Sidon Eyalet

Ottoman rulers considered creating the province as early as 1585. The districts of Beirut-Sidon and Safed (encompassing much of the Galilee) were united under the rule of Ma'nid emir Fakhr al-Din Ma'n.[3]

Sidon Eyalet consisted of two sanjaks in the 17th century:

1. Sidon-Beirut Sanjak
2. Safad Sanjak

By the start of the 18th century, Sidon Eyalet was not divided into sanjaks and third-level kazas (judicial districts) as most other eyalets, including neighboring Damascus, were administratively divided at the time. Instead, Sidon comprised several smaller, fiscal districts, most commonly called muqata'as in the contemporary government documents, and less commonly referred to as nahiyes.[11] There were several, mostly insignificant changes to the territorial jurisdictions of the muqata'as throughout the century but for the most part, the province comprised the following muqata'as:

1. Beirut (town)[12]
2. Jabal al-Shuf (e.g. Druze-dominated, southern half of Mount Lebanon)[12]
3. Sidon (town)[12]
4. Iqlim al-Tuffah[12] (southeast of Sidon)
5. Iqlim al-Shumar[12]
6. Iqlim al-Shaqif[12](area around Shaqif Arnun castle)
7. Tyre (town)[12]
8. Bilad Bishara[12]
9. Sahil Akka (coastal plain of Acre)[12]
10. Acre (town)[12]
11. Safed and Rama (these had been separate muqata'as but were merged by the governor Jazzar Pasha in 1777)[13]
12. Jira (countryside of Safed; sometimes, this district was called 'Jira and Tarshiha')[14]
13. Shefa-Amr and Nazareth (these had been separate muqata'as but were merged by Jazzar Pasha in 1777)[13]
14. Haifa and Yajur (these had been part of the Damascus Eyalet, but were appended to Sidon in 1723. They were later re-appended, in name only, to Damascus in the 1760–1762, but were afterward restored to Sidon)[15]
15. Sahil Atlit (the Atlit|Atlit coast south of Haifa was effectively annexed from Damascus, without imperial sanction, by the powerful tax farmer, Zahir al-Umar, in the late 1750s, and became officially part of Sidon during Jazzar Pasha's governorship, 1776–1804)[16]
16. Marj Ayyun (appended to Sidon during Jazzar Pasha's governorship)[16]

Sidon Eyalet consisted of seven sanjaks (districts) in the early 19th century:[17]

1. Acre Sanjak
2. Beirut Sanjak
3. Sidon Sanjak
4. Tyre Sanjak
5. Nablus Sanjak
6. Nazareth Sanjak
7. Tiberias Sanjak

Governors of the eyalet:[18][19][20]

• Sidon
• Mount Lebanon Emirate
• History of Lebanon under Ottoman rule

• Abu-Husayn, Abdul-Rahim (1992). "Problems in the Ottoman Administration in Syria during the 16th and 17th Centuries: The Case of the Sanjak of Sidon-Beirut". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 24 (4): 665–675. doi:10.1017/S002074380002239X. S2CID 159670509.
• Agoston, Gabor; Masters, Bruce Alan (2009). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7.
• Cohen, Amnon (1973). Palestine in the 18th Century: Patterns of Government and Administration. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press. ISBN 978-0-19-647903-3.
• Firro, Kais (1992). A History of the Druzes. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-09437-6.
• Joudah, Ahmad Hasan (2013). Revolt in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: The Era of Shaykh Zahir al-Umar (Second ed.). Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0002-2.
• Macgregor, John (1850). Commercial statistics: A digest of the productive resources, commercial legislation, customs tariffs, of all nations. Whittaker and co.
• McLeod, Walter (1858). The Geography of Palestine. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts.
• Rood, Judith Mendelsohn (2004). Sacred Law in the Holy City: The Khedival Challenge To The Ottomans As Seen From Jerusalem, 1829–1841. Brill. ISBN 9004138102.
• Süreyya, Mehmet (1996) [1890]. Nuri Akbayar; Seyit A. Kahraman (eds.). Sicill-i Osmanî (in Turkish). Beşiktaş, Istanbul: Türkiye Kültür Bakanlığı and Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı. ISBN 9789753330411.
• Winter, Stefan (2010). The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman rule, 1516–1788. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76584-8.

33.55°N 35.3833°E / 33.55; 35.3833