Zahir al-Umar

Zahir ibn Umar ibn Abi Zaydan, known as Zahir al-Umar, is described by al-Zirikli as "a shrewd and brave man"; al-Zirikli says his family is said to have come from Medina, one of his ancestors moving to Palestine, and that his father Umar governed Safad and its surroundings in the days of the emir Bashir al-Shihabi's rule over Lebanon. ¹

Zahir was born in Safad, took charge of Acre and then succeeded his father in Safad. ¹ Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, governor of Damascus, fought him in 1150 AH; Zahir fortified himself in Tiberias, Sulayman bombarded it and died suddenly - or poisoned - at its gates, and Zahir's power grew. ¹ He settled in Acre, surrounded it with a strong wall, became ruler of Acre, Safad, Nazareth and Tiberias, and moved to Acre cannon the Ottoman government had set up on the shore of Haifa. ¹

Al-Zirikli says the government, angered, sent Uthman Pasha as governor of Damascus with orders to seize Zahir; Zahir's men defeated his army, and Zahir came to hold the province of Sidon, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, Jabal Nablus, Transjordan, Safad and Jabal Amil, the Porte recognising his rule out of necessity. ^{1 2} Then Abu al-Dhahab, a commander of the Egyptian army, rose against him with the government's support and Zahir gave way; when Abu al-Dhahab died suddenly in Sidon in 1188 AH Zahir returned to his province, and remained until the government fitted out a fleet to take Acre, when, as he prepared to resist, a Maghribi among his men betrayed him; he was killed and his state came to an end. ² Al-Zirikli refers to the journal al-Muqtataf for this life. ²

This first-edition entry gives neither his birth year nor the year of his death in its text, and the figures in the entry head are not clearly legible in the OCR.