In the preceding two chapters we have seen how a local political power developed on the Syrian coast in an unprecedented shape with Acre as its center. For a while it became the most important center of power in all of Syria. On the one hand this was linked to the then apparent weakness of the Ottoman Empire at its center, on the other hand it had everything to do with the integration of Acre and its realm into the European world economy. The innovative and radical application of state monopolies over the trade and export of raw materials insured the financial base for the growth of this new center of power. In this chapter the questions to be explored are these: In what ways were the military and the bureaucracy, those institutions that were always essential for the defense and the financing of political power, shaped by the new developments? Did these established institutions help or hinder such developments? Did they transform themselves into new institutions?
THE MILITARY
The moment Ẓāhir al-‘Umar staked out claims to political power that went beyond ruling over his own clan his personal prowess and valor were no longer sufficient and the question of military support became essential. What sort of armed forces did he have at his disposal to realize these ambitions? The first fighting force he succeeded in mobilizing for himself was the Banū Ṣaqr, with all the advantages and disadvantages that tribal levies can have. They are cheap and quick to mobilize, but it is extremely difficult to maintain them in disciplined service. Quick to follow the opportunities of plunder after battle, they are not necessarily interested in pursuing the enemy. These levies contributed greatly to the conquest of Tiberias around 1730. But we also hear of a troop of some 200 horsemen made up of members of the Zaydānī clan. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar put them under the command of his cousin Muḥammad al-‘Alī. We do not know whether they were a permanent troop. Ẓāhir also mobilized, occasionally, townspeople for doing battle. Thus it seems that the people of Tiberias helped in the defense against the governor of Damascus, Sulaymān Pasha, and the people of Nazareth fought on his side in the battle of Marj ibn ‘Āmir. At a moment of perceived danger, in 1770, Ẓāhir had the entire male population of Acre, Muslim and Christian, armed1 and later, in January 1774, he raised some 300 foot soldiers from the population of Acre, “servants and craftsmen, but well armed,” to do battle with his son Sa‘īd.2 Such mobilization of civilians, however, was an ad hoc measure and taken only in emergencies. All these options of mobilizing a military force were typical for warfare on the local level. The Nabulusis used them, as did the Metualis and the Druze. Ẓāhir took a decisive step when he hired Aḥmad Agha al-Dinkizlī and ordered him to build up a force of Maghrebi mercenaries. With this he acquired a standing army of around a thousand troops. In the meantime the alliance with the Banū Ṣaqr became a liability for Ẓāhir; not only was their military support unreliable and always short-lived, but at a time when one of Ẓāhir’s major policies was to establish law and order in the Galilee, and especially security on its roads, his erstwhile allies were unwilling to mend their ways, and continued their highway robbery and marauding. In the larger design of things the Banū Ṣaqr remained what they always had been: a threat to internal security. Again, we are not very certain about the dates of events, but in the battle of Marj Ibn ‘Āmīr they had sided with the Jarrārs of Nablus. Very likely the relation between Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and the Banū Ṣaqr went through a variety of stages even after that. As a military force they were replaced by the Maghrebi units, which had won their first victory in that battle. Having a standing army—and being able to afford it—distinguished Ẓāhir al-‘Umar clearly from other local chieftains, tribal and otherwise. It was a considerably larger force than the governor of Sidon possessed, and put Ẓāhir on a par with the governor of Damascus.
The next stage in enhancing his military power was the fortification of Acre in the early 1750s. Ẓāhir had already applied the fortification program in Tiberias, where he had successfully resisted the assaults of the governor of Damascus. In Acre he had the whole city ringed with a wall, and some fortified towers were constructed. Although the wall was actually very thin, about a meter in width, it remained even for the French army an unsurmountable obstacle. Cannons and artillery troops completed the defense of the city. When Ẓāhir appointed his sons as heads of towns such as Shfā ‘Amr, Tiberias, Safed, Dayr Ḥanā, and Nazareth, they all built or rebuilt fortresses and sometimes walls around the towns.3 They also recruited their own troops, with which they would come to support their father in times of need—or do battle with him, depending on the circumstances and their ambitions.
During the last decade of his rule Ẓāhir was able to enhance his military power considerably through the alliance with the Metualis, who never failed to support him, except in his intrafamily struggles. The tribal levies provided by the Metualis could consist of several thousand horsemen but, like all other such troops, could not be kept in the field for very long—a shortcoming that was particularly felt in lengthy sieges such as that of Jaffa in 1772 and Beirut in 1773.4
When Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār surrendered Beirut in October 1773 to Ẓāhir al-‘Umar, the latter employed him and the 800 Maghrebis under his command. Soon, however, al-Jazzār changed sides to the governor of Damascus and took his troops with him. This loss of 800 Maghrebis and Ẓāhir’s failure to negotiate the integration of 500 Albanians from the Russian fleet into his army severely limited his military options, even against his sons.5 Even in times of war the size of the standing army does not seem to have surpassed 2,000 troops.6 If, on occasion, the governor of Damascus could rally considerably larger contingents, they apparently suffered even more from a lack of discipline and training. Usually they would not withstand even the smaller detachments of Ẓāhir’s army.
What was strikingly absent in Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s strategic thinking and military buildup was any kind of navy. We hear occasionally of a ship being equipped with guns, but this was usually for a single specific action. Just as Ẓāhir did not possess a merchant fleet, he had no navy of his own. The fortifications in Acre and later those in Haifa, as well as originally those of Jaffa, were built largely to secure the ports from individual pirates and/or land forces but not from regular navies.
To sum up, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar originally used fighting men from his clan, expanded his force by tribal levies, and finally built a standing mercenary army organized along ethnic lines.
Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār was a Mamluk. Although his way of joining the Mamluk system was not entirely orthodox, he came to identify himself fully with the Mamluks of Egypt, acquired their habits, and learned to speak Egyptian Arabic. His comrades admired him for his fighting abilities, his courage, and, above all, his fierce loyalty to comrades and masters. It is then hardly surprising that he should have made the Mamluk patterns of military rule the principle of his own rule in Acre. He built up his own Mamluk household,7 from which he drew his bodyguard, his personal advisers, and trusted lieutenants who ruled various parts of his realm in his name and commanded most military expeditions. The inner circle of this group was made up of Salīm Pasha al-Kabīr (the Elder), Salīm Pasha al-Ṣaghīr (the Younger), Sulaymān Pasha al-‘Ādil, and ‘Alī Agha Khazindār. Apparently all were of Georgian origin and had been bought by or given to al-Jazzār in Egypt,8 though it is not clear when and how they reached him in Acre. During al-Jazzār’s first years in Syria, after 1770 and before becoming governor of Sidon, we do not hear of them; he came as a refugee and was on his own. Yet his emotional attachment to this group of Mamluks must have been very close. When his first Mamluk, Salīm Pasha the Elder, died of the plague in 1786, al-Jazzār “cried like a child.”9 He was profoundly shaken by the rebellion of his Mamluks in 1789, but when one of the leaders, Sulaymān Pasha, returned to him thirteen years later, he treated him like a close friend. Al-Jazzār’s Mamluks were somewhat apart, and above all other units. They served as guards of the palace and the treasury, as commanders of various units or of specific military campaigns, as mutasallims in various cities, and formed a typical Mamluk household with al-Jazzār its head; hence their particular loyalty to al-Jazzār and his trust in them.
In a more general manner Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār subscribed to the principle of using only imported soldiery. In sharp contrast to Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar, he never entered alliances with local tribal forces, nor did he try to mobilize other local forces.10 He hired Maghrebi mercenaries, bought Albanian soldiers (both Christian and Muslim), and relied on Bosnian troops. He also hired some of the former Dalāt cavalry troops which had been officially disbanded by the Ottoman sultan, and a small group of Kurds under their leader Ṭāhā became responsible—in as so far as such distinctions were made at all—for internal security, i.e., they ran the prisons and carried out tortures and executions. How large was this army of al-Jazzār? As so often in our attempt to reconstruct the history of the period, we encounter the greatest difficulties when searching for quantitative information. We don’t have any record of the troops themselves, their employment, or their provisions. French consuls and Arab monk chroniclers were not usually eyewitnesses to battles and warfare in general. Chroniclers and later historians supply us with numbers whose roundness alone must make us suspicious. Whether it is the number of participants in a battle, the number killed, or wounded, or taken prisoner—they are all guesses, often with the purpose of emphasizing the might or the courage of one side. We have one eyewitness report by the French consul Renaudot describing the caravan-cum-parade of troops when Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār left Acre to assume, for the first time, the position of wālī of Damascus. He was at the peak of his power, and all the political and economic signs promised a great future for him. Leaving Acre for Damascus, he was demonstrating his might. An important moment, and it is worth giving the description in full.
