The 1860 Civil War That Shattered Mount Lebanon

In 1860, Mount Lebanon erupted in a brutal sectarian civil war between Maronite Christians and Druze. The conflict, which killed over 20,000 people and displaced tens of thousands, was not simply religious—it was rooted in decades of changing feudal dynamics, Ottoman reform, and European interference. This episode unpacks the causes: the breakdown of the traditional muqata'ji system, the rise of Maronite peasant revolts led by figures like Yusuf al-Khazin, and the Druze backlash that turned into a bloody sectarian war. We also examine the wider context: the massacre of Christians in Damascus, the French military intervention, and the international pressure that led to the Règlement Organique and the establishment of the Mutasarrifiyya. For listeners who know Lebanon's later civil wars, this episode shows how the patterns of 1860 set the stage for a century of conflict.

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