29

And they made also a show of fasting, a blind to the eyes of the people, but in secret [they took food for] they did neither fast nor pray because al-Ḥākim bi-'amri-hi had turned them aside from fasting and praying and from the pilgrimage [to Mecca] and almsgiving. And from the earliest times there were dissensions between them (P. 11) because some of them claimed kinship with the Qaysites and some with the Yamanites.28 And [in consequence of that ancient feud] many wars occurred among them, breaking out time after time until the encounter took place of 'Ayn Darah in the year eleven hundred and twenty-three of the Flight," when the Qaysite faction gained a victory over the Yamanite party and killed seven men of the Banu 'Alam ad-Din at-Tanūkhy.30 So the Yamanite bands were reduced and lost heart and left the country in their vexation. And the commander of the Qaysite forces was the 'Amir Ḥaydar ash-Shihaby, governor of the country, who bestowed the 'amirate upon the Banu Abu'l-Lama' and the title of sheikh upon the Banū Nakad31 and the Banu Talḥūq3 in recognition of [their zeal in] the war. Nevertheless the power of the sheikhs of the Banu Janblāț and the Banū al-'A-mād became very great and in course of time discord arose between (P. 12) these 'Amadite and Janblāțite chiefs. And the Lama'ite 'amīrs joined the Banu Janblāț while the other chiefs, except those of the Banu Nakad, [joined] the Banu 'Amād. And thence the clans of the country branched off into Janblāțites and Yazbakites,

28 The old party-spirit which the Arabs carried with them wherever they went into the Lebanon and Palestine, in fact, the whole of Syria, as into Iraq and Africa and Spain and Sicily. BURCKHARDT, writing March 19, 1812, confirms VOLNEY'S information, Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, pendant les années 1783, 1784 & 1785, I, 413/4, that the Qaysites fought under red, the Yamanites under white banners.

29 A. D. 1711. This battle of 'Ayn Darah established the youthful Haydar Shihab as successor of the 'Amir Aḥmad Ma'n in the government of the Lebanon and delivered a blow to the Syrian Yamanites from which they never recovered. A later battle of 'Ayn Darah belongs to the events which form the subject of this narrative.

30 The Tanūkhies belonged to one of the most important families that moved to Syria from South Arabia and were among the first in the Lebanon to embrace the doctrine of ad-Darazy of which they became strong supporters.

31 An influential family among the Druzes which seems to have been of Maghrebine origin. Now extinct in Syria it is said still to exist in Morocco under the name of Alkad. Cf OPPENHEIM, op. cit., p. 115.

32 Another influential Druze family which followed the fortunes of the Shihābies; it was predominant in the Upper Gharb. Cf C. H. CHURCHILL, Mount Lebanon, I, 159.

the latter of whom claimed descent from Yazbak, ancestor of the
'Amadite chiefs. And the Christians took part in this new grouping
of parties into which they brought with them their bloody actions
and retaliations [their thirst for blood and blood-revenge], accompany-
ing them [their allies under the new dispensation] in their wars and
on their raids. But the Druzes, whenever strong hostility arose
among them, quelled any outbreak of such discord between them and
[those of] a foreign creed so that for the moment they renounced
tendencies of the kind and settled their differences as if they were one
body. But when unoccupied [in the general cause and free to do as
they pleased] they returned to their factional gangs (P. 13) in the usual
way. And since we have begun our discourse by making mention of
public functions and governors, it may be permitted to us that we
acquit ourselves of this [task] in full. So we say that of yore the
governors of this country were [chosen] from the Ma'nite 'amīrs, and
the last of them was the 'Amir Ahmad, who died in the year eleven
hundred and nine of the Flight. 33 And when at that time the [male]
offspring of the Ma'n family had ceased to exist, his kinsman, the
'Amir Bashir34 of the Shihab family was after him entrusted with the
government, [and he was] the first [governor] who resided in Ḥaṣbayyā
under the jurisdiction of Damascus, at that time [the capital of] a
province the territory of which extended from the city of Şafad, near
Nabulus, 35 to Zawyat al-Jubbah near Tarābulus. 36 And he [the
'Amir Bashir Shihab] resided there for nine years whereupon he died
in the city of Safad.37 And in his place his cousin, the 'Amir Ḥaydar,
[one] of the 'amīrs (P. 14) of Haşbayya and governor of that town, was
entrusted with the government. And he is the ancestor of all the
Shihabite 'amīrs found in the Mount at the present day. And after
him the highest authority was in turn [entrusted to his successors]
according to the will of God [the God] of [all] time. And all of them
submitted obediently to the commands of the wazirs of the Ottoman

33 Which ran from July 20, 1697, to July 10, 1698, of the Christian Era.

34 As we have already stated, the 'Amir Bashir Shihab governed not in his own right, but for Haydar Shihāb, Aḥmad Ma'n's grandson and successor, then still a minor.

