Sidon-Beirut Sanjak

Sidon-Beirut Sanjak was a sanjak (district) of Sidon Eyalet (Province of Sidon) of the Ottoman Empire. Prior to 1660, the Sidon-Beirut Sanjak had been part of Damascus Eyalet, and for brief periods in the 1590s, Tripoli Eyalet.

The Sidon-Beirut Sanjak consisted of the roughly 60-kilometer-strip of territory between the gorge of al-Muamalatayn (just north of Juniyah) to the Zahrani River. The gorge of al-Muamalatayn marked its northern boundary with Tripoli Eyalet, the Zahrani River marked its southern boundary with Safad Sanjak and the Beqaa Valley ridge marked its eastern boundary with Damascus Eyalet. The Sidon-Beirut Sanjak included the coastal towns of Sidon and Beirut, both of which were the center of their own nahiyas (subdistricts), and it included southern Mount Lebanon range. Its interior nahiyas were, from north to south, Kisrawan and Matn in the Jabal Sannin mountains, Gharb and Jurd in the Jabal al-Kanisah mountains and Iqlim al-Kharnub and Shuf in the Jabal al-Baruk mountains. The population was religiously diverse, with Sunni Muslims being predominant in Sidon, Beirut and Iqlim al-Kharnub, Druze predominating in Matn, Gharb, Jurd and Shuf and Shia Muslims and Maronite Christians inhabiting Kisrawan. Maronites and to a lesser extent, other Christians, increasingly immigrated into the Druze-dominated areas throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

After the Ottoman Empire conquered Syria from the Mamluks in 1516, they formed the Damascus Eyalet (Province of Damascus) out of the Mamluk provinces of central and southern Syria, including the wilayas (districts) of Sidon and Beirut. The latter two places were administratively merged to form the sanjak (district) of Sidon-Beirut. For much of the 16th and 17th centuries, Sidon-Beirut Sanjak was under the jurisdiction of Damascus and, at times during the 1590s, Tripoli. Its first sanjak-bey (district governor) was Ibn al-Hansh, a powerful Arab chieftain active under the Mamluks. He ruled Sidon-Beirut in cooperation with his Druze associates, three of whom came from the Ma'an clan and the fourth from the Tanukh clan. In 1518, Ibn al-Hanash revolted against Ottoman sultan Selim I while he was still in Syria, but was defeated and executed. His associates were arrested and heavily fined. As a sanjak, Sidon-Beirut ostensibly functioned as a military-administrative unit with its own governor and troops. However, at the practical level, Sidon-Beirut's governors held little sway in the sanjak, which was dominated by local chieftains. The latter held iltizam (tax farms) from which they profited, but owing to their autonomous power, they did not pay taxes to the authorities and take part in military duties on behalf of the state.

...
Wikipedia