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Qabb Ilyas (; ALA-LC: Qab Ilyās / Lebanese Arabic: ) also spelled Kab Elias, Qab Elias, Qob Elias, Qoub Elias) is a municipality in Zahle District, in eastern Lebanon. Qabb Ilyas is 15 kilometers from Zahleh and from the Lebanese capital Beirut. Its average elevation above sea level is 950 meters (3,120 feet). Its area is approximately 32 km². Qabb Ilyas is the third largest city in the Beqaa Valley, after Zahleh and Baalbek in terms of area size. The majority of the residents are Sunni Islam.
In the late 16th century, the Bedouin chieftain of the Beqaa Valley, Mansur ibn Furaykh, used Qabb Ilyas as one of his headquarters. He had a palatial home built in the village. Two years after his execution in Damascus by the Ottoman Empire authorities in December 1593, the Druze sheikh Ali Jumblatt took over the Beqaa Valley during his rebellion against the governor of Damascus Eyalet. During this rebellion, Mansur's home was seized by the Druze Maan family emir, Fakhr ad-Din II, who refused to restore it to Mansur's brother Murad ibn Furaykh despite an imperial Ottoman decree. The sons of Mansur, Nasrallah and Muhammad, continued to struggle for control of the property during Fakhr ad-Din's exile as the Shia Harfush clan sheikh Yunus al-Harfush took possession of the home.Abu Husayn, pp. 132-133.
The Ma'an dynasty built a formidable fortress in Qabb Ilyas that later emirs of Lebanon commissioned during times of rebellion against the Ottomans. Sayyid-Ahmad Shihab occupied Qabb Ilyas in 1773 and robbed a group of Damascene merchants there, for which he was condemned and evicted from the area by his brother Emir Yusuf Shihab.Harris, p. 122. In the mid-1820s, the Ottoman wali of Damascus, Darwish Pasha, defeated Emir Bashir Shihab II and proceeded to demolish most of what remained of the Fakhr ad-Din Castle. He then assigned a Muslim from the Aleppo-based Araqtanji family to govern Qabb Ilyas.Mishaqah, p. 136.
In 1838, Eli Smith noted Kubb Elyas as a Sunni Muslim, Druze, Maronite and Greek Catholic village in the Beqaa Valley.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 142
During the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, the Druze used Qabb Ilyas, which at the time was a religiously mixed village, as their local headquarters in the Beqaa Valley and it withstood a raid by fighters from the nearby Christian stronghold Zahle.Fawaz, p. 66. During French military intervention in the conflict, the French Army occupied Qabb Ilyas and maintained a military force there to guard the Beqaa Valley and southern Mount Lebanon.Fawaz, pp. 124-125. The Ottomans established an army garrison at Qabb Ilyas at the French withdrawal.Fawaz, p. 179.
The Haidara ruins are believed to date back to the Roman Empire era.
It is estimated that Qabb Ilyas had a population of around 50,000 as of 2011. By 2013, as a result of the Syrian Civil War, about 18,000 Syrian refugees were living in Qabb Ilyas as well. The population lived in the following areas: Qabb Ilyas Fauka, Qabb Ilyas Tahta, Wadi El Delm, Farm of Bmahray, Bahsasa. In the 2004 municipal elections, it counted 14,602 registered voters, of which 8,771 voted.
There are no firm studies on the population of Qabb Ilyas in 2020 but it is believed to be around 100,000.
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