page_title: Tanyus Shahin
section_title: Later life and death
hierarchical_section_title: Tanyus Shahin / Later life and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Young Youssef Bey Karam
context_page_description: Tanyus Shahin Saadeh al-Rayfouni was a Maronite muleteer and peasant leader from Mount Lebanon. He led a peasants' revolt in the area of Keserwan in 1859, during which he drove out the area's Maronite nobility, the feudal Khazen lords, and declared a peasants' republic. While he had a reputation as a ruffian and provocateur among members of the Maronite clergy and European consuls, Shahin became a popular figure among Christian commoners, many of whom considered him the guardian of their interests, a view which Shahin promoted.
  Following his victory in Keserwan, Shahin and his fighters launched intermittent raids against villages in nearby regions, such as Byblos and Matn, often in the name of defending the rights of local Christians. The assaults and their repercussions served as catalysts of the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, particularly the battle of Beit Mery between local Maronites and Druze, in which Shahin was a principal belligerent. Although he claimed he could raise an army of 50,000 to combat the forces of the Druze feudal lords, he did not participate further in the war.
context_section_description: French-led international intervention ended the civil war and order was restored by 1861. Shahin's movement was in a precarious state in the war's aftermath; Shahin could not financially support his impoverished peasant partisans, the Maronite clergy was disillusioned with him, and Ottoman officialdom and the local nobility were arrayed against him. The Ottomans, the clergy and the nobility resolved to bring an end to Shahin's movement because it represented the last obstacle to their political reorganization of Mount Lebanon into the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. Shahin threatened to convert to Protestantism together with his partisans if the Khazen sheikhs were restored to Keserwan, while Patriarch Massad of the Maronite Church was prepared to excommunicate Shahin and his supporters.
  Meanwhile, Youssef Karam, a Maronite leader from Ehden who acquired a degree of popularity during the war and backing from the Maronite Patriarchate and the French government, was appointed acting qaimaqam of the Christian areas of Mount Lebanon by Fuad Pasha after the war's end. Shahin opposed Karam, who in a bid to reconcile the Maronite community, issued orders directed to the peasants of Keserwan to restore properties seized from the Khazens and compensate the latter for their losses. Shahin was backed by Emir Majid Shihab, who sought to replace Karam as qaimaqam. Tensions between Shahin and Karam in Keserwan in late March 1861 culminated in a battle between their forces in an area between Rayfoun and 'Ashqout, in which Shahin was defeated and fled. Karam subsequently raided Shahin's home in Rayfoun, imprisoned some of Shahin's supporters and posted a number of his own troops in villages that supported Shahin's movement.
  Fuad Pasha advised Karam to pursue and capture Shahin, while the British consul communicated his desire to see Karam restore the Khazens to their former position in Keserwan. Shahin ultimately reconciled with Karam on 12 April under the mediation of the French general Charles de Beaufort. Shahin agreed to submit to the Qaimaqamate's authority without conditions. Later in 1861, Shahin relinquished the republic that he established in Keserwan. Subsequent to his retirement from politics, Shahin served as a judicial official in Rayfoun. There, in 1895, he died in relative obscurity. He left no memoirs about his role in the civil war.
caption: Shahin was defeated in battle by Youssef Karam (pictured) in March 1861. The two reconciled the following month and Shahin retired to take up a judicial post in his home village
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