The Buhturids, also known as the Banu Buhtur or the Tanukh, were a dynasty whose chiefs served as the emirs (commanders) of the Gharb area southeast of Beirut in Mount Lebanon in the 12th–15th centuries. A branch of the Tanukhid tribal confederation, they were established in the Gharb by the Muslim atabegs of Damascus following the capture of Beirut by the Crusaders in 1110 to guard the mountainous frontier between the Crusader coastlands and the Islamic interior of the Levant. They were granted iqtas (revenue fiefs) over villages in the Gharb and command over its peasant warriors, who subscribed to the Druze religion, which the Buhturids followed. Their iqtas were successively confirmed, decreased or increased by the Burid, Zengid, Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers of Damascus in return for milit