35 Schechem.

36 Tripoli.

37 Or in Acre from poison, administered to him in the year 1708, not without the knowledge, it seems, of the young 'Amir Haydar, who did not relish his kinsman barring the way to his place at the head of affairs.

Empire, being raised to the government of Șayda on the part of the Illustrious Empire. And it was the wazir who appointed [of them] whom he chose and who dismissed whom he chose. And they [the governors] appointed and dismissed whom they chose of the sheikhs and 'amīrs. And among the 'amīrs that used to rule the Druze districts, were those of the Banu Raslan38 in the Near Gharb, and of the Banu Abū'l-Lama' in the Matn; and among the sheikhs those of the Banu 'Abd'al-Malik in the Jurd, and of the Banū al-'Amād in the 'Arqub, and of the Banu Nakad in the Munaşif and the Shaḥār, and of the Banu Talḥuq in the Upper Gharb, and of the Banu Janblaṭ (P. 15) in the Shuf which is called the Shuf of the Banu Ma'n. And it [the Shuf] is divided into the Shuf al-Haythy with Mukhtāra39 for its capital and the Shuf as-Suwijany with Ba'aqlin 40 for its principal town. And their government was also submitted to in the western part of the Buqā'a11 and the Jabal ar-Riḥan, 42 and the district of al-Kharnub and the district of at-Tuffāḥ, and the district of Jazzīn.43 And they enjoyed precedence in rank over all the other chiefs. And the principal town in these (several) districts was Dayr al-Qamar.44

38 This family, which BURCKHARDT, writing March 19, 1812, op. cit., gives a place among the descendants of the Prophet, claims for its ancestor the 'Amir 'Aun, son of the dethroned King Mundir of Hira, and relationship with the Abbadides of Sevilla, while it also intermarried with the Abbasides. The Raslanies suffered severely during the crusades and were almost supplanted by the Tanūkhies, a closely related family, but regained in course of time a good deal of their influence. Cf OPPENHEIM, op. cit., passim. 39 The Casale Mactara of the crusaders. As the place elected by the Janblāties for their residence in the Shuf, its name, "the chosen abode," is very appropriate. We have already spoken of the vicissitudes of the family-seat of that ancient house. Restored after its destruction by the 'Amir Bashir Shihāb, it was long inhabited, after the events of 1860, by Sitt Na'yfah, Sa'yd Bey Janblāt's sister. The present head of the Janblāțies, Nasīb Bey, seems, however, to prefer living in Bayrūt.

40 Once a favorite place of settlement for the North Arabian Banu Raby'a, it owes its foundation to the Ma'n family and became noted as a centre of Druze activity. Cf Note 21.

41 The cleft between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, watered by the Nahr al-Lițany and called the Buqā'a or “upland plain," is the ancient Coelesyria in its most restricted sense. Though less well cultivated than in Greek and Roman times, the principal families of the Lebanon had farms there which yielded to some of them considerable incomes.

42 Also called Jabal az-Zawiyah or Jabal al-'Arba'in, mountain of the forty (martyrs). 43 Known for the silk and wine it produces; its capital of the same name is the Casale de Gezin of the crusaders.

44 The Monastery of the Moon, a name which, according to BURCKHARDT, writing March 18, 1812, was originally given to a convent in that locality, dedicated to the Virgin "who is generally represented in Syria with the moon beneath her feet." Dayr al-Qamar, a centre of the silk industry, was noted for the rich gowns of gold and silver brocade there

And this was the place to which befell the woeful things [things that make the eyes hot, cause them to shed tears] which we are going to relate. From olden times it was the residence of the Shihabite governors until the turn arrived of the 'Amir Bashir the Second, 45 who left it, preferring to live at Bayt ad-Din, 46 where he built a magnificent saraï.47 woven and worn by the ladies of the gentry. As a peculiarity of this town, whose population is almost wholly Christian, OPPENHEIM informs us, op. cit., I, 31, that it possesses a small mosque with a fine minaret, "wohl die einzige Moschee im Lebanon; sie dürfte von den Ma'n errichtet sein."

45 More correctly speaking the First since Bashir Shihab, reckoned to be the first in this narrative, was officially only the locum tenens for his minor kinsman Haydar.

46 The more correct spelling of this name seems to be Bataddin or Bteddin and its derivation to have nothing to do with that implied in the form which our author favors. BURCKHARDT writes under the date of March 18, 1812: ".......Beteddin... which, in Syriac, means the two teats, and has received its name from the similarity of two neighbouring hills, upon one of which the village is built. Almost all the villages in this neighbourhood have Syriac names." DE LAMARTINE, writing October 3, 1832, speaks of "le château de Dptédin, pyramide au sommet de son mamelon," repeating the word later on.

