Damascus Eyalet

Eyalet-i Şam إيالة العرب
Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire
← 1517–1865 →   →   →   →
Capital		Damascus[1]
History
•	Battle of Marj Dabiq	1517
•	Disestablished	1865
Today part of		Syria  Lebanon  Jordan  Palestine  Israel

Damascus Eyalet (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت شام; Eyālet-i Šām‎)^[2] was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. Its reported area in the 19th century was 51,900 square kilometres (20,020 sq mi).^[3]

It became an eyalet after the Ottomans conquered it from the Mamluks in 1516.^[4] Canbirdi Gazali, a Mamluk traitor, was made the first beylerbey of Damascus.^[5]

The Damascus Eyalet was one of the first Ottoman provinces to become a vilayet after an administrative reform in 1865, and by 1867 it had been reformed into the Syria Vilayet.^[6]

Governors

• Janbirdi al-Ghazali (1518–1521)
• Ahmad ibn Ridwan (1601–1607)
• Sulayman Pasha al-Azm (1733–1737; 1741–1743)
• As'ad Pasha al-Azm (1743–1757)
• Uthman Pasha al-Kurji (1760-1771)
• Abdullah Pasha al-Azm (1795-1798; 1799-1803; 1804–1807)
• Mehmed Emin Rauf Pasha (October 1828 - July 1831)
• Mehmed Selim Pasha (1830–1831)

Administrative divisions

Sanjaks of Damascus Eyalet in the 17th century:^[7]

• Khas sanjaks (i.e. yielded a land revenue):

1. Sanjak of Jerusalem
2. Sanjak of Gaza
3. Sanjak of Karak
4. Sanjak of Safet
5. Sanjak of Nablus
6. Sanjak of Ajloun
7. Sanjak of Lejun
8. Sanjak of Bokoa

• Salyane sanjaks (i.e. had an annual allowance from government):

1. Sanjak of Tadmor
2. Sanjak of Sidon
3. Sanjak of Beirut

References

1. Commercial statistics: A digest of the productive resources, commercial... By John Macgregor, p. 12, at Google Books
2. "Some Provinces of the Ottoman Empire". Geonames.de. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
3. The Popular encyclopedia: or, conversations lexicon, Volume 6, p. 698, at Google Books
4. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, p. 169, at Google Books By Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters
5. D. E. Pitcher (1972). An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire: From Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century. Brill Archive. p. 105. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
6. Almanach de Gotha: annuaire généalogique, diplomatique et statistique. J. Perthes. 1867. pp. 827–829. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
7. Narrative of travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the ..., Volume 1, p. 90, at Google Books By Evliya Çelebi, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall