Who are the Maronites? By Tony Doumit al-Ghossain
The Maronites trace their origin to St. Maron, a Syrian hermit of the late 4th and early 5th centuries. They became a fully independent people after they routed the invading Byzantine armies of Justinian the second, at the battle of Amioun, under the leadership of St. John Maron, patriarch of Antioch in 685-707.
According to their traditions, the Maronites were always in union with the Roman see. They fiercely opposed the Monophysites (those who taught that Jesus had one nature), and the Monothelites (7th- century Christians who maintained that Christ had only one will). Their union with Rome was consolidated in the 16th century through the work of the Jesuit John Eliano. In 1584, Pope Gregory XIII founded the Maronite collage in Rome which became a training centre for great scholars and leaders of the Maronite church. The great patriarch, and historian, Estephan ad-Dwaihy, was a graduate of that collage.
The hardy martial Maronites have always valiantly preserved their liberty and traditions. Omayyad Caliphs (661-750 AD) paid the Byzantine Emperor a tribute to stop the Maronite Mardaites, also called Jarajima, from attacking their borders.
The Jarajima inhabited Jarjuma in the Amanos mountains in the modern Turkish province of Hatay. They were employed as soldiers by Byzantine emperors. They occupied Lebanon and northern Palestine. Justinian II, by agreement with the Omayyad Caliph Abd al- Malik, resettled 12000 Mardaites in parts of Anatolia and Greece in 685 AD.
The remaining Mardaites merged with their spiritual brothers, the mountain Phoenicians, and Aramaic people who were evangelized by the Monk Ibrahim al- Qureshi, traditionally the first Maronite to set foot in Lebanon, the Christian Arabs, who fled the Muslim conquests, the Anbats (Arab farmers, and town dwellers of the Orontes valley), and runaway slaves seeking refuge in the Lebanese mountains, to form the present day Maronites.
In the spring of 694 the invading Byzantine army of Justinian II, attacked the St. Maroun monastery, on the Orontes River in Syria, which was the patriarchal see of St. John Maroun, the first Patriarch of the Maronites, and massacred 500 Maronite monks. With the help of his nephew Muqaddam Ibrahim, and 12000 Maronite fighters, St. John Maroun fled to Smar Jbeil in Lebanon, and finally settled in Kfir Hay in the Batroun district in Lebanon. When the Byzantine army reached Amioun in the Koura district it was attacked and routed by the Lebanese Maronites.
The Maronites lived in the relative safety of their mountain, their Patriarchs and clergy guided them in their spiritual and worldly affairs. Their valiant fighters were always ready to defend their faith, and their way of life, but betrayals came from friends, and foes.
When the Crusaders arrived in Lebanon on their way to the Holy Land, they were welcomed by the Maronites as spiritual brothers. The Maronite fighters fought on their side, and were the shock troops of the Crusaders, and their best archers. In the beginning all went well. Then, in 1282, political, and religious rivalries, started to cause major problems. Patriarch Daniel al-Hadchit died. The Crusader Lord of Byblos, which was part of the greater county of Tripoli, refused to accept the election of Patriarch Luka Al-Bnihrani, accusing him of being anti-Rome. He caused some of the bishops to elect Ermia Al-Dmelsawy. Patriarch Luka left the Patriarchal see in Yanouh, which was in the Byblos district, and moved to Hadath El- Jubbeh, which became the fortress of Maronite resistance.
An unholy agreement between the Mameluke Sultan Qalawun, the deadly enemy of the Crusaders, and the Frankish Count of Tripoli allowed a Mameluke led army of Turkmen to invade the strong holds of Patriarch Luka. They attacked Ehden in June 1283, which fiercely resisted the Mameluke Army for 40 days, before it was overrun, then Bqufa was destroyed in July 1283, the fortress of Hawqa couldn't be overrun until the traitor Iben Sabha from Kfirsghab advised the Mamelukes to flood it with water from a fountain in Bsharri. The Mamelukes bypassed Hadchit and Bsharri, and attacked Hasroun, and Kfirsaroun (a village between Hasroun, and Diman), and burned them. On the 22nd of August 1283 they attacked the Hadath. Luka, and his people took refuge in a cave fortress (sheer al-A’assy), which the Mamelukes, besieged for a period of seven years, according to notes written by a monk on a prayer book found in a cave below the Hadath (seven month is more likely). The Mamelukes tricked Patriarch Luka by offering him and his people safe passage if they peacefully surrendered. which w This was an agreement which they never intended to honour. They captured him, and enslaved whoever they could capture of his people. Tripoli was eventually attacked, and captured by the Mamelukes, and the Crusaders were expelled from the whole of Lebanon.
An alliance of Maronites, Druze, and Shia Muslims fighters destroyed a Mameluke army in the Byblos district between al- Fanar, and al-Madfoun 1302. In 1307 the Mamelukes attacked the strong hold of the alliance in Keserwan, and the mountain, massacred the people and burnt their villages. After that battle, the Maronites were effectively dominated by the Mamelukes, and later by the Ottoman Turks who defeated the Mamelukes in the battle of Marjdaabek and took over the Sultanate.
Infighting amongst the Maronites caused their Patriarchate to be moved several times, from Yanouh to Eliege, Kfir Hay, Hardine, Hadath (Patriarch Luka El Bnihrani………, till eventually Patriarch Yuhanna al- Jaji moved the Patriarchate to the valley of Qannoubine in 1444 to be under the protection of Muqaddam Yaqub ibn Ayoub of Bsharri, who was favoured by the Mameluke Sultan. The Patriarchate remained in Qannoubine for over 400 years, and then was moved to Diman, and Bkirki. Diman became the summer residence of the Patriarch, and Bkirki the winter residence. Qannoubine remained nominally the autumn residence.
