Muhammad Sa'id Pasha Shamdin (died 1900), also known as Muhammad Sa'id Agha Shamdin, was an Ottoman military official of the Syria Vilayet, best known for being the amir al-hajj (commander of the Hajj pilgrim caravan to Mecca) for 20 years.
Muhammad Sa'id was a son of Shamdin Agha (d. 1860), a Kurdish irregular cavalry commander in Damascus under the provincial government. They belonged to the Shamdin-Yusuf, the strongest Kurdish clan of 19th-century Damascus. [1]
In March 1844, the Damascus Provincial Council appointed Muhammad Sa'id to command an expedition to Jabal Ajlun, a mountainous region in the province's hinterland where government authority was weak. The purpose of the expedition was to assert government rule and secure the administrative center of Irbid against the Bedouin tribes who more influential in the district and historically imposed their own taxes on the inhabitants. The mission evidently failed. [2]
In 1859, after the irregular garrisons of Damascus were disbanded by government order, Muhammad Sa'id was appointed to a newly-formed Kurdish auxiliary corps. During the 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, Muhammad Sa'id failed to prevent his Kurdish irregulars from joining in a wide-scale massacre of Christians in the city's Bab Tuma quarter. As punishment, the imperial government exiled him to Mosul. There, he helped bring order to the city and was rewarded by a pardon from the sultan, who allowed him to return to Damascus. He was appointed the sanjakbey of Hauran, taking over from another Kurdish officer, Ahmad Yusuf Pasha. He soon after replaced Ahmad's brother Muhammad Yusuf Pasha as amir al-hajj (commander of the annual Hajj pilgrim caravan to Mecca), beginning in the late 1860s. He would hold that post for twenty years. [3]
Muhammad accumalted significant wealth in his capacity as amir al-hajj and invested considerable sums acquiring numerous villages and farms in the Ghouta oasis of Damascus, which became part of a Shamdin family endowment, and several tracts in the Hauran plains and the Golan Heights area. [3] Among the villages he acquired were Tell al-Jukhadar and Saham al-Jawlan, the latter of which he purchased cheap and sold at a significant profit to a Jewish colonization group. [4] His wealth was such that by the 1890s he was known to own more property in the Damascus Vilayet than any other individual. [3]
Muhammad's wealth was inherited by his only daughter's (and only child's) son Abd al-Rahman Yusuf, the product of her marriage with a member of the Yusuf family. Abd al-Rahman had become the amir al-hajj in 1892 and after Muhammad Sa'id's death inherited his lands and fortune. [3] [5] [6]
The Hauran is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, eastwards by the al-Safa field, to the south by Jordan's desert steppe and to the west by the Golan Heights. Traditionally, the Hauran consists of three subregions: the Nuqrah and Jaydur plains, the Jabal al-Druze massif, and the Lajat volcanic field. The population of the Hauran is largely Arab, but religiously heterogeneous; most inhabitants of the plains are Sunni Muslims belonging to large agrarian clans, while Druze form the majority in the eponymous Jabal al-Druze and a significant Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic minority inhabit the western foothills of Jabal al-Druze. The region's largest towns are Daraa, al-Ramtha and al-Suwayda.
Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Dhaher el-Omar or Dahir al-Umar, was an Arab ruler of northern Palestine in the mid-18th century, while the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. For much of his reign, starting in the 1730s, his domain mainly consisted of the Galilee, with successive headquarters in Tiberias, Deir Hanna and finally Acre, in 1750. He fortified Acre, and the city became the center of the cotton trade between Palestine and Europe. In the mid-1760s, he reestablished the port town of Haifa nearby.
Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar was the Acre-based Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet from 1776 until his death in 1804 and the simultaneous governor of Damascus Eyalet in 1785–1786, 1790–1795, 1798–1799, and 1803–1804. Having left his native Bosnia as a youth, he began a military career in Egypt in the service of mamluk officials, eventually becoming a chief enforcer and assassin for Ali Bey al-Kabir, Egypt's practical ruler. He gained the epithet of al-Jazzar for his deadly ambush on a group of Bedouin tribesmen in retaliation for the death of his first master in a Bedouin raid. Al-Jazzar fell out with Ali Bey in 1768 after refusing to take part in the assassination of another of his former masters. He ultimately fled to Syria, where he was tasked by the Ottomans with defending Beirut from a joint assault by the Russian Navy and Zahir al-Umar, the Acre-based ruler of northern Palestine. He eventually surrendered and entered Zahir's service before defecting from him and fleeing with stolen tax money.
