Latakia (al-Lādhiqiyya), Ottoman period

EI3 article “Latakia (al-Lādhiqiyya), Ottoman period” Stefan Winter Latakia (al-Lādhiqiyya; Lazkiyetü’l-‘Arab), like the rest of the Syrian coastal mountain region, was integrated into the Ottoman Empire in the wake of Selim I’s conquest of Aleppo in August 922/1516. We have no contemporary reference to its incorporation other than an Ottoman tax census (Tahrir Defteri) from ca. 931/1524-25, which notes an influx especially of Christian migrants from the Platanus (Qardāḥa) area in the mountains to the east, where there had been several rebellions against the Ottomans. The same registers also suggest a steady rise in Latakia’s population in the first half of the sixteenth century, from at least 1410 inhabitants (using a multiplier of 5 people per counted household) in 925/1519, to 2750 in 931/1524-25, and 4115 in 954/1547-48, with Christians accounting for up to 35 % of the total. By 1055/1645-46, however, the total population appears to have dropped back off to around 1720, with only about 18 % Christians. The district (nahiye) of Latakia, forming part of the province (sancak) of Jabala, initially comprised 21 tax-paying villages, and 31 villages (as well as several Arab and Turkmen tribes) after absorbing the previously independent nahiye of Wādī Qandīl on the coast north of town in 954/1547-48. Latakia in the sixteenth century was home to a handful of Muslim scholars who had moved there from Aleppo, but otherwise with little social or economic significance. After the establishment of the eyalet (regional province) of Tripoli (Trablus-Şam) in 1579, Latakia seems to have come under the influence of the powerful Lebanese leader Fakhr al-Dīn Ma‘n for a few years, but was generally governed by a mütesellim (deputy governor) sent from Tripoli. The principle representative of Ottoman authority in Latakia was the qāḍī, who in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century can be seen to have sent numerous petitions and received orders from Istanbul, especially as regards the depredations of ‘Alawī (Nuṣayrī) and Turkmen brigands in the mountains or of European pirates along the coast. The Dār al-‘Alā’iyya palace, built by the otherwise obscure emir ‘Alā al-Dīn in 995/1586-87 (now ruined), is the oldest Ottoman construction in the city. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, Latakia witnessed a rebirth under the Ibn al-Maṭrajī (Mataracı-oğlı) dynasty of governors. Named for a janissary officer established there around 1076/1666, two members of the family, Aslan and Kaplan, served as valis of Tripoli, Damascus and Ṣaydā but also continued to hold Latakia as their home fief, restoring numerous buildings and remaking it into the effective centre of the sancak of Jabala. The latter’s son Kaplanzade Mehmed was subsequently accused of entering into rebellion and oppressing the local population, and could only be removed from his fortified palace (saray) with difficulty in 1131/1719. According to local historian Ilyās Ṣāliḥ (d. 1885), numerous Christians from the surrounding region also began to move back to the city in this period, after it became the seat of an unsuccessful claimant to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate of Antioch, and its ecclesiastic province was expanded to include Jisr al-Shughūr and Suwaydiyya, in 1684. An imperial şikayet(complaints) register corroborates Ṣāliḥ’s claim that five churches were ordered rebuilt or renovated in 1134/1721. The principle reason for Latakia’s sudden development in this period was the rapid growth of commercial tobacco production. First imported into the Ottoman Empire in the early seventeenth century and subject to taxation since the 1690s, tobacco was cultivated in the Latakia-Jabala area in both “coastal” (sāḥilī) and “mountain” (jurdī) varieties. Latakia’s signature “Abū Rīḥa” leaf, named for the intense flavour it acquired through fire-curing, was sold mostly through commercial exporters in Damietta (Egypt). By 1194/1761, the tax farm on Latakia’s custom duties constituted the major portion of all revenues collected by the Istanbul tobacco customs superintendant (duhan gümrüği emini). The eighteenth century also witnessed a steady rise in the volume of European commercial shipping and the establishment of British, Spanish and French consular agencies in Latakia. Governors of Tripoli began to spend several months at a time in Latakia, so that by mid-century it had become the de fact co-capital of the eyalet. At least three members of the ‘Aẓm (Azemzade) family of Syrian governors endowed pious foundations (waqf) in Latakia in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The city was devastated by an earthquake on 26 April 1796. Most of the rebuilding took place after the customs superintendant and local merchants led by the Greek Orthodox Ḥanna Kibba were able to have the district detached from the province of Tripoli and constituted as an independant muhassıllık (tax collectorship) in 1214/1799. Following Kibba’s assassination in 1803, however, Latakia was first occupied by ‘Alī Rustum Āghā, taxlord of the nearby Jabal al-Akrād district, and finally fell under the rule of Berber Mustafa Ağa (Muṣṭafā Āghā Barbar), the deputy governor (mütesellim) of Tripoli, which was now part of the province of Ṣaydā. Political instability, Berber Mustafa’s harsh treatment of the ‘Alawī tribal population, France’s increasing