Haydar al-Shihab was a Sunni Muslim, although his mother was Druze. His kinship with the Ma'ans allowed for him to serve as the eminent leader of the Druze clans of Mount Lebanon. The Shihabs were generally not religious and embraced their faith nominally, some were Sunni Muslims or Druze, and later other members became Maronite Catholics.[2] Emir Yusuf was apparently raised as a Maronite Christian,[1] but was publicly a Sunni Muslim.[3] During Yusuf Shihab's rule, many members of the Shihab family converted to Christianity and Yusuf also began to rely on the support of the Maronite Christians.[4]