The 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, also known as the 1860 Christian–Druze war, was a civil conflict in Mount Lebanon during Ottoman rule in 1860–1861 fought mainly between the local Druze and Christians.
The Tuqan clan is a prominent Palestinian and Jordanian political and business family. During the Ottoman era, they dominated the political and socio-economic spheres in Nablus and extended their influence to al-Salt. During that era, they were the only household that came close to establishing centralized rule over Jabal Nablus. Over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries the Tuqan family held the title of mutasallim of Nablus longer than any other local family.
Aqil Agha al-Hasi was the strongman of northern Palestine in the mid-19th century, during Ottoman rule. He was originally a commander of Arab irregular soldiers, known as the Hawwara tribe, in the service of the Ottoman governors of Acre. His influence in the Galilee grew as he strengthened his alliances with the powerful Beni Sakhr and Anizzah tribes of Transjordan, and recruited unemployed Bedouin irregulars from Egypt into his own band of irregulars, who thenceforth became known as the Hanadi tribe. He was known by his men and Western travelers to be courageous, cunning and charismatic, all qualities that contributed to his rise as the de facto ruler of the Galilee.
Ḥusayn Pasha ibn Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Riḍwān ibn Muṣṭafā ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿīn Pasha was the Ottoman governor of Gaza Sanjak, a district which extended from Jaffa and Ramla in the north to Bayt Jibrin in the southeast and Rafah in the south, with Gaza as its capital. Husayn belonged to the Ridwan family, who long held the governorship of Gaza. Husayn Pasha became governor in 1644 after succeeding his father 'Arab Hasan Pasha. He served, with a brief interruption by his son Ibrahim in 1660, until his imprisonment in 1662. Husayn Pasha also served intermittent terms as governor of Nablus and Jerusalem and as amir al-hajj. Gaza prospered under Husayn Pasha and its political importance rose so much so that the French consul considered it to be the virtual capital of Palestine. Husayn Pasha maintained friendly relations with the Bedouin tribes of the region, local Christian communities and the French. In 1662, Husayn Pasha was imprisoned by the Ottoman imperial authorities and executed in Damascus later that year or in Constantinople in 1663.
Muzayrib is a town in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate, located northwest of Daraa on the Jordan–Syria border. Nearby localities include al-Shaykh Saad and Nawa to the north, Da'el, Tafas and al-Shaykh Maskin to the northeast, and al-Yadudah to the southeast. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Muzayrib had a population of 12,640 in the 2004 census. The town is also the administrative center of the Muzayrib nahiyah (subdistrict) consisting of nine villages with a combined population of 72,625. Muzayrib also has a community of Palestinian refugees.
Abdullah Pasha al-Azm was an Ottoman statesman who served as the governor of the Damascus Eyalet, Aleppo Eyalet (1794), Egypt Eyalet (1798), Adana Eyalet, and Rakka Eyalet (1809), before retiring to Hama in the 1810s. He was a member of the prominent political family, Al-Azm.
Amir al-hajj was the position and title given to the commander of the annual Hajj pilgrim caravan by successive Muslim empires, from the 7th century until the 20th century. Since the Abbasid period, there were two main caravans, one departing from Damascus and the other from Cairo. Each of the two annual caravans was assigned an amir al-hajj whose main duties were securing funds and provisions for the caravan, and protecting it along the desert route to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the Hejaz.