47 Rather than call a sarai a seraglio or a castle or a palace or a fortified seat of authority, or strain our ingenuity to invent a term which might combine a few, if not all, of the original word's meanings, we take the liberty to follow the example of linguistically (and in every respect) much more competent travellers in those parts, even the most illustrious of whom leave it untranslated. The 'Amir Bashir's sarai appears to have been a marvel of art. As Fakhr ad-Din, his predecessor of the Ma'n family, who had been in Italy, had tried to imitate in his town- and country-houses the palaces and villas of the Medici and of his host, the Grand Duke Ferdinando of Tuscany, he created in the Munāṣif a sort of Versailles in miniature, where he kept court in great state. DE LAMARTINE, who visited him in 1832, writes of it, op. cit., le palais moresque de l'Émir s'étendait majestueusement sur tout le plateau de Dptédin, avec ses tours carrées, percées d'ogives crénelées à leurs sommets, ses longues galeries s'élevant les unes sur les autres en présentant de longues files d'arcades élancées et légères comme les tiges des palmiers qui les couronnaient de leurs panaches aériens; des vastes cours descendaient en degrés immenses depuis le sommet de la montagne jusqu'aux cours d'enceinte des fortifications: à l'extrémité de la plus vaste de ces cours, sur lesquelles nos regards plongeaient de l'élévation òu nous étions placés, la façade irrégulière du palais des femmes se présentait à nous,. . . . . . . les bains consistent en cinq ou six salles pavées de marbre à compartinents et dont les voûtes et les murs étaient enduits de stuc et peints à détrempe avec beaucoup de goût et d'élégance par des peintres de Damas." A correspondent of the London Times, writing under the date of September 1 (issue of September 21), 1860, says that the palace had then "for a long time been used for barracks..... The Turkish government has repeatedly offered the palace for sale to which its size has hitherto proved an insuperable obstacle." A. VON KREMER, Mittelsyrien und Damascus, p. 244/5, noticed, about the middle of the last century, over the principal entrance "zwei gekettete Löwen aus Stein gehauen, das Abzeichen des Hauses Schihab.......es ist da ein Gewirre von Gängen, Treppen, Saülen und verborgenen Räumen das aller Regelmäszigkeit spottet.......dabei ist im Schlosse eine grosse Menge von Terrassen, hölzernen Balkonen, Divanen, Springbrunnen

He led the water's toward it between the mountains and the valleys from (P. 16) a distance of three hours. And in it [its grounds] he laid out many gardens. And the aforesaid 'amir was an 'amir of grand [truly princely] condition. No one like him was found in Mount Lebanon since days gone by because he was a dignified, venerable man, intelligent and of sound judgment, noble and highly cultured, clear-sighted with regard to the consequences [of his actions], patient in adversity; moreover righteous in his [administration of] justice, magnanimous in his forbearance and clemency. Neither did he distinguish between the rich and the poor, nor side with any [large] proprietor against any bondman, nor discriminate on account of [men's] opinions and beliefs, nor accept bribes in whatever form [they might be offered], nor break [his] promises, nor indulge in improper speech. He was furthermore [a man] of the most redoubtable courage who [at the same time] had attained the highest degree of self-restraint (P. 17). Inebriating beverages he never drank and he had acquired all good and commendable habits while shunning everything disapproved [by God]. And the poets were eager in his praise1o and their poems streamed in upon him from every side. To this poetry belongs a poem in which the learned among the learned says, the poet of culture and understanding, the well-instructed Buṭrus Karāmah:

Bashir, the Shihabite, the exalted master, illustrious hero, generous and just,

und ein herrliches Bad mit fünf Gemächern, in deren jedem die Hitze sich steigert. Der Sommerpalast liegt auf einem anstossenden Berge etwas höher, ist aber nicht so geraumig wie der Winterpalast." OPPENHEIM, who was there in the 'nineties, says, op. cit., I 29/30, that a subterranean passage led from the beautiful bathrooms "nach der unweit des Schlosses befindlichen Maroniten-kirche, welche der Emir Baschir zu der Zeit benützte als er aus politischen Gründen zum Christentum übergetreten, für die Welt jedoch Muselman geblieben war....... In der nächsten Nähe des eigentlichen

Serai von Bteddin erblickt man vier weitere Schlösser welche Emir Beschir Schihab für seine Söhne hat erbauen lassen. Das eine derselben ist zu einer Kaserne eingerichtet; das zweite befindet sich zwischen der Maroniten-kirche und dem Regierungspalaste und ist durch Rusten Pascha in das Gefängnis für den Libanon District umgewandelt; die beiden übrigen Schlösser liegen etwas höher als das Palais, auf derselben Seite des Thales, sie sind in noch ziemlich guten Zustande und mit ihren Terrassen-bauten, Bogenfenstern und Säulengänge auszerordentlich malerische Bürgen. Beide gehören dem maronitischen Bischof Butros Bustani; das eine bewohnt er selbst,...... In the other resided the 'Amir Mustafa Raslan, chief of the Shuf, the only remaining district of the Lebanon with a Druze at the head of its administration.

48 Of the river Bārūk.

49 Such a muster of perfection in such a high place could, of course, not escape their attentions-tout comme chez nous!