The caravan left Acre on April 18, 1785. It included 400 camels and 200 mules with baggage. Seventy-five banners11 of the Maghrebi infantry were followed by fifty-four banners of the Albanians, each group with its own music. Twenty banners of mounted Maghrebis and some 300 Dalāt marching in twos were next. Four field cannons and baggage carriages drawn by mules followed, together with twenty artillerymen on camels equipped with fuses. “Une bande de santons et prophètes burlesquement accoutrés qui portaient tous les attributs de démence, en avaient les masques, et leurs chansons s’en ressentaient, bien qu’elles fussent à la gloire de Dgézzar qui suivait immédiatement avec Selim et les grands officiers de sa maison.”* The litter of the pasha was accompanied by nine hand-led horses. Musical bands followed and “100 Mamlukes cuirassés, bardis de fer, ayant les casques en tête et la visière basse.”* The parade was concluded by 200 slaves mounted and bizarrely dressed, armed with rifles, two pistols, a sword, a dagger, and some even with hatchets. Renaudot commented: “Tout cet appareil avait quelquechose de fort ridicule pour un homme accoutumé aux évolutions d’armes. Mais les gens du pays en étaient effrayés. Dgézzar lui-même, quoique bon comédien, paraissait étonné de la grandeur du spectacle.”12*
The total was somewhat more than 2,000 troops plus the baggage train, apparently enough to establish Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār’s authority in Damascus. How many more troops can we assume would have been left to garrison Acre, Sidon, Beirut, and perhaps in the Metuali region and assisting Amīr Yūsuf in the Mountain as well? Even a generous estimate could not more than triple the number at the time, to reach a total of perhaps six thousand troops. We have a variety of estimates by eyewitnesses and other contemporaries but none of them indicates by which methods such numbers were reached. Volney in 1784 estimated all troops to consist of 900 Bosnian horsemen and 1,000 Maghrebi infantry. This would mean that practically the whole army participated in the expedition to Damascus. This seems extremely unlikely, and other sources indicate that in earlier years the army probably was larger. Most estimates, and this constitutes another difficulty, relate to specific military actions without telling us how many troops were left elsewhere in al-Jazzār’s realm. When al-Jazzār, who himself rarely left Acre for military operations, sent troops for one battle or another, the Arab chroniclers most frequently use the terms “he appointed” (‘ayyana), “collected” (jamma‘a), “equipped” (jahhaza) troops (‘askar)—which makes it sound almost as if he raised new troops each time. This is unlikely but perhaps partially true, especially considering the high casualties of his troops in many lost battles. We know he imported troops directly from the Balkans, hired Maghrebi and Dalāt troops locally, and bought individual Mamluks. In the early years at least he also paid them well, so that they felt a certain amount of gratitude and loyalty to him.13 How many of these were demobilized after a particular military campaign, how many belonged to a standing army, what were the losses?
We shall probably never know the precise numbers but the above estimates, coming from different sources, albeit some copied from each other, seem to be fairly consistent.14 An upper limit of 7,000 to 8,000 troops altogether appears to have been the rule. Military expeditions of 1,000–2,000 seem to have been logistically sustainable; corps larger than this were rather the exception. This means in any case a regular army three to four times as large as any Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had commanded, and al-Jazzār’s army saw almost continuous action.
These troops were enormously expensive, while their discipline and effectiveness were dubious in the best of cases. The troops were organized somewhat along ethnic lines. Maghrebi mercenaries were a regular feature in the whole region during the period. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had already made use of them, and so did others. Maghrebi units were usually infantry. The Albanian troops bought by Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār were usually cavalry. Whether the Albanians (Arna’ūṭ) were different from the Bosnians (Būshnāq) as a military unit is not clear. Deli or Dalāt units were the third element in al-Jazzār’s army. They were not exactly an ethnic group, but were certainly not of local origin. Originally imperial cavalry troops, they had become private armies of provincial governors by the eighteenth century. They were then also called Levend troops and were usually of a vague Turkmen and Kurdish origin.15 Occasionally hawwārī, or voluntary, units are mentioned. Those were tribal and possibly local levies.
The vaguely ethnic character of the units had its advantages. It served as an organizing principle of the army and it guaranteed a minimum of loyalty and cooperation within these units. Typically their immediate commanders were of the same origin and could successfully establish some discipline. In fact it was they who commanded the loyalty of the troops, rather than the governor of Sidon who paid for them. But this arrangement also had its shortcomings. Troops of similar background and origin confronting each other on opposing sides in a battle were liable to refuse fighting. Dalāt troops refused to fight when facing other Dalāt units on the opposing side. In another incident Dalāt troops of al-Jazzār accepted orders from a Dalāt commander on the Damascus side, because most of the officers of the Dalāt troops “were his protégés.”16 Any expeditionary corps containing troops from more than one of the above-mentioned ethnic units risked an outbreak of fighting between them. Joint military expeditions with troops of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār and the Druze of whichever faction was momentarily allied with him can serve as an example: returning from one such expedition in 1795, the troops under Amīr Bashīr’s command, Druze and Maghrebis, broke into a fight over the distribution of booty they had collected in the Mountain. In the following mêlée 500 people were killed. A few days later the two sides attacked each other again and another 300 lost their lives.17 A year earlier fighting had broken out between Dalāt troops and Maghrebis, stationed in the Mountain. When the Albanian units decided to side with the former, the Maghrebi troops were defeated and dispersed.
The troops were usually well paid and constituted a continuous financial burden. On occasions al-Jazzār would delay payments to Istanbul in order to pay his troops; at other times the troops would get restless, when not receiving their pay.18 Once firmly established in Acre, al-Jazzār also seems to have had more resources available for paying his troops. They appeared to be “fort attachés à lui,”19 badly trained and undisciplined as they were. Frequently the desire to plunder won out over military discipline and fighting spirit. In one of the many campaigns against the Druze an Albanian unit of five to six hundred soldiers disregarded explicit orders and advanced to plunder a Druze village. They were ambushed, and a hundred of them were killed and as many wounded.20 We never read about any particular training. The soldiers’ discipline usually was limited to a certain ethnic identity and loyalty to their own immediate commanders. After each defeat or dispersal of troops Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār spent enormous sums to buy and hire new troops.
Yet with all these expenditures al-Jazzār’s troops could rarely hold their own against the Druze warriors and never were able to impose their will on the Druze for any length of time. On the other hand the internal political strife, the decentralization, and the lack of political institutions among the Druze made it impossible for them to follow up on their victories and pursue al-Jazzār to Acre in order to wrest power from him—or at least keep him permanently out of the Mountain. The truly great feats of the army occurred when al-Jazzār personally led his troops. In the defense of Beirut against Russian sea bombardments and the troops of Amīr Yūsuf and Ẓāhīr al-‘Umar, in the battle against his own Mamluks under the wall of Acre, and, most famously, in his defense of Acre against the French army, he showed tactical skills, personal bravery, enormous stamina, a cool head under pressure (quite in contrast to his frequent quick-tempered flare-ups), and, apparently, personal charisma in leading his troops. At other occasions, especially when leading his troops in the field, he did not seem particularly successful—as was the case with the siege of Ṣānūr.
A few comments with regard to naval forces are appropriate: in early 1779 al-Jazzār possessed three ships, which traded between Acre and Damiette to the disadvantage of the French tramps. His navy consisted of two chébecs and two galiotes. He used them to fight Maltese corsairs. But his ships lacked the basic technical equipment, which was sometimes seized from French ships. Even compasses were stolen.21 At the end of 1789 al-Jazzār “fait sortir des forces navales pour en imposer aux corsaires russes [more likely Greeks under the Russian flag] et les éloigner des côtes, elles consistent en un chébec, trois galiotes, un kirlanquisch[?], et deux bateaux dalmatiens. Cette escadre fort mal équipée a mouillé successivement à Sour, Seyde, Baruth, Tripoli et Lattaquie et n’a pas tardé de retourner à Acre où elle a été aussitôt désarmée.22* Generally speaking, however, the naval force suffered from the same neglect as under Ẓāhir al-‘Umar.
