The Druse, or Druze, descend from the original followers of al Hakim (d. 1021), considered an incarnation of God in 1017 while he functioned as the sixth caliph of Egypt’s Fatimid dynasty.

The Druze had become politically important during the eleventh century in the region of present Lebanon, especially as opponents of the then dominant Shi’ite sect.

The Maan family, under orders from the governor of Damascus, had come to Lebanon in 1120 to lead the struggle against the invading Crusaders.

Settling on the southwestern slopes of the Lebanon Mountains, they had soon adopted the Druze religion.

After the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Ottoman controls in the region, Sultan Selim, regarding himself as the punisher of the unorthodox, particularly the militant Shi’i, had recognized the importance of placating the Druse by naming Fakhr ad-Din (d. 1544) of the house of Maan as the emir of the Druse in the Ottoman empire.

Following the execution, by the Ottomans, of Fakhr ad-Din’s son Korkmaz, in 1585, a civil war begins between the two predominant religious–political factions in the region, the Kaysis, led by Korkmaz’s son, Fakhr ad-Din II, and the Yamanis.