Buhturids
Their iqtas were successively confirmed, decreased or increased by the Burid, Zengid, Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers of Damascus in return for military service and intelligence gathering in the war with the Crusader lordships of Beirut and Sidon.
They were respected by the peasants of the Gharb for safeguarding their interests against government measures, promoting agriculture, and checking their local rivals, the Turkmen emirs of the Keserwan.
[3] Although part of the confederation fled to Byzantine Anatolia, they primarily remained in their dwelling places around Aleppo and Qinnasrin (Chalcis) in the northern Levant and eventually allied with the Levant-based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) while largely retaining their Christian faith.
[3] After the execution of their preeminent chieftain Layth ibn Mahatta by the Iraq-based Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) for refusing to embrace Islam, the tribe converted and their churches were destroyed.
[4] The Sijill al-Arslani (genealogical registers of the Arslan family of Choueifat) states that the Tanukh began moving into Mount Lebanon under the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775), who ordered a number of the tribe's chiefs to secure the coast and lines of communication around Beirut from Byzantine attack.
[13][14] An Arslan emir, Majd al-Dawla Muhammad, survived and abandoned Sidon to the Crusaders before retiring to the Gharb where he took over the lands of his deceased kinsmen, holding them until his death in battle in 1137.
[13][15] The historian Kamal Salibi surmises that successive Muslim atabegs (Turkic rulers) of Damascus resettled Mount Lebanon with Arab tribesmen to buttress the frontier with the Crusader states; the most prominent of the settler families were the branch of the Tanukh led by Ali ibn al-Husayn.
[17] Abu-Izzedin further notes that the 1061 entry of the Sijill al-Arslani records the name Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abdallah as one of the three Tanukhid emirs addressed in Epistle 50 and places his death in 1029.
[19] It is probable that Buhtur was among the frontier commanders called by Abaq to help repulse a Crusader raid against Damascus in 1148, and his Druze warriors a component of the "many archers" who had come "from the direction of the Biqa' [Beqaa Valley] and from elsewhere" to defend the city during that battle referenced by the Damascene historian Ibn al-Qalanisi (d.
The Buhturids were consistently the stronger clan, but their struggles with the Banu Abi al-Jaysh for supremacy in the Gharb recurred throughout the Crusader period and into the Mamluk era in Mount Lebanon.
[8] At the same time, the emirs were careful to demonstrate their protection of the frontier with religious zeal to maintain financial support and avoid attacks from the Muslim rulers of Damascus.
[22] As a result of his support by Nur al-Din, Karama established headquarters in the Gharb fortress of Sarhammur (modern Sarhmoul), from which he harried the Crusaders along the coast.
[25] Hajji's paternal uncle, Sharaf al-Dawla Ali, also survived the Crusader assault and reestablished himself in Aramoun where he founded a cadet branch of the Buhturids.
[29] To that end, the family maintained cordial ties with the Crusader lords of Beirut and Sidon, declared their loyalty to the Ayyubid emirs, attempted negotiations with the Mamluks of Egypt, and pondered accommodating the Mongols.
[30] Ibn Yahya records and dates letters recognizing Buhturid leadership of the Gharb from the Ayyubid emir of Damascus al-Nasir Yusuf, the Mamluk sultan Aybak, the Mongol ruler Hulagu, and the lords of Beirut and Sidon.
[31] His army's regular troops and allied tribesmen from Baalbek and the Beqaa Valley were routed by the Buhturids at the village of Aytat, close to modern Aley.
[33] Salih fought reputably with the Mamluks when they routed the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine and was pardoned by Qutuz for his initial allegiance to Kitbuqa.
[36] He balanced his father's centralization drive with the realization that the militarily experienced peasant warriors of the Gharb and the other mountain frontier districts, who formed a key component of the Muslims' coastal defenses, were only effective under their traditional chiefs.
[37] In 1305 Husayn and his cousins Muhammad and Ahmad, both sons of Hajji II, participated in the government campaigns in the Keserwan against Druze, Alawite, Shia Muslim, and Maronite rebels.
[41] The Buhturids were assisted and overseen by rotational halqa units from Baalbek, the administrative capital of the Northern March of Damascus Province, to which the Beirut District was subordinate.
[42] Husayn lobbied Emir Tankiz, the Mamluk viceroy of Damascus, to restore the family to their iqtas in Mount Lebanon lest the troops in their district "shall perish, for it is their home and that of their men and clan, and they can benefit of no other property".
[42] The Mamluks agreed to leave the Buhturid iqtas intact, thereby formalizing a hereditary system of feudal land tenure which had become traditional in southern Mount Lebanon.
[37] Between 1306 and his retirement in 1348 Husayn helped repulse several Cypriot and Genoese raids against Beirut and in 1343 participated in an expedition against the deposed Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Ahmad in al-Karak.
[44] The former successfully ignored a Mamluk order to cut down the plums trees of the Chouf to make arrows, saving the Druze peasants of agricultural losses and forced labor; it contributed to the Bunturids' respect among the local population.
The Turkmens of Keserwan, who supported the Turkish sultans, used the opportunity to raid the hills around Beirut, exterminating the Abi al-Jaysh emirs and attacking the Arslans.
[48] The Buhturids grew their commercial enterprises, exporting silk, olive oil and soap from Beirut and forming business ties with Mamluk officials in Egypt.
The sultan appointed the Buhturid emir Izz al-Din Sadaqa the mutawali (governor) of Beirut, the first member of the family to attain the post, while Ibn Yahya was promoted to the rank of amir ashrin (commander of twenty mamluks).
In 1518, Yahya was imprisoned by the governor of Damascus, Janbirdi al-Ghazali, for allegedly supporting the revolt of Nasir al-Din Muhammad of the Bani al-Hansh against Selim.
The Ottoman imperial government issued orders to the governor of Damascus to confiscate Sharaf al-Din Ali's rifles, and those of the Assafs, Ma'ns, and Sawwaf in 1572.
Muhammad's son Hasan at the time shared the tax farm of the subdistricts of southern Mount Lebanon with the Sayfa and Alam al-Din families of Akkar and the Matn, respectively.