The rebellion of the Mamluks in May 1789 was—apart from the French invasion and siege of Acre—Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār’s gravest military and political crisis. In many ways it was more serious since it arose from an internal source. It apparently also affected his personality profoundly. On May 4, 1789, Salīm Pasha al-Ṣaghīr was dispatched by Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār with two thousand cavalry troops to Ḥaṣbiyya to convince Amīr Yūsuf to pay his taxes. Sulaymān Pasha was sent for the same purpose with some eight hundred infantry troops along the coast to the north. The French consul Renaudot suspected that behind this rather large campaign lay an attempt by al-Jazzār to deflect any possible demand from Istanbul to contribute troops to the war against Russia by demonstrating the need to fight against the Druze. From Renaudot’s own account it also could very well be that al-Jazzār sent his chief Mamluks off on an expedition so that he could deal with those remaining in Acre.23
Four days after the departure of these troops al Jazzār discovered, or perhaps exposed, illicit relations between some of his Mamluks and some women of his harem. He had the arms of many of the Mamluks who worked in the seraglio cut off, and in the following night he had some women drowned, “ce qui désigne le motif du châtiment des premiers.” The next morning al-Jazzār continued with his purge. With a unit of thirty Bosnian soldiers he arrested more Mamluks and killed some. At this point, the remaining Mamluks offered resistance and defended themselves in the treasury, which was situated in the Big Tower. The khazīndār, brother of Salīm Pasha, freed the imprisoned Mamluks and moved with them to the tower, joining the other Mamluks.24 According to the French reports, he was pushed into action after al-Jazzār killed his beloved valet. Barricaded in the Big Tower, the Mamluks turned the heavy guns, placed there to defend the city against enemies, on to the seraglio itself and threatened to blast it to pieces. In the ensuing stalemate the muftī of Acre played a mediating role and negotiated free departure with their weapons and horses for the Mamluks, about seventy to eighty altogether; their personal belongings were to be sent after them. Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār had no choice but to let them go. Only the prepubescent Mamluks remained. Al-Jazzār killed many of them and had others exiled to Egypt.25 Under the command of the khazīndār the Mamluks rode to the north and linked up with Salīm Pasha and Sulaymān Pasha. After an unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation with Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār, they all decided to fight against him. They came to a truce with Amīr Yūsuf and gained the support of the commander of the Maghrebi troops in Beirut, al-Jabūrī, who had actually been ordered by al-Jazzār to deliver him the head of Salīm. Sidon, where Sulaymān Pasha had been appointed previously as mutasallim, served as the base for the rebels. They then proceeded south to Tyre, which refused to open its gates. The result was the sacking of the town and a subsequent looting in which the commanders lost control over their soldiers. This was the turning point of the whole rebellion: discipline among the troops could not be restored and they remained more concerned with plundering than with fighting. More importantly, the population in Acre, witnessing the events in Tyre, was no longer convinced that Salīm’s rule would be a liberation from oppression. Still, for the moment Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār’s position was desperate. All he had left for the defense of Acre were some 200 Albanian soldiers under their commander, Juwāq ‘Uthmān.26 But al-Jazzār’s good fortune was that his opponents displayed a lack of planning and decisiveness of action, which led Renaudot to observe: “Leurs démarches ne portent point ce caractère d’Energie qui annonce les grandes actions, ce sont des Esclaves déchaînés plutôt occupés à considérer leurs chaînes qu’au soin de les rompre.”* On June 3 the rebels finally appeared on the plain of Acre, some 1,200 troops altogether, but had no clear idea about how to proceed from there. In the meantime Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār had worked feverishly to strengthen the defense of the city. He collected all the workers and masons from the government workshops and armed them. Upon the advice of Shaykh Muḥammad al-Qāḍī he prepared for a night assault on the camp of the rebels and at the same time had a ship in the harbor ready to sail with him in case of defeat.27 The rebels underestimated the resolve and initiative of al-Jazzār and his resourcefulness. The sortie from Acre and the simultaneous bombardment from the cannons on the fortifications took them completely by surprise. In the ensuing five-hour battle Salīm Pasha and Sulaymān Pasha were defeated and their troops dispersed. The French consul commented that both sides fought without great conviction and were mainly concerned with plundering. But Salīm’s troops did not know anything about tactics, defected partially, and “those who fought did so only by fleeing.” Betrayal also seems to have played a role. Supposedly the Kurdish commander Shaykh Ṭāhir had contacted one of Salīm’s allies, Mullā Ismā‘īl, commander of the Dalāt troops, before the battle and had persuaded him to prevent his troops from fighting. A number of Mamluks had been killed, others were already exiled, and the rest fled defeated. Salīm and Sulaymān reached the Mountain and then Damascus, for a while still hoping to raise new troops against al-Jazzār. For the moment the Mamluk household of al-Jazzār was destroyed, and ceased to exist as part of the military establishment and as a political institution. Renaudot wondered why, in the end, people such as Sulaymān, Salīm, and “Abbouhezé” [? “un ancien militaire considéré”] rebelled against their master. They had made their careers under him, had been pampered and become rich.28
The question might have been somewhat disingenuous coming from Renaudot, but the story does raise issues about motives, causes, and consequences. It has been asked, for instance, why the leadership of the Mamluks, Salīm Pasha, his brother the khazindār, and Sulaymān should interfere and provoke a rebellion, when al-Jazzār was simply punishing some lowly Mamluks and women of the harem, apparently for having affairs.29 Both Karāma and al-Munayyar flatly state that the Ottoman government encouraged and even ordered Salīm to fight against al-Jazzār, who was considered rebellious.30 All the reports confirm that Salīm entered into an agreement with Amīr Yūsuf Shihāb, who also had an urgent interest in seeing al-Jazzār defeated. Though it is easily imaginable that the Ottoman government would have encouraged Salīm in this direction, it is hard to believe, as has been suggested, that the rebellion was initiated by Salīm, that, in fact, he “used the occasion” of the expedition against Amīr Yūsuf to rebel.31 Tactically it would have made no sense to leave Acre to rebel, considering how difficult it would have been to conquer Acre. Another possibility is raised by ‘Alī al-Zayn, who claims that the French had instigated Salīm’s rebellion against al-Jazzār. There is no doubt that a crisis between al-Jazzār and the French had been building up, and the French were very much of the opinion that trade would be better for them without him. The French consul also had excellent relations with Salīm, and already four years earlier, when Salīm was installed in Sidon while al-Jazzār was governor of Damascus, the French consul commented on how much better off they would be with Salīm.32 In addition the French in Sidon agreed to keep valuables for Salīm and, voluntarily or not, made a major financial contribution to his rebellion.33 The French also conducted a correspondence with Salīm from Acre.34 It has been suggested that the French support for the rebellion was the major cause of their expulsion from Acre.35 There is no evidence that they initiated or encouraged such a rebellion. More important, al-Jazzār took cruel and swift revenge on all he suspected of participation in the conspiracy against him. There is no reason why he should have waited for a year and a half to expel the French.
Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār must have asked himself the same question that Renaudot asked: Why would his top lieutenants rebel against him? Given his own identification with the Mamluk system and his keen sense of loyalty, he was deeply traumatized by these events. Latent fears, suspicions, and distrust now jelled into a sense of paranoia: “After this event he became like an untamed animal. Nobody could stand up to him and he imagined that the whole world was against him.”36 Not surprisingly, he began a wave of purges, exiling and liquidating people from all ranks in society.
The military activities of al-Jazzār certainly continued on an undiminished level, but he must have had difficulties finding qualified commanding officers. He seems to have dealt with the problem by relying increasingly on the sort of military professionals who had flourished in an atmosphere of diminished Ottoman authority. These were military entrepreneurs who gathered volunteers around them: soldiers from dissolved units like the Dalāt but also tribal people, criminals, and other dubious elements. They fed them, clothed them, and provided them with a salary. The military entrepreneur—unlike the typical warlord—did not seek to control a particular region or province so as to insure his and his soldiers’ livelihood; rather, he tried to hire out his military services to the various governors and amirs. These commanders looked at their military-for-hire services strictly as a business, not bound by territorial interests nor impeded by political loyalties. This explains also their frequently changing sides, which should not be understood so much as fickleness but rather as a constant search for greater profits in their business.
The name of Qarā Muḥammad, head of Dalāt units, appears more frequently.37 He was charged with leading an expeditionary corps of different units during the all-out war against the Druze in 1791. Ten years later he was still performing the same tasks.38 Kanj Yūsuf, later to become governor of Damascus, started his career, too, as an officer and later an independent military entrepreneur.39 The most famous and typical of them all was probably Mullā Ismā‘īl, another “commander of Dalāt.” We have already encountered him above in the battle of the Mamluks against al-Jazzār. He had probably predetermined the defeat of the Mamluks once he had been swayed to stay out of the battle. Later he fought on al-Jazzār’s side and also supported Sulaymān Pasha against Kanj Yūsuf. Eventually Mullā Ismā‘īl was appointed by Sulaymān Pasha multazim of Hama and Homs.40
The short but steep career of Ismā‘īl Pasha, an Albanian who had come with the grand vezier Yūsuf’s army to dislodge the French from Egypt, is also symptomatic of the shortage of officers in al-Jazzār’s army. After the campaign Ismā‘īl Pasha accepted service with Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār and was immediately given command of a siege around Jaffa, where a protégé of the vezier Yūsuf, Abū Maraq, had been appointed governor. Later Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār regretted his choice. He suspected Abū Maraq of conspiring with Ismā‘īl Pasha and had the latter imprisoned.41 Sulaymān Pasha, one of the oldest and most trusted of al-Jazzār’s Mamluks but also one of the leaders of the Mamluk rebellion in 1789, returned in 1802 to al-Jazzār, who received him with all honors and immediately appointed him mutasallim of Sidon and commander of a campaign against Amīr Bashīr.42 Eventually, Sulaymān Pasha was to succeed al-Jazzār as governor of Sidon, and quite a number of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār’s Mamluks continued to serve under him. This brings up the question of the continued role of the Mamluk establishment under Sulaymān Pasha’s rule.
When Sulaymān Pasha acceded to power the region was exhausted. Not only the French military expedition against Acre, but subsequent campaigns from Acre against Jaffa, Nablus, and the Druze had devastated the economy. Trade stagnated, and the exorbitant tax burden forced the peasants to flee from their villages. By force of circumstance but also, it seems, by the political inclination of Sulaymān Pasha, the military was to play a much smaller role. After having dislodged Abū Maraq from Jaffa at the very beginning of his rule Sulaymān Pasha was to fight only one further major battle, in 1810 against Kanj Yūsuf Pasha, governor of Damascus. But a major element of his army in that battle was the Druze troops of Amīr Bashīr. Sulaymān Pasha himself was reluctant to spend too much money on the military. The French consul observed with amazement in 1808 that he was dismissing his Albanian troops, the best he had. All this while he had no more than a thousand soldiers stationed from Beirut to Gaza.43
But in 1811 with his treasury flush with money from the grain exports to Europe, Sulaymān Pasha began to buy Mamluks left and right after the massacre in Cairo: “Tous les Chrétiens qui se font Turcs sont amis dans ce corps à qui tous les emplois sont confiés.”44* Slave dealers flocked to Acre to sell their merchandise, and by the summer of 1812 Sulaymān Pasha’s army had increased to some 2,500 troops.45 Mishāqa, without specifying the year, speaks of some 1,500 or 2,000.46
In December 1811 Muḥammad Abū Nabūt, mutasallim in Jaffa, came to visit Sulaymān Pasha in Acre. He brought 500 troops, while in Acre itself barely 200 guards were garrisoned. As he too was a Mamluk of al-Jazzār, Abū Nabūt considered himself very much Sulaymān Pasha’s equal.47
The French consul Pillavoine described the regime of Sulaymān Pasha thus: “La Syrie depuis Lataquie, jusqu’à Gaza est une République dont le Sénat composé d’affranchis qui ont toutes les places est soumis au juif Haim Farhi qui la gouverne Despotiquement sous le nom de Soliman Pacha, Mamlouc qu’en est Ie Doge.”48*—a sort of republic à la Vénitienne in which the Mamluks held all the important positions. We know of at least a dozen-and-a-half high-ranking Mamluks whose names appear again and again. The chief of the treasury and closest confidant of Sulaymān Pasha was ‘Alī Agha [later: Pasha] Khazindār. He was Sulaymān Pasha’s lieutenant in Acre while the latter was governor in Damascus. He remained the second in command until his death in 1814. His son ‘Abdallāh Pasha was later to succeed Sulaymān Pasha. Most other high-ranking Mamluks served as mutasallims in the various cities. There were occasionally changes but on the whole the permanence of the appointments was remarkable. Only in regions or cities that were beyond the immediate reach of Sulaymān Pasha would he make use of local strongmen: the Ṭūqāns in Nablus, Muṣṭafā Agha Barbir in Tripoli, and, of course, Amīr Bashīr in Mount Lebanon. The coastal cities and the inland towns of the Galilee and the Jabal ‘Āmil regions and a few of the high administrative positions in Acre were always controlled by the same small group of men who had previously been al-Jazzār’s Mamluks. They had belonged to his Mamluk household and were all comrades (khushdāshs) under the same chief (ustādh). This comradeship cemented their loyalty to each other, and was essential for the functioning of the Mamluk system as a whole. For Sulaymān Pasha this personal loyalty was the best means to insure his rule over Acre and its realm. New Mamluks were bought, and they served at the court of Sulaymān Pasha. A look at appendix C shows how elaborate the ceremonial was, imitating in titles if not in power the court in Istanbul. In fact, Sulaymān Pasha was master of the last functioning Mamluk system in history.
