Buhturids

The Buhturids (Arabic: بنو بُحتر, romanized: Banū Buḥtur) or the Tanukh (Arabic: تنوخ, romanized: Tanūkh) were a dynasty whose chiefs were the emirs (princes or commanders) of the Gharb area southeast of Beirut in Mount Lebanon in the 12th–15th centuries. A family of the Tanukhid tribal confederation, they were established in the Gharb by the Muslim atabegs of Damascus after the capture of Beirut by the Crusaders in 1110. They were tasked with guarding the mountainous frontier between the Crusader coastlands and the Islamic interior of the Levant. They were granted iqtas (revenue fiefs) over villages in the Gharb and command over its peasant warriors, who subscribed to the Druze religion, which the Buhturids followed. Their iqtas were successively confirmed, decreased or increased by the Burid, Zengid, Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers of Damascus in return for military service and intelligence gathering in the war with the Crusader lordships of Beirut and Sidon. In times of peace the Buhturids maintained working relations with the Crusaders.

The Buhturids' peak of power occurred under the Circassian Mamluk sultan Barquq (r. 1382–1389, 1390–1399), whom they supported during his seizure of power from his Turkic predecessors. During this period, the Buhturids grew their wealth through commercial enterprises, exporting silk, olive oil, and soap to Mamluk officials in Egypt from Beirut and attaining the governorship of Beirut twice, in the 1420s and 1490s–1500s. They were respected by the peasants of the Gharb for safeguarding their interests against government measures, promoting agriculture, and checking their local rivals, the Turkmen emirs of the Keserwan. During the closing years of Mamluk rule, Buhturid influence receded to the benefit of their old allies, the Druze Ma'n dynasty of the Chouf. They continued to control the Gharb through Ottoman rule until the family was massacred by the Druze chief Ali Alam al-Din in 1633.