Around 1698, Umar was appointed, in effect, as the tax collector of the Safed muqata'a (fiscal district) by Bashir Shihab, a powerful chief of the Druze in Mount Lebanon who was granted the iltizam, or limited-term tax farm, of the district by the governor of Sidon. Zahir's mother was a member of the Sardiyya, a Bedouin tribe based in the Hauran. His father, Umar, was a sheikh of the Banu Zaydan, a small family of Bedouin (nomadic Arab) origin which had abandoned nomadism under Zahir's grandfather, Salih, and settled as cultivators in the Tiberias area in the late 17th century. Zahir's rule over a virtually autonomous area in Palestine has made him a national hero among Palestinians today. He and his family, the Banu Zaydan, patronized the construction of commercial buildings, houses of worship and fortifications throughout the Galilee. The influx of immigrants from other parts of the empire stimulated the local economy and led to the significant growth of the Christian communities in Acre and Nazareth and the Jewish community in Tiberias. Zahir's tolerance of religious minorities encouraged Christian and Jewish immigration to his domain. The aforementioned factors, along with Zahir's flexible taxation policies and his battlefield reputation made him popular among the local peasantry. For much of his rule, he oversaw a relatively efficient administration and maintained domestic security, although he faced and suppressed several rebellions by his sons. The wealth Zahir accumulated through monopolizing Palestine's cotton and olive oil trade to Europe financed his sheikhdom. The Ottoman Navy attacked his Acre stronghold in the summer of 1775 and he was killed outside of its walls shortly after. By then, however, Ali Bey had been killed, the Ottomans entered into a truce with the Russians, and the Ottoman imperial government felt secure enough to check Zahir's power. At the peak of his power in 1774, Zahir's rule extended from Beirut to Gaza and included the Jabal Amil and Jabal Ajlun regions. In 1771, in alliance with Ali Bey al-Kabir of the Egypt Eyalet and with backing from Russia, Zahir captured Sidon, while Ali Bey's forces conquered Damascus, both acts in open defiance of the Ottoman sultan. He was often supported in these confrontations by the Shia Muslim clans of Jabal Amil. Zahir withstood sieges and assaults by the Ottoman governors of Damascus, who attempted to limit or eliminate his influence. ![]() In the mid-1760s, he reestablished the port town of Haifa nearby. He fortified Acre, and the city became the center of the cotton trade between Palestine and Europe. For much of his reign, starting in the 1730s, his domain mainly consisted of the Galilee, with successive headquarters in Tiberias, Deir Hanna and finally Acre, in 1750. ![]() Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Daher al-Omar or Dahir al-Umar (Arabic: ظاهر العمر الزيداني, Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī, 1689/90 – 21 or 22 August 1775), was an Arab ruler of northern Palestine in the mid-18th century, while the region was part of the Ottoman Empire.
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