Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City, 1730

The Arab lands of the eastern Mediterranean region had first been incorporated into the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Syrian region between the Taurus Mountains and the Sinai Peninsula—known to its inhabitants and neighbors as Bilād al-Shām, usually translated as the Geographic Syria or the Land of Syria—fulfilled an essential function in the imperial strategy of Istanbul. The region insured the overland link to the rich province of Egypt for an empire in which the use of maritime connections always remained of secondary importance. With the city of Damascus, Syria also provided the base for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the successful management of which added legitimacy to Ottoman rule. Aleppo became the third largest city of the empire as the entrepôt of commerce from all points east and, of course, as the conduit of trade from Arabia and Egypt via Damascus to the north. Finally, considerable importance was attached to Jerusalem as the third holiest city of Islam. The spinal cord holding these centers of economic and cultural activity together was the great north-south axis, the highway coming from the north via Aleppo, connecting to Damascus and eventually to Mecca in the south. A branch-off from Damascus to the southwest provided links to Jerusalem and Egypt. The coastal towns, on the other hand, had lost their importance, and, as far as we can judge, the coastal regions were only very thinly populated. Links between the coast and the hinterland were rare and precarious. Some of these features of infrastructure and demography began to change in the eighteenth century. A short introductory description of the main characteristics of these conditions and an interpretation of the trends and direction of changes in these patterns, especially as they pertained to the situation in southwest Syria, follows.

At the beginning of the century there existed a fairly simple set of long-distance highways, which fulfilled two main functions, religious and commercial, as carriers of pilgrimage and trade. Coming from the north, a major road, traveled by merchants as well as pilgrims, connected Aleppo to Damascus. After Damascus the highway bifurcated, one branch going directly south to the Hejaz carrying the same sort of traffic, and the other one turning southwest, crossing the Jordan at the Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters, continuing to Janīn and from there to Ramla and Jaffa, and finally overland via Gaza to Egypt or, occasionally, by sea to Damiette. The route from Damascus to Egypt served mainly commercial interests. A minor route branched off at Nablus to Jerusalem and via Hebron to Gaza. No major traffic went through the western Galilee. Along the coast local shipping—not roads—carried the traffic.¹

Over the century the infrastructure of the area was to become more complex in pattern, reflecting the growth of new political and commercial centers. The routes of the pilgrimage were perhaps least influenced by such changes, as their functions and destination remained the same.²

The two Ḥajj routes of interest to us here are well established and documented and need no more discussion. As routes with a specialized function, they had such specific features as well-spaced rest stations and fortifications to insure the safety of the pilgrims.³ For our general discussion about the infrastructure and integration of Bilād al-Shām it is of interest to note how the sancaḳ of Gaza and Ramla were integrated into the Syrian province: although closer to ‘Aqaba, which the Egyptian pilgrimage caravan regularly passed, the sancaḳ had to send financial contributions to the pilgrimage caravan starting from Damascus and even provide men to guard it.⁴

Although the major purpose of the pilgrimage route was religious, it always played an important role for international trade. But only once, with the Wahhabi advances toward Syria at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was the pilgrimage route south of Damascus used as a major military avenue.

A certain curiosity value can be attached to the attempt of the Copts to establish a regular pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1753. Since they hired Bedouins, they presumably wanted to cross the Sinai to Gaza. But the pilgrimage that started with much pomp was interdicted by the ‘ulamā’ for fear that the Copts would want to compete with the Ḥajj.⁵

A more regular feature was the pilgrimage of European Christians who would usually arrive by ship in Jaffa and continue from there to Jerusalem. From Jerusalem they would venture on short excursions to such sites as Bethlehem or Jericho, security conditions permitting.⁶

Trade routes⁷ overlapped to a certain degree with pilgrimage routes or military highways. Merchandise was transported either by beasts of burden or by ship. Sea lanes played a much more important role for trade than they did for military purposes. Throughout the period there existed a very active coastal shipping connecting all the ports from Damiette to Jaffa, Acre, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli, and Cyprus. The shipping business was in the hands of individual entrepreneurs of various religious and ethnic backgrounds.⁸ As long as Maltese pirates constituted a threat along the coast, French tramps had an edge over others in the business as did shippers of the Greek Catholic Arabic-speaking community, as their certified Catholicism secured a certain measure of protection from Maltese piracy.⁹ The coastal trade was one of the major north-south trade links in the area. Wood from Mount Lebanon was shipped via Beirut and Jaffa to Jerusalem; silk went via Beirut to Sidon or Acre, from where it was exported to Marseilles. Wood and soap went to Egypt via Jaffa and Damiette, while rice from the latter port was shipped to Acre.