Recently it has been seriously questioned49 whether the so-called Neo-Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt implied indeed a reemergence of the Mamluk system of old or were rather an instance of a much more general phenomenon, the Ottoman household. This is understood as a “patron client and kinship grouping, both for political solidarity and economic activity.”50 It was “neither rigidly defined nor a static entity” and “evolved to serve the needs of a highly competitive society that frequently received new members from far-flung places.”51 Military and administrative elite, freeman and Mamluk, local elements and newcomers were integrated in it. Widening the concept from a strictly Mamluk military household of the Middle Ages to an Ottoman household of the kind described above has its advantages. The concept certainly reflects much better the reality of the household in Acre. As we have seen, it was even doubtful whether al-Jazzār himself was a Mamluk properly speaking. In one source he is even quoted as claiming that he always was a freeman and hence disliked by the Mamluk establishment.52 Though he later acquired other Mamluks, he also bought or hired a variety of other troops. Numerically the Mamluks were always a minority in al-Jazzār’s household and seemed to have vanished after their rebellion in 1789. Sulaymān Pasha, al-Jazzār’s successor, rebuilt the system but also hired mercenaries and concluded alliances with the Metualis and Druze and used their tribal forces. Administrators of local origin also belonged to the household in Acre. ‘Abdallāh Pasha finally also included local elite elements in his household.
But notwithstanding the argument that these were not Mamluk households in the classical sense,53 it is important to point out that their members considered themselves Mamluks and referred to themselves as such. If this was “a calculated, if genuinely felt, nostalgia”54 as Hathaway claims, it was nevertheless a politically relevant sentiment. It generated loyalties which caused al-Jazzār to risk his life. It identified political factions such as the party supporting Abū Nabūt. Having been comrades (khushdāsh) under the same chief (ustādh) legitimized competing claims to power, as was the case with ‘Alī Agha Khazindār, father of ‘Abdallāh Pasha, and Abū Nabūt, and between the latter and Sulaymān Pasha. The Mamluks under al-Jazzār and then again under Sulaymān Pasha self-consciously styled themselves as Mamluks, and over long periods they were the decisive element in the household in Acre. It seems, therefore, not unreasonable to call this particular “patron-clients and kinship grouping” a Mamluk household, even if it did not reproduce the classical form of that model.
Understandably, there was great concern in Acre about the fate of the Mamluks in Egypt who had been massacred by Muḥammad ‘Alī. Two English travelers reported the massacre in May 1811, and soon after a firsthand report was given by Amīn Pasha, the famous Mamluk who escaped the massacre in the Citadel by a daring jump over the wall with his horse. He settled for a time in Acre and worked as a cavalry commander for Sulaymān Pasha.55 The Mamluks in Acre knew then that they were the last of their kind, and perhaps the massive purchase of Mamluks of which the French wrote in the period immediately afterward was less a question of enlarging the army than an attempt to insure their own existence and way of life. From all the information we have, the Mamluks seem actually not to have played a large role in the military. The seven hundred artillery troops in Acre were almost by definition not Mamluk and probably not Mamluk commanded. But even in the cavalry, the very service of Mamluks, we rarely hear of them. More frequently mentioned are the Kurdish Dalāt cavalry with their commander Shamlīn (or Shamdīn) Agha, who seems to have been another military entrepreneur.56 Mishāqa described the army as follows: “There was no longer any necessity for many soldiers [after settling relations with the Metualis], so only about two hundred infantrymen were put under the command of an Albanian officer named Muḥammad Agha al-Nu‘mān who lived in Tyre and about five hundred cavalrymen were put under the command of three Kurdish officers, Shamdīn Agha, Ni‘mat Agha and Ayalyaqīn Agha; and two officers, ‘Alī Abū Zayd Agha and Mūsā al-Ḥāsī Agha, were put in charge of around four hundred volunteer Arab horsemen, while an officer called the sāgbān bāshī was posted over a few infantry soldiers stationed as guards at the palace gate in Acre. A group of cannoneers [was also stationed] on the city walls, just as there were artillerymen and officers in every city.”57
The Mamluk system had been in decline since ‘Alī Bey al-Kabīr in the last third of the eighteenth century. In fact, his rise to exclusive power had been a symptom of the end of the traditional system—just as Amīr Bashīr’s concentration of power in his hands would bring another traditional order to its end: the feudal system of Druze and Christian lords in Mount Lebanon. The Mamluk system was beginning to suffer internally from lack of good manpower, negligent training, and increasing lack of loyalty.58 Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār had been an early victim of such disloyalty in Egypt. Later his own Mamluk rebellion caused an almost complete destruction of the system in Acre. Partially rebuilt, it remained only one part of the military establishment. Later, under the rule of Sulaymān Pasha, there also existed other branches of the military, as we have seen.
Perhaps more worrisome were other signs of decay. As in Egypt before, Mamluks in this last phase were not only inclined to marry and establish kinship relations but to promote their offspring—‘Abdallāh Pasha, the son of ‘Alī Pasha Katkhudā, being the most glaring example. This added fuel to internal tensions. In April 1818 Sulaymān Pasha had been very sick, and people began to anticipate the time after his death. Possibly Abū Nabūt had already suggested in Istanbul that he would like to take over the governorship from Sulaymān Pasha.59 The Mamluks of Acre were in close contact with Abū Nabūt in Jaffa. They wanted to recreate an exclusive Mamluk regime such as they believed had existed in Egypt.60 The son of the late ‘Alī Agha Khazindār had no place in their planning. Perhaps Abū Nabūt was acting out of a sense that he was Sulaymān Pasha’s equal, and perhaps he was willing to betray him.61 Probably the Mamluks altogether wanted only to safeguard their own existence and system. Natural children of Mamluks had no place in this system. ‘Abdallāh Pasha, only seventeen years old, prayed for Sulaymān Pasha’s continued health because he could not yet realize his own ambition to succeed him. His alliance with local elements was still on shaky ground. Ḥaim Farḥī, “détesté de toutes les parties,” [detested by all] also worried that his patron might die. Sulaymān Pasha seemed inclined to recognize Abū Nabūt as his successor, but Farḥī was opposed to this because he feared the latter’s strong position.62
It was probably this fear that motivated Ḥaim Farḥī in the summer of 1818 to convince Sulaymān Pasha to move against Abū Nabūt. He was removed from Jaffa through an internal coup. This step initiated the campaign against the Mamluks which ‘Abdallāh Pasha began even as he was waiting to be confirmed as governor of Sidon. Ibrāhīm Agha, chief of artillery since the time of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār, was replaced in September 1819 by Muṣṭafā Agha al-Istanbūlī. Another Mamluk lost his life under obscure circumstances, but probably was killed by ‘Abdallāh Pasha, who suspected him of disloyalty.63 Throughout the summer of 1820 mutasallims of various places, all Mamluks of al-Jazzār, were removed. Salīm Agha Abū Sayf, mutasallim of Beirut, newly appointed to Sidon, was soon exiled, like Ḥasan Agha and ‘Alī Agha, a former mutasallim of Beirut. All three were Mamluk comrades of Abū Nabūt, and suspected of having contact with him in Istanbul.64 The mutasallim of Nazareth was replaced by a certain seventeen-year-old Salīm Agha. It seems that ‘Abdallāh Pasha preferred to employ people as young as himself while pensioning off the old Mamluks.65 Some Mamluks survived, and stayed with ‘Abdallāh Pasha until the bitter end. But from the list of his commanders who fell during the siege of Acre it is evident that the troops ‘Abdallāh Pasha used were not Mamluk anymore: Ḥusayn Agha and Ḥamādī Agha, both ḥawāra bāshīs, militia commanders, and ‘Alī Agha Farḥīt, maghrtbī bāshī, commander of Maghrebi troops. Shamlīn, commander of Dalāt cavalry, survived.66 None of these units, with the exception of Shamlīn’s, existed during Sulaymān Pasha’s time. The Mamluks were no longer the group they had been under Sulaymān Pasha’s rule, with specific exclusive functions, political ambitions, and loyalties. Just as with the assassination of Ḥaim Farḥī, it was ‘Abdallāh Pasha’s aim to eliminate all elements that had been too close to Sulaymān Pasha and were perceived as a potential danger to his rule.
