Syria: A Short History/16

by Philip Khuri Hitti

TURKISH PROVINCE

The dynasty which in 151 6 so abruptly overran the lands of the Arabs was no upstart. Beginning modestly about 1300 as a petty Turkish state in western Asia Minor, the Ottomans had gradually taken over all Anatolia from the other heirs of the Seljuks, had penetrated into Thrace and made Adrianople their capital and had entirely recovered from Timur's catastrophic incursion. In 1453 they con- quered Constantinople and liquidated the pathetic remnant of the Byzantine empire. Their next conquests drove west- ward into the Balkans and eastward into Transcaucasia, Mesopotamia and Safawid Persia. The sudden stab south- ward into Syria and Egypt was apparently unpremeditated, an opportunist assault which led to an unexpected though not unwelcome accretion of territory, wealth and power for Selim I and his successors, all twenty-seven of whom were his direct descendants.

The Ottoman empire attained its height under Selim 3 s son Sulayman I the Magnificent (al-Qanuni, the lawgiver, 1520-1566). Sulayman added most of Hungary, Rhodes and North Africa — except Morocco — to his realm. For a century the borders remained almost stationary, but then a gradual decay set in. Provinces were detached or achieved autonomy ; the authority of the Sublime Porte crumbled and in 1922 dissolved utterly. Syria was among the last to benefit from this trend, however, remaining firmly under Turkish rule until the first World War, four centuries after it had toppled so unceremoniously into Ottoman hands. Lebanon, as will be indicated, was somewhat more fortunate during these centuries, but still was never able completely to shake off the sultans' authority.

On his return from the conquest of Egypt, Selim lingered long enough in Syria to consolidate his position and organize the new domain. For purposes of taxation he empowered a commission to draw up a cadastre of the whole land, reserving much of the fertile Biqa plain and the rich valley of the Orontes to the crown. The Mamluk procedure of farming out tax collection to the highest bidder was, of course, retained. The Hanafite rite of jurisprudence, pre- ferred by the Ottomans, was given official status in Syria. After a brief period of turbulence the land was divided into three provinces {vilayets or pashaliks) — Damascus, Aleppo and Tripoli — under Turkish governors or pashas.

Lebanon, however, with its hardy Druze and Maronite mountaineers, deserved a different treatment. Expediency dictated that its native feudal lords be recognized, especially since the real danger came from Egypt and Persia. Selim confirmed Fakhr-al-Din al-Mani of al-Shuf (south-east of Beirut) and the other Lebanese amirs in their fiefs, allowed them the same autonomous privileges enjoyed under the Mamluks and imposed on them a comparatively light tri- bute. Fakhr-al-Din was recognized as the leading chief- tain of the mountain. Thereafter the Ottoman sultans dealt with their Lebanese vassals either directly or through a neighbouring Syrian pasha. As a rule these vassals acted independently, transmitted their fiefs to their descendants, offered no military service to the sultan, exercised the right of life and death over their subjects, exacted taxes and duties and at times even concluded treaties with foreign powers.

The Buhturid amirs, who had remained loyal to the Mamluks, were apprehended and jailed by the virtual viceroy, Jan-Birdi al-Ghazali, who as governor of Damascus had followed his colleague Khair Bey of Aleppo in deserting Qansawh at the critical juncture. Al-Ghazali sent the heads of several Arab chieftains and rebellious bedouins to Con- stantinople, but at Selim's death in 1520 he discarded his professed new loyalties and proclaimed himself in the Umayyad Mosque an independent sovereign, struck coins in his own name and tried to induce his former colleague Khair Bey, whom Selim had rewarded with the vice- royalty of Egypt, to follow his example. But Aleppo did not openly support al-Ghazali and Sulayman sent against him an army which, on January 27, 1521, destroyed the Syrian rebels and killed al-Ghazali. The punishment which Damascus and its environs received was even more severe than that meted out earlier by Timur. About a third of the city and its villages was utterly destroyed. Ever since then the name of the Janissaries has been associated in the Syrian mind with destruction and terror.

