Alam al-Din dynasty

The Alam al-Dins moved from Ramtun to Ain Dara in the Jurd in the 16th century.[5] A certain Druze muqaddam (local chieftain) "Alam al-Din" of the Matn, a Druze district bordering the Jurd to the north, is mentioned in Ottoman documents as having surrendered his muskets and defected to the Ottomans during their 1585 expedition against Qurqumaz Ma'n and his Druze warriors.[7] The preeminent chieftain of the Jurd in the early 17th century, Shaykh Muzaffar al-Andari, was likely a member of the Alam al-Din.[8] Hourani notes that he was "apparently identical" to the Muzaffar ibn Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Zahr al-Din Husayn ibn Nur al-Din Ishaq Alam al-Din mentioned in the Sijill al-Arslani as the brother-in-law of an Arslan chief.[9]

Muzaffar was among the early Druze opponents of the governor of Sidon-Beirut and Safad, the powerful Ma'nid chief Fakhr al-Din. He provided key military assistance to the army of the governor of Damascus, Hafiz Ahmed Pasha, and the Sayfas during their invasion of the Ma'n-dominated Chouf in 1613. Muzaffar and Husayn Sayfa burned and looted several villages in the Chouf, but were stopped by Hafiz Ahmed Pasha from completing the burning of the Ma'nid seat of Deir al-Qamar.[10] Fakhr al-Din fled to Europe on that occasion, remaining there for the next five years. In that year Muzaffar was transferred the tax farms of the Jurd, Keserwan, Matn, Gharb and Shahhar districts, all of which were held previously by Fakhr al-Din or his proxies. He held onto the tax farms in 1614.[9] According to Salibi, Shaykh Muzaffar led the Yaman faction, composed of the Arslans under Muhammad ibn Jamal al-Din and the Druze Sawwaf family chiefs of Shbaniyya in the Matn.[11] The Yaman stood in opposition to the Qays led by the Buhturs and the Ma'ns.[12]

The Ma'n regained the good graces of the Ottomans by 1616 and used the momentum to confront their Druze rivals. Muzaffar, the Sawwafs and the son of Muhammad ibn Jamal al-Din, backed by the Sayfas, were routed by the Ma'n led by Fakhr al-Din's son Ali and brother Yunis in four August engagements at Naimeh near Beirut, Abeih in the Gharb, and Ighmid and Ain Dara, both in the Jurd.[13] Fakhr al-Din returned in 1618 and launched an offensive against the Sayfas, with whom Muzaffar had taken refuge after the 1616 defeats. He was holed up in the Krak des Chevaliers with Yusuf Sayfa when Fakhr al-Din besieged the fortress in 1619.[14] Muzaffar reconciled with Fakhr al-Din in December 1619/January 1620 and was appointed by him his subordinate chieftain in the Jurd.[15] Fakhr al-Din's reasoning for reinstating Muzaffar in the Jurd was because Muzaffar "was originally from there and his ancestors had long been its governors", according to Khalidi.[16] He joined Fakhr al-Din's coalition in the major Battle of Anjar in 1623, in which the governor of Damascus was routed and captured.[17]

The first mention of Ali Alam al-Din in the sources was by Duwayhi in 1633.[18] Duwayhi notes Ali was the leader of the Yaman faction of the Druze (opponents of the Qays faction headed by the Tanukh and Ma'n families). In that year he was appointed by the Ottomans to replace Fakhr al-Din of the Ma'n as the multazim (tax farmer) of the Druze Mountain, i.e. the predominantly Druze districts of the Chouf, Gharb, Jurd and Matn in southern Mount Lebanon. Fakhr al-Din had been captured in an Ottoman military expedition and imprisoned in Constantinople. Ali proceeded soon after to kill Fakhr al-Din's allies, the Tanukh chiefs of Abeih in the Gharb, Yahya al-Aqil, Sayf al-Din, Nasir al-Din and Mahmud, and their three young children, thereby eliminating the Tanukh family.[19] They were replaced as the leaders of the Qays Druze by Fakhr al-Din's nephew Mulhim Ma'n, who led the opposition to Ali and the Yaman.[12]

