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Safed Sanjak (; ) was a sanjak (district) of Damascus Eyalet (Ottoman Empire province of Damascus) in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet (Ottoman province of Sidon). The sanjak was centered in Safed and spanned the Galilee, Jabal Amil and the coastal cities of Acre and Tyre. The city of Safed was made up of Muslim and Jewish townspeople. At the same time the rest of the sanjak was populated by Sunni Muslims, , Metouali Twelver Muslims, and Jews and Druze peasants.
There is no available information about the administrative divisions of Safed Sanjak during the 17th century. By the 18th century, Safed Sanjak was divided into ten nawahi.Rhode 1979, p. 33.
The Ottomans entered the territory of the mamlaka through the Daughters of Jacob Bridge and did not meet any resistance in or around Safed.Rhode 1979, p. 18. They bypassed the city, setting up camps at the Daughters of Jacob's Bridge, Jubb Yusuf, Khan al-Minya and Khan al-Tujjar, all located in the mamlaka, before proceeding to conquer Mamluk Egypt. While Selim I was in Egypt, rumors spread in Safed that he had been killed, spurring the townspeople to revolt against the Ottomans before being suppressed by the new authorities.Rhode 1979, pp. 18–19.
In the 16th century, the Sudun clan of Qana, who were Shia Muslims of purported Circassians origins, and the Al Shukr of Aynatha, a family of Shia (religious leaders), dominated the Bilad Bishara nahiya of the sanjak.Winter 2010, p. 126.
In 1602 the Druze chieftain of the Chouf-based Ma'n dynasty and governor of Sidon-Beirut, Fakhr al-Din II, was appointed governor of Safed. Fakhr al-Din had become an increasingly powerful figure in the region and at the time enjoyed support from the Ottoman government. He was tasked in Safed with controlling the Shia Muslim clans, who were generally viewed more negatively by the Sunni Ottomans than the Druze, and like the Druze and Bedouin of the region in general, were in a frequent state of rebellion through their stockpiling of muskets and refusal to pay taxes.Abu-Husayn 1985, pp. 83–84. Three years after Fakhr al-Din's appointment, the Ottomans commended him for "guarding the country, keeping the Bedouins in check, ensuring the welfare and tranquility of the population, promoting agriculture and increasing prosperity".Abu-Husayn 1985, p. 84. Khalidi, who became Fakhr al-Din's adviser and practical court historian, also testified that Bedouin brigandage along the highways of the sanjak ceased under Fakhr al-Din, resulting in peace and security, and that agriculture was thriving anew.
In 1614, a new eyalet (province) was created based in Sidon, and Safed was annexed to it. The province was disbanded later that year and Safed Sanjak reverted to Damascus Eyalet. During Fakhr al-Din's exile between 1613 and 1619, the Shia Muslim Harfush dynasty tried and failed to gain control of it.Abu Husayn 2004, p. 136. Around the same time, in 1617, the Shia Muslim clan of Munkar and the house of El Assaad Family of Ali Al-Saghir emerged, along with Al Shukr, as opponents of the Ma'ns in Bilad Bishara. After a five-year exile in Tuscany, Fakhr al-Din reestablished his position in the region, his power reaching its apex in the 1630s until he was killed by imperial Ottoman troops in 1635.Joudan 1987, p. 13. Ali al-Saghir and his brother Husayn, who traced their origins to an old, influential Shia Muslim tribe, eliminated the rival clans of Sudun in 1639 and Al Shukr in 1649, thereafter establishing their family as the sole leaders of the Shia Muslim clans across Jabal Amil, including the areas of Tibnin, Hunin, Qana and Ma'araka.