Ottoman political theory considered the conquered peoples, especially the non-Moslems, human flocks to be shepherded for the benefit of the conquerors, the descendants of Central Asian nomads. As such they were to be milked, fleeced and allowed to live their own lives so long as they gave no trouble. Mostly peasants, artisans and merchants, they could not aspire to military or civil careers. But the herd needs watchdogs. These were recruited mainly from war prisoners, purchased slaves and Christian children levied as a tribute and then trained and brought up as Moslems. All recruits were put through a rigorous system of training in the capital covering many years. They were subjected to keen competition and careful screening ; the mentally bright among them were further prepared for governmental posi- tions and the physically strong for military service. The toughest were drafted into the infantry corps termed Janis- sary. The governing and the military class in the empire came at first almost exclusively from this source. Grand vizirs, vizirs, admirals, generals, provincial governors were once slaves and so remained. Their lives and property were always at the disposal of their sultan master, who never hesitated to exercise his right of ownership. This left the Ottoman house as the only aristocracy in the empire, wielding absolute power in the administration of the state and for its defence.

The subject peoples were classified according to religious affiliation* From time immemorial Near Eastern society has been stratified in terms of belief rather than of race and within the religious community the family rather than the territory has been the nucleus of organization. Hence in the people's minds religion and nationality were inextricably interwoven. Each of the religious groups of the Ottoman empire was termed a millet. The two largest millets were those of Islam and the Greek Orthodox. Armenians and Jews were also classified as millets. According to this system all non-Moslem groups were organized into communities under religious heads of their own who also exercised certain civil functions of importance. This amounted to a provision for the government of subject minorities.

The Ottoman governor was no improvement on his Mamluk predecessor, who likewise was recruited from the slave class. Besides, he was farther removed from the central government and therefore freer from its control. But that did not make much difference, as corruption in the capital was as rife as in the provinces. Governors bought their appointments there and entered upon their duties with the main desire of promoting their own interests. Not a few returned to Constantinople to face execution and confisca- tion of property. Exploitation went hand in hand with instability. Turn-over was rapid, so governors had to extort their profits with brutal haste. At times pashas engaged in bldody conflicts against one another with utter disregard of the central government. Occasional visits by Janissaries added to the misery of the people, most of whom, however, were manifestly resigned to their fate. The general attitude seems to have been one of passivity, frustration, distrust of leadership and pessimism as to the result of effort. The old spirit of rebellion which had often flared under Abbasid and Fatimid misrule was by this time apparently dead Clearly the dark ages which began under Seljuk Turks were getting darker under Ottoman Turks. While Europe was entering upon its age of enlightenment, Syria was groping in Ottoman darkness.

Occasionally reforms were introduced by able grand vizirs or bold sultans, but all remained merely ink on paper because of obstruction and opposition by Janissaries, corrupt officials, local collaborators and powerful conservative theo- logians. Even after the destruction of the Janissaries in 1826, reform rescripts could not be effectively implemented and the old corrupt and inefficient system persisted far into the modern period, which for Syria and Lebanon began about 1860.

Neither the political nor the ethnic structure of Syria was seriously affected by the Ottoman conquest. The only radical change in the Ottoman period was incidental and involved the desert tribes, which migrated into the Syrian Desert from Arabia. In this last great bedouin immigration were included such currently prominent groups as the Shammar and the Anazah, of which the Ruwalah are a major branch. Turks came and went as officials but there was no Turkish colonization of the land. At heart they and their Syrian subjects always remained strangers to one another. A few thousand Moslem Circassians drifted into northern Syria and Transjordan after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, and several thousand Armenian refugees found a haven in Lebanon after the first World War. Arabic remained the language of the people. It borrowed only a few Turkish words, mostly relating to politics, army and food.

