Battle of Ain Dara

Battle of Ain Dara
Date 20 March 1711 Location Ain Dara, Sidon Eyalet, Ottoman Empire Result Qaysi victory
Belligerents
Qaysi faction Shihab dynasty Jumblatt clan of Chouf Talhuq clan of Gharb Nakad clan of Manasif Imad clan of Arqub Abd al-Malik clan of Jurd Abu'l Lama clan of Matn Khazen clan of Keserwan	Yamani faction Alam ad-Din clan of Chouf Arslan clan of Gharb Al-Sawaf clan Supported by: Ottoman governors of Sidon and Damascus Harfush clan
Commanders and leaders
Emir Haydar Shihab Sheikh Ali Jumblatt Muhammad Talhuq Ali Abi Nakad Sayyid Ahmad Imad Janbulat Abd al-Malik Khazen al-Khazen Qabalan al-Qadi al-Tanukhi	Mahmoud Abi Harmush (POW) Alam ad-Din sheikhs † Bashir Pasha al-Matarji Nasuh Pasha Aydinli
Casualties and losses
N/A	Heavy

Qaysi faction

Yamani faction

Supported by:

The Battle of Ain Dara took place in the town of Ain Dara in 1711 between the Qaysi and Yamani tribo-political factions. The Qays were led by Emir Haydar of the Shihab dynasty and consisted of the Druze clans of Jumblatt, Talhuq, Imad and Abd al-Malik and the Maronite clan of Khazen. The Yamani faction was led by Mahmoud Abi Harmush and consisted of the Druze Alam ad-Din, Arslan and al-Sawaf clans. The Yamani faction also had backing from the Ottoman provincial authorities of Sidon and Damascus. The battle ended in a rout for the Yamani faction and resulted in the consolidation of Qaysi political and fiscal domination over Mount Lebanon. The battle's outcome also precipitated a mass migration of pro-Yamani Druze nobility and peasants from Mount Lebanon to the eastern Hauran, in a mountainous area today known as Jabal al-Druze.

In 17th-century Mount Lebanon, the Druze were the major demographic group of the region. The Druze had been divided into political factions based on the pre-Islamic Arab tribal divisions of the Qays and Yaman. The Ma'ans, whose emirs (princes) consistently held the tax farms of Mount Lebanon's districts (Chouf, Matn, Keserwan, Gharb and Jurd), represented the Qaysi faction, along with their allies, the Druze clans of Jumblatt, Imad, Talhuq and Abu'l Lama, the Maronite Khazen clan of Keserwan, and the Sunni Muslim Shihab clan of Wadi al-Taym. Leading the Yamani faction was the Alam ad-Din clan, whose members occasionally gained the tax farms of Mount Lebanon during times of conflict between the Ma'ans and the Ottoman authorities. Other families belonging to the Yamani faction were the Druze clans of Arslan and al-Sawaf.

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