Daher al-Umar

Uncommon card · No. 162721

Daher al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Zahir al-Umar or Dahir al-Umar (Arabic: ظاهر العمر الزيداني, romanized: Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar al-Zaydānī, 1689/90 – 21 or 22 August 1775), was the paramount sheikh of the Zayadina family and ruler of northern Palestine from the 1730s until his death in 1775, during Ottoman rule. At his zenith in 1774, he controlled the Syrian coast from Jaffa to Sidon, though formal recognition of his status was limited to that of a multazim (tax farmer). In 1730, Daher took over Tiberias and by c. 1740, Safed and Nazareth. He and his family fortified these towns and other Galilee villages, most notably Deir Hanna, helping them withstand sieges by the governor of Damascus, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, in 1742–1743. By then, Daher controlled the area's cotton and eventually monopolized its lucrative trade with the French. In 1750, he made the outlet of this trade, the port of Acre, into his capital, developing it into Syria's third largest city. He expanded into Haifa...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Ziad Daher, CC BY-SA 3.0