Syrian economic life underwent a steady decline for which Ottoman maladministration, however, was not entirely to blame. The Ottoman conquest of the Arab East coin- cided with changes in the international trade routes that left that region economically insignificant. The discovery of America and of the Cape of Good Hope route to India deprived the Arab world of its intermediate position between India and Europe and of the resultant profits levied on transit merchandise. The Mediterranean, hitherto a middle sea, no longer held that position ; it had to wait three and a half centuries, till the opening of the Suez Canal, before it could resume its place as a highway and a battlefield.

Syrian merchants had therefore to depend more upon overland trade. As the terminus of the route leading to Baghdad and Basrah, Aleppo began to flourish as a centre of internal trade for the empire and of international trade between Europe and Asia. It eclipsed for the time being Damascus, as the ports of Alexandretta and Tripoli eclipsed Beirut. In fact it remained until the mid-seventeenth century the principal market of the entire Near East. A sizable Venetian colony grew in Aleppo. Their consular reports refer to arrivals at both Aleppo and Damascus of caravans with spices from India. Spices were in special demand for preserving meat in those pre-refrigeration days.

Venetian traders in the Syrian cities and ports soon had competitors — first French, then English. A 1740 Franco- Turkish treaty put not only French pilgrims to the Holy Land but all other Christians visiting the Ottoman empire under the protection of the French flag. These concessions served as the basis of the later French claim to protect all Catholic Christians of Syria. Besides Aleppo the French had settlements (factories) at Alexandretta, Tripoli, Sidon, Acre and al-Ramlah. They and their English rivals tried to satisfy the Western taste for Eastern luxuries promoted during the Crusades. The list of native products was headed by silk from Lebanon, cotton from Palestine, wool and oil. Competition with sea traders was keen but the Portuguese insistence on high, almost monopolistic, prices gave the traders in Syria their chance. No enduring benefits evidently accrued to Syria from this new development in its trade, which was largely in European hands. The population of the land continued on its downward course in numbers as in prosperity.

On the heels of European businessmen came missionaries, teachers, travellers and explorers. The door was thus opened to modern influences, one of the most pregnant facts in the history of Ottoman Syria. The missionaries were Jesuits, Capuchins, Lazarites and members of other Catholic orders. Their activity was centred in the native Christian com- munities and resulted in the founding of the Uniat churches — Syrian and Greek — in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Syria was, however, much less exposed to West- ern influences than was Lebanon, and less affected by them throughout the Ottoman period.

Intellectually the period was one of sterility. Oppressive rule, high taxation, economic and social decline are not conducive to creative or original work in art, science or literature. The era of compilation, annotation, abridgment and imitation which had its beginnings centuries before con- tinued with fewer and poorer productions. Throughout the Ottoman age no Syrian poet, philosopher, artist, scientist or essayist of the first order made his appearance. Illiteracy was widespread, almost universal. Judges were appointed whose mastery over the written word was deficient. The few intellectuals who developed tended to be attracted to Constantinople, there to become fully Ottomanized. Damas- cus was the centre of some mediocre intellectual activity until about 1700. It was there that al-Maqqari of Tlemcen compiled between 1628 and 1630, from material brought with him from Morocco, the voluminous work considered the chief source of information for the literary history of Moslem Spain.

The first press with Arabic characters in the East made its appearance in 1702 at Aleppo through the initiative of a patriarch, Athanasius, who wavered between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The Gospels (1708) were among the first books printed in this press, which may have come from Wallachia, and which followed by 188 years the Arabic press at Fano (Italy), the first of its kind in the world, probably a reflection of papal missionary zeal. The output of the Aleppo press and those which soon sprang up in Lebanon was mostly religious and linguistic, supplementing the work of the schools. Slowly but surely the implementa- tion for embarking on a new cultural life was being forged.

