Daher al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Zahir al-Umar or Dahir al-Umar (Arabic: ظاهر العمر الزيداني, romanized: Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī, 1689/90 – 21 or 22 August 1775), was the paramount sheikh of the Zayadina family and ruler of northern Palestine from the 1730s until his death in 1775, during Ottoman rule. At his zenith in 1774, he controlled the Syrian coast from Jaffa to Sidon, though formal recognition of his status was limited to that of a multazim (tax farmer).
In 1730, Daher took over Tiberias and by c. 1740, Safed and Nazareth. He and his family fortified these towns and other Galilee villages, most notably Deir Hanna, helping them withstand sieges by the governor of Damascus, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, in 1742–1743. By then, Daher controlled the area's cotton crop and eventually monopolized its high-demand trade with the French, amassing substantial wealth. In 1750, he made the outlet of this trade, the ruined port village of Acre, into his capital, developing it into Syria's third largest city. He expanded into Haifa and its environs in the 1760s, bringing him into conflict with the governor of Damascus, Uthman Pasha al-Kurji. Daher allied with Egypt's mamluk ruler, Ali Bey, and the Shias of southern Lebanon. Their military campaigns ousted Uthman Pasha and his son from Damascus and Sidon, culminating with Daher's victory at Lake Hula and occupation of Sidon in 1771.
Daher's fortunes turned in 1772 with the ouster of Ali Bey by his deputy Abu al-Dhahab. Despite the setback, Daher, with support from the Russian navy, reoccupied Jaffa and dislodged the Ottomans from Beirut. By 1774, the Ottomans' supreme army chief in Syria, Uthman Pasha al-Wakil, formally recognized his practical control of Sidon province and most of Palestine, though this was soon voided by the new sultan. In March 1775, Abu al-Dhahab ousted Daher from Acre, but died soon after and Daher returned to power. In August, the Ottomans, freed up from their six-year war with Russia, blockaded Acre and eliminated Daher. Acre's new governor, Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, neutralized the last of the Zayadina in 1776.
Daher's establishment of law and order, flexible taxation policies, and battlefield reputation earned him the goodwill of the local peasantry. He invited Christian and Jewish immigrants to his domains from across the empire, stimulating the economy and leading to the significant growth of the Christian communities in Acre and Nazareth and the Jewish community in Tiberias. Under his rule, northern Palestine's main centers, Acre, Haifa, Tiberias, and Nazareth, urbanized and prospered after long periods of decline. With Acre's restoration and the reestablishment of Haifa, Daher strengthened the Galilee's ties with the Mediterranean world, which continued under Jazzar. Daher's autonomy over much of Palestine has made him a national hero among Palestinians today.
Daher was born in 1689 or 1690. His father, Umar, was the sheikh of the Zayadina (sing. Zaydani), a small family of Bedouin origin which settled around Tiberias in the eastern Galilee in the late 17th century under Daher's grandfather, Salih. Daher's mother was from the Sardiyya, a Bedouin tribe in the Hauran. Around 1698, Umar emerged as a local multazim (limited-term tax farmer) and by 1703 was considered the "paramount sheikh of the Galilee" by the French vice-consul of Sidon. His brothers were multazims in the Lower Galilee. The Galilee was administratively part of Sidon Eyalet, a province of the Ottoman Empire, which was centered in Constantinople. Due to the military weakness of Sidon, tax collection was farmed out to local potentates, like the Zaydani sheikhs, who maintained their own power bases. Although they were nominally subordinate to the governor and their tax farms were subject to his annual confirmation, the governor frequently struggled to assert authority over the Zaydani sheikhs.
