After overviewing the Shiites’ history in my first c, i will go through their history in Lebanon and the struggle mainly against Abbasides then Ottomans.

Shiites were first placed in Lebanon’s Bekaa and the South ( Jabal Amel) and few mountains.

Mamluks persecuted the Shiites in Jabal Amal when they sent Bani Soudoun to rule the Mountain. They treated the Shiites in an unhuman way and kept on doing so for years before their last leader was killed and Abbasides were weakened by the Ottomans who started to take over in 1649.

With the start of the Ottoman rule, the Shiites’ fate was no different and were slaughtered in numbers all over Lebanon and Palestine. In fact, The Ottoman Sultan Salim committed never-seen atrocities against the Shiites and numerous massacres.

He massacred more than 44 000 on Iranian Borders, around 40 000 in Aleppo in Syria, added to the massacres in Jabal Amel killing thousands. Shiites however did not surrender to the Ottoman rule and declared their revolution in 1666, and kept on fighting till 1697, the death of the last Maanite prince.
Shiites claimed a partial independance in the 1700s and even agreed to join a sort of Federal Shiite state led by Zaher el Omar, Shiite Leader in Palestine ( descendant of Ali).

Shiites started to oppose the Ottoman’s rule and declared civic disobediance and refused to pay taxes until the Ottomans led by 30 000 armed men tried to defeat the Shiites but failed miserably on two occasions in 1771.

Jabal Amel became a weak point for the Ottomans who were unable of breaking the fierce Shiite resistance until Ahmad Bacha El Jazzar took over and kept fighting the Shiites until he defeated them in the end of the 18th century and so Jabal Amel was under Ottoman rule for good this time.

The Shiite Resitance stayed active though and kept working secretly and managed to sign in 1821 a sort of partial independance with Sleiman Basha.

The struggle kept going on when Egyptians took over in 1832 and reinvaded Jabal Amel and joined it to the Mount Lebanon’s principauty, then Shiites again tried to reclaim their independance and reached the 20th century when they opposed Riad el Solh’s rule and claimed Kamel El Assaad to be the only legitimate governor of Jabal Amel and even started a movement to topple the Riad el Solh government.

Kamel El Assaad defied Solh who resigned and gave his post to the French officer Fogel who issued strict orders disallowing political demonstrations or public gatherings, and El Assaad even went on to call for a general meeting of the Shiite leaders in 1920 asking for :
- Unity with the Syrians.
- Claiming King Fayssak as King of Syria.
- Refusing The French mandate.

Meanwhile, Shiites started regrouping in mafias to fight the French causing riots in the regions but French imposed themselves.

( to be continued …)