Shamdin was born in
Acre to a
Kurdish tribal sheikh named Musa. In the early 19th century, he moved to the
al-Salihiyah suburb of
Damascus. There, he built a power base from Kurdish immigrants and was assigned as the commander of a military garrison in the city, He was one of three of Sulayman Pasha's Kurdish cavalry officers, the other two being Ni'mat Agha and Ayalyaqin Agha. Sulayman Pasha died in 1819 and was succeeded by his deputy
Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali. Shamdin Agha was the only commander from Sulayman's service to continue serving under Abdullah (r. 1820–1831). During the 1820s, the Damascus provincial authorities assigned Shamdin control over certain rural districts in the Damascus Eyalet, including the
Beqaa Valley. ==References==