Trade with Europe shifted during the eighteenth century. Originally most trade went via Alexandretta or Tripoli to Aleppo and fed directly into long-distance trade routes connecting to Iran, the Hejaz, and beyond. Though the trade with the Hejaz continued to play an important role, by the early eighteenth century Iran had sunk into political chaos, and the important trade in silk and silk textiles from Iran to Aleppo ceased. The French silk industry had to look for new sources of silk supplies. By mid-century Acre became the focal point of European—that is to say, almost exclusively French—trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Increasing trade with raw materials linked Marseilles directly with Acre and the immediate hinterland in the Galilee and Mount Lebanon, from where locally cultivated cotton and silk were brought to Acre for export. With the limited exception of rice shipped from Damiette, no other trade routes fed into this overseas trade.

East-west links, albeit rather weak ones, between the inland trade routes and the coastal shipping lanes existed at several points: from Damascus a road went via the Biqā‘a to Sidon and also to Beirut. Damascus was also linked to the coast via Tiberias, and Nazareth to Acre. Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar, who was to become the founder of Acre as the new center for export trade, had started his career as a trader between Tiberias and Damascus. Further south, Nablus was connected via Nazareth to Acre and via Ramla to Jaffa. There is hardly any evidence that commercial traffic ran directly between Jerusalem and the coast; the link between Hebron and Gaza also seems to have been a tenuous one. Worth mentioning, too, is the fact that all trade from Palestine went—via the Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters, north of Lake Tiberias—to Damascus. No commercial connections existed with other points east of the Jordan, unless we count the occasional plundering of pilgrim caravans by Bedouins and the sale of that merchandise smuggled into the Galilee as “commercial” activities.¹⁰

From the middle of the eighteenth century there existed three major trading networks: the traditional one linking long-distance international trade from the Indian Ocean via the Hejaz to Damascus and Aleppo, the latter being also the entrepôt for merchandise from Iran; a local trade connecting the Syrian coast with Egypt and trading traditional items such as wood, soap, and tobacco from southwest Syria for rice, skins, and wheat from Egypt, and the newly developed export trade of raw materials from the immediate coastal region via Acre to France. Apart from some items such as alkali from the Balqā’, or rice from Damiette, neither the traditional local trade nor the traditional long-distance trade meshed with this new export trade of cotton and silk from the coastal hinterland. Silk and cotton were brought directly from the villages to Acre, Sidon, or Beirut and shipped from there. Thus the above-mentioned east-west trading links from inland were not significantly strengthened. This disconnectedness of the trading networks might also explain, at least partially, why connecting highways between Damascus and Acre, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, etc. remained in such bad repair. The flow of trade depended on markets and producers, and also shifted with the political circumstances. When, for instance, Iran sank into chaos with the end of Safavid rule in the eighteenth century, silk exports to Aleppo ceased. This led to the decay of British trade in Aleppo, but also to an expansion of silk production in Lebanon, bought mainly by the French. The coffee trade from Yemen to the Syrian coast had lost its importance and had been replaced by imports from the British or French colonies. When, late in the eighteenth century, the Wahhabis began to attack the pilgrimage caravan, the trade of Damascus suffered. On the other hand, periods of unrest in Aleppo caused many merchants residing there to relocate to Damascus. In this sense, politics of course played a major role in the economics and the trade of the region. But what is conspicuously absent is any conscious, comprehensive economic policy of the government, not to mention any attempt to introduce government monopolies on all or any goods. Neither did the Ottoman government take any measures to direct the flow of trade or the production of goods by maintaining, let alone developing, the infrastructure of the region—the only exception being the route of the pilgrimage caravan to Mecca.

The rise of Acre, its fortification as a seaport, and the systematic attempt of its rulers to impose an all-pervasive economic monopoly policy was a radical break with the existing patterns. As we shall see, this policy had far-reaching implications for the geographic stretch of Acre and its realm, for the structure of society in Acre, and for the fate of other port cities such as Jaffa, Sidon and, most important, Beirut.

Soldiers, pilgrims, and merchants usually travel along known highways. Their movements follow certain recurring patterns, well defined by the purpose and destination of their journeys. In some ways the movements of individual travelers, be they tourists, government agents, individual pilgrims, or all of the above, are more difficult to summarize in patterns. Individual traveling adapts rapidly to changing circumstances and road conditions. Factors such as safety, expenditure, and road quality are quickly responded to. Fortunately for our period a considerable number of European travelers arrived in what was usually called “Syria and the Holy Land.” Most often they were tourists and pilgrims at the same time and were keen to put down their experiences in writing. Their reports—together with those of traveling scholars from Egypt or Damascus, or of government representatives and messengers from Istanbul—tell us a great deal about the changing conditions of the road network.

