Aleppo, Ottoman eyalet of
Substate | Defunct
1516 CE to 1877 CE
Aleppo Eyalet is an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire.
After the Ottoman conquest it is governed from Damascus, but by 1534 Aleppo is made the capital of a new eyalet.
Its reported area in the nineteenth century is 8,451 square miles (21,890 km2).
Its capital, Aleppo, is the third largest city of the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
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The expanding Ottoman Empire had overpowered the Balkan Peninsula in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Present-day European Turkey and the Balkans, among the first territories conquered, are used as bases for expansion far to the West during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The Ottoman Turks have by 1517 conquered Persia, Syria, Palestine, the Hejaz and Egypt itself, in the process destroying the Mamluks, who have failed to adopt field artillery as a weapon in any but siege warfare.
The Maan family, under orders from the governor of Damascus, had come to Lebanon in 1120 to defend it against the invading Crusaders.
They had settled on the southwestern slopes of the Lebanon Mountains and soon adopted the Druze religion.
Their authority began to rise with Fakhr ad Din I, who was permitted by Ottoman authorities to organize his own army, and reaches its peak with Fakhr ad Din II (1570-1635).
Fakhr ad Din I greatly enhances Lebanon's military and economic development, although his aspirations toward complete independence for Lebanon end tragically.
Noted for religious tolerance and suspected of being a Christian, Fakhr ad Din attempts to merge the country's different religious groups into one Lebanese community.
In an effort to attain complete independence for Lebanon, he concludes a secret agreement with Ferdinand I, duke of Tuscany in Italy, the two parties pledging to support each other against the Ottomans.
The Ottoman ruler in Constantinople, informed of this agreement, reacts violently and orders Ahmad al Hafiz, governor of Damascus, to attack Fakhr ad Din.
Realizing his inability to cope with the regular army of Al Hafiz, the Lebanese ruler goes to Tuscany in exile in 1613.
He returns to Lebanon in 1618, after his good friend Muhammad Pasha becomes governor of Damascus.
Following his return from Tuscany, Fakhr ad Din, realizing the need for a strong and disciplined armed force, channels his financial resources into building a regular army.
This army proves itself in 1623, when Mustafa Pasha, the new governor of Damascus, underestimating the capabilities of the Lebanese army, engages it in battle and is decisively defeated at Anjar in the Beqaa Valey.
Impressed by the victory of the Lebanese ruler, the sultan of Constantinople gives him the title of Sultan al Barr (Sultan of the Mountain).
In addition to building up the army, Fakhr ad Din, who becomes acquainted with Italian culture during his stay in Tuscany, initiates measures to modernize the country.
After forming close ties with the dukes of Tuscany and Florence and establishing diplomatic relations with them, he brings in architects, irrigation engineers, and agricultural experts from Italy in an effort to promote prosperity in the country.
He also strengthens Lebanon's strategic position by expanding its territory, building forts as far away as Palmyra in Syria, and gaining control of Palestine.
Finally, the Ottoman sultan Murad IV of Constantinople, wanting to thwart Lebanon's progress toward complete independence, orders Kutshuk, governor of Damascus, to attack the Lebanese ruler.
This time Fakhr ad Din is defeated, and he is executed in Constantinople in 1635.
No significant Maan rulers succeed Fakhr ad Din II.
The Ottoman Empire is a world power when Suleyman dies in 1566.
Most of the great cities of Islam—Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad— are under the sultan's crescent flag.
The Porte exercises direct control over Anatolia, the sub-Danubian Balkan provinces, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
Egypt, Mecca, and the North African provinces are governed under special regulations, as are satellite domains in Arabia and the Caucasus, and among the Crimean Tartars.
In addition, the native rulers of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) are vassals of the sultan.
The Shihabs succeed the Maans as the emirs of Mount Lebanon in 1697.
They originally lived in the Hawran region of southwestern Syria and settled in Wadi at Taim in southern Lebanon.
The most prominent among them is Bashir II, who is much like his predecessor, Fakhr ad Din II.
His ability as a statesman is first tested in 1799, when Napoleon besieges Acre, a well-fortified coastal city in Palestine, about forty kilometers south of Tyre.
Both Napoleon and Al Jazzar, the governor of Acre, request assistance from the Shihab leader; Bashir, however, remains neutral, declining to assist either combatant.
Unable to conquer Acre, Napoleon returns to Egypt, and the death of Al Jazzar in 1804 removes Bashir's principal opponent in the area.
Bashir II of Mount Lebanon, deciding to break away from the Ottoman Empire, allies himself with Muhammad Ali, the founder of modern Egypt, and assists Muhammad Ali's son, Ibrahim Pasha, in another siege of Acre.
This siege lasts seven months, the city falling on May 27, 1832.
The Egyptian army, with assistance from Bashir's troops, also attacks and conquers Damascus on June 14, 1832.
The Syrian Peasant Revolt erupts in Egyptian-ruled Ottoman Syria, encompassing peasant uprisings in Palestine and Transjordan, Galilee and Hauran and the Syrian coast; the rebellions, which begin on May 19, will be suppressed with harsh military response leading to thousands of deaths and mostly subdued by August, though the Syrian coast uprising will last until early 1835.
The Peasants' Revolt against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies in Palestine is a collective reaction to the gradual elimination of the unofficial rights and privileges previously enjoyed by the various societal groups in the region under Ottoman rule.
While the local peasantry constitute the bulk of the rebel forces, urban notables and Bedouin tribes also form an integral part of the revolt.
Its suppression will devastate many of Palestine's villages and major towns.
In parallel to the peasant uprising in Palestine (south of the Damascus Eylaet), Galilee-based rebels capture Safad and Tiberias in the eastern Galilee.
The Hauran is also encompassed by the rebellion.
The most severe events take place in Galilee, climaxing with the 1834 looting of Safed, which is mostly an attack against the Jewish community of Safed.
It begins on Sunday, June 15, 1834, and will last for thirty-three days.
The district governor tries to quell the violent outbreak, but fails to do so and flees.