Editing Druze (section)

=== Shihab Dynasty ===
{{Main|Shihab family}}
[[File:Druzewomantanturalt.png|thumb|right|Druze woman wearing a [[tantour]] during the 1870s in [[Chouf]], [[Ottoman Lebanon]]]]
As early as the days of [[Saladin]], and while the Ma'ans were still in complete control over southern Lebanon, the Shihab tribe, originally [[Hijaz]] Arabs, but later settled in Ḥawran, advanced from Ḥawran, in 1172, and settled in [[Wadi al-Taym]] at the foot of mount [[Hermon]]. They soon made an alliance with the Ma'ans and were acknowledged as the Druze chiefs in ''Wadi al-Taym''. At the end of the 17th century (1697) the Shihabs succeeded the Ma'ans in the feudal leadership of Druze southern Lebanon, although they reportedly professed [[Sunni Islam]], they showed sympathy with Druze, the religion of the majority of their subjects.

The Shihab leadership continued until the middle of the 19th century and culminated in the illustrious governorship of [[Bashir Shihab II|Amir Bashir Shihab II]] (1788–1840) who, after Fakhr-al-Din, was the most powerful feudal lord Lebanon produced. Though governor of the Druze Mountain, Bashir was a [[crypto-Christian]], and it was he whose aid [[Napoleon]] solicited in 1799 during his campaign against Syria. The "Druze-Christian alliance" during this century was the major factor enabling the [[Shehab dynasty]] to maintain power.<ref>{{cite book|title=A History of the Druzes|last=El-Firro|first=Kais|year=1952 |isbn=9789004094376 |page=49 |publisher=Brill Publishers|quote=}}</ref>

Having consolidated his conquests in Syria (1831–1838), [[Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt|Ibrahim Pasha]], son of the viceroy of Egypt, [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali Pasha]], made the fatal mistake of trying to disarm the Christians and Druze of the Lebanon and to draft the latter into his army. This was contrary to the principles of the life of independence which these mountaineers had always lived, and resulted in a general uprising against Egyptian rule.<ref name="Safi">{{Citation |first=Khaled M. |last=Safi |editor=Roger Heacock |title=Of Times and Spaces in Palestine: The Flows and Resistances of Identity |chapter=Territorial Awareness in the 1834 Palestinian Revolt |chapter-url=http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/483 |publisher=Presses de l'Ifpo |location=Beirut |year=2008 |isbn=9782351592656}}</ref> The Druze of Wadi al-Taym and Ḥawran, under the leadership of Shibli al-Aryan, distinguished themselves in their stubborn resistance at their inaccessible headquarters, ''al-Laja'', lying southeast of Damascus.{{Sfn | Hitti | 1924}}{{Rp| needed=yes|date=April 2012}}