The first observation we can make is that even for the purpose of tourism travel was not as individual as all that. Most of the European and some of the Ottoman travelers tried to combine a visit to the holy places with their traveling. For the Christians this always meant Jerusalem, often also a visit to Nazareth and its surroundings. Most European travelers would land in Jaffa, arriving either directly from Europe or via Damiette, Acre, or Cyprus. From Jaffa the road would lead via Ramla to Jerusalem. Excursions from there to Jericho, Bethlehem, etc. depended on the existing safety conditions. At very safe times the traveler might continue from Jerusalem via Nablus to Nazareth and Acre. But usually travelers would return the same way and take a boat from Jaffa to Acre, then venture from there to Nazareth and back. The Ramla-Jerusalem route mainly served tourists and pilgrims, the poor quality of the road apparently not allowing any other traffic.¹¹

A further reason why travel by individual tourists was not so freely undertaken was the concern with safety. In the early eighteenth century especially, tourists or pilgrims would attach themselves to caravans or form larger groups, seeking safety in numbers. Travelers would wait for groups or caravans to join them.¹² They would cancel their journeys if they could not find such groups in time,¹³ or they would change their routes.¹⁴ They would take detours to avoid dangerous areas. Consider, for instance, Kūsā Kaḥyā, katkhudā of the government. On his way back from the pilgrimage to Mecca he turned from Damascus west to go to Acre, took a boat from there to Jaffa, and continued to Jerusalem. Returning from Jerusalem, he departed by ship from Jaffa for Istanbul. To turn off, for instance, at the pilgrimage station of ‘Ayn Zarqa’ and proceed directly west to Jerusalem was apparently not safe or possible.¹⁵

Security seems to have been good in the first century of Ottoman rule. Around 1550 a traveler stated explicitly: “I often moved just by myself in Bethlehem, Gaza, Cairo, Alexandria, but I never was attacked or taken prisoner.”¹⁶ Even in the early seventeenth century, traveling to Nazareth, Nablus, and Jerusalem did not provoke any particular safety concerns.¹⁷ D’Arvieux, however, felt by 1658 the need always to travel with groups or with a military escort.¹⁸ In the following hundred years traveling became increasingly unsafe: fear of kidnapping for ransom, unrest, highway robbery, the extortion of protection money, and other perils weighed heavily on the mind of every traveler. But from the middle of the eighteenth century, travel reports give a differentiated picture. Korten had gone to Jerusalem in 1740, where he had planned to stay a year. In view of the lack of security, however, he left very soon and took a boat from Jaffa to Acre. Traveling in the Galilee, he commented: “It should be known that travel there is much safer than around Jerusalem.” He attributed the greater security in the Galilee to the open landscape and the fact that the region was thinly settled.¹⁹ Although his observation was correct, his explanation was not. The better security situation was the result of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s rule in the Galilee; he had by 1737 achieved a considerable pacification of the Galilee, so that “a woman could travel with gold in her hand, without anyone confronting her on the road and without her being afraid in the least.”²⁰ Ten years later Hasselquist had a “horrible” journey to Jerusalem but wrote of his trip from Acre to Nazareth that he had “a pleasant journey in a land where one travels safely and on good roads.”²¹ After the death of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār in 1804, a very high level of internal security in the realm of Acre was achieved under Sulaymān Pasha, his successor. Even the coastal highway was now safe. Sulaymān’s mutasallim in Jaffa made it a point to move rapidly between Acre and Jaffa. Often he would take a fast camel and a few companions and travel lightly armed in one day or one night directly along the coast.²² In 1813 Sulaymān Pasha also took measures to improve the security of the coastal highway to the north of Acre by having watchtowers built and manned with guards. In 1817 Irby and Mangles traveled overland from Cairo to Jaffa and marched from there to Caesarea, Ṭanṭūra, ‘Atlit, Haifa, and Acre. After some traveling in northern Syria they came back to Damascus, from where they proceeded to the Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters: “In some places there were traces of an ancient paved way, probably the Roman road leading from Damascus to Caesarea.”²³ They traveled to Tiberias, crossed to the Yarmuk River, crossed back to Baysān, back to Jarrash, al-Salt, and back again to Nablus. From there they traveled to Jerusalem, Hebron, Kerak, and back to al-Salt, Jarrash, Nazareth, and finally Acre. Here they embarked for Istanbul. Not only the coastal highway but even the crossing to the east bank of the Jordan had become safe. That the route from Nazareth to Janīn, Nablus, Rāmallāh, and Jerusalem was perfectly safe was confirmed by another traveler during the same year.²⁴

The claim that only Ibrāhīm Pasha and his Egyptian troops brought security and accessibility to the traveler, especially foreigners, in Syria is not correct. Certainly in southwest Syria, and in particular as far as the influence of Acre reached, security on the highways had been established a generation earlier.

