Harfush dynasty

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The Harfush dynasty (or Harfouche, Harfuch, Harfouch, or most commonly spelled Harfoush dynasty, all varying transcriptions of the same Arabic family name حرفوش) was a dynasty that descended from the Khuza'a tribe, which helped, during the reign of Muhammad, in the conquest of Syria. The Harfush are considered the best-known Shiite group in the history of Ottoman-period Lebanon, when they controlled the Baalbek District and several parts of the Bekaa Valley. Their being Shiaa was a major factor in the rivalry between the Harfushes and the Lebanese Druze Maan family. The Shia notables such as the Harfush emirs of Baalbek and Bekaa Valley were among the most sought-after local intermediaries of the Ottoman state. Later the Hamadas rose to power. They exercised control over multiple tax farms in the rural hinterland of Tripoli in the seventeenth century through complex relationships with both the Ottoman state authorities and the local non-Shiaa communities. The Harfush and Hamadas both belonged to Shia Islam in Lebanon, the Harfush emirate of the Bekaa Valley and the Hamadas of Mt Lebanon challenged the territorial extension and power of the Druze emirate of the Shuf. Unlike the Druze, the Shia emirs were regularly denounced for their religious identity and persecuted under Ebu's-Suud's definition of (Kızılbaş) heretics. The Harfushes had been a regionally paramount dynasty since early Mamluk times and even served as patrons of local Shiaa shrines and scholars. To the Ottomans they were therefore always leading candidates for local fiscal and political offices, including for the military governorship of the sub-province of Homs, to which they were appointed to partially offset the influence of the increasingly hegemonic Druze emirate.