69 Facts About Aqil Agha

Aqil Agha was originally a commander of Arab irregular soldiers, known as the Hawwara tribe, in the service of the Ottoman governors of Acre.

Aqil Agha was known by his men and Western travelers to be courageous, cunning and charismatic, all qualities that contributed to his rise as the de facto ruler of the Galilee.

Aqil Agha exacted his own tolls on the local population in return for ensuring their security.

Aqil Agha was buried in his Galilee stronghold of I'billin.

Aqil Agha's demise represented the end of the last local obstacle to Ottoman centralization in Palestine.

Aqil Agha was born into a Bedouin family, known later as the Hanadi tribe.

Aqil Agha was not directly related to the Ainawiyeh or Hawwara tribes, but claimed descent from the Hawwara as a matter of convenience and prestige.

Likewise, James Finn, the British consul in Jerusalem, claims Aqil Agha's family was of Algerian or North African origin.

Musa Aqil Agha resided in the Galilee around 1820 and married a Turkmen woman.

Aqil Agha married off another of his daughters to a Bedouin sheikh in Gaza, paying the highest dowry registered at the time in Gaza: 11,000 piasters.

Aqil Agha defected from Ibrahim Pasha's army and joined local rebels in the 1834 peasants' revolt against Egyptian conscription and disarmament measures, leading his Hawwara irregulars in the Galilee.

At some point during the revolt, Aqil Agha helped save the mostly Druze village of Isfiya from being destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha's troops after its inhabitants paid Aqil Agha for protection.

Aqil Agha recruited Egyptian irregulars from the Hanadi tribe and others who were left unemployed following the Egyptian withdrawal.

In 1843, Aqil Agha became the chief of irregulars, known as bashi-bazouk, in northern Palestine, and his command was expanded to fifty horsemen.

Aqil Agha's irregulars became known in the area as the Hanadi, although the group's tribal composition was mixed.

Aqil Agha angered the kaimakam of Acre, Muhammad Kubrisi, for his intervention in a dispute between two factions of the Catholic Church in Nazareth.

Aqil Agha requested Aqil's intercession with Kubrisi, which was unsuccessful.

Kubrisi believed Aqil Agha had backed Sheikh Yusef's actions and accused Aqil Agha of sedition.

Aqil Agha was deeply insulted by Kubrisi's words and actions, and subsequently left for Transjordan where he sought the protection of Emir Fendi Al-Fayez of the Beni Sakhr tribe.

Aqil Agha secured a durable alliance with the Beni Sakhr, consecrated through his marriage to a woman from the tribe.

Aqil Agha was given command of 75 bashi-bazouk in the Lower Galilee.

In 1848, Aqil Agha assisted an expedition headed by US Navy captain William Francis Lynch to the Dead Sea, and became known in the United States and Europe through the publication of Lynch's book that year.

Lynch's first encounter with Aqil Agha was in the divan of Said Bey, the Ottoman kaimakam of Acre, and is recorded as follows:.

Aqil Agha was the handsomest, and I soon thought the most graceful being I had ever seen.

Aqil Agha's complexion was of a rich mellow indescribable olive tint, and his hair a glossy black; his teeth were regular and of the whitest ivory, and the glance of his eye was keen at times, but generally soft and lustrous.

Aqil Agha looked like one who would be 'Steel amid the din of arms, and wax when with the fair.

Lynch's reply was that "they would find us difficult of digestion," but he suggested that as Aqil Agha seemed to hold influence with these tribes, he would be prepared to pay him to make the trip a more peaceable one.

Aqil Agha showed him his sword and revolver, which Aqil examined and declared to be the "Devil's invention".

Lynch's record of Aqil Agha's feat made him well known in Europe.

Aqil Agha's irregulars attracted the membership of local individuals and small clans.

Aqil Agha based himself in the Zaydani fortress of I'billin, a mixed Muslim-Christian village between Acre and Nazareth that was previously fortified by the family of Zahir al-Umar.

Aqil Agha was sent to Istanbul by sea and from there he was sent to serve a prison sentence at the Widin fortress on the Danube River.

Aqil Agha was apparently loaned some money from the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had accompanied him on the ship ride to Istanbul, and Aqil Agha used those funds to purchase a fake passport.

Aqil Agha resumed his Bedouin lifestyle of raiding and nomadic dwelling.