The less travelers were concerned with their personal safety, the more they complained about the quality of the roads. Roads were “execrable,” “excessively steep and rugged,” “very rugged and bad.”²⁵ Or: “The whole distance between Jerusalem to Jaffa … could be traveled normally in 13 hours, but the rugged and pathless rocks, which the traveler has to cross, extend the journey to a day and a half.”²⁶ As late as 1821 the Acre-Damascus road was so bad that no cannons could be dragged over it.²⁷ All heavy equipment, cannons, ammunition, and wood were, if at all possible, shipped along the coast. We hear of a very limited and relatively late attempt by Sulaymān Pasha to have the coastal road from Acre to Beirut improved, for example by widening the path in the rock at Ra’s al-Naqūra, building a bridge over the Zahrani River, providing a water fountain.²⁸ But this was clearly exceptional. While considerable efforts were made to construct fortifications and large sums were invested in the reconstruction of cities and the port of Acre, it seems that not the slightest effort was made to upgrade the communication system by leveling roads, building bridges, or strengthening the roadbed. The first explanation that comes to mind is the one valid for the whole Ottoman Empire: goods were transported by beasts of burden, so roads did not have to be paved and straightened. This certainly holds true for southwest Syria during the period.²⁹ Furthermore, though trade intensified during the eighteenth century, the new trade routes were, as we have seen, juxtaposed but not linked to traditional ones. The commercial wealth of Acre originated from the villages in the immediate hinterland, not from long-distance overland trade routes from Damascus, for instance. Thus the upgrading or new construction of roads was of no interest to the rulers of Acre.

The military highway along the Syrian coast via Sinai to Egypt had already fallen into disuse during the late Mamluk period. The Ottoman conquerors marched from the north via Damascus to Lajūn, Janīn, and via Gaza to Egypt. Only with the weakening of central power in the Ottoman Empire and the consolidation of Neo-Mamluk power in Egypt did Egypt’s traditional interest in Syria as a rampart for its own power position reawaken. In the short time-span from 1770 to 1831, four large-scale invasions of Syria were started from Egypt. They all followed the same path along the coast via Gaza to Jaffa and on to Acre. Jaffa was put under siege at least six times, and Acre was besieged or bombed eight times. By the early eighteenth century the Ottoman authorities began to fortify Jaffa. This was aimed, however, not so much against overland attacks as against raids by pirates.³¹ Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar started fortification works at Acre by mid-century. Control over both cities was decisive for the conquest of the rest of Syria. Difficult sieges of Jaffa and Acre preceded the usually easy surrender of Damascus and the march north toward Aleppo. In Syria, just as in Egypt, local centers of power had consolidated during the eighteenth century. Acre had become the foremost such new base of local power and the most important port on the Syrian coast. No invader could ignore Acre or Jaffa, the latter often serving as an extension of the power base of the former. The coastal cities further north, such as Sidon, Beirut, and Tripoli, were no longer or not yet of economic or strategic importance. Such was also the case with the inland cities in the south—Hebron, Jerusalem, and, to a degree, Nablus. After securing Acre the armies had to turn inland to Damascus, the “Gate to the Pilgrimage” and the seat of the most powerful representative of Ottoman might, the governor of Damascus and his troops. Damascus was the key to the military highway to the north, to Aleppo, and beyond.

Just as Acre was decisive for the conquest of Syria, so control over Jaffa was essential for the rulers of Acre if they wanted to protect themselves against an Egyptian invasion. During those six decades Jaffa was conquered at least nine times. Apart from three more or less peaceful surrenders, sieges lasted from four days to several months, and usually ended in considerable bloodshed. The only marching route from Acre to Jaffa for a long time led from Acre southeast to the Marj ibn ‘Āmir, as far as Megiddo, where it crossed the Muqaṭṭa‘ River and passed through the mountains, reaching the coast roughly at Caesarea. It seems that Abū ‘l-Dhahab’s army, at least on the second occasion in 1775, marched directly up the coast from Jaffa to Acre, accompanied by one warship.³² The French and then later Ibrāhīm Pasha followed the same route.

