Nasif al-Nassar

Nasif ibn al-Nassar al-Wa'ili (; died 24 September 1781) was the most powerful sheikh of the rural Shia Muslim (Matawilah) tribes of Jabal Amil (modern-day South Lebanon) in the mid-18th century. Under his leadership, the Jabal Amil prospered, due largely to the revenues from dyed cotton cloth exports to European merchants.

Rule

Conflict and alliance with Daher al-Umar

Nasif succeeded his brother Daher al-Nassar as head of the Ali al-Saghir clan after Daher died in a fall from his palace roof in 1749. (See Joudah). In September 1767, the enmity between Daher and Nasif was such that the French consul in the area described Nasif as the principal adversary of Daher. However, by 1768, Nasif and Daher entered into a close and durable alliance, with both parties benefiting in their cooperation against the Ottoman governors of Sidon and Damascus. From then on, Daher acted as the intermediary and protector of Nasif and the Shia clans vis-a-vis the Ottoman provincial authorities. Nasif, in turn, accompanied Daher in many of his campaigns against the latter's rivals in Palestine, including the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus. After the Battle of Lake Hula, Nasif's forces, who numbered some 3,000 horsemen, decisively defeated a 40,000-strong Druze force under Emir Yusuf Shihab, killing some 1,500 Druze warriors. and according to de Tott, the Metawalis became a "formidable name [sic]".

Downfall Daher was defeated and killed in his capital of Acre in 1775 by the Ottomans, after which the Ottomans appointed Jezzar Pasha as Governor of Sidon and Acre. In 1780, after having consolidated his hold over the Galilee and defeating Daher's sons, Jezzar Pasha launched an offensive against the rural sheikhs of Jabal Amil. On 24 September 1781, Nasif was shot dead in a battle with Jezzar Pasha's troops, who greatly outnumbered Nasif's cavalry, that lasted three hours. About 470 of Nasif's soldiers were also killed in the confrontation, Nasif's defeat and death effectively marked the end of Shia autonomy in Jabal Amil during the Ottoman era.

Legacy Nasif is an ancestor of the El Assaad, a Lebanese political family. In Jabal Amil's popular folklore, Nasif is held in high esteem for dying in defense of his people. According to journalist Nicholas Blanford, the guerrilla campaigns of the predominantly Shia Amal Movement and Hezbollah against Israeli forces during the latter's occupation of South Lebanon (1982–2000) were "drawn, in part, from the same cultural well-spring of defiance and dignity that had sustained" Nasif's 18th-century military campaigns.