We know little about the military establishment during ‘Abdallāh Pasha’s time. Apparently in each town that had a mutasallim there was also a garrison. At the beginning of his rule smaller towns such as Nazareth, Tiberias, and Tyre would have a garrison of 50 men. Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon, and other larger places would have 200 men, and only Acre had a garrison of 400.67 A rough estimate would indicate a standing army of less than 2,000. In moments of war ‘Abdallāh Pasha obviously counted on the tribal levies of the Druze and possibly the Metualis. In 1824 he sent into battle some 3,000 troops, most of them volunteer militias under Abū Zayd Agha, but also consisting of Dalāt, Albanians, and Maghrebis.68
The organization of the military forces in Acre reflected the whole spectrum of military options in Islamic history: from troops consisting of or controlled by a family clan to tribal alliances; from hired mercenaries, vaguely organized along ethnic lines under military entrepreneurs, to well-defined Mamluk households; and from infantry troops to cavalrymen. All these traditional patterns of military organization, together with their known advantages and disadvantages, were used at one point or another in the short century of Acre’s power. It depended on the political circumstances and also on the personal inclinations of the ruler in power which sort of traditional military organization would be preferred. The emphasis on fortifications and their defense was in particular, at least since the Crusades, well-established military strategy in this region. New tactics, new military technology, and new methods of organization were not sought or needed by the rulers of Acre, since the neighboring rivals and potential military opponents fought with equally traditional means and troop formations. The contribution of the unique state monopoly on cotton and grain exports consisted in supplying the means to pay for more troops than the neighbors could usually afford. This was sufficient to establish the predominance of Acre, but it also set limits to the expansion of Acre’s power, as al-Jazzār’s futile attempts to win control over the Druze showed.
ADMINISTRATION
As Ẓāhir’s al-‘Umar’s realm grew in size, and especially after he made Acre his capital, the need for efficient administration grew. The problem is that we have no systematic information about this aspect of his government. About the countryside in particular we know extremely little. Before Ẓāhir moved to Acre he made great efforts to control the cotton trade and prevent direct contact between the producer and the French exporter. To establish such a monopoly Ẓāhir must have employed at least some overseers in the villages. But only in 1774, when ‘Alī was fighting his father Ẓāhir, do we find mention of the cheiks ou administrateurs of villages in the Galilee,69 which does not tell us whether these were officials employed by the government or village shaykhs who were confirmed in their positions and forced to collaborate with the government in Acre. Perhaps they were both; in any case they seem to have been responsible for the delivery of the cotton. As we have seen, Ẓāhir and his vezier Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh were relatively successful in establishing a monopoly on cotton, and he could dictate prices to the French. But direct contacts between peasants and the French never ceased completely.
To maintain law and order in the realm and insure its defense, Ẓāhir appointed most of his eight sons and some other relatives as local governors or prefects over the towns and larger villages:70 Ṣalībī (Celebī) was appointed in Tiberias, ‘Uthmān in Shfā ‘Amr, which earlier had been controlled by Ẓāhir’s nephew Muḥammad al-‘Alī. Aḥmad was placed first in Safūriyya and later conquered Jabal ‘Ajlūn and al-Salṭ, ‘Abbās was in Nazareth, and ‘Alī’s base became Safed.71 Ẓāhir’s brother Sa‘d controlled Dayr al-Ḥannā. After the conquest of Sidon in 1771 Ẓāhir appointed Aḥmad Agha al-Dinkizlī mutasallim there, and his nephew Karīm al-Ayyūbi was made commander of Jaffa. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar applied rather conventional policies here. By appointing members of his clan to positions of power and control, he hoped to guarantee the personal loyalty of the officeholders. He further tried to consolidate his rule by carefully choosing wives for himself and his sons. By marrying the daughters of defeated local chieftains he bound them in loyalty to his clan.72 It was a political, administrative, and, albeit to a much lesser degree, even military system that relied largely on the bonds of family relations. That this was not necessarily a very reliable and effective system is demonstrated especially in the later years of Ẓāhir’s rule by the constant rebellions of one son or the other. In the final analysis the relationship of Ẓāhir’s sons to their father was not much different from that between Ẓāhir and the Ottoman sultan: while recognizing the sultan as his overlord, Ẓāhir most often did not feel bound by the wishes of the Ottoman government—an ambivalent relationship at best. In one important aspect, though, the political relations in the realm of Acre were different: although we are lacking information about the administrative role of the local governors in the cotton production and trade (if, indeed, they had any), it is clear that the export—and with that the profits—were controlled by Acre. Economically, therefore, the sons remained dependent on Ẓāhir. We find no evidence of attempts by the sons to build up their own business connections and export cotton for their own account. Fighting the father meant the disruption of the cotton business and suffering economic damage, which the sons, however, were quite willing to risk occasionally.
Ẓāhir al-‘Umar was fairly unique among his contemporaries in recognizing that political power was based not only on military prowess but on a sound economy, which for him meant the production of cotton and its export. He combined ambitions for political power not only with some military skills but also with a keen sense of and experience in the economy, in particular in commerce. In this he is comparable to Muḥammad ‘Alī of Egypt two generations later. It was his recognition of the potential and the profitability of the cotton trade from the Galilee via Acre to France that gave his political ambitions content and direction. As a merchant he appreciated the increasing revenues that could be drawn from the cotton trade, as a politician and a man of power he realized that all the profits would be his if he exerted political control over the cultivation and the trade of cotton. This insight motivated his conquest of the western Galilee, the fortification of Acre, and the expansion along the coast. His desire to assert control over the cultivation and trade of cotton from the area led to an unending sequence of alliances, local battles, sieges, etc. But it also introduced prosperity to the region, created a veritable boom in Acre, and provided him with the resources to further enhance his political and military power. By means of combining economic enterprise with his political aspirations, Ẓāhir’s personal competition with other merchants turned into a government policy of monopoly as soon as he had the military and political power to implement it.
Ẓāhir al-‘Umar also was unusual in that he understood excessive exploitation of the peasant to be detrimental to the increase of revenues in the long run. Greater productivity had to be encouraged through investment rather than extortion. He is said to have observed: “When the fellah is productive, the land will be fertile and all the country with it will be prosperous. How often were the fellahs oppressed before, but my wealth suffices me when I see the peasants prosperous in my country.” For this purpose he ordered his prefects and officials, first, never to take more from the peasant than the legal mīrī tax and, second, to advance the peasants money when they were too poor to buy seeds and work their fields.73 He encouraged the extension of cultivation and even seems—in at least one case—to have provided housing in order to settle new immigrants.74 In addition, great emphasis was put on law and order and, in particular, safety on the roads of the realm—an important precondition for the free movement of goods. All this generated immigration from the neighboring regions, the expansion of the cultivated area, and an increase in prosperity. Our information for these developments is anecdotal, and there is no way to provide quantitative data about the demographic and economic development of the countryside. For the city of Acre itself we have at least some indications suggesting that during the rule of Ẓāhir it increased from one or two thousand inhabitants to approximately twenty-five thousand or perhaps more. But the dramatic population growth in the city of Acre most certainly does not suggest proportional increases in the hinterland.
From the beginning of the rise of Acre the Greek Catholic community had a dominant role in the city. Years before Ẓāhir al-‘Umar took up residence in Acre he was already involved in its trade and had made Yūsuf al-Qassīs, a Greek Catholic, his agent there. When Ẓāhir consolidated his control over Acre, he made him his first vezier. As we have seen, al-Qassīs brought Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh to Ẓāhir’s attention. As a physician he gained the confidence of his master, and when al-Qassīs was caught fleeing with his wealth from Acre in 1761, al-Ṣabbāgh was made vezier and quickly assumed control over all government administration and the economy. He pursued with vigor Ẓāhir’s monopoly policy with regard to cotton—much to the chagrin of the French traders, who described him as greedy and an intriguer but also highly gifted as an administrator.75 Needless to say, he became enormously wealthy in his own right. He controlled the finances of the realm and had full access to Ẓāhir, who would take no step without consulting him first. However, Mikhā’īl al-Ṣabbāgh’s description of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar as being so uneducated that he hardly could count and write is certainly wrong when we consider that Ẓāhir had been a successful merchant and politician long before he met al-Ṣabbāgh at the age of sixty.76 What might have happened though, and that seems confirmed by the French reports, is that Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh was increasingly able to isolate the old man from his surroundings—especially from his sons—and control access to him.77 Nobody, except perhaps Aḥmad Agha al-Dinkizlī, wielded as much power at the court of al-‘Umar as did Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh.
Presumably he had a staff of scribes to help him keep track of customs, finances, and political correspondence. Not surprisingly we find that one of his sons, Yūsuf, worked for his father in the administration.78 Mikhā’īl al-Baḥrī worked in the 1770s as a secretary for al-Ṣabbāgh.79 Ḥanā Sakrūj from Shfā ‘Amr also was an employee of al-Ṣabbāgh.80 It certainly helped being a member of the family or of the Greek Catholic community to obtain positions of confidence. There surely were more people working for al-Ṣabbāgh, but we have no clue how the administration was organized.
To employ members of Jewish or Christian minorities in high office as scribes, councillors, administrators of finances, and even as veziers had a long tradition in Muslim states. Minority status implied a certain social and legal weakness. When Jews or Christians were employed in the government service, their position and authority depended solely on the will of the Muslim ruler. This insured, understandably, a high degree of personal loyalty to him. He could, or at least he believed he could, be sure that such employees did not represent other, local interests and that he could dismiss Jewish and Christian officials at will. Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh’s membership in a religious community that was localized in Syria and Egypt and was de jure illegal in the empire recommended him all the more to a ruler who himself had strong local interests and was most often at odds with the central government. This pattern of a high-powered official originating from the minorities would be continued in Acre with Ḥaim Farḥī under al-Jazzār and especially Sulaymān Pasha and, to a lesser degree, Catafago under ‘Abdallāh Pasha. The high concentration of power in their hands—control of finances, economy, and administration, i.e., all branches of government except the military—was closely linked to the largely successful attempt to control exports and impose a variety of economic monopolies.
