Damascus Eyalet | |||||||||||
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Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire | |||||||||||
1516–1865 | |||||||||||
Flag | |||||||||||
![]() The Damascus Eyalet in 1795 | |||||||||||
Capital | Damascus[1] | ||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
• Battle of Marj Dabiq | 1516 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1865 | ||||||||||
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Today part of | Palestine Israel Jordan Syria |
Damascus Eyalet (Arabic: إيالة دمشق; Ottoman Turkish: ایالت شام, romanized: Eyālet-i Šām)[2] was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. Its reported area in the 19th century was 51,900 square kilometres (20,020 sq mi).[3] It became an eyalet after the Ottomans took it from the Mamluks following the 1516–1517 Ottoman–Mamluk War.[4] Janbirdi al-Ghazali, a Mamluk traitor, was made the first beylerbey of Damascus.[5] The Damascus Eyalet was one of the first Ottoman provinces to become a vilayet after an administrative reform in 1865, and by 1867 it had been reformed into the Syria Vilayet.[6]