Shihabs
| Al Shihab | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Country | Mount Lebanon Emirate, Ottoman Empire |
| Titles |
|
| Founded | 1697 (Mount Lebanon) |
| Founder | Bashir I Haydar I |
| Final ruler | Bashir III |
| Dissolution | 1842 |
| Ethnicity | Arab |
The Shihab dynasty (alternatively spelled Chehab; Arabic: شهابيون, ALA-LC: Shihābiyūn) were a prominent noble family during the Ottoman era in Mount Lebanon. The Shihabs were the traditional princes of the Wadi al-Taym, who traced their lineage to the Banu Makhzum of the ancient Quraysh tribe. The family inherited control over the Mount Lebanon Emirate from the Ma'an dynasty, their kinsmen through marriage, in 1697. This transfer of leadership was decided by the Qaysi faction of the emirate's Druze feudal chiefs and confirmed by the Ottoman authorities, who conferred to the family authority over the tax farms of Mount Lebanon. Under Emir Haydar Shihab, the Qaysi faction and the Shihab dynasty consolidated their control over Mount Lebanon from their Yamani Druze rivals at the 1711 Battle of Ain Dara. Their victory also precipitated a mass exodus of Druze tenants from Mount Lebanon and their gradual replacement with Maronite and Melkite Christians. During the era of Emir Yusuf Shihab, members of the family, including the latter, began to convert from Sunni Islam to the Maronite Church.
Yusuf's Maronite successor, Emir Bashir Shihab II, maneuvered against his local rivals and the powerful Acre-based governors of Sidon to centralize his control over Mount Lebanon. This ultimately involved destroying the feudal power of the mostly Druze lords and the cultivation of the Maronite clergy as an alternative power base of the emirate. Bashir allied himself with Muhammad Ali of Egypt during his occupation of Syria, but was deposed in 1840 when the Egyptians were driven out by an Ottoman-European alliance, which had the backing of Maronite forces. His successor, Emir Bashir III, ruled for two years, after which emirate was dissolved and replaced with the Double Qaimaqamate, which split Mount Lebanon into Druze and Christian sectors. The Shihab family's influence declined thereafter. However, members of the presently mixed Muslim-Christian family, namely President Fuad Chehab and Prime Minister Khaled Chehab, reached high political office in the modern republic of Lebanon.
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