He passed nine years in power, usurping rights, oppressing the weak, shedding innocent blood, imposing crushing taxes, and extorting money.

Between Ibn Sayfa and Emir Fakhr al-Din there was an enmity, and famous engagements... In the year 1621, the Emir wrested the province of Tripoli from his adversary, and drove his partisans and agents out of Jubbat Bsharri. He set over it Sheikh Abu Safi al-Khazen, and placed him at the head of all its governors and rulers.

But Shalhoub was not stripped of his muqaddam-ship.

Nor did this make him desist from his waywardness and his oppression.

The last thing that stirred up wrath against him was that his son 'Ashiya one day raided a monastery in the neighborhood of Hasroun and killed its superior... Whereupon Sheikh Abu Safi al-Khazen did no less than seize him, cast him into the fortress of Smar Jbeil, and send word to Emir Fakhr al-Din of what he had done; and the Emir ordered him put to death at once.

Shalhoub grieved for him, and set about protesting against his killing, launching outrageous attacks upon Abu Safi and the Emir — which compelled the Khazen sheikh to arrest him and send him to the Emir bound in chains.

The Emir was then at Smar Jbeil. When Shalhoub stood before him, he looked at him askance and addressed him, saying:

You allied yourself with our enemies, Shalhoub, and we bore you no grudge; you killed whom you killed of our subjects, unjustly, and we turned a blind eye to you; you seized for yourself what you seized of the people's money in the days of Ibn Sayfa, and we said: perhaps in our reign he will deal more kindly with the subjects than he did in the reign of another... But behold, you are of those who set no store by forbearance, and you wish to play in our reign the part you played in the reign of others; and it escaped you that our eye watches over the small before the great among our subjects, and that we wish all the Lebanese to live in our reign safe from every injustice.

His voice shook with anger, and he went on:

You said to yourself, fellow: Fakhr al-Din will not demand the blood of monks — so you emboldened your son to kill them and plunder their goods, and thereby you committed two crimes: the crime of doubting the patriotism of your Emir, and the crime of violating the sanctity of humanity, and of religion.

And he turned to his execution-

ers and cried: Take this tyrannical profligate and strangle him, and cast his stinking corpse into the river.

That very night, the waters of the Madfoun River swallowed up the tyrant's corpse, and history added a white page to the pages of the justice of Fakhr al-Din.