Sulayman Pasha al-Adil

Sulayman Pasha al-Adil (c. 1760s – August 1819; given name also spelled Suleiman or Sulaiman) was the

Sulayman took part in the mamluk rebellion against Jazzar in 1789, allowing Sidon to be used as a headquarters for the rebellion. On 3 June, Sulayman and Salim Pasha al-Saghir, with some 1,200 of their troops, attempted to capture Acre from Jazzar. On the plains outside of the city, a battle was fought, although cannon fire from Acre's artillery forced Sulayman's troops to disperse.[5] Sulayman and Salim fled to Mount Lebanon and from there to Damascus in a bid to raise a new army. The revolt personally offended Jazzar since he treated Sulayman and Salim deferentially, guaranteed their careers and enabled them to grow wealthy.^[6] In 1801, Sulayman reestablished ties with Jazzar, who welcomed his return warmly, treating him "like a lost son", according to historian Michael Winter.^[7]

Jazzar died in April–May 1804 while Sulayman was commanding the

Sulayman's victory further elevated his standing with the Sublime Porte, who rewarded Sulayman with a special waqf (trust) that gave him authority over Gaza, Jaffa and Jerusalem (in effect all of southwestern Palestine).[2] Sulayman then appointed Abu-Nabbut governor of the Gaza Sanjak, which included Jaffa.^[10] In Jerusalem, shortly after the siege against Jaffa, popular riots broke out and the city's Damascus-appointed mutasallim (Jerusalem was part of Damascus Eyalet) was unable to suppress the riots. Sulayman dispatched one of his commanders, Muhammad Agha Abu Dhari'a, who managed to establish order and was subsequently appointed by Sulayman as mutasallim. However, the assignment was short-lived as Sulayman did not challenge the wali of Damascus when the latter reasserted Damascene authority over Jerusalem and replaced Abu Dhari'a.^[2]

The siege against Jaffa was one of the few military actions undertaken by Sulayman,^[2] unlike Jazzar, who faced and suppressed numerous rebellions by local forces in Palestine and Mount Lebanon and forcibly exacted heavy tolls on the population.^[2][10] By contrast, military force played a relatively minor role during Sulayman's reign.^[9] Rather, Sulayman strove to maintain peace and security by mediating between rival sheikhs.^[10] Because of this reputation, he gained the nickname "al-Adil", which means "the Just".^[10]

Having substantially reduced the size of Acre's military's forces, partially because Acre's wealth from the cotton trade was diminishing and partially out of political preference, Sulayman ruled by diplomacy and interfered far less in the affairs of his deputy governors and in the affairs of the semi-autonomous sheikhs of

Under Farhi's guidance, Sulayman focused his rule on reinvigorating Acre's declining economy. This entailed a significant loosening of the cotton monopoly that his predecessors Jazzar and Zahir al-Umar had established by relaxing controls over the price of cotton and giving the native merchants of Acre virtual ownership over the shops they leased from his government. Moreover, he ceased the extortion of merchants and the confiscation of their goods, acts that were prevalent during Jazzar's rule. In effect, Farhi and Sulayman were careful not to lose total control over the cotton trade, while significantly easing the pressure on merchants and the peasant suppliers. These policies also extended to the monopolies on olive oil and grain, the other two lucrative cash crops of Palestine and the surrounding region.^[11]

In 1808, he decommissioned his

In 1810, Sulayman and his allies in Mount Lebanon, Emir Bashir Shihab II and Sheikh Bashir Jumblatt, responded to an appeal by Kunj Yusuf Pasha, wali of Damascus, for military backing to counter an impending invasion of Damascus by Wahhabi tribesmen who had entered the Hauran plain south of the city. Sulayman assembled what was left of his troops, including Maghrebi, Kurdish, Turkish, Arab and Albanian soldiers, while Emir Bashir brought with him a multi-confessional force of Sunni and Shia Muslim, Druze and Christian warriors from Lebanon and the coalition mobilized at Tiberias. By the time they crossed the Jordan River and reached Quneitra, Kunj Yusuf sent them a request to withdraw on account of the Wahhabis' sudden retreat to the Hejaz.^[16]

Sulayman refused Kunj Yusuf's order and marched towards Damascus. Kunj Yusuf sent a force to stop them at

Instead of the military, Sulayman placed his mamluks in numerous political and administrative posts to ensure their loyalty and the smooth functioning of a system dependent on that loyalty.[18] As wali of Damascus, he appointed the mamluks Uzun Ali al-Qasir as mutasallim of Hama, Ja'far Agha as mutasallim of Homs, Darwish Agha as mutasallim of Damascus and Kunj Ahmad Agha as mutasallim of Jerusalem. He also appointed Musa Bey Tuqan as the mutasallim of Nablus. Ali Pasha supervised Acre on Sulayman's behalf, while the latter resided in Damascus.^[19]

Sulayman was replaced as wali of Damascus with Silahdar Süleyman Pasha in 1812. However, by then, the Sublime Porte allowed his annexation of most of the Tripoli Eyalet, including the Latakia Sanjak, to Sidon Eyalet, which he continued to govern.^[20] Sidon Eyalet at that time had already been expanded during Jazzar's reign to include Gaza Sanjak. The sanjaks of Nablus, Jerusalem and Lajjun were still a part of Damascus Eyalet, although Sulayman, like his predecessors, wielded authority in these areas at Damascus's expense.^[10] He was twice briefly reappointed wali of Damascus, including in 1816 after Silahdar died, but this was an interim post to be held only until the arrival of the newly appointed governor, Salih Pasha.^[20]

Later years and death

Each time Sulayman was given the interim office of wali of Damascus it had occurred during the months before the Hajj when the wali of Damascus (who by imperial decree was also the amir al-hajj, or "commander of the Hajj pilgrimage") would make his dawrah tour to collect the miri (funds for the pilgrimage caravan) from the various districts. This was often an arduous process in the semi-autonomous regions, particularly in Jabal Nablus, where successive Ottoman governors failed to assert their authority. Through diplomatic relations, particularly his relationship with the Tuqan family, Sulayman was able to collect these funds and thus boost his authority over the central mountainous areas of Palestine, which were officially outside of Sidon's jurisdiction.^[21]

In 1817, the Tuqans attempted to overtake their rivals, the Nimr family, in Nablus city, prompting a violent backlash from all of the rural sheikhs of Jabal Nablus, including the Jarrar, Abd al-Hadi and Qasim families, who backed the Nimrs. This resulted in a civil war in Jabal Nablus with a stalemate marked by heavy casualties on both sides. Sulayman traditionally backed the Tuqans, although his scribe Ibrahim al-Awra asserted that he started to lean towards the side of the Jarrars and Abd al-Hadis, likely in order to create a balance of power in Nablus that he could still influence and manage, rather than encourage a strong singular Nabulsi authority. Thus, Sulayman withheld tangible support for Musa Bey Tuqan and instead opened negotiations between the warring factions at his Acre headquarters. He managed to secure a peace between Musa Bey and the Jarrar and Abd al-Hadi families later that year. By July 1818, through his offices with the mufti (leading Muslim scholar) of Nablus, he brought the Nimr family into the peace arrangements as well. The agreement entailed a large payment of blood money from the Tuqans to the other families, but with the understanding that Musa Bey would remain mutasallim of Nablus.^[22]

With the death of his deputy Ali Pasha Khazindar in 1814 and Farhi's opposition to Abu-Nabbut of Jaffa, Ali Pasha's son,

Sulayman did not launch major commercial building projects in Acre like Jazzar. In 1817 he had Zahir al-Umar's