Jabal Amil in the context of "Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate"

Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Daher el-Omar or Dahir al-Umar (Arabic: ظاهر العمر الزيداني, romanized: Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī, 1689/90 – 21 or 22 August 1775), was an Arab ruler of northern Palestine in the mid-18th century, while the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. For much of his reign, starting in the 1730s, his domain mainly consisted of the Galilee, with successive headquarters in Tiberias, Deir Hanna and finally Acre, in 1750. He fortified Acre, and the city became the center of the cotton trade between Palestine and Europe. In the mid-1760s, he reestablished the port town of Haifa nearby.

Zahir withstood sieges and assaults by the Ottoman governors of Damascus, who attempted to limit or eliminate his influence. He was often supported in these confrontations by the Shia Muslim clans of Jabal Amil. In 1771, in alliance with Ali Bey al-Kabir of the Egypt Eyalet and with backing from Russia, Zahir captured Sidon, while Ali Bey's forces conquered Damascus, both acts in open defiance of the Ottoman sultan. At the peak of his power in 1774, Zahir's rule extended from Beirut to Gaza and included the Jabal Amil and Jabal Ajlun regions. By then, however, Ali Bey had been killed, the Ottomans entered into a truce with the Russians, and the Ottoman imperial government felt secure enough to check Zahir's power. The Ottoman Navy attacked his Acre stronghold in the summer of 1775 and he was killed outside of its walls shortly after.

Banu Amila (Arabic: بَنُو عَامِلَة, Banū ʿĀmila), also spelled Amela, was an Arab tribe that historically dwelt in the Levant (greater Syria) during the Byzantine (3rd–7th centuries CE) and early Islamic periods (7th–11th centuries). Before or during the Crusades (late 11th–13th centuries) they made their abode in the mountainous region called after them, the Jabal Amil, in present-day Southern Lebanon. The long-established Shia Muslim community that lives in this region generally claims descent from the Amila, though the community's singular descent from the tribe is neither substantiated nor likely, according to the historian Tamara Chalabi.

Safed Sanjak (Ottoman Turkish: سنجق صفد; Turkish: Safed Sancağı) was a sanjak (district) of Damascus Eyalet (Ottoman province of Damascus) in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet (Ottoman province of Sidon). The sanjak was centered in Safed and spanned the Galilee, Jabal Amil and the coastal cities of Acre and Tyre. The city of Safed was made up of Muslim and Jewish townspeople. At the same time the rest of the sanjak was populated by Sunni Muslims, Bedouins, Metouali Twelver Muslims, and Jewish and Druze peasants.