NakhléAlso written Nahlé, Nahla, which signifies Nicolas; he was also called Michel. MoutranThe family name was written in Arabic ﻣﻂﺭﺍﻥ which may also be transcribed as Matran, Mutran, Metran, Mutrân, which all mean "bishop" in Arabic. ( - 14 July 1872 - 1915) was the pasha of Baalbek (Lebanon) during the late Ottoman empire period. He was a Greek Melkite Catholic, and inherited his political office from his grandfather who is said to have been the first Christian to be given the title Pasha after the Tanzimat edict of 1856. He was close to France, which after the onset of World War I caused his arrest and trial where he was sentenced to perpetual prison with labour, but died on his way to his designated imprisonment location in Diyarbakr.
Biography
Family background
Nakhlé was born on 14 July 1872, at Baalbek (which at that time belonged to the Ottoman Empire, and today is a city in the independent state of Lebanon) as son of Habîb Moutran (1829–1900), also pasha of Baalbek, and Marie Kateb. His grand father Yussef Moutran is said to have been the first Christian to receive the title of pasha from the hands of the sultan at Istanbul. Habib Moutran was decorated with a medal by the Ottoman's special envoy to Syria Fuad Pasha (1815–1869), an important reformer of the Tanzimat period, who was sent to Beirut in 1860 to enforce the Ottoman law after the outbreak of war, pretending to grant equal rights to all Ottoman citizens. After the massacres of the Druzes against the Christians in Syria, there also was formed, on September 6, 1864 (Dust. IV, pp. 695–735), a semi-autonomous region of Mount Lebanon under the government of a Mutasarrif to protect the local Christian population. But Mount Lebanon didn't include Baalbek and the Bekaa valley which were historically and commercially connected with Mount Lebanon. Included in Mount Lebanon was Zahlé and its territory, ruled by a Greek Catholic kaimakam (provincial governor).
Habîb and his father Yussef Moutran were allied to the Shiite Metawali family of the Harfoush. In fact, both, Yussef and Habîb Moutran, served them as secretaries and managed the financial affairs of this powerful family of emirs (princes). The Harfouch family enjoyed during centuries a sort of independence within and from the Ottoman Empire, relying on the large population of original Shiites in the region of Baalbek. The center of the cult of these Mutawelis and the Harfouch (which were held in much esteem among them) was at the entrance of the city of Baalbek, the tomb of Kholat, daughter of the famous Husayn ibn Ali, great granddaughter of Muhammad. There is no historical proof, but it is generally believed that after the defeat and the murder of Hossein at Karbala by the Umayyads, his family was taken captive to Damascus in Syria. Before reaching there, Kholat is said to have died in Baalbek, where she was also buried. The Ottoman sultans always tried to break the absolute power of the Harfouch family and the Shiites in that region, especially because the sultan was the spiritual leader of the Sunnites, arch enemies of the Shiites. With all of these efforts, the sultan only succeeded about 1850, when Sulayman Harfouch was captured by the Ottomans and taken to Damascus, where he is said to have been poisoned by his guards.
Yussef Moutran, his son Habîb and his grandson Nakhlé were from a traditional and very ancient Greek Catholic family which can trace its roots back to the very first Christians in that region. The Greek Catholics or Melkites represented the element of culture, tradition and excellent education, and they also had an Arabic background. For this reason, they succeeded to enter in the service of the Harfouch family. Baalbek, at that time was largely in the hands of the Shiite Mutawelis. Only a few Christian families, especially Greek Catholics, lived there. The center of the Greek Catholics was in the nearby town of Zahlé. But this was somewhat different in the seventeenth century, when the French Chevalier d'ArvieuxChevalier d'Arvieux, Memoires, edited by Jean-Baptiste Labat, Tome Second, Paris 1735 saw it still prospering. At that time the ancestor of the Moutran family already lived at Baalbek, a certain bishop Epiphane of Baalbek (elected in 1628, died in 1647) who was married and left many descendants there.
It seems that the rise of the power of the Moutran family in Baalbek was connected with the end of the shiite influence and the Harfouch family there and that the sultan rewarded the cooperation of Habîb Moutran in this matter. Habîb Moutran, showing his recently gained power, lived in a palace-like mansion in Baalbek. This beautiful building still exists and was later transformed into a mosque. It was certainly there or at nearby Ras al-'Ayn, a very famous summer resort, where the Moutrans also had a house, that Nakhlé Moutran Pasha was born in 1872.
Considering his family background, he was born to enter into politics. His precursors were his brothers Yussef Moutran, born in Baalbek in 1852, Rachîd (1864-1935), born on 21 April 1864 in Baalbek and Nadra (1868-1917), born on 1 January 1868, also in Baalbek. Another brother Elias (1868-1921), who received later the title of Bey from the Ottoman Empire, married Evelyne Malhamé and became the father of Maud Moutran, better known under her husband's name as Maud Fargeallah (1909–1995).
