Mount Carmel was progressively settled by Druze beginning in the early 17th century, most likely when a large part of Palestine came under the jurisdiction of Fakhr al-Din II, the paramount Druze strongman of Mount Lebanon and Ottoman governor of the Sidon-Beirut and Safad districts. Druze from the Yamani tribo-political faction may have also migrated to Mount Carmel from Mount Lebanon in the aftermath of the Battle of Ain Dara in 1711, though most of the migration was directed to the Jabal Hauran. Six out of the eight Druze villages established on Mount Carmel were abandoned or destroyed during Egyptian rule in the Levant (1831-1840). The local accounts recorded by Laurence Oliphant, who built himself a summer house in Daliyat al-Karmil in the 1880s, hold that the villages were abandoned for Jabal Hauran due to the oppressive rule of the governor Ibrahim Pasha, while Conder noted that the villages were destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha. Daliyat al-Karmil and nearby Isfiya were the sole Druze settlements left standing on Mount Carmel. The local tradition trace Daliyat al-Karmel's founding to the 18th century when a Druze family from Jabal al-A'la near Aleppo settled on ancient ruins in the village. Successive waves of Druze families from Jabal al-A'la followed and together they formed the Halaby (Aleppine) clan. Until today the Halaby clan of the town speak in the Aleppine Arabic dialect rather than the Palestinian dialect.