Druze ruler Fakhr ad-Din II, unlike his Yamani party foe, Yusuf Sayfa, the Shi’i ruler of Tripoli, has cultivated friendships and support among both Sunnis and Shi’ites, and he is the first to have united the city’s Druze and Maronite Christian districts.

By 1600, the military activity by his private army has gained him control of Sidon and Beirut on the coast as well as the enmity of both the Porte and Tripoli’s ruler; as a consequence, fighting has begun between Fakhr ad-Dion’s Kaysis party and the Yamanis.

The Porte had continued to waver in its support, favoring first one party and then the other, until Fakhr ad-Din’s victories became consistent.

With the defeat of Yusuf Sayfa in 1607, the Ottomans, who had aided Fakhr ad-Din in this triumph, had finally recognized his authority over the Druze and Maronite districts of the Lebanon Mountains.

To prevent Ottoman interference in his emirate, he has regularly sent ambassadors and bribes to Istanbul.

However, because Fakhr ad-Din is still uncertain of Ottoman support, however, and is aware of the Ottoman preoccupation with war in Europe and Asia, he had secretly allied the region with Ferdinand I, duke of Tuscany, in 1608, seeking trade and security, the two parties pledging to support each other against the Ottomans.

Fakhr ad-Din’s increasing ties with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany have aroused the suspicion of the Ottomans.

Ahmed, informed of Fakhr’s secret treaty with Tuscany, is alarmed by this development, regarding it as making possible a crusader state in the Fertile Crescent.

The sultan in 1611 orders Ahmad al Hafiz, the pasha of Damascus, to begin a punitive expedition against Fakhr ad-Din.

Fakhr-al-Din, holding territories from Nazareth in the south to Mount Carmel in the north, and supported by a forty thousand-man army, is a difficult opponent, and the Ottoman police action against him fails initially.

The popularity of Druse leader Fakhr-al-Din has alarmed the Ottomans, who issue authority for Hafiz Ahmed Pasha, Muhafiz of Damascus, to mount an attack on Lebanon in 1613, in order to reduce Fakhr-al-Din's growing power.

Facing Hafez's army of fifty thousand men, Fakhr-al-Din chooses exile to Italy, where in Tuscany he will be received by the Medici Family, leaving affairs in the hands of his brother Emir Yunus and his son Emir Ali Beg.

Fakhr-al-Din's exile does not prompt the Lebanese army to surrender to Hafiz Ahmed Pasha's army.

They maintain their positions while the military operations rage until Emir Yunus manages through negotiations and persuasion to bring an end to the killings, securing the retreat of the Ottoman army.

Fakhr-al-Din is welcomed in Tuscany by the grand duke Cosimo II, who will house him through his stay.

Fakhr-al-Din wishes to plan military operations with Tuscan cooperation to free Lebanon, but is met with a refusal since Tuscany is unable to afford such an expedition, and the prince soon gives up this idea, realizing eventually that such cooperation would only subject Lebanon to new occupation.

His stay in Italy will allow him to explore the era of European cultural revival in the seventeenth century.