Assaf dynasty
They came to the area in 1306 after being assigned by the Bahri Mamluks to guard the coastal region between Beirut and Byblos and to check the power of the mostly Shia Muslim population at the time.
Mansur was dismissed in 1579 and replaced by his son Muhammad, who was imprisoned by the authorities in 1584 for alleged involvement in a looting raid against an Istanbul-bound caravan.
The Assafs were the descendants of the Turkmen tribesmen settled in the Keserwan area of central Mount Lebanon, north of Beirut under the early Mamluk rulers.
According to the local chronicler Tannus al-Shidyaq (d. 1861), the Turkmens were settled there by the Mamluk governor of Damascus, Aqqush al-Afram, following his expedition against the rebellious Alawites, Twelver Shia Muslims, Druze and Maronites of Keserwan and the neighboring Jurd area to the south in 1305.
[1] The rebels were decisively suppressed by January 1306, their lands were transferred as iqtas to Mamluk emirs in Damascus and later that year the Turkmens were settled there.
[4] At least part of them were resettled in Beirut by the strongman of the Mamluk Sultanate, Yalbugha al-Umari, to reinforce the Damascene troops stationed there to defend the town against a potential Crusader attack in the aftermath of the Cypriot raid on Alexandria.
[5] Under Assaf or Turkmen lordship, the Twelver Shia remained the majority in the Keserwan due to continuous immigration from the Beqaa Valley, but were they forced out of the coastal areas of the district and their population declined.
[7] Under Barquq's direction, the Mamluks mobilized their army troops, Druze warriors, and tribesmen from the Beqaa Valley and dealt a heavy blow against the Turkmens of Keserwan.
[12] While Emir Assaf had lived in Aintoura in the winter and elsewhere along the Nahr al-Kalb ridge prior to the Ottoman conquest, in 1517, he moved his headquarters to Ghazir.
[13] The move to the latter village in Keserwan's interior and away from the Turkmen-dominated coastal area likely contributed to a steady deterioration of ties between the Assafs and their fellow Turkmens.
[14] In Tripoli, the Assafs were subcontracted to collect taxes in the surrounding area, including the Akkar plains, by Emir Muhammad Agha Shu'ayb.
[14] In the ensuing power struggle, Qa'itbay was forced to flee and received refuge in Choueifat, before relocating to Beirut; there, he accrued funds to bribe the governor of Damascus, Janbirdi al-Ghazali, to replace Hasan as the tax farmer of Keserwan.
[16] In his subsequent assertion of control over Keserwan, Byblos and Beirut, Qa'itbay was backed by al-Ghazali, the ex-Mamluk Ottoman governor of Damascus Eyalet.
[17] The revolt quickly spread through Qa'itbay's territories, but after marshaling financial resources to mobilize military support from the Bedouin Ibn al-Hansh tribe of the Beqaa Valley, he managed to drive his opponents back to Lassa.
[16] In Ottoman administrative records, a certain Emir Musa Bey is noted as the local authority in Keserwan between Qa'itbay's death in 1523 and 1548, not Mansur.
[21] He installed the Sayfas as his subordinate tax farmers in Akkar, provoking opposition from Muhammad Shu'ayb, who was killed by Mansur later that year.
[20] Although Mansur timely delivered taxes to the authorities, the Ottomans became wary of his power in Mount Lebanon and importing of arms from Venice.
[24] According to Duwayhi, Muhammad was alleged by the authorities to have participated in the looting of an Istanbul-bound caravan from Egypt while it was passing through the Akkar and was consequently imprisoned in Istanbul.
Following his death, Yusuf Sayfa was transferred control of the Assafs' nawahi in Tripoli Eyalet, and he expelled the Hubaysh clan, promoting his Shia Muslim Hamade allies from Byblos at their expense.