We should also not forget that Acre had started from virtually nothing and, though growing rapidly, remained a relatively small city. Its size and a certain pioneer spirit made no great demands for the evolution of a very structured administration. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar, quite the patriarch and founder, would himself frequently interfere directly in the affairs of the city and his realm: when he observed from the window of his palace what he believed to be a prostitute in action, he personally had her and her husband expelled from town; he had naked dervishes brought before the qāḍī; on observing excessive funeral rituals he had them suppressed.81 These examples should not be understood as implying that he was a very pious person. When incidents of the plague occurred in Acre, he followed European customs and locked himself up in his residence. He laughed off the muftī’s criticism and, in fact, fined the muftī for it.82 Some parts of his power he seems to have completely delegated, such as all financial aspects of his government. But he kept a keen interest in military decisions and actions. In his eighties he still commanded troops in the battlefield, participated in the siege of Jaffa, and single-handedly solved a crisis with rebellious troops. Until the very end he remained the dominant figure in the realm of Acre. Firmly in control of political rule, he shared his power only with his vezier and his commander-in-chief.
Throughout his rule in Acre, al-Jazzār was the appointed governor of Sidon. As such he was an official employee of the Ottoman government—occasional disagreements notwithstanding. In spite of this position he followed the pattern established by his predecessor—predecessor in power, not in title, that is—by residing in Acre. The city remained the center of export trade and political power on the coast. Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār expanded the realm. Jabal ‘Āmil and Mount Lebanon had officially always belonged to the province of Sidon but had enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. Al-Jazzār established direct rule over the Metualis by completely crushing their military power; he established direct rule over the coast, including Beirut, and converted the Druze regions to a permanent battleground of proxy wars between him and the governor of Damascus. To the south he extended his direct rule to Caesarea; but only in the last years of his rule did he try to incorporate Jaffa into the realm of Acre. Only when appointed governor of Damascus did al-Jazzār try to establish his control over Nablus and Jerusalem—with limited success, as we have seen. Whenever he was also made governor of Damascus or commander-in-chief of all of Syria, Acre still remained the center of power. Damascus would now be ruled from Acre and not vice versa.
Despite the climactic end to Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s rule and the ensuing struggle by al-Jazzār to liquidate the former’s sons and their control over parts of the region, al-Jazzār inherited a well-defined realm with its center, and an economic base and commercial infrastructure which were as unique as they were profitable. The strength of the system was enhanced with al-Jazzār’s appointment as governor of Sidon, providing a legitimate base for it. He himself seems to have had every desire to continue along the road Ẓāhir had laid out. From his predecessor al-Jazzār inherited not only Acre as the actual capital and residence but also the economic policies of a government monopoly over cash crop exports from its realm. These conditions originally defined the tasks of his government quite well: to secure the realm for cultivation of cotton and other cash crops, and to assure Acre’s position as the sole conduit for export trade. The first he did, as we have seen, through almost continuous warfare and interference at the periphery of his realm. The second he tried to achieve by direct control over the port cities of Sidon and Beirut, though Jaffa remained for most of the time beyond his control and thus guaranteed the economic survival and independence of Nablus. The instruments for achieving these aims were the two branches of government that existed: the military and the administration. Their functions were not always clearly separated. In the smaller towns and harbors in particular, military and administrative functions were often combined in the person of one of his trusted Mamluks appointed as mutasallim. In numbers and cost, the military was by far the larger branch of government. But it was the administration that in the end had to raise the funds to pay for the military. It had to determine and collect taxes and customs, establish and execute monopolies, and carry on correspondence with the French merchants and the central government.
In two aspects al-Jazzār differed importantly from Ẓāhir al-‘Umar: he was not a local man and he had no family. Though inclined to continue the policies of his predecessor, these two aspects, together with his more violent temper, induced him to choose means of pursuing these policies that differed substantially from those of his predecessor. Ẓāhir had been able to count on the bonds of family to insure loyalty to him, albeit with a certain amount of rebelliousness. He had appointed his sons and other relatives to practically all subregions and towns of his realm to insure security and the collection of taxes. For the actual collection of taxes village shaykhs, appointed or confirmed by the local governors, were responsible, each for his village. The local governors functioned as representatives of Ẓāhir’s rule and had total authority over their particular region. Their loyalty to Ẓāhir was, of course, enhanced by the fact that he controlled Acre, i.e., the export harbor, key to the flourishing of the economic base of the realm. Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār had to substitute for such family loyalties by appointing mutasallims who were under his direct control. Their loyalty derived, at least in the early years, from the fact that they were his Mamluks and thus bound in the very special relationship of trust and loyalty that was characteristic of the Mamluk household. Later the frequent replacement of mutasallims substituted for vanishing loyalty. Only where limitation of his military capabilities made it unavoidable would he confirm members of local elites as mutasallims—such as the Ṭūqāns in Nablus or various Shihābī amirs in Mount Lebanon, whom he played against each other. Not being of local origin, al-Jazzār lacked Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s intimate knowledge of local conditions, personalities, and clan networks. Rather than establishing alliances, as Ẓāhir had done so successfully, he preferred to smash local structures with military force and place his military commanders as mutasallims in such regions, and then by sheer force and repression ensure payment of taxes and obedience. The Metualis were the main victims of this policy. In other words, control over the realm became much more centralized and local elements much less involved in it. The consequence of such a shift was a need for more military presence to guarantee control. This in turn created a greater financial burden for the government, i.e., for its subjects.
While the regions of the realm were controlled by mutasallims and occasionally recognized local leaders,83 Acre itself, holding the monopoly over export trade, and control over tax collections were under the direct supervision of al-Jazzār and his staff. Here we can recognize the rudiments of an administration. Some positions were filled by al-Jazzār’s Mamluks. The position of khazīndār was apparently first filled by Sulaymān Pasha, later by ‘Alī Agha, brother of Salīm the Younger. Khazīndār is commonly translated as “treasurer.” Unfortunately we do not know precisely what his tasks were. How much was he involved in financial decisions or keeping the books? Judging from ‘Ālī Agha’s participation in the Mamluk rebellion in 1789, he was certainly responsible, with some Mamluks, for actually guarding the treasury that was deposited in the burj al-khazna, one of the most fortified towers in Acre’s defense works. When al-Jazzār was made governor of Damascus in 1785, Salīm Pasha the Elder, in fact his deputy, became governor of Sidon, while Sulaymān Pasha was made governor of Tripoli and later became mutasallim in Sidon. Administrative, political, and military functions remained closely integrated, at least in the top positions. This multifunctional elite ceased to exist only with the Mamluk rebellion and subsequent purges. Later military commanders appear to have been just this: they had not the same personal access to al-Jazzār, were not involved in policy decisions or financial matters. Through much personal interference and frequent changes of officeholders, al-Jazzār tried to insure his own safety and his control over the affairs of government.
In the more civilian aspects of administration he followed by and large the patterns established by his predecessor in using local minority members as scribes, secretaries, bookkeepers, and managers of economy. This certainly was facilitated by the fact that al-Jazzār himself “quoique Bosnak se plaît d’avantage à se servir de la langue et de l’écriture Arabe, que de la sienne.”84* Just after being established as governor of Sidon, he was approached by Ḥabīb al-Ṣabbāgh, son of Ibrāhīm, offering him his services. Al-Jazzār was pleased because Ḥabīb was known to have good accounting skills and to be a responsible man.85 His appointment immediately aroused the envy of Butrus and Mikhā’īl Sakrūj, recently hired secretaries from Shfā ‘Amr. The father of the Sakrūj brothers had already been employed in Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s administration.86 Their intrigues against Ḥabīb soon resulted in his dismissal and the advancement of the Sakrūj brothers. In 1780 the French compared Mikhā’īl Sakrūj to Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh. He had become the most important mediator for the French, and al-Jazzār had complete confidence in him. In fact, al-Jazzār’s “kitchen [was] in the house of the Sakrūj” and he ate only what the Sakrūj women cooked for him.87 In 1784 Mikhā’īl Sakrūj was the senior official in al-Jazzār’s government.88 The Sakrūj brothers began to trade on their own with Trieste and Livorno, though we do not know with whose ships.89
In 1787 both Sakrūj brothers were thrown into jail and tortured, and money was extorted from them.90 Whether their independent commercial dealings were the original motive for their arrest is hard to say. A number of other secretaries—the secretaries of the treasury, of accounts, and of supplies—were purged at the same time. Others were appointed: Ibrāhīm Abū Qalūsh and Yūsuf Mārūn took over. Ibrāhīm, too, was briefly arrested. The position of secretary seemed not a very attractive career anymore to subsequent appointees: the newly appointed Ilyās Adda fled to Mount Lebanon; his successor, Yūsuf al-Qardāḥī, fled to Europe and Ibrāhīm Abū Qalūsh was reinstalled. He had come originally from Damascus and served under his coreligionist Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh. From al-Jazzār he had received some tax-farms at Nazareth but was called to Acre to serve as a secretary. He was apparently also a military commander and could raise up 400 cavalrymen.91 Having very close relations to Salīm Pasha the Elder, he participated in the Mamluk rebellion. He fled to Mount Lebanon but was later killed upon the request of al-Jazzār.92 Yūsuf Mārūn, suspected of being associated with al-Qalūsh, was also executed in Acre.93 Another secretary, who was to play later an important role at the court of Sulaymān Pasha, was Ḥanā’ al-‘Awra. He had assumed the position of his father, Mikhā’īl, as a scribe after the latter had died. Al-Jazzār also suspected him of involvement in the rebellion and Ḥanā’ had to flee.94 After the rebellion the Sakrūj brothers were set free and reinstated in their positions. They quickly regained their influence over al-Jazzār. The French merchants, chased from Acre in October 1790, were convinced that the two brothers, Mikhā’īl and Butrus, together with the former’s son Yūsuf, were at the bottom of al-Jazzār’s policies against the French, but their powerful position did not protect them against—and perhaps exposed them so much the more to—the wrath of al-Jazzār.
