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Arnun
lies 7 km south-east of Nabatiye.
On top of a hill overlooking
the southern Beqaa to Damascus stands
a fortress known to Arab travellers as
Shqif Arnun, Shqif being a Syriac term
meaning high rock.
Western travellers call it
Belfort or Beaufort.
At first sight, it seems
inaccessible, but it can be easily
reached from the village of Arnun.
In front of the fortress the
visitor will see a large water cistern
and the ruins of an ancient village
contemporary with the citadel.
There
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is no direct evidence of
the building
date or the builder of this castle.
According to William of Tyre,
it was erected by the Crusaders, but
some scholars are of the opinion that
it is older.
It has been suggested that the
monument was already standing when the
Crusaders arrived.
It has also been argued that it
was first built in the Late Roman or
Byzantine period, later restored and
enlarged by the Arabs.
The Crusaders restructured and
fortified it and it became the
important fortress in Lebanon.
The Crusader king, Foulques
d’Anjou, conquered it from the ruler
of Damascus and gave it to the
Crusader rulers of Sidon in 1138.
Salaheddin besieged it for two
years and was able to storm it in
1140. The
Crusader regained control of the
citadel in 1190 after they had signed
an agreement with Al Salih Ismail,
ruler of Damascus.
In 1260, it was bought by the
templars from the Sidonian prince and
it remained their property until its
conquest in 1268 by the Mamluk Sultan,
Al Zahir Baybars.
The Templars built there a
small fort called Chteau
Neuf. Fakhreddin
restored and fortified it at the
beginning of the 17th
century, but the governor of Damascus,
Hafez Pasha, besieged it and partly
destroyed it with his artillery.
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Major
Cities - Arnoun
