Damascus Eyalet Explained

Native Name:Arabic: إيالة الشام
Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: ایالت شام
Conventional Long Name:Damascus Eyalet
Common Name:Damascus Eyalet
Subdivision:Eyalet
Nation:the Ottoman Empire
Year Start:1516
Year End:1865
Event Start:Battle of Marj Dabiq
P1:Mamluk Sultanate
Flag P1:Mameluke Flag.svg
S1:Syria Vilayet
Flag S1:Flag of the Ottoman Empire.svg
S2:Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem
Flag S2:Flag of the Ottoman Empire.svg
Image Map Caption:The Damascus Eyalet in 1795
Capital:Damascus
Today:Palestine
Israel
Jordan
Syria

Damascus Eyalet (Arabic: إيالة دمشق; Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: ایالت شام|Eyālet-i Šām)[1] was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. Its reported area in the 19th century was 20020sqmi. It became an eyalet after the Ottomans took it from the Mamluks following the 1516–1517 Ottoman–Mamluk War.[2] Janbirdi al-Ghazali, a Mamluk traitor, was made the first beylerbey of Damascus.[3] The Damascus Eyalet was one of the first Ottoman provinces to become a vilayet after an administrative reform in 1865, and by 1867 it had been reformed into the Syria Vilayet.[4]

Territorial jurisdiction

The Ottoman Empire conquered Syria from the Mamluks following the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516 and the subsequent pledges of allegiance paid to the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, in Damascus by delegations of notables from throughout Syria.[5] The Ottomans established Damascus as the center of an eyalet (Ottoman province) whose territories consisted of the mamlakat (Mamluk provinces) of Damascus, Hama, Tripoli, Safad and Karak.[6] The mamlaka of Aleppo, which covered much of northern Syria, became the Aleppo Eyalet.[6] For a few months in 1521, Tripoli and its district were separated from Damascus Eyalet, but after 1579, the Tripoli Eyalet permanently became its own province.[6]

At the close of the 16th century, the Damascus Eyalet was administratively divided into the sanjaks (districts) of Tadmur, Safad, Lajjun, Ajlun, Nablus, Jerusalem, Gaza and Karak, in addition to the city of Damascus and its district.[7] There was also the sanjak of Sidon-Beirut, though throughout the late 16th century, it frequently switched hands between the eyalets of Damascus and Tripoli.[8] Briefly in 1614, and then permanently after 1660, the Sidon-Beirut and Safad sanjaks were separated from Damascus to form the Sidon Eyalet.[6] These administrative divisions largely held place with relatively minor changes until the mid-19th century.[9]

Administrative divisions

Sanjaks of Damascus Eyalet in the 17th century:[10]

  1. Sanjak of Damascus
  2. Sanjak of Jerusalem
  3. Sanjak of Gaza
  4. Sanjak of Karak
  5. Sanjak of Safad
  6. Sanjak of Nablus
  7. Sanjak of Ajlun
  8. Sanjak of Lajjun
  9. Sanjak of Beqaa
  1. Sanjak of Tadmur
  2. Sanjak of Sidon
  3. Sanjak of Beirut

See also

Bibliography

. Abu-Husayn. Abdul-Rahim. Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn. The View from Istanbul: Ottoman Lebanon and the Druze Emirate. 2004. I.B.Tauris. 9781860648564.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Some Provinces of the Ottoman Empire . Geonames.de . 25 February 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130928180044/http://www.geonames.de/coutr-ota-provinces.html . 28 September 2013 . dead .
  2. By Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters
  3. Book: D. E. Pitcher . An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire: From Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century . 2 June 2013 . 1972 . Brill Archive . 105.
  4. Book: Almanach de Gotha: annuaire généalogique, diplomatique et statistique . 2013-06-01 . 1867 . J. Perthes . 827–829.
  5. Ze'evi, pp. 1–2.
  6. Abu-Husayn, p. 11.
  7. Bakhit 1982, p. 91.
  8. Abu-Husayn, pp. 11–12.
  9. Salibi, pp. 63–64.
  10. By Evliya Çelebi, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall