Al-Sawwaf () were a

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

family of chiefs active in

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon (, ; , ; ) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It is about long and averages above in elevation, with its peak at . The range provides a typical alpine climate year-round. Mount Lebanon is well-known for its snow-covered mountains, ...

and Wadi al-Taym in the late 15th–early 18th centuries. They were based in the

Matn Matn () is an Islamic term that is used in relation to Hadith terminology. It means the text of the hadith, excluding the isnad. Use A hadith is made of both an isnad (chain of transmission) and a matn. A hadith would typically adopt the f ...

area and historically opposed the

Ma'n dynasty The Ma'n dynasty (, alternatively spelled ''Ma'an''), also known as the Ma'nids; (), were a family of Druze chiefs of Arab stock based in the rugged Chouf District, Chouf area of southern Mount Lebanon who were politically prominent in the 15th� ...

and

Shihab dynasty The Shihab dynasty (alternatively spelled Chehab; , ALA-LC: ''al-Shihābiyūn'') is an Arab family whose members served as the paramount tax farmers and emirs of Mount Lebanon from the early 18th to mid-19th century, during Ottoman rule (1517– ...

. They were eliminated by the latter at the

Battle of Ain Dara The Battle of Ain Dara occurred in the village of Ain Dara, in Mount Lebanon in 1711, between the Qaysi and Yamani, two rival tribo-political factions. The Qays were led by Emir Haydar of the Shihab dynasty and consisted of the Druze clans of ...

in 1711.

History

The Sawwafs were based in the village of Chbaniyeh in the

area of

, east of

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

. They were the descendants of a certain Alam al-Din Sulayman al-Sawwaf ibn Husayn, who was killed in an engagement at Ayn Fujur in Wadi al-Taym in 1478, according to the local Druze chronicler

Ibn Sibat Ḥamza ibn Aḥmad ibn Sibāṭ al-Faqīh al-ʿĀlayhī () (died 1520) was a Druze historian and a scribe of the Buhturid emirs of Mount Lebanon. Life and work Hamza was based in Aley in the Gharb area southeast of Beirut in Mount Lebanon. His ...

(d. 1520). His son Abd al-Wahid and kinsman Zayn al-Din Salih died or were killed in 1503. A Sawwaf ''

muqaddam () is an Arabic title, adopted in other Islamic or Islamicate cultures, for various civil or religious officials. As per the Persian records of medieval India, muqaddams, along with khots and chowdhurys, acted as hereditary rural intermediaries ...

'' (local chief) named Qaytbay was mentioned as the chief of the

area in an Ottoman document dated to 1558. He raided the home of the Bedouin chief Muhammad ibn al-Hanash in the southern

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley (, ; Bekaa, Biqâ, Becaa) is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon and its most important farming region. Industry, especially the country's agricultural industry, also flourishes in Beqaa. The region broadly corresponds to th ...

in 1568. The following year he was granted the

tax farm Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by contract, legal contract to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from t ...

of the Matn subdistrict of

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. Territory and ...

. The Ottoman imperial government ordered the governor of

Damascus Eyalet Damascus Eyalet (; ) was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. Its reported area in the 19th century was . It became an eyalet after the Ottomans took it from the Mamluks following the 1516–1517 Ottoman–Mamluk War. By Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan ...

to confiscate his rifle stockpiles, along with those of Qurqumaz of the

, Mansur of the

Assaf dynasty The Assaf dynasty (also called Banu Assaf) were a Sunni Muslim and ethnic Turkmen dynasty of chieftains based in the Keserwan region of Mount Lebanon in the 14th–16th centuries. They came to the area in 1306 after being assigned by the Bahri ...

and Qasim of the

. During the early 17th century, the Sawwafs formed part of the Druze opposition, along with the

Alam al-Din The Alam al-Dins, also spelled Alamuddin or Alameddine, were a Druze family that intermittently held or contested the paramount chieftainship of the Druze districts of Mount Lebanon in opposition to the Ma'n and Shihab families in the late 17th a ...

s and Arslans, to the powerful Druze chief, tax farmer and Ottoman governor

Fakhr al-Din II Fakhr al-Din Ma'n (; 6 August 1572 13 April 1635), commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II (), was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon from the Ma'n dynasty, an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sanjak-bey, governor of Sidon-Beirut Sanj ...

. During the latter's exile in 1613–1618, they fought against his Ma'nid kinsmen and took refuge with

Yusuf Sayfa Yusuf Sayfa Pasha (; – 22 July 1625) was a chieftain and ''multazim'' (tax farmer) in the Tripoli region who frequently served as the Ottoman ''beylerbey'' (provincial governor) of Tripoli Eyalet between 1579 and his death. Yusuf or his f ...

in the

Krak des Chevaliers Krak des Chevaliers (; , ; or , ; from , ) is a medieval castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world. The site was first inhabited in the 11th century by Kurds, Kurdish troops garrisoned there by ...

after Fakhr al-Din's offensive against them in 1619. The apparent grandson of Qaytbay, Zayn al-Din, militarily supported Ali ibn Muhammad, the grandnephew of

, in his victory against Yusuf's son Assaf in a battle at Iaal near Tripoli in 1634. He was appointed to governorship of

Bsharri Bsharri ( ''Bšarrī''; also romanized ''Becharre'', ''Bcharre'', ''Bsharre'', ''Bcharre Al Arz'') is a Lebanese town located in the district of the same name, North Governorate, situated at altitudes between and . Bsharri is the location o ...

along with the Maronite chief Abu Awn al-Jumayyil (Abu Aoun Gemayel) in 1641. He and his nephew, the ''muqaddam'' Abdullah ibn Qaytbay, were given military charge over Wadi al-Taym alongside the

chiefs Mansur and Muhammad in 1659, following the expulsion of the Shihabs. Abdullah was killed near

in a battle against the Qaysi Druze (the Sawwafs were part of the rival Yaman faction), which included the Ma'ns and Shihabs, in 1667. The traditional Druze rivals of the Sawwafs in the Matn were the Abu'l-Lama ''muqaddams'' of Kafr Silwan, allies of the Ma'ns and Shihabs. They fought in the ranks of the Yamani Druze against the Qays led by the Shihabs at the

in 1711. The Yaman were routed, many of the Sawwafs were killed and family survivors fled the Matn and adopted different names.

References

Bibliography

* * *{{cite book , last1=Swayd , first1=Sami , title=Historical Dictionary of the Druzes , date=2015 , publisher=Rowman and Littlefield , location=Lanham, Maryland , isbn=978-1-4422-4616-4 , edition=Second , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eL0qBwAAQBAJ Druze people from the Ottoman Empire Families from the Ottoman Empire Matn District Ottoman period in Lebanon Lebanese families