conditions
In the early nineteenth century, Western visitor would see scenes in Lebanon of a distinctive local character in the fashion of men and women, and in the style of furniture, the types of food, and the types of customs and traditions.[89] The nineteenth century did not end until many of these manifestations changed, especially in the major cities, and Westernization and European ways began to impact the lives of the Lebanese and change their culture in clothing, food and furniture in a way that further made them different from the neighboring Arab nations. The era of the Mutasarrifate was characterized by the migration of the mountaineers from villages to cities, so the cities grew and became large and vast, and the prosperity of the cities helped the emergence of a new third class in Lebanese society, after people were two classes: the class of princes, feudal lords and senior clerics, and the class of workers and peasants, in the cities there appeared a middle class of merchants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professions.[89]
The Lebanese family had undergone significant changes in its lifestyle. The large family was a cohesive
The First World War further widened the social inequalities among the Lebanese, because its conditions enabled the rich to become richer, and made the poor poorer. Some of the rich people approached the senior military officers and rulers, who were able to be contacted by them, they befriended them, accompanied them, held luxurious parties and generous banquets for them, and gave them precious gifts.[90] The Ottoman military rewarded the rich for these services, regardless of their violations, and left them to monopolize the necessary goods and make sustenance harder to guarantee, creating a black market in which prices rise exorbitantly, and which guarantees them an abundant profit. Indeed, most of those high-ranking officers were partners of the Lebanese monopolists and were responsible, like them, of the distress that the people suffered. And when the supplies decreased and the hunger intensified, and death by disaster began to become a norm, many of the middle-income people were forced to sell their lands, and homes, and the most expensive things they owned at the lowest prices to buy wheat from the black market and keep the risk of starvation away from them and their children and relatives. Some of these people lived until the end of the war only to find themselves poor and destitute, only to see that the rich had multiplied their wealth by extracting money, land and real estate from them.[90]
Construction and transportation
During the period of the Mutasarrifate, many urban works were carried out, perhaps the most important of which was the construction of palaces and the construction of transportation routes that were built between villages and cities. In the year 1863 a French company completed the construction of the carriage road between Beirut and Damascus, and from this main road, secondary roads branched north and south that linked the villages to each other. And the construction of the Beirut-Tripoli road, and Beirut-Sidon on the coast took place during the reign of the Mutasarrif Naoum Pasha. During the Mutasarrifate era, the Iron Company completed its railway between Beirut and Damascus (1895), Rayak and Aleppo (1902), and Tripoli and Homs (1912).[77] During this era, the port of Beirut was repaired and prepared to receive large ships. However, all these projects were unable to solve the economic crisis faced by the poor in Lebanon, who are the majority of the population.
As for the typical houses that were inhabited by the common people, they differed in shape and material, some of them were built out of stone, marble, tiles, red bricks, and others were made of mud. The rich and middle class Lebanese lived in houses of two floors: the upper floor was the attic, which is the formal room of the guest, and in many cases it was the ordinary dwelling in which the family always inhabited. As for the ground or second floor, it is the basement, and in it the peasants used to shelter their animals, put farming tools, and store firewood and animal fodder.[91]
Culture and heritage
The
Among the other aspects of folklore is the Lebanese village singing, which is a singing of a special nature, including what is known as "Mijānā" (a type of Zajal) or "Ataaba", and these two folk singing types are the two types of purely Lebanese singing and the most common among villagers, these are verses from colloquial poetry that are recited in the Lebanese dialect and usually sing of a distant lover, the motherland, or longing.[95] The word mījānā comes from the Aramaic root "najn", meaning melody and singing. The Mijana verses are based on the principle of the stanza, and someone from the village who had a melodious voice used to recite them, they called such poets "Qawwal", and the people of the village were proud of their abilities. The village qawwal was invited to weddings and feasts in other villages, so he would go with his "hawzah", that is, his disciples and companions, who would repeat his verses and applaud him with admiration and encouragement. Often, poetry reciting matches were played between two or more qawwals, and this custom is still in force in the villages of Lebanon until the present time.[95]
Among the Lebanese folklore traditions that were prevalent in the Mutasarrifate, and have disappeared today, or have only survived in some remote villages, are those customs related to marriage and childbearing. Intermarriage between one family and another has been an issue under consideration for a long time, especially among conservative Christian and Islamic circles. Families claiming honor and lineage, or those enjoying a religious position, did not marry except to "Al-Mjewīz", and the Mjewīz are the families who did not see any objection to giving them their daughters in marriage, or marrying their sons off to their daughters. In many cases, the elders and sheikhs of the family agreed to marry the son to the girl when they reached the age of maturity. The villagers held two parties on the night of the wedding: a party for men and a party for women, and on the day of the wedding a “incapacitation party” was held, which consisted in the bride’s family asking the groom himself to perform physical actions that demonstrate his manhood and the strength of his body in the bride’s house, or in the village square, and among these incapacitating actions is to raise a heavy stone jar with one or two hands, depending on the agreement, above his head with his arm outstretched, or to lift a heavy crowbar to pluck stones.[96] Many men had nicknames before their marriage, and then called their male children the nickname that was given to them before marriage, and this custom still exists in Lebanon, for example: Elias is nicknamed Abu Nassif, Salim is nicknamed Abu Najib, Jurays is nicknamed Abu Assaf, and Hassan is nicknamed Abu Ali or Abu Yusuf, and Daoud is nicknamed Abu Suleiman, and Ibrahim is nicknamed Abu Ismail, and so on.[97]
Al-Nahda
After Lebanon went through a long period of intellectual stagnation, in the nineteenth century there was an apparent activity in various sciences and literature, and the era of the Mutasarrifate witnessed a literary renaissance whose main causes were the following factors:[98]
- Contact with the West: Lebanon's proximity to the sea and its ancient connection with the West had a great impact on creating its modern renaissance. The digging of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the rapid development that followed in the use of railways, steam ships, and cars, connected the East and the West, and restored the region to its traditional role as a natural bridge where peoples meet and civilizations interact. This contact prompted Lebanon steadily on the way to progress.
- Foreign missions: The foreign missions that came to Lebanon for religious purposes had a far-reaching impact on the development of intellectual life. The missionaries saw that the best way to spread their religious doctrines was to establish schools. They founded dozens of primary schools and a number of secondary schools. American missionaries established the “Syrian Evangelical College” in 1866,[99] which later became the American University of Beirut, and the Jesuits founded Saint Joseph University in 1874.[100] In addition to these schools, the American and Jesuit missionaries had two printing houses in Beirut. These schools and printing presses had a great advantage in spreading knowledge and advancing intellectual life in Lebanon.
- Missions: This cultural activity, which was led by Western missionaries, was accompanied by the establishment of scientific missions to specialize outside the country. The American missionaries sent Anthony Al-Amiouni, Abdullah Azār and Ismail Jumblatt to London to gain further knowledge. Then four students went to the Ibrahim Al-Yazigi