Meanwhile the history of Ottoman Lebanon had fol- lowed a different path. With the Ottoman conquest the Manid amirs began to replace the Tanukhs as masters of central and southern Lebanon. To the north of them were other feudal families, which competed for power without regard to the Ottoman overlords. The sultans cared little who ruled in Lebanon as long as tribute was paid regularly and in full, provided domestic disorder and foreign intrigue did not exceed reasonable limits. As Druzes and Maronites the Lebanese were mostly subject to their own laws adminis- tered by the religious heads of their respective communities under the millet system. That Lebanon under its local feudal lords fared better than Syria under its Turkish governors is indicated by the increase in its population through natural causes and immigration. The comparative safety and stability it enjoyed attracted Sunnites and Shiites from the Biqa and Baalbek, Maronites from the Tripoli district and Druzes from the south and south-east. The struggle for power on the local and national levels, by peaceful and forceful methods, occupied no small part of the time and energy of the feudal amirs and the leaders of these rival groups. Punitive expeditions kept the reckless in line, and outstanding leaders were often killed by jealous com- patriots or Ottoman agents.

Manid power reached its zenith under Fakhr-al-Din II (1590-1 635), the ablest and most fascinating figure in the history of Ottoman Lebanon. Fakhr-al-Din wrested control of the northern portion from his father-in-law and brought under his sway the Shiites of Baalbek and the bedouin chiefs of the Biqa and Galilee. He allied himself with a rebellious Kurdish governor of Aleppo and set himself up as an autonomous ruler. His southward expansion brought under his command castles which since Crusading days had dominated strategic roads and sites. The acquisition of the rich Biqa increased his income enough to enable him to organize a trained disciplined army, with a core of pro- fessional soldiers, to supplement the old irregulars whose chances of standing against Janissaries were nil. The income left was enough to employ spies in his rivals 5 and enemies' courts and to bribe Ottoman officials. Another source of revenue was the trade he encouraged especially with the Florentines, whose ships offered Lebanese silk, soap, olive oil, wheat and other cereals a lucrative foreign market. In 1608 the lord of Lebanon signed with Ferdinand I, the Medici grand duke of Tuscany, whose capital was Florence, a treaty containing a secret military article clearly directed against the Ottomans. Thereupon the sultan, prompted by the Turkish governor of Damascus, resolved to take action against his audacious vassal and put an end to his separatist and expansionist policy.

An army from Damascus was unable to surmount the mountain barrier, but the appearance of a fleet of sixty galleys to blockade the coast prompted a prudent retire- ment. Fakhr-al-Din spent the years from 1613 to 1618 in instructive travels in Italy and Sicily but was disappointed in his hope of returning home at the head of an expeditionary force provided by the European powers and the pope. On his return to Lebanon he re-established his rule and even extended his realm. In 1624 the sultan acknowledged Fakhr-al-Din as lord of the Arab lands from Aleppo to the borders of Egypt, under Ottoman suzerainty. This diminu- tive man, whose enemies described him as so short that if an egg dropped from his pocket to the ground it wouldn't break, was the only one able to maintain order, administer justice and insure regular taxes for himself and the sultan.

During his remaining eleven years Fakhr-al-Din was free to pursue his ambitious dream of modernizing Lebanon. In his public and private projects he employed architects' irrigation engineers and agricultural experts he brought from Italy. Documents show that he invited missions from Tuscany to instruct the Lebanese farmer in improved methods of tilling the soil and made requests for cattle to improve the local breed. He embellished and fortified Beirut, where he built an elaborate residence with a magni- ficent garden. In this period the Capuchin mission entered Sidon and established centres in Beirut, Tripoli, Aleppo, Damascus and in certain villages of the Lebanon. The Jesuits and Carmelites entered the country about the same time. Fakhr-al-Din was on friendly terms with European missionaries, merchants and consuls, all of whom enjoyed the capitulations initiated by Sulayman. Consular reports show he protected European merchants in Sidon against pirates. Throughout his career he had Maronite counsellors and was sympathetic to Christians. Though he 'was never known to pray, nor ever seen in a mosque', he probably professed Islam openly and practised Druzism privately.