interference in local affairs, the outbreak of the Greek revolt in 1821 and finally another catastrophic earthquake on 13 August 1822 all served to exacerbate social and communal tensions in Latakia; in May 1239/1824, a mob broke into the saray and killed the Ottoman governor Mehmed (Muḥammad) Paşa Alman, a native of the area, accusing him of being a zindīq heretic and Nuṣayrī sympathizer. A key role in inciting religious hatred in this time was played by the Wahhābī-inspired shaykh Muḥammad al-Maghribī (locally pronounced “al-Mughrabī”), who settled in Latakia after emigrating from Tunisia to Syria around 1802 and gained notoriety for declaring licit the killing and enslavement of Nuṣayrīs. The al-Mughrabī mosque in Latakia, where he was buried after dying in the plague of 1827, bears his name to this day. The Egyptian occupation of Syria (1831-1841) brought many technical and administrative innovations to Latakia, including the introduction of mechanical cotton presses, the professional supervision of the tobacco and lumber industry, the city’s incorporation into the Egyptian postal network and the founding of its first modern library. Ibrahim Paşa also extended full legal equality to Christians and ‘Alawīs, prohibiting the trade in ‘Alawī girls as maidservants, and instituted Latakia’s first consultative Administrative Council (majlis al-idāra); a unique 194-page register from 1254/183839 details the Council’s efforts to organize tobacco customs, tax farming, military conscription, etc. in the district on a non-sectarian basis. After Syria’s return under imperial sovereignty, the Ottomans’ own conscription drives (particularly during the Crimean War of 1853-1856) and punitive campaigns against the increasingly refractory ‘Alawīs caused frequent economic hardships in Latakia. During the massacres in Lebanon and Damascus in the summer of 1860, many Christians in Latakia fled their homes to shelter at the French and Austrian consulates or in the hill country, but in the end the city did not witness any significant violence. In 1865, the province (liva) of Tripoli comprising the district (kaza) of Latakia was included in the newly constitued vilayet of Syria. According to Ottoman census figures, Latakia’s population at this time was approximately 11,200. An administrative council (idare meclisi) had been reinstituted as early as in 1269/1852; together with the new judicial council (deavi meclisi) it was made largely elective in 1293/1876. In 1284/1867, the Ottoman Supreme State Council (Meclis-i Vala) decided the establishment of a secondary school (mekteb-i rüşdiye) for Muslim, ‘Alawī and Christian children in Latakia specficially in order to compete with the many missionary schools in the area. An Ottoman commercial tribunal (maḥkama tijāriyya) was set up in 1292/1875. The famous reformist statesman Ahmed Midhat Paşa was appointed governor of Syria in 1295/1878 and began an overhaul of Latakia’s civil administration, restructuring the kaza’s finances, abolishing iltizam tax-farming and instituting a modern police force (zabtiye). The dredging of Latakia’s harbour, the improvement of the road to Aleppo, and fund-raising for the construction of additional public schools were also undertaken in this period. Reflecting the Ottoman government’s new concern with developing and promoting the region, Latakia was finally included as one of five livas in the new vilayet of Beirut in 1305/1888. The policy of building schools especially for the ‘Alawī population was actively maintained by Ziya Bey, mutasarrıf (deputy governor) of Latakia from 1885 to 1892. World War I brought considerable adversity to Latakia and the rest of the region, with many residents (principally well-to-do Christians) being expropriated and otherwise stripped of their civil rights by the imperial War Council (Divan-ı Harb) after fleeing to Cyprus to avoid conscription. The city was occupied by French forces on 5 November 1918. With the support of the Sharīf Ḥusayn and Turkish Kemalist forces, the ‘Alawī resistance leader Ṣāliḥ al-‘Alī was able to create an exceptional government in the coastal region toward the end of 1920 and threaten Latakia itself as late as March 1921. After the withdrawal of Turkish support, however, the rebellion was defeated and Ṣāliḥ al-‘Alī came to Latakia to offer his submission on 2 June 1922; in July Latakia became the capital of the new French-mandated “État des Alaouites” (later renamed “Gouvernement de Lattaquié”). Sources T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivi (Turkish Presidential State Archive), Istanbul: Tahrir Defteri 68, 1017, 1107; Maliyeden Müdevver 602; Şikayet Defteri 4:149; 88:587; 99:220; İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi, Istanbul: Daftar bi-ba‘ḍ waqā’i‘ Majlis Idārat al-Lādhiqiyya sana 1254 h. (digital copy); Ilyās Ṣāliḥ, Āthār al-Ḥiqab fi Lādhiqiyyat al-‘Arab, ed. Jurayj Ilyās Jurayj, Beirut 2013; Muḥammad Baḥjat and Muḥammad Rafīq Tamīmī, Wilāyat Bayrūt, vol. II, [1917-18] Beirut 1987. Studies Ghayād Ilyās Bīṭār, Al-Lādhiqiyya ‘ibra’l-Zamān: Min ‘Uṣūr mā qabla’l-Ta’rīkh ilā ‘ām 1963, Damascus 2001; Ighnātiyūs Ṭannūs al-Khūrī, Muṣṭafā Āghā Barbar: Ḥākim Ayālat Ṭarābulus wa-Jabala waLādhiqiyyat al-‘Arab (1767-1834), Tripoli 1984; Hāshim ‘Uthmān, Ta’rīkh al-Lādhiqiyya 637 m-1946 m, Damascus 1996; Stefan Winter, A History of the ‘Alawis: From Medieval Syria to the Turkish Republic, Princeton 2016.