Timelines of Ottoman Syria history

Timeline of Ottoman Syria

← 1516–1918 → → →

Following are timelines of the history of Ottoman Syria, taken as the parts of either modern-day Syria or of Greater Syria as they were subjected to Ottoman rule.

Timeline of history of the parts of modern-day Syria under Ottoman rule

16th century

• 1516: conquest by Selim I
• September 1520: death of Selim I and accession of Suleiman I
• 7 September 1566: death of Suleiman I and accession of Selim II
• 15 December 1574: death of Selim II and accession of Murad III
• 15 January 1595: death of Murad III and accession of Mehmed III

17th century

• 21 December 1603: death of Mehmed III and accession of Ahmed I
• 22 November 1617: death of Ahmed I and accession of Mustafa I
• 26 February 1618: deposition of Mustafa I and accession of Osman II
• 10 September 1623: deposition of Mustafa I and accession of Murad IV
• 20 May 1622: death of Osman II and re-accession of Mustafa I
• 9 February 1640: death of Murad IV and accession of Ibrahim I
• 8 August 1648: deposition of Ibrahim I and accession of Mehmed IV
• 8 November 1687: deposition of Mehmed IV and accession of Suleiman II
• 22 June 1691: death of Suleiman II and accession of Ahmed II
• 6 February 1695: death of Ahmed II and accession of Mustafa II

18th century

• 22 August 1703: abdication of Mustafa II and accession of Ahmed III
• 2 October 1730: abdication of Ahmed III and accession of Mahmud I
• 13 December 1754: death of Mahmud I and accession of Osman III
• 30 October 1757: death of Osman III and accession of Mustafa III
• 24 December 1773: death of Mustafa III and accession of Abdülhamid I
• 7 April 1789: death of Abdülhamid I and accession of Selim III

19th century

• 29 May 1807: deposition of Selim III and accession of Mustafa IV
• 28 July 1808: deposition of Mustafa IV and accession of Mahmud II
• 1 July 1839: death of Mahmud II and accession of Abdülmecid I
• 25 June 1861: death of Abdülmecid I and accession of Abdülaziz I
• 30 May 1876: deposition of Abdülaziz I and accession of Murad V
• 31 August 1876: deposition of Murad V and accession of Abdülhamid II

20th century

• 27 April 1909: deposition of Abdülhamid II and accession of Mehmed V
• 1918: occupation by the British and the French

Timeline of history of the parts of Greater Syria under Ottoman rule

16th century

Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilds the Walls of Jerusalem in the mid-1530s

• July 1516 – Selim I of the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Mameluks and invades Syria.
• 1517: The Ottoman Empire captures Jerusalem after Sultan Selim I defeats the last Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri at the Battle of Marj Dabiq the previous year. Selim proclaims himself Caliph of the Islamic world.
• 1535–1538: Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I rebuilds the Walls of Jerusalem.
• 1541: Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I sealed off the Golden Gate to prevent the Jewish Messiah's entrance.
• 14 January 1546: A devastating earthquake shook the Palestine region. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the Jordan River in a location between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. The cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Gaza and Damascus were heavily damaged.

17th century

• 1604: First Protectorate of missions agreed under the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, in which Ahmad I agreed that the subjects of Henry IV of France were free to visit the Holy Places of Jerusalem. French missionaries begin to travel to Jerusalem and other major Ottoman cities.
• 1610: the first Arabic printing press in the Arab world founded in Dayr-Qazahya by Maronite monks.
• 1622: Fakhr ad-Din al-Ma'ni, prince of Shouf in Mount Lebanon, defeates at the Battle of Anjar an army led by the Wali (governor) of Damascus Mustafa Pasha.
• 1624: occupied with threat from the Safavids of Iran, the Ottomans agree to make Fakhr ad-Din governor over a region extending from Aleppo to Arish. During his rule, Fakhr ad-Din initiates political and cultural relations with Europe.
• 1633: the Wali of Damascus Ahmed Pasha leads a campaign against Fakhr ad-Din from both land and sea.
• 1635: Fakhr ad-Din is hanged in Damascus.
• 1663-5: Sabbatai Zevi, founder of the Sabbateans, preaches in Jerusalem before travelling back to his native Smyrna where he proclaimed himself the Messiah

