Princess Habous was born in Choueifat in 1768 AD. She was the daughter of Prince Bashir Arslan and married Prince Abbas bin Fakhr al-Din al-Arslani. She possessed a rare personality that became legendary, even overshadowing both her father and her husband, who passed away in 1224 AH (1809 AD). Since her children were too young to assume the Emirate, she took over the reins herself. Her domain included Choueifat, Ain Anoub, Aramoun, Bchamoun, Ain Kesour, and other farmlands. Al-Shidyaq said of her: “She managed the district due to her intelligence. She governed the subjects well and was famous for her good qualities, becoming a refuge and help for the people.”

 

However, Al-Bustani’s Encyclopedia indicates that she assumed the affairs of governance in 1793 as the ruler of the West feudal fiefdom, managing it with an aptitude that made her an object of admiration for the Lebanese.

The Complaint to Al-Jazzar

In 1794, the army commander—known as the Serasker—Muhammad Agha al-Abd, complained to Al-Jazzar about Prince Bashir, accusing him of failing to pay the tribute imposed upon him. Al-Jazzar sent an order to arrest him, along with his brother Hassan and Sheikh Bashir Jumblatt. This was carried out in the pine forest near Beirut, and the three were sent as prisoners to Al-Jazzar on a ship bound for Acre. He imprisoned them in its fortress, bound them with heavy chains, and forbade anyone from visiting them. During their imprisonment, Princess Habous never ceased sending large sums of money to Prince Bashir to offer to Al-Jazzar as ransom. Alongside this, she managed the affairs of his family and sought to advocate on his behalf and win the people over to him.

Lamartine says in his book, Travels to the East: “When Al-Jazzar threw Prince Bashir into the prison of Acre, the day he went to him after the killing of Prince Yusuf, he kept him there for twenty months, tightening the pressure on him with the aim of forcing him to pay a huge tribute. But Prince Bashir had nothing, and he had not been in power long enough to accumulate wealth. His minister, Sheikh Bashir Jumblatt, was with him in prison, so he sent the Sheikh secretly to Princess Habous, with whom he had a good relationship, and entrusted her with offering the Pasha what he demanded, while pretending she wanted to mortgage her jewelry and gems to complete the ransom.”

 

Princess Habous went to Al-Jazzar; she was a clever, bold woman with great tact. She met him in Acre and charmed him with the gentleness of her personality and her intelligence, to the point that he significantly reduced the amount he had requested, and returned Prince Bashir to his principality. Princess Habous continued her rule until Prince Bashir Shihab was removed from the rule of Lebanon in 1820, as she was a vassal to him. He returned to power in 1822 and appointed one of her sons, Ahmed bin Abbas, as Emir over Choueifat. People thought at the time that the Prince was rewarding Ahmed for his courage and support, but in reality, he aimed to undermine the pride of Princess Habous. In 1824, when Sheikh Bashir Jumblatt defeated the uncles of Prince Bashir Shihab—who soon ended up a martyr in Acre along with his children and his lifelong friend Sheikh Ali Imad—Princess Habous realized that the victorious Prince Bashir Shihab would inevitably strike at her. She chose to seek refuge in Bchamoun. When the news of this refuge reached Prince Bashir, he sent one of his cousins, Prince Bashir Qasim Haidar (who later became Bashir III), to demand the ransom money and tighten the noose around her, which led to her death from grief. Al-Shidyaq recounts the reasons for her death, saying: “When Prince Bashir Qasim Haidar pressured the Princess for money and tightened the grip on her, her two sons went to Ain Traz to petition Sheikh Mansour al-Dahdah, the director for the Shihabi Prince, to appease him by proposing what they could pay of the required money.”

Her Death

In the meantime, she passed away. When her children received the news of her death, they arrived in Bchamoun and held a solemn funeral for her; she was buried in the dome of Prince Najm. Al-Bustani’s Encyclopedia says of her death: “It is said that she died through a plot by Prince Bashir,” and some narrators confirm this by saying she died by strangulation.

 

There is also another account regarding the reasons and circumstances of her death, passed down from generation to generation without being confirmed by any well-known historian. It suggests that while Prince Bashir’s soldiers were passing by her palace in Bchamoun, a gypsy woman entered the palace to beg. The Princess exchanged her clothes with those of the gypsy woman and went out. She had not walked far on the road to Ain Anoub when Prince Bashir’s soldiers saw her; their attention was drawn to a white leg appearing from under the clothes, which could not belong to a gypsy woman walking the roads and alleys barefoot. One soldier shouted, “That is the Princess!” The soldiers chased her, and she fell dead from the intensity of the shock. It is also said that they shot her at the Orthodox church of Ain Anoub, killing her at the age of fifty-eight.

 

The latter story may have been a product of popular imagination and cannot be relied upon as historical fact, leaving her death as one of the secrets of the enmities and leaderships of days gone by. However, what is beyond doubt is that Princess Habous Al-Arslani—whom they used to call “Al-Sitt Habous”—was sound in judgment, high-spirited, generous-souled, and a unique model of nobility, boldness, and courage through the ages, becoming an example among the women who ruled and fought wars.

 

Prince Adel Arslan said in a letter he sent to Al-Zirikli: “Habous is the one who was angry at her estate agent ‘Zaidan,’ the grandfather of the famous Jurji Zaidan, and she was the reason for his exodus to Beirut, and his exodus was the reason for the emergence of the famous historian Jurji Zaidan. She is not Shihabi, she is Arslani.”

In conclusion, death is an inevitable truth, and regardless of the many reasons, death is one. Al-Sitt Habous was martyred and buried in Bchamoun. She had the following children: Mansour, Ahmed, Haidar, and Amin.

 

Writer: Sheikh Historian Makram Al-Masri