Their final downfall came five years later, when they were executed, probably as the result of intrigues by the new rising star at the court of al-Jazzār, Ḥaim Farḥī.95 He was the scion of an illustrious Jewish family in Damascus which by the early eighteenth century occupied a preeminent position as bankers, cultivating close relations with power elites there. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had already tried to use their services in Istanbul. Ḥaim was to become the most powerful of all secretaries and was later justly called vezier. Only Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh had occupied a comparable position. Under al-Jazzār, however, he fitted the typical pattern of the dhimmī administrator, his position depending totally upon the goodwill of his master.
Considering Ḥaim Farḥī’s later role and importance and the frequency with which he is mentioned in the travel literature,96 it is remarkable that we can not ascertain the precise date of his arrival in Acre. It must have been sometime after the French left Acre in October 1790, since they never mention him in their reports. We can only presume that he was brought to Acre soon after al-Jazzār was appointed governor of Damascus, in addition to his being governor of Acre, in October 1790. Several events occurred which might have been cause for this appointment. After the Mamluk rebellion, purges in the administration had left few qualified secretaries. The departure of the French aggravated al-Jazzār’s financial problems. He might have wanted to use the financial skills and reserves of the powerful Damascene bankers. During the same time Ḥasan Ḳapūdān Pasha, sworn enemy of al-Jazzār, died in Istanbul; al-Jazzār might have hoped to strengthen his contacts there and the representation of his interests via the Jewish network. The sources tell us nothing about Ḥaim’s very first years in Acre. In 1794 Ḥaim was jailed in Acre for the first time.97 When he was imprisoned he was blinded in one eye and—most likely on the same occasion—one of his ears and part of his nose were cut off. All travel accounts describe this incident as the result of the erratic and despotic behavior of al-Jazzār, who followed every whim of his cruel nature and took delight in personally inflicting mutilations. Yet from a contemporary Arab source we learn that things were not quite as whimsical as they appear in the travel accounts: al-Jazzār was actually on pilgrimage during the time of Ḥaim’s arrest and mutilation. Simultaneously the whole Farḥī family was thrown into jail in Damascus, tortured, and forced to pay huge ransoms. In other words we have here a systematic effort to break the power of the Farḥī family. What remains unclear from the sources is whether the initiative for the action came from al-Jazzār’s mutasallim in Damascus or from al-Jazzār himself. As we saw earlier, the mutasallim, Aḥmad Agha, fled Damascus shortly before al-Jazzār’s return from pilgrimage. This suggests that he acted on his own when attacking the Jews in Damascus.
Shortly after his return from Mecca, however, al-Jazzār was removed from the governorship of Damascus, and the Farḥīs could once more resume their position as sarrāfs to the local governor. Weakened in his position vis-à-vis the central government, al-Jazzār was in need of Ḥaim’s financial talents, and he reappointed him as his secretary. The Farḥīs had survived the first serious challenge to their power. Ḥaim Farḥī continued to serve his master faithfully until he was once more, for reasons we do not know, thrown into prison shortly before the death of al-Jazzār in 1804. Upon the latter’s demise Ḥaim was immediately released and ordered to bring the estate of al-Jazzār and all the accounts into good order.98 Ḥaim went on to a great career as the most powerful man in the region, if not in name at least in practice, only to be assassinated fifteen years later.
The administration under al-Jazzār certainly suffered many disruptions and purges, but we can also recognize some surprising continuity. Many of his scribes and secretaries had previously served under Ẓāhir al-‘Umar. Others were to stay in the administration after al-Jazzār’s death. Typically, sons would follow fathers in their positions. The ‘Awra family provided three generations of secretaries for three rulers: al-Jazzār, Sulaymān Pasha, and ‘Abdallāh Pasha. Three generations of the Sakrūj family served under Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and al-Jazzār. The al-Ṣabbāghs provided at least two generations. Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār himself, and after him Sulaymān Pasha, followed the policy of having sons succeed fathers.99 Brothers, too, would be hired: Butrus Sakrūj, Mūsā Farḥī, and Sulaymān Abū Qalūsh had all followed their brothers to Acre. Others showed remarkable resilience: Yūsuf al-Qardāḥī, who had fled to Europe to escape al-Jazzār, later worked for him as well as for Sulaymān and ‘Abdallāh Pasha.100 With the noticeable exception of the Greek Orthodox Sakrūj and the Jew Ḥaim Farḥī, all secretaries were Arabs of the Catholic denomination. There must have been more scribes, but throughout the whole period we find again and again the same names of a few families mentioned who provided the key secretaries and, incidentally, also the first historians of the period.101 Members of the minorities were not only employed as scribes but also, on occasion, as multazims—such as the Mishāqas, al-Qalūsh, and Catafago. The latter is mentioned for the first time in 1797. By 1801 he was imperial [Austrian?] consul and impressed European visitors with his wealth.102 He had flourished under al-Jazzār and was to continue his career under al-Jazzār’s successors.103
Yet under the rule of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār administrators were never secure in their positions. Some, indeed, were executed, while others were repeatedly thrown into jail and tortured, only to be reinstated some time later. Even Ḥaim Farḥī, the most prominent and longest lasting, did not escape such treatment. The ostensible reason was al-Jazzār’s greed. Every time he heard about one of his secretaries possessing any riches, he had him tortured until he surrendered his wealth, probably assuming not unjustifiedly that the person had accumulated the wealth in his service. More often the real reason for the purging, liquidating, or reinstating of secretaries must have been his personal lack of trust, which after the Mamluk rebellion seems to have occasionally reached pathological levels. One might add that no other institutional checks on the activities of his employees existed and that by temperament al-Jazzār was not a man to surrender any aspect of his authority easily. As some travelers put it: “On le voit … donner des ordres relatifs à l’administration de sa province, diriger les travaux des fortifications, des édifices publics; suivre la construction d’un navire, tracer des plans de campagne, cultiver des fleurs, ordonner la parure de ses femmes et faire un dessin de broderie,”* and again: “He was his own minister, chancellor, treasurer and secretary; often his own cook and gardener; and not infrequently both judge and executioner in the same instance.”104 Although the composition of his administration remained surprisingly stable we do not observe the phenomenon of the “vezier” as under his predecessor and successor. Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh had under Ẓāhir al-‘Umar assumed virtually full authority over all fiscal, economic, and civil administrative policies and was actively involved in foreign policy decisions. In a similar way, as we shall see, Ḥaim Farḥī was to assume power under Sulaymān Pasha, leaving only control of the military to others.
There is ample evidence that Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār did not reign but rule. Jealously guarding over his power, he would not delegate much responsibility.105
In addition to the civil administration there existed a whole court administration. We occasionally hear about it: the harem is mentioned; palace guards, gatekeepers, etc. play a role; the treasurer and other officials are named. On the whole, though, we have precious little detail about the hierarchies, the positions, and functions of these officials. Since there is much more material for this point concerning the rule of Sulaymān Pasha, I shall attempt some retrospective extrapolations.
Ibrāhīm al-‘Awra, the scribe at the court of Sulaymān Pasha and his biographer, has left us a complete listing of all the employees of the administration and the court, their positions, titles, and names.106 Incidental information tells us that much of this had been put into place during the time of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār. Under Ẓāhir al-‘Umar before him, however, matters were still much more informal. There were, of course, some scribes, and Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh played a major role as adviser, business manager, and administrator, but, on the whole, the administrative apparatus remained small. Having no claim to an official position as governor, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had no ambitions—or perhaps deemed it wise not to show any—to hold court in Acre in a formal and ostentatious way. The realm was, as we have seen, managed by his sons and other relatives. After the death of Sulaymān Pasha, ‘Abdallāh Pasha seems to have made many personnel changes but continued to use the same organizational forms of court and administration.
Only al-‘Awra, however, gives us detailed information about these organizational structures and those who filled them. His description refers, of course, only to the period of Sulaymān Pasha, but I believe it is admissible to deduce similar forms for his predecessor and his successor. Ibrāhīm al-‘Awra mentions 34 administrators dealing with affairs in Acre while another 46 were managing the realm.107 At the court some 57 are listed as employees or officials in one position or another. These numbers might have varied somewhat, but the conclusion is that never more than 150 government employees were needed to run Acre and its realm—not counting, of course, the military. We recall our earlier observation about how long individual officials would stay in office, or how, at least, members of the same family would keep between them certain positions in the administration. It meant that the same individual or family would serve two or even three successive rulers. This provided a certain stability and continuity of administrative patterns. During his rule Sulaymān Pasha hardly changed anybody in his administration, and he hired the sons when fathers died. Military and civil administration functions overlapped at certain points, especially in the position of the mutasallim in the realm and at court, where ceremonial, guard, and simple servant functions often meshed with each other; usually such functions were filled by Mamluks of different ranks. Yet we can recognize certain institutional and functional differentiations. The military was commanded by some mercenary officers, such as Shamlīn, and by the Mamluks who functioned as mutasallims in various towns and regions. Ultimate command and authority rested with Sulaymān Pasha. There always seem to have existed some distinct units differentiated by their specific tasks and functions—as, for instance, the artillery corps for the fortifications of Acre, garrison troops stationed in various cities and towns, and some cavalry troops. In addition Druze tribal levies could be raised on an ad hoc basis. They would be commanded by their own chieftains, i.e., usually they were led by Amīr Bashīr.
