Mansur ibn Furaykh

Mansur Bey ibn Furaykh
Monarch	Murad III
Amir al-Hajj
In office 1590–1591
Preceded by	Qansuh al-Ghazzawi
Succeeded by	Farrukh Pasha
Sanjak-Bey of Nablus
In office 1589–1593
Sanjak-Bey of Safad
In office 1589–1593
In office 1583–1585
Preceded by	Huseyn Pasha
Sanjak-Bey of Ajlun
In office 1589–1593
Preceded by	Qansuh al-Ghazzawi
Personal details
Born	Biqa'a, Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Empire
Died	7 December 1593 Damascus, Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Empire
Nationality	Ottoman
Children	Korkmaz Nasrallah Mansur Muhammad

Mansur Bey ibn Furaykh (died 7 December 1593) was Emir of the Biqa'a, Safad and Ajlun districts in the late 16th century during Ottoman rule. The Ottomans granted Mansur this large power base to enable him to check the growing power of rebellious Lebanese clans, namely the Ma'an and Harfush. However, complaints were lodged against him alleging that he oppressed his subjects, and killed and robbed wealthy Muslim pilgrims during his service as amir al-hajj. Mansur also failed to pay the Ottoman authorities the taxes they were due from his sanjaks. Because of these actions, Mansur was arrested and executed.

Mansur came from Bedouin stock and possibly worked as a barn-man for the Bani al-Hansh, a Sunni Muslim clan that controlled the Biqa'a nahiya (subdistrict) of the Damascus Sanjak of Damascus Eyalet. Together with a local sheikh named Ibn Shihab, Mansur and 3,000 of his men looted several villages in the nahiya of Acre in 1573, killing between 50–60 local residents in the process. Consequently, an arrest order for Mansur was issued by the court of Sultan Selim II, but Mansur was not apparently punished.

In 1581, Mansur was appointed as the amir al-hajj (commander of the Hajj) for the Hajj pilgrim caravan departing Damascus for Mecca. In May 1583, Mansur was given control of Safad Sanjak by the district's governor, Huseyin Pasha, because the latter was reassigned to Jerusalem Sanjak to quell Bedouin disturbances there. Mansur continued to hold Safad until September 1585.

By 1585, Mansur had emerged as the strongman of the Biqa'a nahiya. The Ottoman authorities permitted him to rise to the position due to fears that the often-rebellious Ma'an or Harfush clans of Chouf and Baalbek, respectively, would gain control of Biqa'a. The Ma'ans were Druze and the Harfush were Shia Muslim. Mansur was known to be a devoted practitioner and champion of Sunni Islam who had a hatred of the Druze and Shia. During an Ottoman military campaign against the Ma'ans in the Chouf, Mansur served as a guide for the Ottoman commander and former governor of Egypt, Ibrahim Pasha. Later that year, Emir Husayn ibn Sayfa of Tripoli in Lebanon, who was being pursued by the authorities, took refuge with Mansur. The Ottomans sent Mansur a decree demanding Husayn's immediate arrest and handover to the authorities.

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