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.
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 at least nominally ruled Mount Lebanon from its conquest in 1516 until the end of World War I in 1918.
Qabb Ilyas also spelled Kab Elias, Qab Elias, Qob Elias, Qoub Elias) is a municipality in Zahle District, in eastern Lebanon. Qabb Ilyas is 15 kilometers from Zahleh and 45 kilometers from the Lebanese capital Beirut. Its average elevation above sea level is 950 meters. Its area is approximately 32 km². Qabb Ilyas is the third largest city in the Beqaa Valley, after Zahleh and Baalbek in terms of area size and geography. The majority of the residents are Sunnis.
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 Ridwan dynasty was the most prominent pasha family in Palestine, ruling the southwestern districts of the Damascus Eyalet in the 16th and 17th centuries under Ottoman rule. The dynasty was based in Gaza, where its members continuously served as the hereditary sanjak-beys of the sanjak for over a century. Members also ruled different provinces and districts throughout the Ottoman Empire and held additional titles at different times. The Ridwan period in Gaza was considered the city's last golden age.
The Harfush dynasty was a dynasty that descended from the Khuza'a tribe, which helped, during the reign of Muhammad, in the conquest of Syria. The Harfush dynasty controlled the Baalbek District and several parts of the Bekaa Valley. Their being Shiaa was a major factor in the rivalry between the Harfushes and the Lebanese Druze Maan family.
Safed Sanjak was a sanjak (district) of Damascus Eyalet in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet. The sanjak was centered in Safed and spanned the Galilee, Jabal Amil and the coastal cities of Acre and Tyre. The city of Safed was made up of Muslim and Jewish townspeople, while the rest of the sanjak was populated by Sunni Muslims, Jewish peasants, Bedouin tribesmen, Shia Muslims and Druze peasants.
Mansur Bey ibn Furaykh was Emir of the Biqa'a, Safad and Ajlun districts in the late 16th century during Ottoman rule. The Ottomans granted Mansur this large power base to enable him to check the growing power of rebellious Lebanese clans, namely the Ma'an and Harfush. However, complaints were lodged against him alleging that he oppressed his subjects, and killed and robbed wealthy Muslim pilgrims during his service as amir al-hajj. Mansur also failed to pay the Ottoman authorities the taxes they were due from his sanjaks. Because of these actions, Mansur was arrested and executed.
Yusuf Sayfa Pasha was a chieftain and multazim in the Tripoli region who frequently served as the Ottoman beylerbey of Tripoli Eyalet between 1579 and his death.
The Buhturids, also known as the Banu Buhtur or the Tanukh, were a dynasty whose chiefs were the emirs of the Gharb area southeast of Beirut in Mount Lebanon in the 12th–15th centuries. A family of the Tanukhid tribal confederation, they were established in the Gharb by the Muslim atabegs of Damascus after the capture of Beirut by the Crusaders in 1110. They were tasked with guarding the mountainous frontier between the Crusader coastlands and the Islamic interior of the Levant. They were granted iqtas over villages in the Gharb and command over its peasant warriors, who subscribed to the Druze religion, which the Buhturids followed. Their iqtas were successively confirmed, decreased or increased by the Burid, Zengid, Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers of Damascus in return for military service and intelligence gathering in the war with the Crusader lordships of Beirut and Sidon. In times of peace the Buhturids maintained working relations with the Crusaders.
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.
The Turabay dynasty was the preeminent household of the Bedouin Banu Haritha tribe in northern Palestine whose chiefs traditionally served as the multazims and sanjak-beys of Lajjun Sanjak during Ottoman rule in the 16th–17th centuries. The sanjak spanned the towns of Lajjun, Jenin, Haifa and Atlit and the surrounding countryside. The progenitors of the family had served as chiefs of Marj Bani Amir under the Mamluks in the late 15th century.
Mundhir ibn Alam al-Din Sulayman ibn Muhammad, also known as Mundhir al-Tanukhi was a Buhturid emir of the Gharb district in Mount Lebanon and the subdistrict governor (zabit) of Beirut in 1616–1623. He was a maternal uncle of Fakhr al-Din II.
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.
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.
Mount Lebanon Emirate 
Grand Duchy of Tuscany 
Mustafa Pasha al-Hannaq (POW)