Double Qaim-Maqamate of Mount Lebanon

The emir Bashir III did not care about the demands of the Druze, as he refused to extract the land from the new owners who bought it from the previous emir during the Egyptian occupation, and he was not satisfied with that, but stripped a number of other feudal lords of their remaining privileges in collecting taxes, maintaining security in their areas, and exercising judicial authority. And since this prince was among the Shehab princes who converted to Christianity at an earlier time, the Druze considered him an apostate, a traitor to Islam and the Druze community in particular, before others, and the mutual hatred between them and Christians increased, until it turned in the year 1841 into a bloody conflict between Druze and Maronite peasants because of a dispute over the eligibility of a Maronite crossing and hunting partridge on land owned by a Druze. when the matter of the petitions was exposed in Constantinople and the Porte got determined to dismiss the Austrian, the Pasha tried to lure the Druze to him and persuade them to fight the Christians population, but the Druze, feeling that the Pasha had taken advantage of them, led forces against him and almost stormed his palace, ==History==

After dismissing Omar Pasha of his position, the Ottoman government tried to appoint two non-Lebanese Ottoman rulers in his place, one on the south of the mountain, that is, on the Druze-majority side, and the other on the north of the mountain, that is, on the Christian-majority side, with the rulers being the subject of the Governor of Beirut, but the Europeans stood in the way of the Ottoman plan, as it entailed strengthening the Ottoman Islamic grip on Mount Lebanon, and since the influence of the Ottoman Empire was weakening at the time and unable to compete with the European influence, the Sultan accepted the proposals of representatives of the great powers to divide the mountain into a Christian and a Druze side and on 1 December 1843, the Sultan agreed to the proposal of Klemens von Metternich, Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, and asked Asaad Pasha, the governor of Beirut, to divide Mount Lebanon into two provinces: a northern province ruled by a Christian Qa’im-Maqam and a southern province governed by a Druze Qa’im-Maqam, both of whom are chosen by the notables, and are subject to the Governor of Beirut, this system was later known as the double Qa’im-Maqamate system. == Troubles of 1845–1858 ==

The defects of the double Qa’im-Maqamate system became clear when sectarian strife continued under it, the reason for this is that this system not only failed to eliminate the causes of discord among the inhabitants of the mountain, but also added to it a new factor of discrimination and conflict, the factor being the class struggle between the feudal lords and the common people, after taking away from the Druze and Christian feudal leaders their judicial and financial powers, and making them the prerogative of the qāʾim maqām and the Qāʾim maqām Council. The Druze feudal leaders took advantage of religious ties, and they convinced their peasants of their own sect that conflict between them and the Christians exists and that they could not be trusted, and urged them to support their leaders and rally around them to defend their followers of their faith. Foreign countries played a major role in worsening sectarian hatreds. The British, after their Protestant missionaries were unable to win a large audience of native Lebanese Christians, supported and encouraged the Druze and supplied them with money and weapons, as did the French for the Maronites, with most of Britain and France's agents being Orientalists who spent many years in the Levant. For all of these reasons, the atmosphere in Mount Lebanon had become filled with tensions between the Maronites and the Druze, and was liable to explode at any moment for the most trivial of reasons. ==Fall==

1860 civil war The events of this civil war began in the summer of 1859, with a simple dispute over a game of Gelleh (Marbles) between a Druze and a Maronite kid in the town of Beit Meri, the parents of each of the kids participated in the dispute, and it turned into a bloody quarrel in which the people of the two sects from Beit Meri, then from all the villages of Matn, participated. The fighting got reignited on 22 May 1860, when a small group of Maronites fired on a group of Druze at the entrance to Beirut, By June, the disturbances had spread to the "mixed" neighbourhoods of southern Lebanon and the Anti Lebanon, to Sidon, Hasbaya, Rashaya, Deir el Qamar, and Zahlé. The Druze peasants laid siege to Catholic monasteries and missions, burnt them, and killed the monks. and the Druze were the fiercest fighters, it was said that out of the 12,000 dead, 10,000 of them were Christians. Property losses were estimated at four million golden pound sterlings, and the strife occurred during the silk season, which was the mainstay of the Levantine economy in general and the Lebanese mountainous economy in particular, the war destroyed it and eliminated it, and many Christian craftsmen emigrated from Damascus, fearing for their lives, leading to the dramatic decline of the famous Damascene steel industry. The violence of the sedition was mitigated by inter-religious support, with the Druze Banu Talhouq defending Christian monks and sheltering them in their homes, and some Christians remained in the protection of the Druze sheikhs, safe from any harm that might befall on them. In Damascus, Emir Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri protected the Christians, sheltering them in his house and in a citadel, he also took advantage of his influence in Beirut to protect them, Muslim clerics and a number of Beirut notables opened their homes to the afflicted Maronites, as did the Shiite leaders in Jabal Amel. ==List of qaimaqams==

Christian qaimaqams • Haydar abi-Lamaʿ (1843–1854) • Bashir Ahmad abi-Lamaʿ (1854–1859) • Hassan abi-Lamaʿ (1859–1860) • Youssef Bey Karam (1860–1861) Druze qaimaqams • Ahmad Arslan (1843–1844) • Amin Arslan (1844–1859) • Muhammed Arslan (1859–1861) ==Maps==

File:Garnier, F. A., Turquie, Syrie, Liban, Caucase. 1862. (C).jpg|1860 map showing the division between the Maronites and Druze File:1844_map_of_Druze_Lebanon.jpg|1844 map of the Druze province, showing the Nahr al-Kalb as the northern boundary of the Druze district File:Mont Liban.jpg|Map of the Double Qaim-Maqamate in French == See also ==