Fakhr-al-Din's prosperity, military might and negotia- tions with Europeans once again aroused the sultan's sus- picions. In 1633 the governor of Damascus was sent against him with a vast army supported by a fleet. The amir's subordinates began to desert him, his son fell in battle and his Italian allies ignored his pleas for aid. He fled to the mountains and hid for months in an almost inaccessible cave, but was at last discovered and led in chains to Con- stantinople, where he and his three sons were held as hostages. News that his relatives and followers were flouting authority doomed the hostages and they were beheaded in April 1635. The independent greater Lebanon of which he dreamed and which he successfully initiated was not to be fully realized until 1943.

Lebanon entered upon a period of anarchy following the death of Fakhr-al-Din. The Manids were persecuted by rival families and Ottoman governors and by 1697 the family was extinct. They were succeeded by their relatives by marriage the Shihabs, freely elected by the Lebanese notables at a national conference. The Shihabs' ancestors were related to the Prophet's family. Evidently the Lebanese spirit of home rule was not entirely dead. Turkey, herself in danger of being destroyed by European powers, was content so long as the taxes were guaranteed. The Shihabs held the reigns of government until 1841, using the old techniques : bribing Ottoman officials^ rising against weak sultans, playing one chief or one party against another and thus maintaining their hold on the mountain, though they never adopted the Druze creed of their people. Yamanite opposition was crushed in 171 1 and the feudal system was reorganized with Shihab partisans at the helm. New family alignments developed as Druzes and Maronites contended for power.

Palestine came into prominence in the mid-eighteenth century under a bedouin governor, Zahir al-Umar. Zahir took Tiberias, Nablus, Nazareth and Acre, which he fortified, made his residence and used for exporting silk, cotton, wheat and other Palestinian products to foreign markets. A benevolent dictator, Zahir stamped out lawless- ness, encouraged agriculture and assumed a tolerant attitude towards his Christian subjects. His financial obligations to the Ottoman government he regularly met, for he realized that to the government it made no great difference who the agent was, Turk or Arab, so long as the cash was forth- coming. His downfall resulted from an alliance with an Egyptian rebel and dependence on a Russian fleet which helped him to take Sidon in 1772. The governor of Damas- cus, the Shihab amir of Lebanon and a Turkish squadron combined to blockade him in Acre, where his death was encompassed by Turkish gold.

Zahir was succeeded at Acre by a Bosnian ex-slave called Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar (the executioner). Al-Jazzar made his small state strong and prosperous, extended its borders and in 1780 was appointed governor of Damascus. He ruled as virtual viceroy of Syria and arbiter of Lebanese affairs, with no major set-back until his natural death in 1804, a record almost unique in the annals of Ottoman Syria. The high-water mark in al-Jazzar 5 s career was attained in 1799, when he checked the advance of Napoleon. The French invader had conquered Egypt and marched triumph- antly along the Palestinian coast until he reached the gates of Acre. With the aid of the English fleet under Sir Sidney Smith, al-Jazzar successfully defended Acre from March 21 to May 20, when Napoleon was forced to retreat with an army decimated by plague. The lord of Acre ruthlessly cut down his enemies and rivals and terrorized Syria and Lebanon, where his name still lives as a synonym of cruelty. Yet he sponsored the election of Bashir II al-Shihabi (1788- 1840), one of the ablest and most constructive rulers of Ottoman Lebanon.

Bashir's position as governor-general of Lebanon was at first precarious. His predecessor's sons were actively con- spiring against him and his patron al-Jazzar was turning against him for failing to support him in the struggle against Napoleon. Forced to retire, he fled in 1799 to Cyprus on one of Sidney Smith's ships. The British then became his friends. After a few months' absence he returned to crush his domestic foes and consolidate his domain. The Biqa was re-attached to Lebanon, the desires of the Damascus governor notwithstanding. Bashir's policy towards the Turks was now one of firmness and friendliness. Early in 1810, when the Wahhabis of Nejd, emerging from the desert, burst through the Syrian frontier and were threatening the settled tracts, Bashir was there with 15,000 Lebanese to help to drive them back. He began to play an important role in Syrian affairs and even in disputes between rival governors of Damascus and Tripoli. This, however, forced another period of exile on him (1821-1822), which he this time spent in Egypt. There he struck up a friendship with Muhammad Ali, viceroy of the country and founder of its royal family.