Umar died in 1706 and was succeeded by Daher's eldest brother, Sa'd. Occasionally, the Zaydani sheikhs leased their iltizam (tax farms) in young Daher's name to mitigate their liability. This legal control gave Daher considerable power within his clan. In 1707, Daher was entangled in a brawl, killing a man from Tiberias. To avoid potential repercussions, Sa'd moved the family to Arraba, a village between the commercial centers of Tiberias, Safed and Nazareth but away from the main highways. The Zayadina had been offered safe haven there by the sheikhs of the Bedouin Saqr tribe. In Arraba, Daher was educated by the Muslim scholar Abd al-Qadir al-Hifnawi and learned how to hunt and fight. Daher's martial talents and moderate personality gained him the respect of the peasantry. In the mid-1710s, he attained folk hero status for defending the village of Bi'ina from the governor of Sidon and evading capture.
Throughout the 1720s, Daher and Sa'd continued the commercial relationships their father had established in Damascus, frequently joining merchant caravans to the city. The wealth their father and uncles had previously generated from trade financially enabled the Zayadina to obtain their tax farms. Among the elite contacts Daher made in Damascus was Sayyid Muhammad al-Husayni, a sharif (descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad). Daher married Sayyid Muhammad's daughter as his first wife, and established her residence in Nazareth because she considered Arraba too small. When her father died, Daher inherited his fortune.
Daher had four other wives, among them a woman from his mother's Sardiyya tribe, and the daughters of the mukhtars (village headmen) of Bi'ina and Deir al-Qassi. His marriages were politically advantageous, helping seal control over areas he captured and consolidate relationships with Bedouin tribes, local clans, or urban notables. From his marriages, Daher had eight sons and a daughter. His sons were Salibi, Uthman, full brothers Ali and Sa'id, Ahmad, Salih, Sa'd al-Din and Abbas. His daughter Nijma was married to his cousin Karim al-Ayyubi, the grandson of Daher's uncle Ali. By 1773, Daher had 272 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to his contemporary, Sauveur Lusignan.
Rise and consolidation of power
Around 1730, the governor of Sidon and the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus (e.g. Samaria) moved to suppress the Saqr Bedouins. The tribe had long dominated the area between Nablus and Safed, rendering the highways unsafe, plundering villages, and ignoring tax obligations. Under pressure, the leader of the Saqr appointed Daher to intercede for them with the governor, hoping to benefit from the Zayadina's good reputation. The historian Thomas Philipp comments the Bedouins "probably hoped to use Ẓāhir for their own purposes" but "did not anticipate how quickly Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar would use them for his own ambitions". Not long after allying with the Saqr, Daher took over Tiberias with their support. He ousted the town's mutasallim (subgovernor) and obtained the iltizam of Tiberias and Arraba. Tiberias thereafter became Daher's base.
Northern and western expansion
Due to Daher's relative justice and fairness, peasants from nearby areas moved to his domains or invited his rule. The people living under Ahmad al-Husayn, the multazim of Acre's coastal plain, appealed for Daher to relieve them of his heavy-handedness and the extortions of the Bedouin. Daher obtained permission from Sidon's governor, Ibrahim Pasha al-Azm, to seize the area. Ahmad also requested permission to attack Daher, to which Ibrahim Pasha consented in the hope of neutralizing two powerful local leaders. In 1738, Daher led a 1,500-strong force which defeated Ahmad and gained control over his fortress Jiddin and its dependencies, Abu Sinan and Tarshiha. During the confrontation, Daher encountered a mercenary, Ahmad Agha al-Dinkizli, whom he commissioned to raise and command a private army of Maghrebi troops.
Daher next moved on Safed, whose multazim, Muhammad al-Nafi, surrendered it around 1740. Control of the strategically situated town, with its citadel on a high hill, gave the Zayadina command over the surrounding countryside. Afterward, Bi'ina, which had withstood a siege by Daher in 1739, was added to his domains through an agreement sealed by his marriage to its mukhtar's daughter. He also acquired the fortress of Suhmata through diplomacy, followed by the nearby fortified village of Deir al-Qassi, after marrying the daughter of its sheikh, Abd al-Khaliq Salih. These gains solidified Daher's hold over the northern and eastern Galilee. Sa'd established his fortified headquarters in Deir Hanna, while their cousin Muhammad al-Ali, who was based in Damun, added Shefa-Amr to his holdings, boosting the Zaydani presence in the western Galilee.