The settlements of the Galilee, particularly Safed and Tiberias, deteriorated during the struggle to capture the region by the nephew of Fakhr al-Din, Mulhim ibn Yunus Ma'n, who ultimately gained control of Safed Sanjak in 1653.Falah 1978, p. 38. The following year, the Ali al-Saghir clan irked the authorities for not forwarding revenues from Tyre earmarked for a waqf (religious trust) in Damascus. It may have precipitated their decline, which was advanced with the deaths of Husayn and his son Hasan in 1655 and 1656. In 1660, the Sidon Eyalet was reestablished and Safed was once again annexed to it. The Ottoman governor of the new province launched a campaign against the Shia feudal lords, resulting in the deaths of Ali and many of his sons. Less powerful Shia clans, such as the El Zein family, filled the local leadership void in the aftermath, though the Ali al-Saghir regrouped toward the end of the century and may have maintained tacit support from the Ma'n.Winter 2010, p. 127.
Ahmad Ma'n died in 1697 without male progeny and the Ma'n tax farms in Sidon-Beirut Sanjak were transferred to Haydar Shihab by the Ottoman government.Winter 2010, p. 128. With the demise of the Ma'ns in the late 17th century, the Safad Sanjak also largely came under the control of the Shihab dynasty. The Shihabi emir, Bashir I, Haydar's uncle and the effective leader of the Shihab dynasty, launched a punitive campaign against the Ali al-Saghirs in Bilad Bishara in 1698, capturing Mushrif and his son Muhammad and transferring them to the custody of Sidon's governor Kaplan Pasha, brother of Tripoli Eyalet's governor and Shihab ally Arslan Mehmed Pasha. Bashir was afterward appointed the governor of the Safad Sanjak. He routed a coalition of the Ali al-Saghir, Sa'b and Munkar Shia clans in Nabatieh in 1707.Winter 2010, p. 129. Taking control of Bilad Bishara, he granted it to his Druze deputy Mahmud Abu Harmush.
The governor of Sidon Eyalet, backed by local forces from Nablus, resolved to subjugate the Saqr, who had developed a reputation for raiding villages, endangering travelers and commerce, and evading taxes.Philipp 2001, p. 32. In an effort to improve their position with the authorities, the Saqr invested in Umar al-Zaydani's son Zahir al-Umar to serve as their representative. With their backing, Zahir gained control of Tiberias and persuaded Sidon to appoint him its tax farmer. By 1738 he gained the surrender of Safed by its local strongman and tax farmer Muhammad Naf'i. In 1746 he added the tax farm of Acre to his domains, while he and other Zaydanis had consolidated their control over the rest of the Galilee.Philipp 2001, pp. 33–36. After twenty-five years of clashes and cooperation, Zahir and the Shia Muslim clans of Jabal Amil led by Nassif al-Nassar of the Ali al-Saghir clan agreed a formal alliance making Zahir their official representative with the authorities in Sidon, overseeing their tax payments and agreeing to defend them against the Druze led by Mulhim Shihab in exchange for their military backing.Philipp 2001, p. 37.
Zahir fortified Acre and made it the capital of his expanding sheikhdom and the center of his monopoly on the cotton trade from Palestine. Acre's practical dominance of the sanjak under Zahir, who ruled until his death in 1775, and his Ottoman-appointed successors Jazzar Pasha (1775–1804), Sulayman Pasha al-Adil (1805–1819) and Abdullah Pasha (1820–1831) contributed to the political decline of Safed, which became a nahiya center with limited local influence, belonging to the Acre Sanjak.Abbasi 2003, p. 50.
Zaydani rule
By the late 17th century, the Bedouin Banu Saqr tribe practically dominated the area west of Tiberias between Safed and Nablus.Joudah 1987, p. 20. The Saqr extended their protection to the Banu Zaydan clan under its chief, whose name is not defined in the sources. The chief's son Umar al-Zaydani was appointed the mutasallim (tax farmer) of Safed by Bashir I who also appointed his own son Mansur governor of Safad Sanjak.Joudah 1987, p. 21. Mansur died in 1702 and was succeeded as governor by Umar, who held the post until he died in 1706, the same year Bashir I died in Safed.
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