Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali
Abdullah's mother was from the coastal city of Jableh and belonged to a family of ashraf (descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad).
Ali Pasha died in 1814, but while on his deathbed he asked Haim Farhi, Sulayman's chief adviser, to look after Abdullah, then 13.
The principal domestic obstacle to Abdullah's succession had been the original mamluks of Jazzar Pasha, chief among them Abu-Nabbut.
"[4] Through his Constantinople-based contact Hesekiel al-Baghdadi, a fellow Jew and a banker with close ties to the powerful Janissary corps, Farhi lobbied the Sublime Porte for five months before it agreed to appoint Abdullah Pasha as Wali of Sidon and assign him the rank of vizier.
Bribes to various imperial officials and influential figures in Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, amounted to about 11 million piastres.
[5] People in the province welcomed Abdullah's succession because of the perception that he would follow Sulayman's model, which had been generally positive for both the inhabitants and local leaders.
According to Mishaqah, Abdullah often spent his time with local, lower-class Muslims and joined them in dhikr sessions (Sufi ritual of remembrance involving dancing).
Farhi disapproved of Abdullah's behavior and advised him to instead participate in dhikrs with men of higher social rank, such as the qadi, the mufti, the naqib al-ashraf or members of the ulema.
[9] Abdullah ultimately deposed Bashir for his failure to pay tribute and the latter exiled himself to the Hauran region south of Damascus.
[5] From the Hauran, Emir Bashir issued a request to Abdullah for intervention or assistance regarding a payment of 5,000 piastres imposed on him by the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Darwish Pasha.
[14] Emir Bashir answered his summons to Acre, where Abdullah's mother told him "My son is your lord by virtue of his rank, but in view of age and your efforts on his behalf you are his son" and proceeded to concede that Abdullah had acted rashly with Bashir in the past and that he erred in having Farhi killed.
Emir Bashir and his allies mustered some 12,000 fighting men, while Abdullah's forces numbered 4,000 under the command of Ibrahim Agha al-Kurdi.
Darwish Pasha's troops, backed by the Druze Yazbaki faction and Emir Mansur Shihab II assembled at Mezzeh outside of Damascus, where the two sides confronted each other in May 1822.
[17] Abdullah's forces besieged Damascus, but did not enter it, preferring to use the siege to leverage support from Mustafa Pasha, the governor of Aleppo.
Emir Bashir, seeking to avoid the quandary of being disloyal towards Abdullah or defying Ottoman imperial orders, fled Syria for Egypt which was governed by the powerful Muhammad Ali.
Darwish Pasha, sought to gain actual control of Sidon Eyalet before Abdullah and Emir Bashir could regroup, and besieged Acre in July 1822.
Coinciding with these accusations, the Ottoman authorities under Sultan Mahmud II's direction, began a process to reduce and ultimately destroy the Janissary corps, an influential military group that the Farhis and their associates had developed strong ties with.
The restoration of Abdullah to the governorship represented not only a success for Muhammad Ali, but also a shift in the sultanate's policy toward some Jewish financiers in the empire.
[23] During the period in which Tripoli and its dependencies were detached from Sidon Eyalet, Abdullah Pasha continued to wield influence in its affairs.
The districts were traditionally part of Damascus Eyalet, but the latter's governor, Mehmed Pasha, had been unable to collect the miri (annual tax designated for the Hajj pilgrimage caravan) from them.
[26] From their fortress in Sanur, the Jarrar clan had successfully resisted sieges by Abdullah's predecessors Zahir al-Umar and Jazzar Pasha, as well as from various governors of Damascus.
Abdullah believed that by defeating the Jarrars and capturing their fortress, he would be considered "next to that of the greatest commanders of the world", according to the French consul in Beirut.
[26] After his victory, Abdullah opted to reconcile with the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus because an impending invasion of Syria by Muhammad Ali had become apparent.
[28] As a public justification of his conquest of Sidon, Muhammad Ali alleged that Abdullah was harboring 6,000 Egyptian fellahin who were dodging conscription, corvee or taxes.
Meanwhile, Husayn Abd al-Hadi of Arraba, a prominent sheikh of Jabal Nablus, was advised by Emir Bashir to not resist Ibrahim Pasha's troops.
[31] The siege of Acre began in December 1831 after Ibrahim's army captured the nearby port town of Haifa, where Abdullah maintained a summer residence.
[32] Abdullah had been seeking safety with his family in a bunker in the city,[26] but when he realized that the exterior walls were breached and that his remaining defenders amounted to no more than 350 men, he conceded defeat and opened Acre's gates.
The main threats he perceived were Farhi, who he had killed early in his rule, and the older mamluks who had formed part of Sulayman's trusted retinue.
[22] In a report, the French consul wrote that Abdullah "governs as if politics advised him to surround himself with ruins, to the point that all the country under his control presents a picture of isolation and poverty.
"[26] According to Philipp, "only the instability of politics in Damascus ... and the preoccupation of the Ottomans with internal reforms and the Greek war disguised the weakness of Abdallah Pasha's regime".