The coastal plain of Palestine was convenient for the movement of large bodies of troops. Sufficient water could be found, and predatory Bedouins were no threat to troops counted by the thousands. No mountain passes endangered the passage of the troops. But there were no paved or fortified roads. No vehicle could pass, and even light artillery had to be disassembled and carried on camels. “Thousands of beasts” were part of every military campaign. Heavy guns and bulk materials were shipped from Damiette to the Syrian coast. But naval warfare was of secondary importance. To begin with, neither the Mamluks nor the rulers in Acre seem to have had many ships available for this purpose. The port of Jaffa offered no shelter against storms, and even when supplied by the sea, Jaffa could not withstand a siege from the land side. Acre turned out to be a much more formidable obstacle from sea as well as from land. Ḥasan Ḳapūdān Pasha conquered Acre after a bombardment from the sea in 1775, but only because the octogenarian Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar had already lost control over Acre, and his artillery refused to return fire. Even the twenty-two, presumably new, ships of Ibrāhīm Pasha were in 1831 of no use for the conquest of Acre, which at this point was protected by massively improved fortifications and heavy guns. Only the British navy could, in the early nineteenth century, effectively blockade the Egyptian and Syrian coast, intercept the local ships Bonaparte used to supply his troops in Palestine, defend Acre from the sea against conquest from the land in 1799, and conquer it from the sea in 1840. Attempts to conquer Acre from the land side were either unsuccessful or succeeded only after long sieges. In 1789 al-Jazzār’s rebellious Mamluks briefly besieged him in Acre but were beaten off. So were the French in 1799 after two months of intensive siege and bombardments. In 1821–22 a nine-month siege by Darwīsh Pasha could not force ‘Abdallāh Pasha to surrender. Conquest came only after a six-month siege by the Egyptian army under Ibrāhīm Pasha in 1832. Conquest also became possible in situations in which the defenders, through fear, treachery, or dissent, had lost the stamina to defend the city and withdrew voluntarily, as occurred (twice) in 1775 and in 1804. Throughout, Acre remained the pivotal point of all military campaigns.

With the reestablishment of Ottoman central power in Syria after 1840 Acre sank into oblivion, and the military highway between Egypt and Syria played no further role until British troops set out from Egypt to conquer Syria during World War I.

While the long-distance military highways were clearly marked—coming from the north via Aleppo to Damascus and from the south via Gaza and Jaffa to Acre—it is the region between the coast and Damascus where the trails for military expeditions seem to multiply.³³ The major military clashes occurred here during the period, with Damascus representing local and imperial interests and Acre representing its own local and/or Egyptian interests.

Perhaps the best way to consider the local military staging areas and highways is to look at fortifications and walled cities. The struggle for control over fortified cities also in many ways defined the limits of the realm of the rulers in Acre. Though control over fortresses and fortified towns shifted back and forth according to changing military and political constellations of the moment, the decisive and frequently challenged fortified points that could circumscribe the territory of the Acre region were Jaffa, Ṣānūr at the northern approaches to Nablus, Tiberias, Beirut, and Sidon, and, of course, as the last resort, Acre itself. Sieges were as frequent as open-field battles and usually more decisive.

Small fortified places dotted the northern Galilee and the Metuali Mountains and served local chieftains as retreats in case of emergency. Their strategic value was rather limited, their importance only local. Such places were used by the sons of Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar to defend themselves against their father. Further north, the Metualis tried to offer resistance in their fortifications to Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār until he had them destroyed.

In the early eighteenth century only Damascus and Jerusalem were effectively fortified cities and only the former played any military role. At the very time the Ottomans were putting up fortifications around Jaffa, Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar was repairing the fortifications of Tiberias. In the 1770s Beirut was fortified by Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār. But the single most important development was the fortification of Acre begun by Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar in mid-century and carried on by Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār and his successors.

As long as Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar was based in the eastern Galilee, the governor of Damascus would move along the southwestern highway from Damascus, cross the Jordan at the Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters, and try to break Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar’s power by besieging him in Tiberias. A few more open battles were fought for control of the Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters, but the upper Jordan River was soon established as the permanent borderline between the realm of the rulers of Acre and that of the governors of Damascus. Once Acre became Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar’s base, the dimensions of warfare shifted. In addition to Damascus, now Sidon and Nablus had to pay attention to Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar’s intentions.

