Fakhr al-Din II
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Fakhr al-Din Ma'n, commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II, was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon from the Ma'n dynasty, an Ottoman governor of Sidon-Beirut and Safed, and the strongman over much of the Levant from the 1620s to 1633. For uniting modern Lebanon's constituent parts and communities, especially the Druze and the Maronites, under a single authority for the first time in history, he is generally regarded as the country's founder. Although he ruled in the name of the Ottomans, he acted with considerable autonomy and developed close ties with European powers in defiance of the Ottoman imperial government.
The mountains of the Chouf (pictured in 2019), the traditional territory of Fakhr al-Din's family, the Ma'n dynasty
Fakhr al-Din and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand I (pictured), entered a treaty in 1608 stipulating Ma'nid support for a future crusade in the Holy Land in return for military aid and Maronite support for Fakhr al-Din.
Shaqif Arnun (pictured in 2005) was a stronghold of Fakhr al-Din, guarding his domains from the south.
Fakhr al-Din lived in exile in different parts of Italy in 1613–1618, including about two years in Florence (pictured in the early 18th century).
Druze
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The Druze, who call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn, are an Arab and Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion whose main tenets assert the unity of God, reincarnation, and the eternity of the soul.
The Shrine of Shu'ayb near Hittin in the Galilee, Israel
Sixth Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Druze woman wearing a tantour during the 1870s in Chouf, Ottoman Lebanon
Meeting of Druze and Ottoman leaders in Damascus, about the control of Jebel Druze