Up to 1890, not much is known about the activities of Habîb's sons. They were still very young, but it seems that they entered into the protest movement against sultan Abdül Hamid II which swept at that time all the territory of the Ottoman Empire. When Abdul Hamid II became sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1876, he promised and introduced a constitution, desisting from the absolute power which he held as secular and spiritual leader (caliph). But shortly afterwards, Abdül Hamid suspended the promised constitution and began to retaliate with severe measures against any form of resistance to his absolute government. In the Lebanon, many intellectuals and persons with much more insight in politics, also resented the suspension of the constitution, because they expected more independence for the Lebanon from a constitutional government. In 1889, the core of the resistance to sultan Abdül Hamid's despotism took the form of the Young Turks movement. Young means that they were a group of progressive intellectuals from many parts of the society, including, especially, students at the universities, but also officers from the Ottoman army and even members of the sultan's own family who were in opposition to his government.
Nadra Moutran, brother of Nakhlé, was a member of the Young Turks. He certainly became acquainted with this movement for constitutional government during his studies at the university of Saint Joseph in Beirut, between 1895 and 1899 and later in Constantinople (Istanbul). Nakhlé's sister Victoria also was a strong supporter of this movement.
More evident was the resistance of the Moutran family to the sultan's government in the person of Nakhlé's cousin Khalil Mutran, son of 'Abdû Youssef Moutran and Malaka Sabbag from Haifa.
Education
He received an excellent education and developed in early interest in literature which should determine the rest of his life as a famous poet and author.
Paris years
As he appeared critical to the sultan's government, he had to fear for his life and fled, in 1890, to Paris. Where he lived two years, frequenting the circles of the Young Turks, but became afraid another time, because Paris had many agents of the sultan who were trying to capture or assassinate the opponents. First, he decided to go to South America, where already parents of him had found refuge, but he finally opted for Egypt, where he began a brilliant career as an author and poet.
During the years between 1895 and 1900, Nakhlé certainly studied, like his brothers, who already lived in France and enjoyed there a great reputation among the Ottomans who lived there. It appears that he became during that time a friend of Rachîd, sultan Abdûl Hamid's brother. In this way, he entered into opposition to his brothers and his sister Victoria. However, between April 1906 and 1908 he lived in Paris in a mansion in the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, 71. He paid a rent of 9,000 francs per year which wasn't little at that time. His brother Nadra divided the rooms with him for some time. Since Nadra was allied with the Young Turks, this means that their different political attitudes didn't affect very much their personal relations.
It seems that Nakhlé was granted the title pasha during that time which he passed in France. Evidently, he made a living by selling paintings and antiquities. But the servants he entertained in his mansion told a quite different story: They were convinced that he was the head of the sultan's secret service in Paris. In any case, it was clear that he had the best relations with the embassy of the Ottoman Empire in Paris. Between the end of the year 1906 and the first months of 1907 he was confronted with serious financial difficulties and had recourse to different means to overcome them. He, especially, sent many messages to the sultan Abdûl-Hamid about certain intrigues against him. The French found at that time that he only invented these stories to enhance his reputation and gain some money. But as we know nowadays, only one year later, in the summer of 1908, the revolution of the Young Turks broke out, and the Ottoman troops from Salonica threatened to march on Istanbul.
Shortly before these events, in 1908, he went to Istanbul and, very certainly, met there with the sultan's brother Rachîd or the sultan Abdûl-Hamid himself. On the other hand, he returned several times to Paris and met with his brother Rachîd Moutran, obviously constructing political connections between certain groups of the Young Turks and the conservative groups around the sultan. During his financial difficulties, in the beginning of 1907, he also became the object of false accusations and calumny by the French actress Mme Carlier. Perhaps, this was part of a political intrigue against him, because he knew very much about the Young Turks movement.
United States
On 14 August 1908, Nakhlé Moutran Pasha, being on a visit to the United States, accepted an invitation of the Syrian daily newspaper Al-Hoda in New York that organized a meeting in honour of him as the leader of Young Turks at Paris for many years. The editor of Al-Hoda in the United States, Naoum Mokarzel, reminded the audience of the sufferings of the Young Turks revolutionaries and that the constitution had been established at a high price. The sultan was praised for having granted the constitution. In stark contrast to this declaration, the dinner celebrated the formation of a Syrian society under the presidency of Moutran Pasha. The Syrian financier Moutran Pasha, as the New York Times called him, was entertained with a dinner of the Syrian editors of New York at Kalil's restaurant, 14 Park Place, last night.
Moutran Pasha explained that it was proposed not only to unite all Syrians, but all Arab people. Moutran Pasha was told of the reports from Washington that the retiring Turkish minister, the son of Izzet Pasha, whom the Armenians blame for the Armenian massacres, had been threatened with death. He said that no matter what the father had done, the son was not held responsible. The Young Turks would not stoop to the sending of death threats, he said.The New York Times and Washington Post, August 14, 1908, pp. 2-3
Opposed constitution