From Acre, Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar first expanded his area of control to Haifa, Ṭanṭūra, and Nazareth, which was the entrepôt for Nablus (bandar al-nābulusiyya). The whole region had been under the control of Nablus, including the Marj ibn al-‘Āmir, which provided easy access to the bay of Acre. In this plain, near Nazareth, the battle against the people from Nablus was fought. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar pursued the defeated troops as far as Jabal Nablus but could not hope to overcome the fortifications on that mountain. Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Jarrār held the fortress of Ṣānūr in Jabal Nablus. This seems to have marked the limit of Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar’s realm.³⁴

Over the next eighty years Ṣānūr remained a daunting challenge to the rulers of Acre and defined the limits of their control. When in 1790 Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār was appointed governor of Damascus for the second time, he sent a representative there but stayed in Acre. He also confirmed the leaders of Nablus in their positions. All submitted to him and made an appearance at Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār’s court, with the exception of Yūsuf al-Jarrār, mutasallim of Janīn. The latter held out in the fortress of Ṣānūr; a fifty-day siege by Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār failed in spite of heavy bombardments. An ill-advised mining of the fortifications literally backfired and destroyed most of the camp of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār.³⁵ In 1803 al-Jazzār tried for a second time to conquer Ṣānūr. But, as had been the case the first time, Druze elements supportive of and supported by al-Jazzār came under attack by other Druze factions, and al-Jazzār had to shift his attention to the north. Where Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar and Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār had failed militarily, Sulaymān Pasha gained a certain influence over the affairs of Nablus by diplomacy. In 1830 the sancaḳ of Nablus was given by the Ottoman government to the governor of Sidon, ‘Abdallāh, the ruler of Acre. Damascus had complained that it could not collect taxes from there because of resistance by the population. Nablus rebelled and ‘Abdallāh, provided with new authority, sent troops and besieged the fortress of Ṣānūr. After a lengthy siege the fortress was stormed. This was the first time that Acre could assert its military control over Nablus. Ironically, one year later, with the Egyptian conquest of Syria, Acre ceased to exist as an autonomous power and soon slipped into oblivion.

Once Acre had become the power base of the local rulers, control over the coast to the north became important. Tyre, and more important, Sidon, not only constituted commercial competition for Acre, but could always serve as a base for attacks on it. Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar tried to establish his control over this coast, and al-Jazzār never gave it up. The latter had started his rise to power in Syria when he put himself in control of Beirut and had it fortified. After he had been appointed governor of Sidon, with Acre as the seat of his power, he never again gave up control of Beirut. Sidon and Beirut served as military bases to project his influence into Mount Lebanon. Sulaymān Pasha, his successor, was forced to give up full control over Beirut—much to the detriment of the economic fortunes of Acre.

On the coast to the south of Acre the fortress of Jaffa became the pivotal point of strategic importance as the first defense of southwest Syria against invasions from Egypt, just as it could be used as the base for any military expeditions from the north into Egypt. At the same time it also served as the port for the commerce of Nablus.

In the five years 1770–75 a three-pronged war broke out between ‘Uthmān Pasha, the governor of Damascus, backed by Istanbul and in a loose alliance with forces in Nablus, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar, based in Acre, and, finally, different Mamluk factions from Egypt. During this period Jaffa changed hands six times, suffering at least three devastating sieges. Nor does the story end here. Control over Jaffa seems to have reverted to Nablus, and indirectly to the governor of Damascus after the death of Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar and Abū ‘l-Dhahab in 1775. As late as 1792 Jaffa was a refuge for the French merchants from Acre—beyond the reach of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār. When the French army under Napoleon, however, moved in 1799 from Egypt to Syria, al-Jazzār’s troops defended Jaffa in a bitter siege which ended with the execution of these troops after their surrender. Thereafter, the Ottoman government made repeated attempts to establish its direct control over the fortress of Jaffa, but from early 1807 on Jaffa remained firmly attached to Acre.

During this short century of autonomy enjoyed by Acre and its realm, between 1743 and 1831, fortresses and fortified cities played a major role in defining the political and economic reach of Acre. Since the old international transit routes of commerce and the new system of export of cash crops did not really mesh, no need arose to add to or improve the road system. As beasts of burden were always used, no investment in road maintenance was necessary, but there was also a positive reason to leave the road system in such an abysmal state, and this explains the enormous role fortifications played: the road system could not accommodate armies dragging siege equipment. Bad roads made for good defense.³⁶

The Egyptian invasion radically changed the political and economic landscape, especially that of southwest Syria. In October 1831, 20,000 troops set out from Egypt overland via Gaza to Jaffa, where they were joined on November 8 by an Egyptian fleet carrying 6,000 marines. The 250 Albanian troops constituting the garrison of Jaffa surrendered immediately, only trying, rather pathetically, to negotiate for salaries from Ibrāhīm Pasha, which ‘Abdallāh Pasha had not paid them for months. The ruler of Acre no longer had the resources to defend Jaffa. Acre itself, however, resisted the Egyptian onslaught for another six months.³⁷ By the time of the only further conquest of Syria to start from Egypt, Allenby’s invasion in 1917–18, Jaffa had long ceased to be a military obstacle.

