User:Al Ameer son/Fakhr al-Din II
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Fakhr al-Din ibn Qurqumaz ibn Yunus Ma'n (c. 1572–March or April 1635), also known as Fakhr al-Din II, was an emir of the Druze and for most of his career a governor and tax farmer of the Sidon-Beirut and Safed sanjaks, which spanned southern Mount Lebanon, the Galilee and the port towns of Sidon, Beirut and Acre. At the height of his power his territory extended north to the Tripoli Eyalet, including northern Mount Lebanon, Homs and Latakia, and east to the Beqaa Valley and northern Transjordan. For uniting the constituent parts of modern Lebanon, namely the Druze and Maronite Christian mountain districts, the adjacent coast, and the Beqaa Valley for the first time in history under a singular authority, he is regarded by the Lebanese people as the founder of the country.
Fakhr al-Din II | |||||||
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![]() Engraving of a portrait of Fakhr al-Din by Giovanni Mariti, 1787[lower-alpha 1] | |||||||
Sanjak-bey of Sidon-Beirut | |||||||
In office December 1592 – 1606 | |||||||
Monarchs | Murad III (r. 1574–1595) Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) | ||||||
Preceded by | Unknown | ||||||
Succeeded by | Ali Ma'n | ||||||
Sanjak-bey of Safed | |||||||
In office July 1602 – September 1613 | |||||||
Monarchs | Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) | ||||||
Preceded by | N/A | ||||||
Succeeded by | Muhammad Agha | ||||||
Zabit (Nahiye Governor) of Baalbek | |||||||
In office 1625–Unavailable | |||||||
Monarch | Murad IV (r. 1623–1640) | ||||||
Preceded by | Yunus al-Harfush | ||||||
Zabit of Tripoli Eyalet nahiyes[lower-alpha 2] | |||||||
In office 1632–1633 | |||||||
Monarch | Murad IV | ||||||
Personal details | |||||||
Born | c. 1572 Mount Lebanon, Sidon-Beirut Sanjak, Ottoman Empire | ||||||
Died | 1635 Constantinople, Ottoman Empire | ||||||
Spouses | Daughter of Jamal al-Din Arslan
(m. 1590)
Alwa bint Ali Sayfa (m. 1603)
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Relations |
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Children |
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Parents |
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Fakhr al-Din belonged to the Ma'n dynasty, traditional emirs of the Chouf mountain. He succeeded his father as emir six years after he died in an Ottoman campaign against the Druze. Partly through his good offices with the Damascus governor and vizier Murad Pasha, he was appointed over Sidon-Beirut in 1593 and Safed in 1602. Despite joining the rebellion of Ali Janbulad, who had captured large parts of Ottoman Syria in 1606, Murad Pasha, then Grand Vizier, kept Fakhr al-Din in his post and recognized his takeover of the Keserwan area north of Beirut from his local rival Yusuf Sayfa. Fakhr al-Din lost imperial favor following the succession of Grand Vizier Nasuh Pasha, who ordered a campaign to eliminate him in 1613. By then, Fakhr al-Din had established an alliance with Tuscany and garrisoned the strategic fortresses of Shaqif Arnun and Subayba, both in defiance of the Ottomans. He escaped Syria and lived in exile in Tuscany and Sicily for five years.
Upon his return to Mount Lebanon, he resumed control of Sidon-Beirut and Safed, including through his family and close associates as proxies. By 1622 he gained from Yusuf Sayfa Byblos, Batroun, and Bsharri, all mountain subdistricts dominated by Maronites, a community with whom the Druze emir had established close relations. In 1623 he routed a coalition led by the governor of Damascus at the Battle of Anjar and consequently extended his control, with Damascene recognition, to the Beqaa Valley and Baalbek, both strongholds of his rivals, the Harfush dynasty. In the following years, Fakhr al-Din captured the fortresses of Safita, Hama, Homs and Salamiyah, gained practical control of Tripoli and its eyalet, and acquired tax farms as far north as Jableh and Latakia. The vast territory, large professional army, and thirty fortresses under his command perturbed the imperial government, with a near-contemporary historian remarking that "the only thing left for him to do was to claim the Sultanate". Although he frequently attained government favor by forwarding tax revenue on time, bribing officials, and using opportunities of mutual interest to eliminate local rivals, his outsized power and autonomous behavior were viewed as a rebellion by the state. The Ottomans moved against Fakhr al-Din in 1633. In the ensuing siege of his Chouf hideout, he surrendered to the commander Kuchuk Ahmed Pasha and was executed in Constantinople two years later. The Ma'ns continued to wield influence in the Chouf and Fakhr al-Din's grandnephew was awarded a tax farm spanning southern Mount Lebanon in 1697, which was inherited and gradually expanded by the Ma'ns' marital relatives, the Shihab dynasty, in 1711. The Shihabi super tax farm was the precursor of the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate in 1861, which in turn paved the way for the establishment of the present Lebanese Republic.
In the summation of the historian Kamal Salibi, Fakhr al-Din "combined military skill and eminent qualities of leadership with a keen business acumen and unusual powers of observation". When the empire was in a decades-long economic crisis, Fakhr al-Din's territories thrived, and Sidon in particular attained political significance for the first time in its modern history. He protected, promoted and helped modernize commercial agriculture in his domains, inaugurating the lucrative silk trade of Mount Lebanon. His close ties with France, Tuscany and Spain and the opening of his port towns for European commerce facilitated the most significant European political and economic penetration of the Levantine coast since the 13th century. Fakhr al-Din's substantial wealth, which he derived mainly from his tax farms, but also from extortion and counterfeiting, enabled him to invest considerably in the fortifications and infrastructure needed to foster stability, order, and economic growth. His building works included palatial government houses in Sidon, Beirut and his Chouf stronghold of Deir al-Qamar, caravanserais, bathhouses, mills, and bridges, some of which remain extant. Tax farming financed his professional army of sekban mercenaries, who after 1623 mostly replaced the local peasant levies on whom he depended in his earlier career. Christians prospered and played key roles under his rule, with his main enduring legacy being the symbiotic relationship he set in motion between Maronites and Druze, which proved foundational for the creation of a Lebanese entity.