Yousef Shehab

Yusuf Shihab (1748–1790) was the autonomous emir of Mount Lebanon between 1770 and 1789. He was the fifth consecutive member of the Shihab dynasty to govern Mount Lebanon.

Family Yusuf Shihab was the son of the emir (prince) Mulhim. They were the leaders of the Shihab dynasty. The Shihabs were descendants of the Ma'n dynasty of Fakhr ad-Din. The first emir of the dynasty, Haydar al-Shihab, succeeded the last Ma'n emir of Mount Lebanon in 1697. Haydar al-Shihab was a Sunni Muslim, although his mother was Druze. His kinship with the Ma'ns allowed for him to serve as the eminent leader of the Druze clans of Mount Lebanon. The Shihabs were generally not religious and embraced their faith nominally, some were Sunni Muslims or Druze, and later other members became Maronite Catholics. Yusuf was raised as a Maronite Christian, During Yusuf's rule, many members of the Shihab family converted to Christianity and Yusuf also began to rely on the support of the Maronite Christians.

Rule

Power base in north Lebanon In 1753, Mulhim was ill and unable to govern. This led to a rivalry over succession between his brothers Ahmad and Mansur, while Mulhim and his nephew Qasim sought to prevent either from assuming control over the emirate. When Mulhim died in 1759, Qasim became the administrator of the Chouf district, although after paying a bribe, this authority was transferred to Ahmad and Mansur. The two brothers engaged in conflict in which Yusuf supported Ahmad. Mansur prevailed by 1763, and Yusuf fled the Chouf to Mukhtara, the headquarters of the powerful Druze Jumblatt clan. Ali Jumblatt, an ally of Mansur, protected Yusuf and offered to mediate the dispute between the two. After Mansur refused Ali Jumblatt's offer and seized Yusuf's properties, Ali switched allegiance and backed Yusuf in his struggle for control of the emirate. Yusuf's acquisition of Hamade territory not only provided him a solid power base from which to fight Mansur, but also provided him with the Hamades' former role as patrons of the local Maronite clergy. This further strengthened their relationship with the Maronites since Yusuf already had the support of the Khazen family of Keserwan, a prominent Maronite family.

Emir of Mount Lebanon In 1768, a strong alliance was established between Sheikh Nasif al-Nassar, the sheikh of the Metawali (Shia Muslim) clans of Jabal Amil in south Lebanon, and Sheikh Daher al-Umar, the Arab strongman of the Galilee and northern Palestine and head of the Zaydan family. Together, they carved out a territory practically independent of Ottoman authority. Mansur allied himself with them against the Ottoman governors of Sidon and Damascus, while Yusuf supported the Ottomans. Mansur backed Daher and Nasif in their alliance with Ali Bey al-Kabir of Egypt. Ali Bey dispatched his commander Abu al-Dhahab to launch an invasion of Damascus in 1770. Yusuf and Uthman Pasha attempted to wrest back control of Sidon by assembling a troops backed by artillery and commanded by Ottoman officer Jezzar Pasha. The siege failed when the Russian Navy entered the conflict to back their ally Daher. After Yusuf's troops were bombarded by Russian ships, Daher and Nasif's troops drove them out of the area and pursued them to Beirut, which the Russians also began to bombard until Yusuf paid their admiral to cease their fire.

By 1772, Daher and his allies were firmly in control of Sidon. In order to prevent further encroachments in Lebanon by Daher, Yusuf requested the assistance of Jezzar Pasha, an Ottoman officer. Jezzar Pasha soon consolidated his own rule in Beirut and ignored agreements he had made with Yusuf regarding the latter's authority in the city. Yusuf and his Druze soldiers subsequently tried to dislodge Jezzar Pasha, but were unable to. Thus, Yusuf requested help from his erstwhile enemy, Daher al-Umar, via his uncle Mansur who he had previously struggled against and replaced. Daher's backing became handy once again when Yusuf's authority over the Beqaa Valley was challenged by the governor of Damascus in 1773. Yusuf's brother, Sayyid Ahmad, who had been the governor of Beqaa at the time, had robbed traveling merchants from Damascus in the Beqaa village of Qabb Ilyas. Yusuf removed him from the Beqaa and was appointed in his place.

Jezzar Pasha became the governor of Sidon in 1776 after the Ottomans' elimination of Daher al-Umar. Yusuf was confirmed as the governor of Beirut, Chouf, Beqaa and Jubail. Moreover, Hasan Pasha, the Ottoman kapudan (commander of the Ottoman Navy) who led the offensive against Daher in 1775, declared that Governor of Sidon's authority over Yusuf was limited to the collection of the miri (Hajj tax). However, Jezzar Pasha ignored this order and took over Beirut in 1776 with the demand that Yusuf pay three years worth of miri tax. Jezzar was later driven out by the Ottoman Navy. Nassar was captured and executed by Jezzar in 1780. Jezzar Pasha took advantage of this situation and gave his support to whichever brother paid him the highest bribe. Ali Jumblatt, Yusuf's former ally, died in 1778 and the Jumblatt family gave their backing to Sayyid Ahmad and Effendi. Yusuf withdrew from the Chouf to Ghazir. With the backing of the Ra'ad family and the Kurdish Mir'ibi family (both Sunni Muslim families ), he entered into armed conflict with his two brothers. He regained control of Chouf after paying off Jezzar Pasha. In 1780, Effendi was killed in an attack his forces launched to assassinate Yusuf's top confidant, Sa'ad al-Khuri. Sayyid Ahmad then mobilized his Jumblatt and Yazbak allies against Yusuf, but after the latter bribed the Yazbaks with 300,000 qirsh, Sayyid Ahmad's force fell apart. In 1783 and on Jezzar Pasha's orders, Yusuf took over Marjayoun from his maternal uncle Isma'il Shihab. Jezzar had accused Isma'il of responsibility in the death of a Jewish merchant. Jezzar sought to divide and conquer Mount Lebanon and thus when Isma'il Shihab offered to pay a higher tax rate if he restored his authority in Marjayoun, Jezzar accepted. The new alliance between Jezzar, Isma'il, Sayyid Ahmad and the Jumblatts forced Yusuf to flee Mount Lebanon for the Jabal al-Ansariyah.

Following his 1788 defeat, Yusuf appealed to the Druze clans for safety in return for surrendering authority over Mount Lebanon. Bashir Shihab II, a distant cousin and ally of Ali al-Shihab, was given official control over Mount Lebanon by Jezzar Pasha in September 1789. Bashir II sought to eliminate Yusuf to remove any potential threats to his position and his forces defeated Yusuf's retinue of supporters in the Munaytara hills of north Lebanon. Yusuf was protected by the governors of Tripoli and Damascus. However, Jezzar Pasha once again offered Yusuf an opportunity to reclaim his emirate, but sometime after he arrived in Acre, Bashir II managed to persuade Jezzar Pasha that Yusuf only sought to sow sedition among the clans of Mount Lebanon. Jezzar then had Yusuf executed in 1790.