Daher El-Omar - Rule

Rule

Around 1730, Daher and his brother Yusuf settled in the town of Tiberias. In 1740, he fortified the town and made agreement with the neighbouring Bedouin tribes to prevent their looting raids. Accounts from that time tell of the great admiration which the people had for Daher, especially for his war against bandits on the roads. Richard Pococke, who visited Tiberias in 1727, witnessed the building of a fort to the north of the city, and the strengthening of the old walls, and attributed it to a disagreement with the pasha (ruler) of Damascus. By 1735 he had extended his rule to include Nazareth, Majd ibn Amr and Nablus.

Daher, similar to many other strong local leaders under the Ottoman Empire who did not owe their power to the central Ottoman authorities, was disliked by the Ottoman administration. The Ottoman Sultan sent an order to the governor of Damascus, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, to put an end to Daher's rule in the Galilee. In September 1742, a military force led by the governor of Damascus came to the Galilee and laid siege to Tiberias. 83 days later, the siege was lifted due to the departure of the Hajj pilgrimage caravan. In July 1743 the governor returned with a larger force. A month later the governor died of kidney disease and the siege was lifted for good.

In 1750 he took control of Haifa and Tantura.

The town of Deir Hanna became his first administrative center as he gradually brought the Galilee, as his "Iltizam", under his control. Parts of the fortress, mosque and Khan that he built can still be seen in the town. For most of his rule Daher was not a target for the Ottomans, as for his entire period of rule he continued to act as proxy Ottoman tax collector (Multazem), paying a portion of the taxes raised to the Imperial capital in Constantinople.

Acre was taken over and fortified by Daher, and became the main city of the area he governed. When Haifa was conquered by Daher, its location wasn't considered defensible, so that the city was razed and rebuilt at a new location 3 km away, with improved fortifications and a new seaport. Now controlling the major seaports in the area, Daher made contact with Maltese pirates.

Daher (unlike many governors and rulers in the Middle East at the time) was very aware of the importance of a flourishing economy to provide a stable basis for his rule — he tried to refrain from squeezing the peasants with extortionately excessive taxes, and established a state monopoly on cotton-growing in the Galilee. The city of Acre underwent an economic boom (partly based on its role in exporting cotton grown in the Galilee to France).

In 1768, the central Ottoman authorities partially recognized or legitimized his de facto position by granting him the title of "Sheikh of Acre, Amir of Nazareth, Tiberias, Safed, and Sheikh of all Galilee".

From 1769 to 1775, Daher got involved in a war that led to his downfall. In 1750, his friend Ali Bey Al-Kabir was appointed the governor of Egypt and soon got into an argument with the Ottoman administration. Assassins were sent to kill Ali Bey, for fear of him attempting to rebel against the Ottoman Empire (1769). In response, Ali Bey declared Egypt to be an independent country. Daher helped Ali Bey by blocking an Ottoman force heading south to suppress the rebellion in Egypt. Bey sent a force of 30,000 which conquered most of the Sanjak of Jerusalem and the Vilayets of Tyre and Damascus (Palestine) as well as Damascus from November 1770 to June 1771. In 1771 they routed an army led by the governor of Damascus, Muhammad al-Azm, in the Hula Valley. After the troops arrived at Damascus (with help from Daher) in 1771, the commander of the troops, Abu al-Dhahab, refused to continue fighting against the Ottomans, and turned against Ali Bey. When these troops returned to Egypt, Ali Bey fled to Acre to shelter under Daher's protection. The combined forces of Daher, Ali Bey, and Russia (which was at war with the Ottoman Empire that time) kept the majority of the Galilee free of Ottoman influence, and Daher was able to temporarily extend his rule along the coast as far south as Jaffa and as far north as Sidon. By 1773 the area under his control extended from the Litani River to Beersheba, though he never took formal control over Jerusalem. In 1773 Ali Bey returned to Egypt, but was defeated by the rebels against his authority and died. In 1774, the war between Russia and the Ottomans came to an end, and Daher was left without any outside support.