In conclusion one can observe that the local military highways depended naturally on the geostrategic conditions of the area, but also to a large degree upon the existence of fortified places. Fortifications played a surprisingly large role in the warfare of the period. The sea lanes had a rather limited function in regional or local warfare. Typically, the sea route from Damiette to Jaffa and Acre played at best a supportive role for overland troop movements. The actual number of ships involved was usually very small. The use of sea routes from across the Mediterranean implied great-power interference. The appearance of Russian ships and the Ottoman fleet on the Syrian coast between 1770 and 1776, though, remained rather tentative. After 1798 only the British navy was able to project its power successfully in the region.

After the end of the Egyptian occupation in 1840 the newly strengthened central government of the Ottoman Empire never again allowed quasi-independent rulers such as those of the Acre region to emerge in Syria. The increasing integration of the Syrian hinterland into the European economy during the nineteenth century, especially after the arrival of the steamship, made the development of the infrastructure—first roads, then railways—a necessity. Eventually, all these developments ensured the predominant role of Beirut on the Syrian coast and the decline of Acre.

Even the most cursory look at the population curve of the city of Acre shows a dramatic growth and decline within one century. But before commenting on it a word of warning is necessary, as always when dealing with population figures during this time. No censuses were conducted; local historians were supremely uninterested in numbers.³⁸ European travelers, on the other hand, often used numbers to provide their reports with a certain air of scholarship and authenticity. But they, too, did not actually count populations. Most of the numbers, therefore, come from outside observers who made more or less precise estimates, copied estimates from others, or relied on hearsay, but rarely tell us how they reached their statistical conclusions. Therefore it often remains difficult to say anything about the reliability of the data. We can assume that some observers provided sounder estimates than others, such as the French consuls who lived for lengthy periods in Acre itself. But in the end much of the information is impressionistic, and at best we can only establish rough sizes of populations and demographic trends. Even this claim has to be qualified further by limiting it to the city of Acre without its hinterland. For the period we are interested in we have no quantitative data whatsoever for the countryside and are restricted to anecdotal information. When a traveler wrote that plains were “empty of population,” did he mean empty in comparison to the abundant ruins from classical times, empty in comparison to the size of the population that theoretically could make a living from agriculture, empty in comparison to the observations of previous travelers, or empty in comparison to his homeland? Usually, he does not tell us. Other information is more helpful—such as “many peasants died from starvation,” or “people fled their villages for the mountains,” or “peasants from the mountains settled in the plains.” Here we may be able to establish some migratory patterns without, however, being able to discuss quantities.

Though unresolved contradictions remain, the general trend and size of population development in Acre can be established. More problematic is reconstructing a reliable picture of the sectarian distribution of the population.

The major underlying factor shaping the population curve is the tremendous economic boom during the middle of the eighteenth century. The detailed contours of the general trend are formed by such events as plague, famine, war, and earthquakes. Clearly, these factors contributed to the rate of growth and decline but in themselves were not decisive for the direction of the development. The plague in 1760 reduced the population by roughly a third, but the population continued to increase rapidly in the 1760s, while after 1785 every disaster accelerated the general downward trend of the population size. A graph, with annotations, showing the shifts in population between 1700 and 1840 appears in appendix A.

Any attempt to determine trends of particular sectarian populations has to take two difficulties into consideration. (a) Numbers are even less reliable than usual. Not only are sources scarce but we must treat them with suspicion: frequently there was a definite interest in overestimating the size of one community at the cost of others. (b) It appears that diseases and especially the plague hit the Muslim population much harder than the Christian. A report on the plague of 1806 claims that while 25–50 percent of the Muslim population perished, not one of the Christians died.³⁹ The Christians were quarantined and took other precautionary measures, believing as they did in the communicability of the disease. Their Muslim neighbors, denying this, took by and large no precautions. Mortality during the epidemics depended not only on religious beliefs and resulting attitudes toward protective measures, but also on wealth (i.e., the means to leave town or to store enough supplies in available living space to lock oneself up for a time).

In a general manner we know that during the eighteenth century Christians migrated toward the coast—Greek Catholics from Damascus and Aleppo, especially, but also Greek Orthodox from Nazareth, for instance. In addition, some Greeks came from the Greek islands and were quickly Arabized, as were some families who came from Malta.⁴⁰ We can also conclude that during the time of Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh many Greek Catholics were attracted to Acre, just as the Jews were later, during the time of Ḥaim Farḥī. Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar pursued a policy of stimulating immigration to his realm, but with different results for different communities.

