Fakhr al-Din Ma'n, commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II, was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon from the Ma'n dynasty, an Ottoman governor of Sidon-Beirut and Safed, and the strongman over much of the Levant from the 1620s to 1633. For uniting modern Lebanon's constituent parts and communities, especially the Druze and the Maronites, under a single authority for the first time in history, he is generally regarded as the country's founder. Although he ruled in the name of the Ottomans, he acted with considerable autonomy and developed close ties with European powers in defiance of the Ottoman imperial government.
The Jumblatt family, also transliterated as Joumblatt and Junblat) is a prominent Druze family based in the Chouf area of Mount Lebanon that has dominated Druze politics since the 18th century. The current head of the family is veteran politician Walid Jumblatt, the son and successor of Kamal Jumblatt, one of the most influential figures in modern Lebanese politics. Other members of the family have contributed to cultural, economic and social life in Lebanon. Khaled Jumblatt, a distant cousin of Walid Jumblatt, held the position of minister of economy and was a prominent politician in Lebanon for many years until his death in 1993. Besides the Chouf, the family owns mansions and villas within the distinguished Clemenceau area of Beirut and in the northwest area of Sidon.
Bashir Shihab II was a Lebanese emir who ruled the Emirate of Mount Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. Born to a branch of the Shihab family which had converted from Sunni Islam, the religion of previous Shihabi emirs, he was the only Maronite ruler of the Mount Lebanon Emirate.
Al Hamdan is a Druze clan based in Jabal al-Druze, a mountainous region in southeastern Syria. They were among the earliest Druze settlers in Jabal Hauran and were the dominant local force in that region between their establishment there in 1711 and circa 1860, when the al-Atrash clan became the prominent Druze power.
The Shihab dynasty is an Arab family whose members served as the paramount tax farmers and local chiefs of Mount Lebanon from the early 18th to mid-19th century, during Ottoman rule. Their reign began in 1697 after the death of the last Ma'nid chief. The family centralized control over Mount Lebanon, destroying the feudal power of the mostly Druze lords and cultivating the Maronite clergy as an alternative power base of the emirate. The Shihab family allied with Muhammad Ali of Egypt during his occupation of Syria, but was deposed in 1840 when the Egyptians were driven out by an Ottoman-European alliance, leading soon after to the dissolution of the Shihab emirate. Despite losing territorial control, the family remains influential in modern Lebanon, with some members having reached high political office.
The Ma'n dynasty, also known as the Ma'nids;, were a family of Druze chiefs of Arab stock based in the rugged Chouf area of southern Mount Lebanon who were politically prominent in the 15th–17th centuries. Traditional Lebanese histories date the family's arrival in the Chouf to the 12th century, when they were held to have struggled against the Crusader lords of Beirut and of Sidon alongside their Druze allies, the Tanukh Buhturids. They may have been part of a wider movement by the Muslim rulers of Damascus to settle militarized Arab tribesmen in Mount Lebanon as a buffer against the Crusader strongholds along the Levantine coast. Fakhr al-Din I, the first member of the family whose historicity is certain, was the "emir of the Chouf", according to contemporary sources and, despite the non-use of mosques by the Druze, founded the Fakhreddine Mosque in the family's stronghold of Deir al-Qamar.
The Ottoman Empire nominally ruled Mount Lebanon from its conquest in 1516 until the end of World War I in 1918.
Mulhim ibn Yunus Ma'n was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon and head of the Ma'n dynasty after succeeding his uncle Fakhr al-Din II in 1633. The Ottomans executed Fakhr al-Din, Mulhim's father Yunus, and his brothers and cousins during and after a massive expedition to end their control over large parts of the Levant. After Mulhim defeated his principal Druze rival, Ali Alam al-Din, in 1641, the Ottomans granted him tax farms previously held by his uncle and father Yunus in southern Mount Lebanon, namely for the subdistricts of the Chouf, Gharb, Matn and Jurd. In 1657 he was appointed governor and tax farmer of Safed. He held onto the tax farms of southern Mount Lebanon until his death in 1658, after falling ill attempting to collect taxes in Safed.
The Emirate of Mount Lebanon was a part of Mount Lebanon that enjoyed variable degrees of partial autonomy under the stable suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire between the mid-16th and the early-19th century.
