Sidon, Ottoman eyalet of
Substate | Defunct
1660 CE to 1877 CE
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Showing 10 events out of 21 total
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.
This initial event is estimated at 6.6 on the surface wave magnitude scale and given a rating of VIII (Severe) to IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale.
This is followed by a more significant earthquake (7.4 and IX) on November 25 that destroys all the villages in the Beqaa Valley.
The areas that experience damage are roughly the same for both the thirteenth and eighteenth-century earthquakes, with the cities of Nablus, Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Hama being affected.
The village of Ras Baalbek and the city of Damascus are both damaged and the shock is felt as far as Egypt
Russell had worked as the physician at the British factory in Aleppo for many years, and followed his brother, Dr. Alexander Russel, in that position.
The first earthquake occurred at 4 am local time on October 30, and was described by Russell as severe and lasting more than a minute, and was followed ten minutes later by a less violent shock with a duration of no longer than fifteen seconds.
Neither of these two events caused damage in Aleppo, which is in the northern region of Syria.
Word came in later on that Damascus, in the south, experienced the same earthquakes, along with several others, and was reporting considerable damage, as was Tripoli, Sidon, and Acre, all cities along the coast.
A second slight shock is felt eight minutes later, and the following night at 9 pm there is an undulating aftershock that lasts a few seconds.
Many more shocks are recorded during the following days with a forty-second event at 2 pm on the 28th.
In Aleppo, people are frightened, but no one is killed and damage is slight, and in Antioch some buildings collapse with some deaths occurring there.
In Damascus, however, a third of the city is in ruins, with many thousands having been killed.
Many who survive there escape to the fields to remain safe and, out of fear, do not return to help those in need.
Tripoli sustains more damage than Aleppo; many houses collapse and the residents take shelter in the open fields.
Acre and Ladikiah experience only minor damage to some of their walls, but the town of Safet, located on a hill, is totally destroyed and many of its inhabitants killed.
Several slight aftershocks will also occur in December and January.
The large scale temples and courts built in Baalbek during the Roman Empire had deteriorated since their construction nearly two thousand years earlier. During this stretch of time, earthquakes frequently occurred in that area, and these no doubt contributed to its dilapidated condition.
Periods of active seismicity came and went, with significant events like the 551 Beirut earthquake damaging much of the Levant and including Baalbek, but other more active periods such as 1156–57, and 1159–70 were especially destructive and repairs to the walls there were made after the earthquake of 1170.
The region had become less active seismically between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, aside from a large event that was damaging to Jerusalem in 1546; the events in 1759 interrupt this relatively silent period.
As a result of the multiple earthquakes in 1759, most of the houses and ramparts within Baalbek are completely destroyed, with many of the temples' columns toppled as well.
Palestine under the Ottomans had continued to be linked administratively to Damascus until 1830, when it had been placed under Sidon.
In 1824, the Ottoman Sultan had requested aid from Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ethnically Albanian Wali of Egypt and Sudan, to help suppress the serious rebellion in the Greek provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
Muhammad Ali had sent his fleet and seventeen thousand troops under command of his eldest son, Ibrahim Pasha, but Britain, France and Russia had intervened to protect the Greeks.
The European Allied fleet had sunk the entire Egyptian navy, which was under Ottoman command, at Navarino in October 1827.
If the Porte had not in the least prepared for this confrontation, Muhammad Ali had been even less prepared for the loss of his highly competent and expensively assembled and maintained navy.
In compensation for this loss, Muhammad Ali has asked the Porte for the territory of Syria.
The Ottomans are indifferent to the request; the Sultan himself has asked blandly what would happen if Syria was given over and Muhammad Ali later deposed.
Could he not then use Syria and then attack the suddenly unprotected Egypt?
However, Muhammad Ali is no longer willing to tolerate Ottoman indifference.
To compensate for his and Egypt's losses, the wheels for the conquest of Syria are set in motion.
The Egyptians have overrun Syria easily with little resistance.
Acre is captured on May 27, 1832, after a six-month siege, aided by Maronites, which has lasted from November 3, 1831; having reduced the town, Muhammad Ali destroys many of its buildings.
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.
The arrival of Bashir's Druze troops follow intervention of foreign consuls.
In late July 1834, Emir Bashir leads his forces toward Galilee, but before advancing further southward, he makes a number of proclamations advising that the rebels of Safad surrender.
The rebel leadership in Safad agrees to negotiate and sends Sheikh Salih al-Tarshihi as an emissary to Bashir to arrange a meeting.
Bashir invites the leaders of Safad to the village of Bint Jbeil where they agree to surrender and submit to Egyptian authority.
Afterward, Bashir arrives in Safad where he arranges for rebel leaders from nearby areas to surrender as well.
Bashir's Druze forces under the command of his son Amin, enter Safad without resistance on July 18, 1834, making way for the displaced residents from its Jewish quarter to return.