‘The age of the ayan’ is how Ottomanist historiography has come to view the eighteenth century, as local civilian notables, rural magnates and resident governor dynasties assumed the reins of an increasingly decentralized, privatized provincial administrative apparatus. The reforms adopted in this time, many of which had been made necessary or were accelerated by the debilitating war involving the Empire at the close of the seventeenth century, had important consequences in the Syrian provinces: the establishment of the Mataracı and then the ‘Azm families as governors of multiple eyalets; the awarding of lifetime tax farms (malikane) in peripheral districts such as Kilis or the Qusayr (and perhaps most notably to Zahir al-‘Umar in Acre at the height of his power); and the institution of tribal settlement projects (iskan) designed to reduce banditry and raise productivity in borderland areas such as the province of Raqqa or in the coastal highlands. The reforms thus also had major, though sometimes contradictory repercussions for the Shiite populations of the region. If the leading Shiite mukataacıs of Mt Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley initially benefited from the slackening of central control to regain nearly complete autonomy, after their long rebellion against the authorities, the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of new regional dynasts such as the Shihabi emirs would reduce them to dependence and finally lead to their replacement, towards the end of the century, as local intermediaries of the state.