The Druze power struggle of 1658–1667 was one of the most violent episodes of tribal disputes during Ottoman rule in the Levant. The conflict erupted between rebel and pro-Ottoman Druze factions over succession of the Maani rule.
Ghazir is a town and municipality in the Keserwan District of the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is located 27 kilometres (17 mi) north of Beirut. It has an average elevation of 380 meters above sea level and a total land area of 542 hectares (2.09 sq mi).
Yusuf Shihab (1748–1790) was the autonomous emir of Mount Lebanon between 1770 and 1789. He was the fifth consecutive member of the Shihab dynasty to govern Mount Lebanon.
Mansur Shihab was the Emir of Mount Lebanon between 1754 and 1770. He and his brother Ahmad took the reins of power from their ailing brother Mulhim Shihab and ruled jointly until Mansur became the sole emir after winning a power struggle with Ahmad in 1763. Mansur aligned himself with Zahir al-Umar and Ali Bey, the autonomous rulers of Galilee and Egypt, respectively, in their rebellion against the Ottomans. Mansur was subsequently forced by the Druze sheikhs of Mount Lebanon to step down in favor his nephew Yusuf Shihab after Zahir and Ali Bey were defeated in 1770.
Tannus ibn Yusuf al-Shidyaq, 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. 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.
The 1585 Ottoman expedition against the Druze, also called the 1585 Ottoman invasion of the Shuf, was an Ottoman military campaign led by Ibrahim Pasha against the Druze and other chieftains of Mount Lebanon and its environs, then a part of the Sidon-Beirut Sanjak of the province of Damascus Eyalet. It had been traditionally considered the direct consequence of a raid by bandits in Akkar against the tribute caravan of Ibrahim Pasha, then Egypt's outgoing governor, who was on his way to Constantinople. Modern research indicates that the tribute caravan arrived intact and that the expedition was instead the culmination of Ottoman attempts to subjugate the Druze and other tribal groups in Mount Lebanon dating from 1518.
The Alam al-Dins, also spelled Alamuddin or Alameddine, were a Druze family that intermittently held or contested the paramount chieftainship of the Druze districts of Mount Lebanon in opposition to the Ma'n and Shihab families in the late 17th–early 18th centuries during Ottoman rule. Their origins were obscure with different accounts claiming or proposing Tanukhid or Ma'nid ancestry. From at least the early 17th century they were the traditional leaders of the Yaman faction among the Druzes, which stood in opposition to the Qays, led by the Tanukhid Buhturs, traditional chiefs of the Gharb area south of Beirut, and the Ma'ns. A likely chief of the family, Muzaffar al-Andari, led the Druze opposition to the powerful Ma'nid leader Fakhr al-Din II until reconciling with him in 1623.
Al-Sawwaf were a Druze family of chiefs active in Mount Lebanon and Wadi al-Taym in the late 15th–early 18th centuries. They were based in the Matn area and historically opposed the Ma'n dynasty and Shihab dynasty. They were eliminated by the latter at the Battle of Ain Dara in 1711.
Aḥmad ibn Mulḥim ibn Yunus Maʾn was the paramount emir of the Druze in Mount Lebanon and the tax farmer of the subdistricts of the Chouf, Matn, Gharb and Jurd from 1667 until his death in 1697. He was the last member of the Ma'n dynasty, after which paramount leadership passed to his marital relatives from the Shihab dynasty.
Sidon is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and has a rich and diverse history that spans over 6,000 years. The city's name has changed over time and has been known by various names, including Sidun, Saida, and Saïd. The earliest evidence of human settlement in the area dates back to the Neolithic period, around 4000 BCE. Sidon rose to prominence during the Bronze Age and became one of the most important city-states in the region. It was a major center for trade and commerce and played a significant role in the Mediterranean trade network. The city's strategic coastal location made it a hub for maritime activities.
The Chouf region, also spelled Shouf, is a historical and geographical area located in the central part of Lebanon. Like much of Lebanon, the Chouf was inhabited by the Phoenicians, an ancient Semitic civilization known for their seafaring skills and trade. However, Evidence of inhabitance in the mountains dates back to the 5th century B.C.E. and archaeological evidence, consisting of Roman burial sites and pottery has proved a continuous inhabitation since 450 B.C.E.
Emir Haydar Shihab 
Sheikh Ali Jumblatt 
Sheikh Ali Abi Nakad 
Khazen al-Khazen 
