[4] When As'ad Pasha was removed from his post by the Sublime Porte, he was succeeded by a number of short-term governors who were unable to halt the violence between the local forces and the Janissary garrison in the city.
In addition to the governorship of Damascus, he was appointed beylerbey (governor-general) of the adjacent Tripoli Eyalet and awarded contracts for the districts of Hama and Homs.
[4] al-Umar had previously clashed with the al-Azm governors of Damascus and Sidon and when he annexed the port city of Haifa in 1761, Uthman Pasha began making moves against Zahir.
[7][8][9] Also in 1764, while Uthman was leading the annual Hajj pilgrimage, he had a violent confrontation with Ali Bey al-Kabir, an influential mamluk from Egypt.
[16] Uthman succeeded in protecting the Hajj caravans for ten years as amir al-hajj and consistently attempted to end the autonomous rule of Zahir al-Umar, and thus his failure to defend Damascus from the Egyptian Mamluk army was the likely reason for his reassignment.