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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
The palace at Bayt ad Din, built by Bashir II in the
early 19th century
Courtesy Lebanese Information and Research Center
The Ottoman Turks were a Central Asian people who had served as
slaves and warriors under the Abbasids. Because of their courage
and discipline they became the masters of the palace in Baghdad
during the caliphate of Al Mutasim (833-42). The Ottoman sultan,
Salim I (1516-20), after defeating the Persians, conquered the
Mamluks. His troops, invading Syria, destroyed Mamluk resistance in
1516 at Marj Dabaq, north of Aleppo.
During the conflict between the Mamluks and the Ottomans, the
amirs of Lebanon linked their fate to that of Ghazali, governor
(pasha) of Damascus. He won the confidence of the Ottomans by
fighting on their side at Marj Dabaq and, apparently pleased with
the behavior of the Lebanese amirs, introduced them to Salim I when
he entered Damascus. Salim I, moved by the eloquence of the
Lebanese ruler Amir Fakhr ad Din I (1516-44), decided to grant the
Lebanese amirs a semiautonomous status. The Ottomans, through two
great Druze feudal families, the Maans and the Shihabs, ruled
Lebanon until the middle of the nineteenth century. It was during
Ottoman rule that the term Greater Syria was coined to
designate the approximate area included in present-day Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, and Israel.
Data as of December 1987
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