At the time of Aqil Agha's escape, the Ottomans were engaged in the Crimean War with the Russian Empire, which left a domestic security void in its provinces due to the large number of provincial troops deployed to Crimea.

Aqil Agha was charged with protecting the routes of rural Palestine and occasionally Transjordan.

Aqil Agha was once commissioned to collect taxes from Karak.

Aqil Agha welcomed their membership into his tribal band and their numbers subsequently swelled.

Aqil Agha consecrated his relationship with the new arrivals by marrying a daughter of one of their sheikhs.

Shamdin, who sought vengeance against Aqil Agha for terminating his service in the Galilee, had complained to the Sidon governor that Aqil Agha was committing treachery by collaborating with the Bedouin tribes against Ottoman authority.

The Ottomans, whose dependence on Aqil Agha had decreased with the end of the Crimean War in 1856, found in Shamdin's request a convenient way to end Aqil Agha's growing autonomy.

Curious at this deployment, Aqil Agha had requested an explanation from the kaimakam of Acre, but received no response.

Aqil Agha's victory entrenched his rule over the Galilee and afterward he established stronger relations with the Europeans.

In September 1858, Aqil Agha was residing in Nazareth and decided not to intervene and put a stop to tribal clashes in the Jezreel Valley.

Aqil Agha had been previously courted by European powers to secure protection for their Christian and Jewish proteges.

Aqil Agha protected the Christian community of Nazareth from harm as their coreligionists elsewhere in Ottoman Syria faced massacres.

Aqil Agha maintained a close friendship with Tannous Qawwar, a prominent Greek Orthodox resident of the town.

Aqil Agha offered Edward four Arabian horses, but Edward politely declined.

Aqil Agha realized that European protection would strengthen his position towards the Ottoman rulers.

The Ottoman imperial government adopted its Tanzimat modernization reforms in 1862 and originally entrusted Aqil Agha with enforcing the new law of the land in northern Palestine.

Aqil Agha was given orders to prevent them from setting up camps in the cultivated lands of the Galilee and forbade the collection of khuwwa tolls from the local inhabitants.

Aqil Agha resigned from his post when he was informed that as part of his new assignment he and his men were required to don Ottoman uniforms.

Aqil Agha objected to the requirement, insisting that as Bedouin, they were not accustomed to wearing uniforms.

Aqil Agha was replaced by one of his Hawwara tribesmen, but Aqil compelled his successor to resign as well.

Shortly after his resignation, the requirement of uniforms was canceled and Aqil Agha resumed his assignment.

Indeed, Aqil Agha's protection was generally limited to those who could pay for his services or otherwise benefit his interests, including merchants, travelers, monks, pilgrims, Christians and Jews.

Aqil Agha viewed this deployment as an attack on his jurisdiction and issued his resignation in protest, all the while hoping Kapuli Pasha would back down and reject his resignation.

Around this time, Aqil Agha married off a daughter of his to the leading Bedouin sheikh of the area, Rabbah al-Wahaidi.

Aqil Agha personally led a contingent of troops in the Galilee and ensured a peaceful harvest through the end of 1863.

Aqil Agha entered into a conflict with the governor of Nablus and member of the Abd al-Hadi family, who tried to arrest Aqil Agha.

Aqil Agha was buried in I'billin, his previous Galilee headquarters.

For nearly two decades Aqil Agha had been a major local power in northern Palestine.

Aqil Agha asserted to other tribal sheikhs that the land they roamed in belonged to the Arabs and that one day they would take it back from the Turkish Ottoman "conquerors".

However, despite these perceived intentions, Aqil Agha ruled under the auspices of the Ottoman authorities, was paid by them, and was at least partially dependent upon their support.

Aqil Agha's death marked the removal of "the last obstacle to the implementation of full centralized Ottoman rule" in northern Palestine, according to historian Mahmoud Yazbak.

Aqil Agha was adamantly a Bedouin and once remarked to William Lynch that it would be a "disgrace" to "till the ground like a fellah".

The nomadic, marauding lifestyle of Aqil Agha ran counter to the modernization efforts of the Ottomans, which strongly encouraged settlement of the land and centralization.

Scholch asserts that Aqil Agha contributed little to the socio-economic development of Palestine, and was not a "benefactor of the peasants".

However, Aqil Agha is described in a mostly positive light by modern-day sources and in local tradition.