The civil administration in Acre had two major departments, that of the Arabic scribes and the one for finances. The former, headed by Ḥanā’, the father of Ibrāhīm al-‘Awra, was apparently responsible for general correspondence and administrative tasks, while the latter was headed by Ḥaim Farḥī. It dealt with the collection and payment of taxes and the economic monopolies and exports. Smaller divisions such as management of warehouses and customs inspections demonstrate a preoccupation with economic matters. But the hierarchical relation in which they stood to the department of finances is not quite clear. Nor is the relation or division of functions between Ḥaim Farḥī and the financial administration on the one side and ‘Alī Pasha Khazindār, the treasurer, on the other, clear. Even geographically their departments were not separate.
Every morning, two hours after sunrise, they convened together with Sulaymān Pasha in his dīwān in the Būstā building or seraglio and discussed various issues. Ḥanā’ al-‘Awra, the chief Arabic secretary, was called in to present newly arrived letters and correspondence. More discussion ensued and eventually al-‘Awra would leave to attend to his tasks. At this point various scribes came in to work on their registries, write out letters and orders, and make copies of them.108 This arrangement also explains how our author, Ibrāhīm al-‘Awra, who was after all only a junior scribe, was privy to so many conversations between the high and mighty. Another, potentially important, part of civil administration lay in the hands of Ḥasan Agha, the son-in-law of ‘Alī Pasha. He had an office for all peasant complaints and legal cases. But we do not hear much about it. It is important to point out that all scribes in the realm, attached to the various mutasallims, were directly responsible to Ḥaim Farḥī. He could appoint and depose scribes in Acre and the realm, quite regardless of the wishes of the mutasallims.109 In this way the government offices in Acre could keep a close check on the actions of the provincial administration.
In the end we should not expect too much formalization and institutionalization of the administration. The ruling Mamluk elite was small in numbers and changed little, like the administrative staff, which consisted mainly of local minority members. It was almost possible to know everyone in these circles personally. The administrative tasks of the premodern government were limited. Even though Acre might here have been somewhat atypical because of the heavy involvement of the government in the economy of its realm, it still remained an administration small in size and limited in its functions. Still, we would have liked to know more about the actual mechanics of government.
Perhaps more important than the formal aspects of this government administration is the question of power and authority within it. Ibrāhīm al-‘Awra supplies us here, too, with detailed if rather synoptic material in a list ranking the seventeen most important people in Sulaymān Pasha’s government.110 The list is problematic because it does not incorporate change over time. It also relates first and foremost to the situation in Acre. Such powerful mutasallims as Abū Nabūt of Jaffa and Barbir of Tripoli are mentioned but are not part of the ranking. On the other hand, ‘Alī Pasha Khazindār, designated as the second most powerful after Sulaymān Pasha himself, died in 1814. His son, who at this point was thirteen, inherited his position and rank but certainly held no comparable power. Among those on top of the list the only one—after Sulaymān Pasha himself—who held power consistently was Ḥaim Farḥī.
‘Abdallāh Pasha was the first ruler who was born and grew up in Acre (still under al-Jazzār’s regime). He was neither a self-made businessman nor a Mamluk soldier. He was, in fact, the first who had a thorough education, which is to say a traditional religious education. He apparently knew calligraphy: before he obtained his appointment as governor of Sidon, he made the sultan a present of a copy of the Koran written in his own hand.111 He also was very young, eighteen or nineteen years, when he came to power, and was easily influenced. He is described as rash, irascible, cruel, and dedicatedly anti-Christian.112 The historian Shihāb described him as demonstrating “‘adam al-siyāsa ‘ala khuddāmihi,” which could be translated as a “lack of political sensibility towards his subjects.”113
‘Abdallāh Pasha had not only an extensive religious education but also religious inclinations. There is evidence that he was a Sufi. His personal imām, Shaykh Muṣṭafā, and the qāḍī, Muḥammad Efendi Abū ‘l-Hudā, were also influential with him. The names that are mentioned in this context, and we should add the name of Shaykh Mas‘ūd al-Māḍī here, appear first during the rule of Sulaymān Pasha, especially in the entourage of ‘Alī Pasha Khazindār. On the periphery of this group is also the poet and muftī of Beirut, ‘Abd al-Laṭīf Fatḥ Allāh. He had already written eulogies for Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār. Under Sulaymān Pasha he had been repeatedly called to Acre to direct complicated court cases. Judging from the great numbers of odes dedicated to ‘Abdallāh Pasha, his relations to the latter seem to have been the closest.114 What is remarkable about the group is the fact that all were members of known local families. It is the first time, with the obvious exception of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and his clan, that we can observe a number of influential locals participating in the politics of the government of Acre and its realm. They formed a party at the time of Sulaymān Pasha, and they became influential under ‘Abdallāh Pasha, once the Mamluk party and, finally, Ḥaim Farḥī had been removed. The localist character of this group was, of course, not elevated to the level of a program or ideology, rather, its members introduced religious terminology and arguments to legitimize and promote their own interests.
Another factor or, more precisely, another person has to be considered in order to complete the picture of power structure, the administration, and economic activities in Acre in the early nineteenth century: Antoine Catafago. He is mentioned by most travelers whom he hosted at his residence, and the French consular correspondence discusses him repeatedly. Oddly enough, Ibrāhīm al-‘Awra mentions him only briefly two or three times in his detailed study of Sulaymān Pasha. This probably reflects al-‘Awra’s own preoccupation with formal administration and political hierarchies and his disregard for economic activities and informal structures. Catafago’s family was of Genoese background and had come via Corsica to Aleppo, where Antoine was born. Antoine settled in Acre in 1794, where his brother Philippe joined him a few years later. The French consular correspondence mentions him first in 1797 as a vice-consul of Venice who is bent on preventing the French from reentering the trade of Acre.115 Ten years later, shortly after a regular consular representation was reestablished in Acre, he was described as “antifrançais par interêt” because he benefited from the trade monopoly of Sulaymān Pasha in Acre. He also acted as Italian subject, agent of Holland, the Republic of the Seven Islands, Spain, and the king of Naples. He changed loyalties all the time and behaved offensively (i.e. toward the French).116 In 1816 Antoine Catafago was also vice-consul of Russia and in 1818 representative of the Hapsburg Empire.117 His brother married the sister-in-law of the French translator in Acre, M. Martin, and his sister was married to Kyūrk al-Farā’, an Armenian from Aleppo and scribe for Ḥaim Farḥī.
Antoine Catafago was also the multazim for agricultural land in Nazareth. We are not quite sure when this began. In 1806 he had the tax-farm for three villages, and in 1811 he had already generated so much antagonism among his peasants that one of them took potshots at him; this seems not to have prevented him from beating them even years later.118 Catafago seems to have specialized in the cotton trade. He had maintained contacts with Aleppo, especially through the Jewish merchant Piciotto, who ordered cotton from him for Livorno, for instance. But he even conducted direct trade with Marseilles.119 In 1816 and 1817 he made some good profits with grain exports to France when a shortage had developed there.120
The French consul understood Catafago to be an associate of Ḥaim Farḥī and saw him in 1818 as the cause of the absence of French merchants in Acre: the French merchants in Marseilles sent textiles to “un étranger, fermier du Pacha à qui il doit plaire et les lui vendre.”121* Catafago was an intimate friend of Ḥaim Farḥī. He socialized with him, and when Europeans—such as Lady Hester Stanhope, for instance—came to visit, Catafago played the role of the translator at the home of Ḥaim Farḥī.122 Yet he was also a survivor. After the murder of Ḥaim Farḥī, when most suspected of loyalty to Ḥaim were killed or exiled, Catafago succeeded in getting closer to ‘Abdallāh Pasha. After the death of Farḥī he was made the exclusive contact for European merchants.123 A year later “almost all the trade [was] in the hands of the pasha and the Austrian consul who also functions as the Russian vice-consul. They are the owners of several ships, buy the oil from Samaria and the cotton from the Galilee, export it and market in the country in return for manufactured items”124 A few years later the French consul reported again that Catafago was “associé du Pacha pour le monopole” [the pasha’s associate in the monopoly] and that French merchants in Acre were functioning only as his agents.125 The only official position Catafago ever had in the administration of Acre was that of a multazim of Nazareth agricultural lands. In contrast to Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh and Ḥaim Farḥī, he never was a secretary in the Acre administration and finances. He was not considered a dhimmī but a faranjī, a European, though his legal status in this regard is not quite clear.126 He claimed various citizenships and tried to strengthen his status as consul and vice-consul of a considerable number of European states and princes. Nevertheless he seems to have had intimate access to ‘Abdallāh Pasha and to have functioned, as did al-Ṣabbāgh and Farḥī, as the chief trader for exports within the system of economic monopolies.
The break with Catafago came in the summer of 1828, when ‘Abdallāh Pasha, obviously short on cash, accused him of all sorts of wrongdoings and extorted from him all the jewelry of his wife and daughters as well as gold coins. ‘Abdallāh Pasha ceased to recognize him as representative of foreign powers. Because of their wealth—they possessed several villages and had done well for themselves in trade—the Catafagos had become vulnerable. They became virtual prisoners of the pasha. In the fall of 1828 Antoine Catafago retired to his countryside residence in Nazareth. In this way he was able to protect himself somewhat from ‘Abdallāh’s extortions and, eventually, to outlast the regime of the latter. With the arrival of the Egyptians in Syria in 1831, Antoine moved to Sidon, where he lived another ten years as a respected consul and wealthy merchant.127
In sum, administrative structures saw a rudimentary development during the period under investigation. Functions and hierarchies were defined, and a new aspect—the economy—was successfully made the object of government administration. Yet the administration was never institutionalized enough to develop its own rules and regulations and to free itself from direct interference by the ruler.