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Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani (alternatively spelled ''Dhaher al-Omar'' or ''Dahir al-Umar'') ((アラビア語:ظاهر آل عمر الزيداني); ''Ẓāhir āl-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī'', 1689–90 – 21 August 1775) was the autonomous Arab ruler of northern Palestine in the mid-18th century,〔Philipp, ed. Bosworth, "Ẓāhir al- ʿUmar al-Zaydānī".〕 during the Ottoman era. For much of his reign, starting in the 1730s, his domain mainly consisted of the Galilee with Tiberias, Arraba, Nazareth, and Deir Hanna serving as successive headquarters, before he made Acre his seat of power in 1746. He fortified Acre and under his rule the city became a prosperous center of the cotton trade between Palestine and Europe. Near Acre, in the mid-1760s, he founded modern-day Haifa. Zahir successfully withstood assaults and sieges by the Ottoman governors of the Sidon and Damascus provinces, who attempted to limit or eliminate his influence. He was often supported in these confrontations by the rural Shia Muslim clans of Lebanon. In 1771, in alliance with Ali Bey al-Kabir of Egypt and with backing from the Russian Empire, Zahir captured Sidon, while Ali Bey's forces conquered Damascus, both acts in open defiance of the Ottoman sultan. At the peak of his power in 1774, Zahir's autonomous sheikhdom extended from Beirut to Gaza and included the Jabal Amil and Ajlun regions. However, by then, Ali Bey had been killed, the Ottomans entered into a truce with the Russians, and the Sublime Porte felt secure enough to check Zahir's power. The Ottoman Navy attacked his Acre stronghold in the summer of 1775 and he was killed outside of its walls shortly after. The wealth Zahir accumulated through monopolizing Palestine's cotton and olive oil trade with Europe and setting his own prices to importers financed his sheikhdom. 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. Combined with the aforementioned factors, Zahir's flexible taxation policies and his battlefield reputation made him popular among the local peasantry. Zahir was notably tolerant of religious minorities, and encouraged Christian and Jewish participation in the local economy. This led to the significant growth of the Christian communities in Acre and Nazareth and the Jewish community in Tiberias. Zahir's rule also saw the construction of numerous building works by him and his family across the Galilee. ==Early life== Zahir was born in the village of Arraba (also called 'Arrabat al-Battuf) in the central Galilee.〔〔Philipp, 2013, p. 30.〕 The date of his birth is not clear, with the dates 1686, 1689–90 and 1694 listed as his birth year by Zahir's contemporary biographers Volney, Mikha'il Sabbagh and Khalil al-Muradi, respectively. According to contemporary biographer Ahmad Hasan Joudah, 1689–1690 is the most likely year of his birth because Sabbagh is the most reliable source of the three with regards to Zahir's life.〔Joudah, 1987, p. 29.〕 The proper transliteration of his given name from Arabic is ''Ẓāhir'', but in the local dialect of Arabic used in the Galilee, his name was pronounced ''Ḍāhir''.〔 Zahir's family, the Zaydani clan, were Sunni Muslim〔Harris, 2012, p. (114 )〕 notables from the Qaisi tribal confederation based in the Tiberias area and who had strong connections to the Arab-Bedouin tribesmen of the Galilee, which at the time was part of the Ottoman Empire. Zahir was the youngest of four sons born to Sheikh Umar al-Zaydani. He grew up in the village of Saffuriya.〔Pappe, 2010, p. 35.〕 Zahir's father and grandfather had both served as the ''multazim'' (chief tax collector) of Tiberias, having been appointed by the Druze emirs (princes) of the Ma'an dynasty which governed the region from their headquarters in Mount Lebanon.〔Philipp, 2013, p. (31 )〕 In 1698, Umar az-Zaydani was appointed ''multazim'' of the Safad region by Bashir Shihab I, the Qaisi emir who succeeded the Ma'ans as governor of the Mount Lebanon Emirate.〔Moammar, 1990, pp. 43–44.〕 The Zaydani family maintained commercial trade relations extending from the Galilee to Aleppo, and members of the family controlled a number of tax farms in the Galilee, such as Zahir's uncle Ali who held the tax farm of al-Damun. Zahir's elder brother, Sa'd became the head of the family when their father died. However, the family's tax farms were transferred to Zahir, who was still a teenager. This was done as a precautionary measure, so that in the event of a default in tax payments, the Ottoman government would not be able to hold the actual owners of the tax farms accountable. This gave Zahir considerable power within the Zaydani clan.〔 In 1707, Zahir was involved in a brawl in Tiberias and ended up killing a man. As a result, Sa'd opted to move the family to Arraba, after being offered safe haven there by the Bani Saqr tribe. It was there that Zahir gained a degree of formal education under the tutelage of a Muslim scholar named Abd al-Qadir al-Hifnawi. During his youth, he also learned how to hunt and was trained in fighting. When the village of Bi'ina was attacked by forces dispatched by the governor of Sidon Eyalet sometime between 1713 and 1718, Zahir played an important role in defending the village and also managed to escape pursuit by the governor's troops. According to chroniclers at the time, this event along with Zahir's moderation, turned Zahir into a folk hero in the region. He continued to gain the respect of the local peasantry throughout the 1720s for his martial skills. Along with Sa'd, he also gained prestige among the people of Damascus with whom he continued the commercial relationships his father had previously established.〔 The contacts he made in Damascus included the Muslim scholar Abd al-Ghaffar al-Shuwaki who introduced Zahir to Sayyid Muhammad of the al-Husayni family, which provided the ''sharifs'' (religious notables who traced their lineage to the Islamic prophet Muhammad) of Damascus at the time.〔 Zahir married Sayyid Muhammad's daughter and moved to Nazareth because she found Arraba to be too small of a town. Zahir inherited Sayyid Muhammad's fortune when the latter died.〔Philipp, 2013, pp. ( 31 )-32.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Zahir al-Umar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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