Yusuf Sayfa
Relations with the Ottomans deteriorated over the next ten years, a period in which Fakhr al-Din gained steady advantage over Yusuf, who was abandoned by most of his local allies and his nephews.
Although he was viewed favorably by the Sunni Muslims of Tripoli and Akkar for his loyalty to the Ottomans, he was resented by the Maronite peasantry for executing unpopular and ruinous government measures.
[10][d] The sanjak was a subdivision of Damascus Eyalet spanning the coastlands of Ottoman Syria from Latakia southward to Byblos and northern Mount Lebanon and the Alawite Mountains.
They temporarily found refuge in Baruk under the protection of Qurqumaz ibn Yunis of the Ma'n dynasty,[24] a long-established family of Druze chieftains and tax farmers who controlled the Chouf area in southern Mount Lebanon.
In that year he was ordered by the Porte to arrest the advisers of the Assafs from the Maronite Hubaysh family, the brothers Abu Sa'd Mansur and Muhanna, and to deal with certain tax and administrative matters.
[47] His increasing proximity to Ma'nid domains in the southern Lebanon range provoked Fakhr al-Din II,[47] the sanjak-bey of Sidon-Beirut Sanjak from 1592 and the son and successor of Qurqumaz ibn Yunis,[49] who had died in the 1585 expedition.
[44] In 1598 the Damascus beylerbey Seyyed Mehmed Pasha ordered Fakhr al-Din and Musa al-Harfush of Baalbek to force Yusuf out of the Keserwan and Beirut.
[52]Yusuf engaged the Hamades in 1600 to assault and drive out the muqaddams (local chieftains) of the village of Jaj in the Byblos nahiya in retaliation for their alleged support for Fakhr al-Din.
[58] Yusuf, fearing the ambitions of the Janbulads and seeking to curry favor with the Porte, requested and obtained from the imperial government military aid and the rank of serdar (commander-in-chief) of the Ottoman forces throughout Syria in late 1606.
[66] Yusuf mobilized his Damascene troops, including the Janissaries,[67] which were swelled by soldiers from Jerusalem, Nablus, Gaza, Lajjun, and Ajlun, all sanjaks of Damascus located in Palestine and Transjordan.
[68][69] Ali and Fakhr al-Din moved their forces to the suburbs of Damascus where Yusuf's troops, led by his nephew Muhammad, were defeated in a battle on 30 September or mid-October.
[70] He attempted to escape, but the officials of Damascus, alarmed at the potential economic fallout of the city's impending sack, forced him to pay 100,000 gold piasters as compensation before allowing his departure.
According to al-Burini, Yusuf did not lead his troops during the Damascus engagements and "remained in hiding among the womenfolk" until he could be "smuggled out of the city by night" under the escort of a Damascene guard.
[71] Abu-Husayn notes the agreement left Yusuf "in the awkward position where he became subservient to the rebel Ali Janbulad, while trying at the same time to remain loyal to the Porte.
"[73] Ali's revolt was suppressed in 1607–1608 by Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha after imperial troops were released from the Austrian front following the Peace of Zsitvatorok.
[76] To prevent Yusuf from hindering his replacement's attempts to collect taxes in the eyalet, the grand vizier in 1610 instructed the beylerbeys of Damascus and Aleppo and Fakhr al-Din, who was still sanjak-bey of Sidon-Beirut and Safad, to assist al-Jalali in the event.
[79] With frayed relations between him and the government, Yusuf sought improved ties with Fakhr al-Din, sending reinforcements to aid the latter's son Ali during a battle with the Damascene Janissaries in the Hauran in 1613.
[81] The Sayfa force intercepted Ma'nid reinforcements from their Deir al-Qamar headquarters sent to relieve the Ma'n-held Beaufort Castle (Shaqif Arnun) on the Litani River.
Fakhr al-Din and Umar Kittanji pressed their offensive, having the village of Akkar burnt down and recruiting Yusuf's men in the forts of Byblos and Smar Jbeil south of Tripoli.
With the leverage afforded by the government, Yusuf bargained with Fakhr al-Din and Umar Kittanji, who agreed to a bribe of 50,000 piasters each, with an equivalent sum to be paid later.
The latter had taken over Byblos and Jubbat Bsharri during the Krak des Chevaliers siege and Yusuf, unable to pay his debt to Fakhr al-Din, agreed to sublease their iltizam to him for four years in compensation.
[94] To meet his tax obligations to the Porte and avoid further dismissals from Tripoli, Yusuf advanced once more against Sulayman in Safita, but again called off the campaign after Fakhr al-Din mobilized his troops in Bsharri against him.
From Tripoli Yusuf negotiated with the Porte to reinstate him on the one hand, and with Fakhr al-Din, whose assistance was requested by Umar Kittanji, to stall the Druze emir from military action.
His authority was effectively restricted to the city of Tripoli, Krak des Chevaliers, the Jabala Sanjak governed by his son Qasim, and the Koura nahiya held by the Kurdish emirs of Ras Nhash; the rest of the eyalet, namely the nahiyas of Jubbat Bsharri, Batroun, Byblos, Dinniyeh and Akkar and the sanjaks of Safita and Homs, were in the hands of Fakhr al-Din or his Sayfa allies.
He invited the Safya chiefs to meet in his camp in the Homs Gap where he trapped and executed Assaf, hanging his body at Krak des Chevaliers, while Ali, suspicious of the summons, fled the eyalet.
The Sunni Muslim Tripolitanian scholar Mustafa Jamal al-Din Ibn Karama offered the most positive view of Yusuf's rule, writing "In his eyalet, the ra'iyya (subjects) sleep in peace, and wake up happy because he is there".
[106] Ibn Karama, al-Burini, al-Muhibbi, al-Urdi, Najm al-Din Muhammad al-Ghazzi (d. 1651) and Ramadan al-Utayfi (d. 1684), all members of the urban Sunni Muslim scholarly establishment in Syria, indicate that Yusuf was known for his generosity and patronage of poets and Sufis.
[109] Likewise, Abu-Husayn holds that Yusuf's generosity represented "a costly means to gain recognition" amid persistent financial difficulties, which frequently resulted in his dismissal from office or his loss of fiscal districts.
[112] Although the Sunni Muslim townspeople and peasants generally supported Yusuf, who maintained close relations with the Ottoman officials of Tripoli,[113] his local manpower remained opportunistic and not loyal to him personally.
[117] Instead of fostering commerce in Tripoli's well-positioned port with its easy access to the major cities of the Syrian interior, Yusuf committed acts discouraging foreign trade.
