The 1864 Double Qaimaqamate: Lebanon's Precarious Peace

In the wake of the 1860 massacres that tore Mount Lebanon apart, European powers imposed a fragile settlement: the Double Qaimaqamate, a system that split the mountain into Druze and Maronite districts, each with its own governor. This episode unpacks how that experiment in sectarian power-sharing actually worked on the ground — and why it failed. We follow the Druze strongman Sa'id Jumblatt, the Maronite bishop Tobia Aoun, and the Ottoman reformer Fuad Pasha as they navigate a new politics of religious identity. We look at the daily realities in mixed villages, the rise of an elected council that gave local notables real influence, and the slow erosion of trust that led to the system's collapse in 1861. With the Règlement Organique and the new Mutasarrifiyya looming, this is the story of how Lebanon's modern communal politics were born — and how a peace built on separation sowed the seeds of future conflict.

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