The Buhturids maintained a significant degree of local autonomy in Mount Lebanon for nearly four hundred years preceding Ottoman rule. Their rule set the stage for Ma'nid dominance of Mount Lebanon and its environs in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to Salibi, the Buhturids' staying power made Mount Lebanon essentially different from other regions in Syria, their preservation in southern [Mount] Lebanon [of] a hereditary feudal system ... was to serve later as the basis of Lebanese autonomy under the Ottomans.