It seems that throughout the eighteenth century the Christians constituted the majority of the population, with the Greek Catholics and the Greek Orthodox being by far the largest groups.⁴¹ With the decay of the city and the disappearance of trade the absolute number and the relative size of the Christian population of Acre dwindled. In Acre we can observe for the eighteenth century the link between a growing Christian population and foreign trade that becomes so typical in the nineteenth century for such cities as Alexandria, Beirut, and Izmir. Carmel is wrong when he contrasts Acre to Haifa, saying: “Neighboring Acre persisted in its exclusively Muslim character.”⁴² Rather, Acre turned slowly into a more Muslim city after having been a predominantly Christian city in the eighteenth century. The waqf deed from 1830 of a Muslim notable by the name of Mas‘ūd al-Māḍī shows that of the five houses he had bought in Acre two had been bought from Jews, two from Christians, and only one from a Muslim. In view of the numerical evidence given before, this appears to confirm a shift in the denominational balance in the early nineteenth century.⁴³

Numbers for the Jewish population are even less precise.⁴⁴ The Igrot and Sholhei Aretz Israel literature of the time clearly shows Jerusalem and Safed to be the centers of Jewish immigration. Acre is only mentioned as a port of entry. The motivation for Jewish immigration to Palestine during this time had nothing to do with the economic boom generated through cotton exports. The steep increase of Jewish population in Acre coincided exactly with the years during which Ḥaim Farḥī, the Jewish vezier to Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār and Sulaymān Pasha, could serve as a powerful patron.⁴⁵ The rapid exodus from the city after 1820 is understandable in light of the murder of Farḥī and the loss of protection for the Jews.

The following observations may summarize the population trends and developments.

We know that in the early eighteenth century Acre was mainly a pile of rubble and ruins. In spite of the fact that the harbor was useless and that in nearby Haifa a much-better-protected bay was to be found, Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar nevertheless decided to make Acre the center of his realm, precisely because of Acre’s ruins: they provided cheap precut building materials on location. A great number of Crusader structures were destroyed in the process.

For convenience’s sake we can group the construction activity other than private housing according to the functions it fulfilled: religious, commercial, military-political, and public services. This shall serve only as a summary overview of the construction in Acre. In the following chapters we shall refer to specific building activities as they become pertinent. For the locations of these buildings the city plan of Acre in the appendix to this volume should be consulted.⁴⁶

All five of the churches in Acre—the Franciscan church, the Greek Orthodox church of St. George, the Maronite church, and the two Greek Catholic churches, St. Andrew and St. John, were built or extensively enlarged and renovated between 1730 and 1770. Naturally, they were not financed by the government.

With the exception of the great mosque of al-Jazzār, which was clearly built for reasons of representations and political legitimization, all the other religious buildings were built before the al-Jazzār period, some of them in fact even before Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had made Acre the seat of his government. It is reasonable to assume that their construction responded to the rapidly increasing population, both Christian and Muslim, during this period.

During the first half of the eighteenth century the Khān-al-Faranj remained the only real center of economic activity. But when Ẓāhir al-‘Umar moved into the city, he was well aware of the importance of cotton exports and other economic activities. Ẓāhir decided to build a new port in the southern part of Haifa Bay, while at the old port of Acre he had in 1761 only some wave breakers added to protect boats and light vessels. In Acre he had two new Khāns built—Khān Shūnā in 1765, the eastern part of Khān al-Shuwarda, and a large bazaar, where today the Sūq al-Abyaḍ stands. Al-Jazzār attributed at least as much importance to the economy as did Ẓāhir al-‘Umar. He doubled the size of the Khān al-Shuwarda and added Khān al-‘Umdān and Sūq al-Jazzār plus some minor structures. During the reign of Sulaymān Pasha very few structures were added: a donkey khān for small traders with daily merchandise was erected in 1810. Seven years later Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s bazaar burned down and Sulaymān Pasha had the Sūq al-Abyaḍ built in its stead. But significantly, where once 110 shops had existed, the reconstruction housed only 64 shops.

Almost immediately after entering the town, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar began a major construction project: the fortification of the city by a wall seven meters high and one meter wide. The wall was to protect against Bedouin bands, sea pirates, and eventually the French army. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar rehabilitated the crusader fortress and made it his palace. He added to it a fortified tower. Both Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār and Sulaymān Pasha added structures of their own. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar also built the Busta, or seraglio, where he conducted the daily business of government. The importance of city walls was driven home to al-Jazzār during the French siege. After the French retreat, al-Jazzār had the old, thin, vertical wall of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar repaired, and set out to have a new and enormous additional defense structure added. This included a much larger wall, sloped and covered by earth, much better suited to resist modern artillery, together with a moat and towers. Sulaymān Pasha and ‘Abdallāh Pasha added to the city walls and raised a few more buildings for their palaces. The latter also had some residences constructed outside the walls.