Maronite Patriarch Summer Residence in Diman Before the 18th century, the Maronite Patriarchate in Mount Lebanon was subjected to the rule of Tripoli’s governors, a reality which forced the Patriarchs to seek protection by migrating towards the district of Kerserwan, where the Khazens were in power. At the time, the Khazens had vowed […]
Throughout the next few days, we will be publishing a series of posts on the Khazens and the Maronite Church. Ever since they moved to Keserwan in the 16th century, the Khazen family and its Cheikhs have shown a unique and unmatched interest in the Church and in helping it prosper and spread out. […]
Why The Khazen Cheikhs migrated to Keserwan: El Khazen Cheikhs migrated to Keserwan in the 16th century after various economic and political crisis that hit Lebanon due to the Ottoman invasion, forcing them to move to Keserwan which was safer and offered new economic opportunities. Factors that led to population movements in the […]
Origins of the Family The Origins of the Khazen family are still vague. They might have emerged as nomads from the Ghassanides tribe that start moving between Damascus, Nablus, Houran and Yammoune in the year 1100 before settling in Jaj, a small village above Jbeil. The oldest trace to the Khazen family comes back to […]
Cheikh Abou-Nawfal el Khazen After the death of Abou-Nader in 1647, the position of Moudabber was taken by his son Abou-Nawfal who was also in charge of collecting the taxes for his district that included Chouf, Keserwan, Batroun, Akkar and Jebbet Becharre. In 1652, Abou-Nawfal welcomed the Jesuites to Lebanon (in Antoura) and Pope […]
Vengeance Fakhreddine could not take the humiliation of the previous battle and was still decided to take his vengeance and kept planning for it secretly. When the time came, he united his troops and those regrouped by Abou-Nader in Nahr Ibrahim and stormed the Ottoman Saifa stronghold, demolishing his castle and inflicting on him […]
Abou Nader el Khazen The Maan and the Khazen (Part1) Fakhreddine The Great When the situation in Chouf went back to normal, Sitt Nassab left Balloune for her brother’s (Prince Seifeddine al-Tannoukhi) residence in Abey. When the children passed the minor age, which was 14 at the time, their uncle gave them […]
During the 18th and 19th century, under the guidance of the head of the family Cheikh Abou Naufal el Khazen and later on his sons the next consuls combined administrative responsibilities with the function of French consul. The Khazen were successful in spreading the message of the Maronites in Lebanon. They played a unique role […]
Early Life
Patriarch Youssef Dargham El Khazen is also known as Ibin Fayyad (Son of Fayyad) or Abi Kanssouh Ibin Abi Nawfal (Son of Abi Nawfal) Nader El Khazen. Patriarch Dargham was mostly known for being a strong and brave man, who handled his sword and riffle with deadly efficiency. His heroic stories span all across Lebanon, and the most notable incident happened back in 1704, when he was sent to reclaim the Maronite Patriarch’s honor.
Here is a short summary of what happened on that year based on testimonies from historical books and references.
In 1704, a group of Muslim Shiite Sheikhs (Known as Hamadiyyin) headed towards Deir Annoubin in Bcharreh to meet with Maronite Patriarch Estefan Doueihy and ask him for a large amount of money. The Patriarch did not comply with their demands as he did not have the money and as a result was assaulted physically by Sheikh Issa, leader of the Shiite Sheikhs, and then cursed and humiliated publically.
After the assailants had left, Patriarch Doueihi dispatched a letter to Cheikh Hosn El Khazen informing him of the incident. Upon reading the letter, Sheikh Hosn became furious and quickly ordered his brother Sheikh Dargham and two of his relatives Sheikh Moussa Tarabay and Cheikh Nader Abou Khater to gather an army of 400 men and capture those who dared disrespect the Maronite Patriarch.
Cheikh Hosn was the son of Fayyad aka Abi Kanssou, grandchild of Abi Nawfal, and whose father occupied many important positions during the rule of Prince Maan.
Khazen Family History and path to
Cheikh Malek Fady el Khazen (born in 1981) founder of khazen.org descendant of Chidiac Sarkis el Khazen (born in 1570) who is the common ancestor of most of the current members of the el khazen family has participated in the Genographic project by taking a sample of his DNA and sent it for test results to the labs of the scientist Spencer Wells lab. The result of this test is very important since it traces the paternal history (through 50 thousands years ago) of the majority of the members of the Khazen family. The results will be the exact same for every member of the Khazen family descendant of Chidiac Sarkis el Khazen (born in 1570) which is most of the khazen family.
Cheikh Malek Fady el Khazen has tested his Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son and reveals the Khazen direct paternal ancestry up to 50 0000 years ago, therefore the Y chromosome will give the exact same result to all the Khazen Family members. In fact, the Y does not have a matching chromosome most of it (the non-recombining region) escapes the shuffling process known as recombination (between male and female) that occurs every generation in the rest of our genome. This allows the Y to be passed down through a purely male line changed only by random mutation line. In this test Cheikh Malek Fady el Khazen analyzed the Y chromosome which is a purely male line therefore a purely khazen descent.The results reveal our deep ancestry along our single paternal line of direct descent (and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago. The results will also place us on a particular branch of the human family tree. These results have confirmed our expectations of our history. This scientific study is first divided in a history and information of the geographic project and the second part describes in detail the DNA results of the el Khazen family and analysis.
Please Click Read more to view results of the DNA test by the Khazen family and their history and information about the project