Lassa, Lebanon
Lassa is a municipality in the Byblos District of Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon. It is 90 kilometers north of Beirut. Lassa has an average elevation of 1,130 meters above sea level and a total land area of 739 hectares. The village contains one public school, which enrolled 15 students in 2008. Its inhabitants are predominantly Shia Muslims.
Lassa was the seat of the Shia Muslim house of Hamadeh, which exercised control over large swaths of Mount Lebanon in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, including the districts of Jubbay al-Mnaytra, Bilad Jubayl, Bilad al-Batrun and Jubbat Bsharray. Lassa was burnt by the Ottomans many times in reprisal for the Hamadeh lords' failure to remit tax incomes. In the late XVIIIth century, the Hamadeh and their clans were driven out of Lassa and surrounding villages, to the eastern slopes of Mount Lebanon, the Hirmil region and the area of Ba'lbak. Some of the Shia Muslim families remained. The biggest family in Lassa is al Mokdad. Al Eitawi family comes after it.