In 1635 Ali and his Druze ally Zayn al-Din Sawwaf supported Ali Sayfa in his struggle to gain control of Tripoli from his uncle Assaf Sayfa in 1635.[20] After initial successes, which saw Ali Sayfa regain control of Tripoli city, Byblos and Batroun, the allies fought a bloody stalemate against Assaf before being expelled from the Tripoli Eyalet in 1636.[21] Assaf and the Janissaries of Damascus launched an offensive later that year against Ali for backing Ali Sayfa and failing to remit owed taxes from his Mount Lebanon tax farms.[22] Ali and Ali Sayfa were then driven out of southern Mount Lebanon by the Qaysi Druze and holed themselves up in the Arqa fortress near Tripoli. There they were defeated again by Assaf and the Damascene Janissaries. However, after their defeat Ali Sayfa and Assaf reconciled under mediation by the Al Fadl tribe and the two Sayfas subsequently escorted Ali back to Beirut to resume his leadership position.[22]

By 1636 Mulhim had gained control of the Chouf, though Ali retained his chieftainship over the Gharb, Jurd and Matn.[12] Ali continued to control these districts at the time of Mulhim's death in 1658, by which time Mulhim's tax farms had expanded to the Safad Sanjak (e.g. the Galilee and Jabal Amil) and Batroun. Mulhim was succeeded in his tax farms and leadership of the Qays by his son Ahmad.[12]

Ali died in 1660 and was succeeded by his sons Muhammad and Mansur. The former became the paramount chief of the Druze-dominated southern Mount Lebanon in 1662.[12] The following year Mansur defeated a Qaysi Druze force at Adma.[23] In 1667 Ahmad Ma'n defeated the Alam al-Dins in a battle outside of Beirut and took over their domains across the Druze districts and Keserwan.[12] After their 1667 defeat the Alam al-Din chiefs resettled in Damascus and became politically inactive in Mount Lebanon.[12]

In 1669–1671 Muhammad held the tax farm for the village of Hubran near modern Suwayda in the Hauran, according to Ottoman tax records.[24] Druze oral tradition in the Hauran recorded in the 20th century holds that the Alam al-Din chiefs led two hundred men and their families from Mount Lebanon to settle the Hauran in 1685, the first major wave of Druze migration to the area.[25]

According to the history of Duwayhi, in 1693 a son of Muhammad, Musa, successfully petitioned the Sublime Porte (imperial Ottoman government) in Constantinople for a commission to evict and replace Ahmad Ma'n. With Ottoman backing, he forced Ahmad out of Deir al-Qamar, but shortly after he withdrew to Damascus and Ahmad was restored to his seat.[12] Firmans from the Porte dated June 1694 and May 1695 appointed "the prominent emir, Musa Alam al-Din" to replace Ahmad in the latter's tax farms.[26] In June 1695 another firman noted that Musa fled his Mount Lebanon districts while he was collecting taxes due to attacks by the Ma'ns and the Ma'ns' non-Druze marital relatives, the Shihabs of Wadi al-Taym. The firman orders the governor of Sidon Eyalet to restore Musa to his position and suppress the Ma'ns and Shihabs.[27]

Ahmad died in 1697 without male progeny. His chieftainship was inherited by his non-Druze marital relatives, the Shihabs of Wadi al-Taym. At Ahmad's death Musa again attempted to replace his successor, Bashir Shihab I, by order of the Sublime Porte, but the Ottomans denied his request. The Yamani Druze of Mount Lebanon led by Mahmoud Abi Harmoush of Samqaniyeh revolted against Bashir's successor and cousin, Haydar Shihab, in 1709–1711. Under Abi Harmoush's auspices Musa returned to Mount Lebanon with his kinsmen and supporters to lead the revolt and attempt to take over the paramount chieftainship of the Mount Lebanon Druze. The Shihabs and their Qaysi supporters routed the Alam al-Dins and the Yaman in the Battle of Ain Dara in 1711, which ended with the deaths of Musa and six other Alam al-Din chiefs.[12][28] Their defeat precipitated a mass migration of Yamani Druze to the Hauran. There, the Alam al-Dins were succeeded as the chiefs of the Druze by their associates, the Hamdan family.[29]

Although the general consensus among historians is that the family was exterminated in the Battle of Ain Dara, Sami Swayd's Historical Dictionary of the Druzes holds that surviving members of the Alam al-Din fled to Baaqlin in the Chouf, and a number of them relocated from there to Hasbaya in Wadi al-Taym. By the end of the 18th century, part of the Alam al-Dins moved to Suwayda. Swayd's dictionary holds that in the present day members of the family also live in Jordan, Europe, Australia and the Americas.[30]