18th century

Battle of Nazareth

• 1700: Judah the Pious with 1,000 followers settle in Jerusalem.
• 30 October 1759: A devastating earthquake shook the Palestine region. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the Jordan River in a location between the Sea of Galilee and the Hula Valley. The cities of Safed, Tiberias, Acre, Sidon were heavily damaged.
• 3–7 March 1799: Napoleonic Wars: Siege of Jaffa - Napoleon captures the city of Jaffa.
• 20 March–21 May 1799: Napoleonic Wars: Siege of Acre – An unsuccessful attempt by Napoleon to capture the city of Acre.
• 8 April 1799: Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Nazareth
• 11 April 1799: Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Cana
• 16 April 1799: Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor – Napoleon drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre.

19th century

Galilee earthquake of 1837

• 1820: Christians massacred in the Vilayet of Aleppo.
• 1831: Muhammad Ali of Egypt's French-trained forces occupy Syria.
• 1832: an Egyptian Army led by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt marches on Anatolia and defeates an Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha at the Battle of Konya.
• 10 May 1832: The Egyptians, aided by Maronites, seize Acre from the Ottoman Empire after a 7-month siege.
• 1833: Western powers broker the Convention of Kutahya. The terms require Muhammad Ali to withdraw his troops from Anatolia and receive the territories of Syria, Crete, and Hijaz in exchange.
• 1834: 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine.
• 1 January 1837: Galilee earthquake of 1837 - a devastating earthquake the shook the Galilee region, killing thousands of people.^[1]
• 1839: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, backed by the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire, compels July Monarchy France to abandon Muhammad Ali of Egypt, and it forces him to return Syria and Arabia to the Ottoman Empire.
• 15 July 1840: The Austrian Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire sign the Convention of London with the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The signatories offered to Muhammad Ali and his heirs permanent control over Egypt and the Acre Sanjak (roughly what is now Israel), provided that these territories would remain part of the Ottoman Empire and that he agreed within ten days to withdraw from the rest of Syria and returned to Sultan Abdülmecid I the Ottoman fleet which had defected to Alexandria. Muhammad Ali was also to immediately withdraw its forces from Arabia, the Holy Cities, Crete, the Adana District, and all of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1840: The Tanzimat reforms begin to have an impact in Syria.
• 1840: Sectarian clashes in Mount Lebanon between Druze and Christian Maronites.
• 1847: the Syrian Association founded in Beirut.
• 1860: The first Jewish neighborhood (Mishkenot Sha'ananim) is built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.^[2]
• 1860: Clashes between Druze and Maronites in Mount Lebanon and Damascus.
• 9 June 1861: European powers led by France intervene on the side of the Maronites and force the Ottomans to establish the Maronite-dominated Mutesarrifiyyet of Mount Lebanon.
• 1868: The American University in Beirut established under the name of the Syrian Protestant College.
• 1868: the Syrian Scientific Society founded in Beirut.
• 1874: Jerusalem Sanjak becomes a Mutesarrifiyyet gaining a special administrative status.
• 1877–1878: The Russo-Turkish War causes increased taxation in Syria.
• 1882-1903: The First Aliyah took place in which 25,000-35,000 Jew immigrants immigrated to Ottoman Syria.
• 1887-8: Ottoman Palestine was divided into Jerusalem Sanjak, Nablus Sanjak and Acre Sanjak
• 1893: A fire destroys the Great Mosque of Damascus.
• 1895: Construction of railway Beirut-Damascus.
• 1895: Construction of railway line Damascus-Rayek.
• 29–31 August 1897: The First Zionist Congress is held in Basel, Switzerland, in which the Basel Declaration was approved which determined that the Zionist movement ultimate aim is to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in the region of Palestine secured under public law.
• 1898: German Kaiser Wilhelm visits Jerusalem to dedicate the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. He meets Theodore Herzl outside city walls.

20th century

first meeting between Chaim Weizmann (wearing Arab dress as a sign of friendship) and the Hashemite Prince Faisal in Transjordan in an attempt to establish favourable relations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, June 1918.

The surrender of Jerusalem to the British, 9 December 1917.

Ottoman machine gun corps at the Tell el Sheria Gaza line, 1917.

