Romance and Adventure in Eighteenth-Century Palestine

posted on: Feb 12, 2015

With The Lanterns of the King of Galilee (AUC Press), Ibrahim Nasrallah takes his readers to the “independent kingdom” set up by Daher al-Umar al-Zaydani in eighteenth century Palestine.

Daher al-Umar, born around 1690 near Tiberias in the Galilee, was the son of a multazim or tax-gatherer for the Ottoman Empire. His family had contacts with both the region’s Bedouin community and with the Maan and Shihab emirs of southern Lebanon — a reminder of the unnatural and ahistoric nature of the borders which are now enforced on this part of the Middle East.

Drawing on these various allegiances and on the frustration of many Galileans at the high taxes and arbitrary rule of the Ottomans, Daher al-Umar founded what was effectively an independent kingdom in northern Palestine, acquiring titles which included governor of Safad, sheikh of Acre and Galilee, and emir of Nazareth.

Source: electronicintifada.net