Sulayman Pasha al-Adil was the Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet between 1805 and 1819, ruling from his Acre headquarters. He also simultaneously served as governor of Damascus Eyalet between 1810 and 1812. He was a mamluk of his predecessor, Jazzar Pasha. His rule was associated with decentralization, a reduction of Acre's military, and limits to his predecessors' cotton monopoly. Moreover, he oversaw a policy of non-interference with his deputy governors, such as Muhammad Abu-Nabbut and Mustafa Agha Barbar, and diplomacy with the autonomous sheikhs of the various Levantine regions where he held authority, including Emir Bashir Shihab II and Musa Bey Tuqan. He exercised control over his domain largely through depending on the loyalty of his deputies, who also had been mamluks of Jazzar. In effect, Sulayman Pasha presided over the world's last functioning mamluk system.
Kunj Yusuf Pasha was an Ottoman Kurd who served as the governor of Damascus Eyalet between 1807 and 1810. As governor, Kunj Yusuf enacted discriminatory policies against religious minority groups in Damascus and was unable to secure the annual Hajj pilgrim caravan to Mecca. After his inability to defeat Wahhabi invaders in 1809, he was ousted by Sulayman Pasha al-Adil with the blessing of the Ottoman imperial authorities.
Shamdin Agha was an Ottoman Kurdish commander of irregulars in the service of the Ottoman governors of Damascus and Sidon Eyalet. In effect, he was powerful paramilitary chieftain in Damascus. His descendants became a prominent family with his namesake, Shamdin, in Ottoman Syria.
The 1757 Hajj caravan raid was the plunder and massacre of the Hajj caravan of 1757 on its return to Damascus from Mecca by Bedouin tribesmen. The caravan was under the protection of an Ottoman force led by the Wali of Damascus, Husayn Pasha, and his deputy Musa Pasha, while the Bedouin were led by Qa'dan al-Fayez of the Bani Sakher tribe. An estimated 20,000 pilgrims were either killed or died of hunger or thirst as a result of the raid.
Naqib al-ashraf was a governmental post in various Muslim empires denoting the head or supervisor of the descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The descendants of Muhammad were known as ashraf and throughout Islamic history, the ashraf organized themselves into large groups, akin to corporations, throughout the various Muslim territories. This was done to ensure their special place in Muslim society and thus maintain their socio-political privileges.
Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali was the Ottoman governor (wali) of Sidon Eyalet between May 1820 and May 1832, with a nine-month interruption in 1822–23. Like his predecessors Jazzar Pasha and Sulayman Pasha, Abdullah Pasha ruled from the port city of Acre. During his reign, all of Palestine and the Syrian coastline came under his jurisdiction. Among his major military victories was his survival of an imperial-backed siege of Acre in 1822 instigated by the Farhi family in retaliation for Abdullah's execution of his mentor Haim Farhi, the suppression of revolts in Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem in 1824 and 1826, respectively, and the 1831 capture of the Sanur fortress.
Ismail Pasha al-Azm was an Ottoman statesman who served as the governor of Damascus and amir al-hajj in 1725–1730. Prior to this post he served as the agha of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and steadily moved up the ranks to become the governor of the districts of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, Hama and Homs in 1719 and then governor of Tripoli in 1721 before being assigned to the Damascus governorship.
Ibrahim Pasha Qatarağasi was an Ottoman statesman who served as wali (governor) of the Aleppo, Damascus, Diyarbekir and Tripoli eyalets (provinces) in the early 19th century.
Mehmed Rashid Pasha was an Ottoman statesman who served as the vali (governor) of Syria Vilayet in 1866–1871 and as minister of foreign affairs of the Ottoman government in 1873–1874 and 1875 until his death. Rashid Pasha was raised in Egypt where his father was an aide of the governor Muhammad Ali and was educated in Paris before joining government service in Istanbul in 1851. There he became a protege of the grand vizier Ali Pasha, a key figure in the empire-wide Tanzimat reforms. After the latter was reappointed grand vizier in 1866, Rashid Pasha was appointed governor of the Damascus-centered Syria Vilayet which extended from Tripoli and Hama in the north to Palestine and Transjordan in the south.
Shukri al-Asali was a prominent Syrian politician, nationalist leader, and senior inspector in the Ottoman government, in addition to being a ranking member of the Council of Notables. He served in the Ottoman parliament from 1911 until April 1912. He was executed with other Syrian nationalists by the Ottoman governor Jamal Pasha.