• 30 October 1918: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: The British Sinai and Palestine Campaign officially ends with the signing of the Armistice of Mudros and, shortly thereafter, the Ottoman Empire is dissolved.
• 3 October 1918 - Sinai and Palestine Campaign: The forces of the Arab revolt led by Prince Faysal enter Damascus.^[3] In 1920 Prince Faysal becomes the king of the Arab Kingdom of Syria for a short period.
• 1 October 1918 - Sinai and Palestine Campaign: A combined Arab and British force occupy Damascus.
• 23 September - Sinai and Palestine Campaign: British occupation of Haifa is completed.
• 19 September–1 October 1918 - Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Battle of Megiddo
• 14 July 1918 - Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Battle of Abu Tellul
• June 1918 - First meeting between the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and the son of the Sharif of Mecca Hashemite Prince Faisal, who led the Arab forces in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, which takes place in Faisal's headquarters in Aqaba in an attempt to establish favourable relations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.
• 4 April 1918 - The first edition of the Hebrew-language daily newspaper "Haaretz" is published, sponsored by the British military government in Palestine.^[4]
• 1918: Forces of the Arab Revolt enter Damascus accompanied by British troops, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule.
• 8–26 December 1917: The British Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Battle of Jerusalem - The Ottomans are defeated by the British forces at the Battle of Jerusalem. The British Army's General Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot, in a reference to the entrance of Caliph Umar in 637.
• 15 November 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: British troops capture Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
• 2 November 1917: The Balfour Declaration is published in which the British Government declares its support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
• 31 October-7 November 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Third Battle of Gaza - British forces capture Gaza and break the Turkish defensive line in southern Palestine.
• 31 October 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Battle of Beersheba - Australian and New Zealand cavalry troops capture Beersheba from the Turks.
• 6 July 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence capture Aqaba from the Turks, and incorporate the territory into the Kingdom of Hejaz, under the rule of Prince Faisal. The capture of Aqaba helps open supply lines from Egypt to the Arab and British forces in the field further north in Transjordan and Palestine, and more importantly alleviate a threat of a Turkish offensive against the strategically important Suez Canal.
• 19 April 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Second Battle of Gaza - Turkey repels British assault on Gaza-Beersheba line.
• 6 April 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: The Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation - The Ottoman authorities deport the entire civilian population of Jaffa and Tel Aviv pursuant to the order from Ahmed Jamal Pasha, the military governor of Ottoman Syria during the First World War. Although the Muslim evacuees are allowed to return before long, the Jewish evacuees were not able to return until after the British conquest of Palestine.^[5]
• 26 March 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: First Battle of Gaza - British fail to advance into Palestine after 17,000 Turkish troops block their advance.
• 9 January 1917: Sinai and Palestine Campaign: Battle of Rafa - British Empire forces defeat the Turks in Rafah and complete the re-conquest of the Sinai Peninsula.
• 1916: The Mutasarrifiyet of Mount Lebanon is abolished.
• June 1916: Grand Sharif Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca who shared with his fellow Arabs a strong dislike for his Ottoman overlords, enters into an alliance with the United Kingdom and France against the Ottomans and soon thereafter commences what would become known as The Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule.
• 16 May 1916: Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, which defines their respective spheres of influence and control in Western Asia after the expected demise of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. It was largely a trade agreement with a large area set aside for indirect control through an Arab state or a confederation of Arab states.
• March–October 1915: The 1915 locust plague breaks out in the Palestine region.
• 28 January–3 February 1915: The British Sinai and Palestine Campaign: First Suez Offensive - A battle between the forces of the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire in which the Turks fail in their attempt to capture or destroy the Suez Canal and are forced to withdraw their forces. The canal was vital to the British war effort.
• 1915-1917: Famine in Syria resulting in up to 500,000 deaths due to severe shortage of supplies.^[6]
• 1914: Ottomans fight on the side of the Central Powers in World War I.
• May 1909: Hauran Druze Rebellion erupts.
• 11 April 1909: Tel Aviv was founded on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa.
• 1 September 1908: The Hejaz Railway opens.
• 1901: The Jewish National Fund was founded at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel with the aim of buying and developing land in the Palestine region of Ottoman Syria for Jewish settlement.
• 1900-1908: Hejaz Railway: construction of Railroad Damascus-Medina.^[7]

Notable births

1853

• Musa al-Husayni (b. Jerusalem), Palestinian Arab politician (d. 1934).

