Emira Saada... Daughter of Emir Bashir the Great

In the folds of our Lebanese history are faces of women whom the keepers of our history have introduced to us in a few short lines; so we know something about them, while many things remain hidden from us.

Among them, for example, are those who bore the title of Emira by inheritance, thereby acquiring fame coldly, without effort. The history of the Maans, the Shihabs, and the Lamas is full of the names of this emira and that — mistresses of palaces and ladies of the court.

Emira Saada is one of them. The curious thing is that her father, Emir Bashir the Great, was given his byname from her — that is, Abu Saada — though some historians hold it more likely that he was known by this title, the emblem of good fortune, before his daughter was born.

The Lebanese pronounced the Emira's name with an 'a' vowel on the first letter — Sa'da — not with the 'u' of Su'da, which is the feminine superlative form.

Emira Saada is the daughter of Emir Bashir the Great's wife, Husn Jahan, whom he married after the death of his first Emira, Shams the Shihabite, whom he loved with a great love and to whom he remained devoted and faithful until she departed this world, after a chronic illness that kept her long bedridden, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine.

The Emir at that time was nearing sixty-two years of age.

And so, a few years after Emira Shams's death, Emir Bashir wished to marry a second time — he and his eldest son Qasim — and he preferred that their marriages should not be to two Lebanese girls, so as to avoid the troubles that a wife's kin might stir up by meddling in affairs of government.

He therefore sent a trusted messenger to Istanbul to bring him two Circassian girls, of whom Husn Jahan, the mother of Saada, was one; the Emir married her after she had become a Christian.

The historians describe her as a capable and respected lady, who often strove to lighten the taxes and the severity of judgments in those days so full of intrigues and ambitions.

As for her, she lived with her husband the Emir a serene and tranquil life, despite the difference in age between them, and bore him two daughters: Saada, the elder, and Saud. Emira Shams had left three sons: Emir Qasim, Emir Khalil, and Emir Amin. It is told of Umm Saada and her great devotion to her husband that she hastened to sell her jewelry and her ornaments to meet the expenses of the Emir and his retinue in exile. Emir Bashir alluded to this in the second article of his will, where he says: "Inasmuch as the days of my exile have grown long and nothing remains to me of my possessions, I having spent in this exile all the money I had — for the whole sum of money that was in my hands when I left the Mountain I had spent by my departure from Istanbul." Then he says: "And the expenses disbursed by me over and above, before and after the bounty of the Sublime State, I took by way of lawful debt from the revenues of the means of my wife Husn Jahan; and I sold some of her jewelry and received what money she had." In appreciation of his wife's kindnesses, Emir Bashir appointed her his absolute executrix after his death, as set down in the second article of the will.

Emira Saada lived with her younger sister a life of luxury, opulence, and ease in her father's great palace: she wore the loveliest clothes, adorned herself with precious jewels, and frequented the sumptuous baths, like all the emiras and noblewomen of that age.

The French poet Lamartine described what he and his wife saw in the Shihabi Emir's palace, in his book 'Journey to the East,' noting the refinement and ornament of the building, and reporting from his wife what she had seen in the bath of the emiras' luxury, their adornment, and their extravagance in finery; the emirs themselves enjoyed the bath only at fixed hours, after which they would leave it to the emiras. It is well known that the emirs of Lebanon, Maans and Shihabs alike, took great pains over the building of their baths and decorated their ceilings and walls. We have found no detailed accounts touching the appearance of Emira Saada, her costume and her dress; but we may learn something of the matter from what the Lebanese historian Rustum Baz wrote, for instance: that a woman's attire consisted of a silver tasa made by the goldsmith and engraved with fine workmanship, with a large pointed knob of woven threads set at its crown; as for the clothing of the body, it was a qumbaz with a square sash resembling a shawl or the mashalih; the chemise was long, of 'sitkruza' cloth; the drawers were tied with a fastening above the ankles; and on the feet were worn yellow or black babouches — though the woman of fashion wore the 'pantofla,' which is a kind of babouche.

The settled splendor did not last long in the life of Emira Saada, for she accompanied her parents and her younger sister into exile, and kept moving with them through foreign lands until at last they settled in Istanbul. There, in the land of exile, far from the pomp of the emirate and the grandeur of the palace at Beiteddine, Saada married Emir Salim al-Shihabi, son of Emir Abdullah, son of Hasan, the brother of Emir Bashir II.

As for Saud, she was married to Emir Khalil, son of Bashir, son of Ahmad al-Lamai, whose father was at that time qaimaqam of the Christians. Thus the family grew in exile, and Husn Jahan remained with her two daughters and her two sons-in-law at the Emir's side until he died, on the thirtieth of December 1850; and not long afterward she left the country with her children, in the late summer of 1851.

We do not know much of the life of Emira Saada after the death of Emir Bashir the Great, but she outlived her sister Saud, who died ten years after her father, that is, in 1860. On her return from Istanbul, Saada settled first in the town of Jiyeh, then moved to Hadath, near Beirut, where she lived a tranquil life with her Shihabi husband until God took her in 1884; she was buried in the monastery of Mar Antonios in the town of Baabda, in Lebanon. It is worth noting that she was not confined in her married life as her sister Saud was: Saud lived in the village of al-Mahdub, facing Brummana in the Metn, and it is told that her Lamai husband was known for his fierce jealousy over her, and would not permit her to leave his house.

Emir Bashir loved his two daughters Saada and Saud and honored them, though his life with them was not long, especially at Beiteddine; and it is said that Saud's rich and splendid trousseau became proverbial. He tried to secure comfort and independence for them after his death, and the fourth article of his will reads as follows: "I have appointed her" — that is, his wife Husn Jahan — "executrix for me by this will, and in everything pertaining to the discharge of my obligations; and none of my heirs, nor any other, shall oppose her in anything, for this is my will. And she is guardian over my children — her children — Saada and Saud, to raise them in the fear of God Almighty and to marry them with their own consent; and no one shall have any opposition to her or to them. This is my pleasure and my wish." End of text.

And in the fifth article he bequeathed to his two daughters a portion of his real property, saying: "As for the outer house and the maydan, I have given them to my children Saada and Saud by a legal deed."

These are brief glimpses touching the life of Emira Saada, for the historians have not spoken of her at length — the more so as she did not meddle in affairs of government, and enjoyed the splendor of her father's emirate for only a limited time. It was enough for her that she should be immortalized in her father's byname.