page_title: History of Kfarsghab
section_title: The 17th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Kfarsghab / The Ottoman period – 1517–1918 / The 17th century
caption_attribution_description: Monastery of Qozhaya, North Lebanon, engraving by Bartlett
context_page_description: Kfarsghab in Zgharta District in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon predates Christianity. However, like most villages in the Qadisha valley, Kfarsghab's history began with the settlement of the Maronites in Mount Lebanon during the 10th century. According to the popular tradition, the church of Saint Awtel was built on the ruins of a pagan temple. Pagan temples existed in this region as attested in the Greek inscription mentioning the date 272 AD found in the Mar Mama church in Ehden. Other temples may have existed in the region, such as the monastery of Mar Sarkis and Bakhos in Ehden, which may have been built atop ruins. Given the exceptional location of Saint Awtel's Church built on a promontory, the popular tradition about the existence of a pagan temple in Kfarsghab is plausible.
context_section_description: At the end of the 16th century, the emergence of a first autonomous Lebanese Emirate in the southern Mount Lebanon had important impacts in Jebbet Bsharri. In political terms, it ended in 1621 the role of the Muqaddams of Bsharri as the traditional lords of the region being the official representatives of the Ottoman Governor of Tripoli. In economical terms, the southern Mount Lebanon under the stable rule of the Emir Fakhreddine attracted many families who were encouraged by the Emir to establish there. An important migration took place from Jebbet Bsharri to the south but also to Aleppo, Syria.
  The bloody end of the autonomous Emirate in 1635 left Jebbet Bsharri in political confusion. The government was assigned by the Ottomans to two local village sheikhs as joint governors of Jebbet Bsharri: the Sheikh Abi Karam Yaaqoub from Hadath (1635–1640) and the Sheikh Abi Gebrayel Youssef Karam from Ehden (1635–1641). The period that opened up when those two sheikhs disappeared was full of exactions and violence.  Given the instability, the people of Jebbet Bsharri insisted in 1654, on the Governor of Tripoli to appoint as governor of their region, Sheikh Ahmad Hamadeh, a member of the powerful Shiite Hamadeh family, rulers of the Byblos District and Batroun District regions. The Hamadeh did not succeed in establishing stability before the end of the century as they were continuously challenged by the local sheikhs and by members of their own clan.
  For Kfarsghab, an important event of this century will take place in 1695 when the Lebanese Maronite Order was founded by three young Maronites from Aleppo, Syria. The Patriarch Estephan El Douaihy encouraged the founders and established them in the Monastery of Mart Moura in Ehden. As the Order grew quickly, they established in Mar Lishaa, Bsharri (1696) and in Qozhaya (1708). In the coming two centuries, the Order will represent a major attraction for the young people of Kfarsghab who will join massively its ranks.
  Among the first members of the new Order was Abdallah Habqouq from Kfarsghab. He joined the Lebanese Maronite Order very early in the pioneering days and became administrator (Mudabbir) of the Order in 1698. The family of Father Abdallah Habqouq established in the region in the second part of the 17th century and acquired the monastery of Qozhaya from the Gilwan family, owners of Qozhaya since 1567. The Habqouq family, and specifically Bishop Youhanna Habqouq, surrendered Qozhaya to the Lebanese Maronite Order in 1708.
caption: Monastery of Qozhaya with Kfarsghab in background, engraving by Bartlett in 1838
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