1880

• 18 August – Ya'akov Moshe Toledano (b. Tiberias), Palestinian and Israeli rabbi, and Israeli cabinet minister (d. 1960).

1882

• 19 November – Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (b. Jableh, Syria), Palestinian Muslim cleric, founder of the militant Black Hand movement (d. 1935).

1883

• Jamil al-Ulshi (b. Damascus), Syrian Arab politician and acting head of state during the French Mandate era (d. 1951).

1885

• Avraham Elmalih (b. Jerusalem), Palestinian Jewish journalist, community leader, Zionist activist and Israeli politician (d. 1967).

1886

• 18 September – Yehuda Burla (b. Jerusalem), Palestinian Jewish educator and Israeli author (d. 1969).
• 31 December – Israel Rokach (b. Jaffa), Palestinian Jewish politician, mayor of Tel Aviv and Israeli cabinet minister (d. 1959).

1889

• 24 December – Ovadia Hedaya (b. Aleppo), Palestinian and Israeli rabbi (d. 1969).

1895

• Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (b. Tiberias), Palestinian Jewish police commander and Israeli cabinet minister (d. 1967).

1898

• Yitzhak Arieli (b. Jerusalem), Palestinian and Israeli rabbi (d. 1974).

1902

• 27 January – Yosef Sapir (b. Jaffa), Palestinian Jewish politician and Israeli cabinet minister (d. 1972).
• 2 February – Eliyahu Sasson (b. Damascus), Palestinian Jewish politician and Israeli cabinet minister (d. 1978).

1903

• 22 July – Ami Assaf (b. Rosh Pinna, Upper Galilee), Palestinian Jewish community leader and Israeli politician (d. 1963).

1906

• Mahmud Al-Nashaf (b. Tayibe), Israeli Arab politician (d. 1979).

1907

• 10 June – Ezra Ichilov (b. Petah Tikva), Palestinian Jewish community leader and Israeli politician (d. 1961).

1908

• 16 July – Yizhar Harari (b. Jaffa), Palestinian Jewish activist and Israeli politician (d. 1978).

1909

• 23 October – Avraham Biran (b. Petah Tikva), Israeli Jewish archaeologist (d. 2008).

1913

• 25 October – Avraham Yoffe (b. Yavne'el, Lower Galilee), Israeli Jewish military officer and politician (d. 1983).

1914

• 23 January – Yehuda Cohen (b. Safed), Israeli Jewish Supreme Court justice (d. 2009).
• 20 May – Avraham Shapira (b. Jerusalem), Israeli rabbi, Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel (d. 2007).

1915

• 20 May – Moshe Dayan (b. Kibbutz Degania Alef, Lower Galilee), Israeli Jewish military officer and cabinet minister (d. 1981).
• 10 December – Eliezer Waldenberg (b. Jerusalem), Israeli Haredi rabbi and dayan (d. 2006).

1916

• 2 April – Menachem Porush (b. Jerusalem), Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish politician (d. 2010).
• 27 September – S. Yizhar (b. Rehovot), Israeli Jewish author (d. 2006).
• Zahara Schatz (b. Jerusalem), Israeli Jewish painter and sculpturer (d. 1999).
• Binyamin Shahor (b. Jerusalem), Israeli Jewish politician (d. 1979).

1917

• 21 March – Yigael Yadin (b. Jerusalem), Israeli Jewish archeologist, military officer and cabinet minister (d. 1984).
• 8 June – David Coren (b. Jerusalem), Israeli Jewish politician (d. 2011).
• 17 July – Yehoshua Zettler (b. Kfar Saba), senior member of Jewish paramilitary group, Lehi, in Mandate Palestine (d. 2009).

1918

• 4 January – Yossi Harel (b. Jerusalem), Palestinian Jewish Haganah member and commander of illegal Jewish immigrants ships (d. 2008).
• 10 October – Yigal Allon (b. Kfar Tavor, Lower Galilee), Israeli Jewish military officer and cabinet minister (d. 1980).

References