When, a few years, later Muhammad Ali launched his campaign against Turkey through Syria, Bashir cast his lot with him. The Egyptian viceroy had expected — by way of compensation for the services he had rendered his Turkish suzerain on the battlefields of Greece and Arabia — the addition at least of Syria to his viceroyalty. But his ex- pectation was not fulfilled. Lebanese troops stood side by side with the Egyptians in the siege of Acre in 1831. Thanks to Bashir's co-operation the task of Ibrahim Pasha, son of Muhammad Ali and commander of the Egyptian expedi- tion, was rendered comparatively easy. Ibrahim captured Damascus, routed the Turkish army at Horns, crossed the Taurus and struck into the heart of Anatolia before being forced to withdraw by England, Austria and Russia. In Syria his regime was ended in 1841. Muhammad Ali's ambition to establish an empire of Arab lands with himself at its head turned out to be a daydream. As yet there was no foundation in the consciousness of the people for such a state. On the expulsion of Ibrahim the Turks called Bashir to account. He went to Malta and died in Constantinople in 1850.

The Lebanon of Bashir prospered no less than that of Fakhr-al-Din. Bashir built roads, renovated bridges and set Beirut on its way to becoming what it is today, the gateway to Lebanon and Syria. The city had been avoided by the Manids and earlier Shihabs partly because of its exposure to piratical and other hostile attacks. Both Bashir and Fakhr-al-Din envisaged a greater Lebanon which would embrace with the mountain the coastal towns and the eastern plain. Both encouraged foreign trade relations. Both welcomed political refugees and religious minorities. Bashir offered refuge to a number of Druze families from Aleppo and to Greek Catholics. He was doubtless a Christian but did not consider it expedient to profess his faith. If Fakhr-al-Din was the first modern Lebanese, Bashir was the second. Anecdotes extolling his equity, sternness, wisdom and ability are still told and retold around fireplaces.

In 1840 another Shihab named Bashir, who had taken part in the rising of the Lebanese against Ibrahim Pasha when he tried to disarm and overtax them, and who had co- operated with the Ottomans and the British in expelling him, was appointed governor of Lebanon. The Ottomans were then carrying out a policy of centralization and Ottomaniza- tion and became more than ever convinced that the only way of keeping the mountain under control was to sow the seeds of discord and stir up hatred between Christians and Druzes. The civil strife thus engendered began in 1841 and culminated in the massacre of an estimated 11,000 Christians in i860, with an additional 4000 perishing of destitution. This massacre brought about European inter- vention, culminating in the occupation of Lebanon by a French army. Further European influences followed, bringing with them the fresh breeze of modern civiliza- tion.

The first introduction of Western culture to Lebanon, however, must be dated to 1584, when Pope Gregory XIII founded in Rome a seminary to train Maronite students for clerical careers. This unique educational institution en- abled the brightest Christian youths to fit themselves either to return to their homeland to occupy high ecclesiastical positions or to remain in Rome to teach and write. Gradu- ates included teachers of Syriac and Arabic, compilers and translators of the Bible and distinguished scholars like al- Samani (Assemani, 1687-1768), to whose efforts the Vatican library owes many of the finest manuscripts in its oriental collection. The researches of al-Samani on these manu- scripts in Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Ethiopic and Armenian, for the sake of which he undertook two trips to the East, were embodied in his voluminous Bibliotheca Orientalis, still a major source of information on the churches of the East. It was the work of these Rome-educated Maronite scholars that made modern Europe for the first time fully conscious of the importance of Near Eastern languages and literatures, especially in their Christian aspects.