Chouf District in the context of "Damour River"

The Emirate of Mount Lebanon (Arabic: إِمَارَة جَبَل لُبْنَان) was a part of Mount Lebanon that enjoyed variable degrees of partial autonomy under the stable suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire between the mid-16th and the early-19th century.

The town of Baakleen was the seat of local power during the Ma'an period until Fakhr-al-Din II chose to live in Deir el Qamar due to a water shortage in Baakleen. Deir el Qamar remained the seat until Bashir Shihab II ascended to the throne and moved its court to the Beiteddine palace. Beiteddine remains the capital of the Chouf District today.

Greater Beirut (Arabic: بيروت الكبرى) is the urban agglomeration comprising the city of Beirut (Beirut Governorate) and the adjacent municipalities over the Mount Lebanon Governorate. It does not constitute a single administrative unit. Greater Beirut geographically stretches south to the Damour River in the Chouf District until it reaches the "Nahr al-Kalb" river in the Keserwan District in the north. It also comprises many towns and cities in the mountains in the Aley District, Baabda District and Metn District Districts, most notably being the cities of Baabda, Aley, Choueifat, Hazmieh, Sin el-Fil, Jdeideh, Bchamoun and Dekwaneh. The conurbation spreads south, east, and north of Beirut city. To the west, the Eastern Mediterranean Sea serves as a natural boundary.

Christianity and Druze are Abrahamic religions that share a historical traditional connection with some major theological differences. The two faiths share a common place of origin in the Middle East and are both monotheistic. Christian and Druze communities share a long history of interaction dating back roughly a millennium, particularly in Mount Lebanon. Over the centuries, they have interacted and lived together peacefully, sharing common social and cultural landscapes, despite occasional exceptions. Moreover, Druze beliefs, scriptures and teachings incorporate several elements from Christianity.Historically, the relationship between the Druze and Christians has been characterized by harmony and peaceful coexistence, with amicable relations between the two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war. In the Levant region, the conversion of Druze to Christianity was a common practice. Throughout history, there have been instances where prominent members of the Druze community, including some of Shihab dynasty members, as well as the Abi-Lamma clan, embraced Christianity.

The Maronite Catholics and the Druze set the foundation for what is now Lebanon in the early 18th century, through a governing and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. Interaction between Christians (members of the Maronite, Eastern Orthodox, Melkite, and other churches) and the Druze resulted in the establishment and existence of mixed villages and towns in Mount Lebanon, Chouf, Wadi al-Taym, Jabal al-Druze, the Galilee region, Mount Carmel, and the Golan Heights.

Baakleen, also spelled Baaqlîne or Baakline (Arabic: بعقلين), is a prominent Druze city located in the Chouf District of Mount Lebanon, about 45 kilometers southeast of Beirut, Lebanon. Situated at an elevation of 850 to 920 meters, it has a population of around 30,000 and covers an area of 14 square kilometers, with approximately 2,870 homes. The town is surrounded by several neighboring villages, including Deir al-Qamar, Beit ed-Dine, Ainbal, Deir Dourit (ar), Symkanieh, and Jahlieh.

Deir al-Qamar (Arabic: دَيْر الْقَمَر, romanized: Dayr al-qamar, lit. 'Monastery of the moon') is a city south-east of Beirut in south-central Lebanon. It is located five kilometres outside of Beit ed-Dine in the Chouf District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate at 800 m of average altitude.

Beit ed-Dine (Arabic: بيت الدين), also known as Btaddine (Arabic: بتدين) is a small town and the administrative capital of the Chouf District in the Mount Lebanon Governorate in Lebanon. The town is located 45 kilometers southeast of Beirut, and near the town of Deir el-Qamar from which it is separated by a steep valley. It had 1,613 registered voters in 2010 and its inhabitants are predominantly Christians from the Maronite, Melkite and Greek Orthodox denominations. Beit ed-Dine's total land area consists of 244 hectares and its average elevation is 860 meters above sea level.

The town is well known for the Beiteddine Palace, which hosts the annual summer Beiteddine Festival.

The Ma'n dynasty (Arabic: ٱلْأُسْرَةُ ٱلْمَعْنِيَّةُ, romanized: Banū Maʿn, alternatively spelled Ma'an), also known as the Ma'nids; (Arabic: ٱلْمَعْنِيُّونَ), were a family of Druze chiefs of Arab stock based in the rugged Chouf area of southern Mount Lebanon who were politically prominent in the 15th–17th centuries. Traditional Lebanese histories date the family's arrival in the Chouf to the 12th century, when they were held to have struggled against the Crusader lords of Beirut and of Sidon alongside their Druze allies, the Tanukh Buhturids. They may have been part of a wider movement by the Muslim rulers of Damascus to settle militarized Arab tribesmen in Mount Lebanon as a buffer against the Crusader strongholds along the Levantine coast. Fakhr al-Din I (d. 1506), the first member of the family whose historicity is certain, was the "emir of the Chouf", according to contemporary sources and, despite the non-use of mosques by the Druze, founded the Fakhreddine Mosque in the family's stronghold of Deir al-Qamar.

Two years following the advent of Ottoman rule in the Syrian region in 1516, three chiefs of the Ma'n dynasty were imprisoned for rebellion by the Damascus Eyalet governor Janbirdi al-Ghazali, but released by Sultan Selim I. The Ma'ns and their Druze coreligionists in the Chouf were continually targeted in punitive campaigns by the Ottomans related to their evasion and defiance of government tax collectors and their stockpiling of illegal firearms, which were often superior to those of the government troops. The particularly destructive 1585 Ottoman expedition against the Druze prompted the Ma'nid emir Qurqumaz ibn Yunis to go into hiding in the neighboring Kisrawan, where he died the following year.