The Maronites suffered a lot under the Mamelukes and the Ottoman Turks tax farming system, in which Districts were leased to corrupt Chieftains who paid the tax levied by more corrupt Pashas (ministers of the Sultanate), who in turn paid the Sultan. Of course, profit had to be made; it worked on a lease system. The poor people had to pay it all.
On many occasions the Patriarch had to flee for his life from the corrupt tax farming Sheiks, some of which were Maronites, whose cheap Turkish titles were more important to them than their religion and their own people, and even their Patriarch. 1609 Patriarch Yuhanna ibn Makhlouf was forced by the Maronite Chieftain Khater al-Hassrounie, who was Youssef Sayfa's man in the Bsharri district, to flee to Majdal al-Ma’ouche to be under the protection of Emir Fakhr e-Deen II. Youssef Sayfa was the Pasha of Tripoli, and the sworn enemy of Emir Fakhr e-Deen the Druze Emir, who became one of the most powerful Emirs in the history of Lebanon His Maronite and Druse Fighters threatened the existence of the Ottoman Sultanate.
Honest Sheiks were not tolerated by the corrupt system. Yaqoub ibn a-Rayes Elias, nicknamed Abu Karam al-Hadathy, who was one of the great commanders of Fakhr e- Deen's army and the Sheik of Hadath El-Jubbeh and the district of Bsharri, was tortured and martyred in Tripoli 1640, when he refused to visit the new Pasha Muhamed El- Arnaout, and refused the Pasha's offer to spare his life if he declared himself Islam, and effectively becoming a Muslim.
Maronite villagers left their villages and moved to the southern area of Lebanon and the Shouf Mountain, seeking the protection of the great Emir Fakher e-Deen II, who in turn made use of their martial traditions and his fellow war-like Druze, to build a strong army with which he occupied the whole of Lebanon, Palestine, and a great part of Syria. Unfortunately, the Emir didn't have the resources to maintain his military forces. He was captured by the Turks, and was murdered, together with his family. The Druze and the Maronites lived in harmony for a long period of time.
Emir Bachir II tried to accomplish what the great Fakher e-Deen tried and failed. Emir Bachir al-Shehab who was a Sunnite Muslim, became a Maronite later. One historian said that Emir Bachir was half Muslim quarter Druze, and quarter Maronite.
Emir Bachir was supported by the great Druze chieftain Sheik Bachir Junbulat, who later became his greatest enemy. Emir Bachir used his Maronite fighters to suppress his old friend, and benefactor Sheik Bachir Jumblatt, and eventually got him murdered in 1825 by Abdallah Pasha, the Governor of Akka. The seeds of hatred were planted. They were nurtured by foreign powers seeking a political and commercial foothold in the Levant, and the Turks divide-and-rule policy. The French appointed themselves as protectors of the Maronites. The English decided to protect the Druze, the Russians became the protectors of the Orthodox, and of course the Ottomans, whose Sultan was the Caliph of the Sunnites and their protector. The 1860 massacres were their terrible fruit.
Youssef Bayk Karam led a small group of brave Maronite fighters and tried to kick the Turks out of the country but found no support from the French or from anybody else. He was pressurized by the French consul to go into exile.
After the defeat of the Ottomans in the First World War, the French army occupied Lebanon, and declared the state of greater Lebanon, under the French mandate. The Maronites breathed a sigh of relief, but not for long. The French promised independence, but refused to deliver, until after World War II, when the Lebanese revolted and declared their own independence. The Maronite president, and his Government, Christians and Muslims, were arrested. Violent demonstrations were staged by all the Lebanese. France was pressurized by its allies to release the detainees, and Lebanon became a fully independent state on the 22nd of November 1943. There was a gentlemen’s agreement between the leaders (the national convention), that the president would always be a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunnite, the speaker of the parliament a Shia Muslim, and the deputy speaker a Christian Orthodox. The parliament ratio would be 5/6 in favour of the Christians (half Christians and half Muslims, after the Taif Agreement which ended the recent Lebanese civil war). The Taif Agreement became the new constitution of Lebanon.
The Palestinian people were driven out of their country by the Zionist Jews to establish the state of Israel. Many of them landed in refugee camps in Lebanon hoping to go back to their land soon. It was not to be. After three disastrous wars, 1948, 1956, and 1967, when more of their land was occupied by the Jews, they took up arms and started a guerrilla warfare against the Jewish state. Most of their power was concentrated in Lebanon, especially after they were expelled from Jordan.
The Maronites felt the threat of the heavily armed Palestinians, especially after the signing of the Cairo agreement, which effectively placed the Palestinian fighters above the Lebanese law. The Maronites started to arm themselves. Sectarian violence followed. There was no shortage of arms and suppliers. Regional powers, and foreign powers were always ready to lend a destructive hand. The foreigners fought their mini wars on the land of Lebanon using Lebanese fighters and shedding Lebanese blood. Eventually brothers were fighting against each other’s on the streets of Beirut. Maronite fighters of the Lebanese forces and Maronite soldiers of the Lebanese army fought some of the most vicious battles of the Lebanese civil war against each other’s. The same thing happened in the Palestinian, the leftist, and the Muslim camps.
Maronites are deeply rooted like the glorious Cedar in the holy land of Lebanon.