Lebanon's Shiite community was established between the tenth and eleventh centuries as a result of Fatimid expansion in the region. Throughout the ages, the Shiites have been persecuted and driven southward by their Sunni rulers. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the early 20th century, they were the most socially and economically underprivileged demographic in Mount Lebanon, and were geographically distributed in the Jabal Amel region in the south and the Beqaa Valley in the northeast. The French mandate in Lebanon was carved out of Greater Syria in 1920, aiming to provide Mount Lebanon's Maronite Christians the basis for an independent state of their own. But due to the Christians' limited geographic distribution, the mandate was granted the Shiites' lands as well, which only contributed to the latter's second-class citizenship status. The situation gradually ameliorated over the years, however, as the Shiites were officially recognized as a sect and granted the right to celebrate Ashura.