Alawites
Alawites are an ethnoreligious group, many of whom identify as Arabs, who live primarily in Syria and elsewhere in the Levant. They follow Alawism, an offshoot of Shia Islam as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence. It is the only ghulat sect still in existence today. The group was founded during the ninth century by Ibn Nusayr, who was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi, and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris, although this term can be considered derogatory in the present day.
Surveys suggest Alawites represent an important portion of the Syrian population and are a significant minority in the Hatay Province of Turkey and northern Lebanon. There is also a population living in the village of Ghajar in the Golan Heights, where there had been two other Alawite villages before the Six-Day War. The Alawites form the dominant religious group on the Syrian coast and towns near the coast, which are also inhabited by Sunnis, Christians, and Ismailis. They are often confused with the Alevis, a religious group in Turkey that shares certain similarities with the Alawites but has key differences.
The Quran is one of their holy books, but its interpretation differs significantly from Shia Muslim interpretations and aligns with early Batiniyya and other ghulat sects. Alawite theology and rituals differ sharply from Shia Islam in several important ways. For instance, various Alawite rituals involve the drinking of wine and the sect does not prohibit the consumption of alcohol for its adherents. As a creed that teaches the symbolic/esoteric reading of Qur'anic verses, Alawite theology is based on the belief in reincarnation and views Ali as a divine incarnation of God. Moreover, Alawite clergy and scholarships insist that their religion is theologically distinct from Shi'ism. Alawites have historically kept their beliefs secret from outsiders and non-initiated Alawites, so rumours about them have arisen. Arabic accounts of their beliefs tend to be partisan. However, since the early 2000s, Western scholarship on the Alawite religion has made significant advances. At the core of the Alawite creed is the belief in a divine Trinity, comprising three aspects of the one God. The aspects of the Trinity are Mana, Ism and Bab. Alawite beliefs hold that these emanations underwent re-incarnation cyclically seven times in human form throughout history. According to Alawites, the seventh incarnation of the trinity consists of Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad himself, and Salman al-Farisi, a Persian companion of Muhammad.
An important component of Alawism is the belief in the transfer of souls, rejected by orthodox Islamic scholars of both the Twelver Shia and Sunni conviction, leading to the Alawites being considered heretics by classical theologians of Sunni and Shia Islam. A lone 1932 fatwa by Hajj Amin al-Husseini recognising them as Muslims has been seen as based on immediate political, anticolonial considerations. Alawites have faced periods of subjugation or persecution under various Muslim empires such as the Ottomans, Abbasids, Mamluks, and others. The establishment of the French Mandate of Syria in 1920 marked a turning point in Alawite history. Until then, the community had commonly self-identified as "Nusayris", emphasizing their connections to Ibn Nusayr. The French administration prescribed the label "Alawite" to categorise the sect alongside Shiism in official documents. The French recruited a large number of minorities into their armed forces and created exclusive areas for minorities, including the Alawite State. The Alawite State was later dismantled, but the Alawites continued to play a significant role in the Syrian military and later in the Ba'ath Party. After Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power during the 1970 coup, the Ba'athist state enforced Assadist ideology amongst Alawites to supplant their traditional identity. During the Syrian revolution, communal tensions were further exacerbated as the country destabilized into a full-scale sectarian civil war.
Etymology
In older sources, Alawis are often called "Ansaris". According to Samuel Lyde, who lived among the Alawites during the mid-19th century, this was a term they used among themselves. Other sources indicate that "Ansari" is simply a Western error in the transliteration of "Nusayri". Alawites historically self-identified as Nusayrites, after their religious founder Ibn Nusayr al-Numayri. However, the term "Nusayri" had fallen out of currency by the 1920s, as a movement led by intellectuals within the community during the French Mandate sought to replace it with the modern term "Alawi". They characterised the older name as an "invention of the sect's enemies", ostensibly favouring an emphasis on "connection with mainstream Islam"—particularly the Shia branch. The term "Nusayrites" is now used as a slur and was frequently used as by Sunni fundamentalists fighting against Bashar al-Assad's government in the Syrian civil war, who use its emphasis on Ibn Nusayr to insinuate that Alawi beliefs are "man-made" and not divinely inspired.Necati Alkan argued in an article that the "Alawi" appellation was used in an 11th-century Nusayri book and was not a 20th-century invention. The following quote from the same article illustrates his point:
As to the change from "Nuṣayrī" to "ʿAlawī": most studies agree that the term "ʿAlawī" was not used until after WWI and probably coined and circulated by Muḥammad Amīn Ghālib al-Ṭawīl, an Ottoman official and writer of the famous Taʾrīkh al-ʿAlawiyyīn. However, the name 'Alawī' appears in an 11th century Nuṣayrī tract as one of the names of the believer. Moreover, the term 'Alawī' was already used at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 the Belgian-born Jesuit and Orientalist Henri Lammens visited a certain Ḥaydarī-Nuṣayrī sheikh Abdullah in a village near Antakya and mentions that the latter preferred the name 'Alawī' for his people. Lastly, it is interesting to note that in the above-mentioned petitions of 1892 and 1909 the Nuṣayrīs called themselves the 'Arab Alawī people' 'our ʿAlawī Nuṣayrī people' or 'signed with Alawī people'. This early self-designation is, in my opinion, of triple importance. Firstly, it shows that the word 'Alawī' was always used by these people, as ʿAlawī authors emphasize; secondly, it hints at the reformation of the Nuṣayrīs, launched by some of their sheikhs in the 19th century and their attempt to be accepted as part of Islam; and thirdly, it challenges the claims that the change of the identity and name from 'Nuṣayrī' to 'ʿAlawī' took place around 1920, in the beginning of the French mandate in Syria.
The Alawites are distinct from the Alevi religious sect in Turkey, although the terms share a common etymology and pronunciation.
Genealogical origin theories
The origin of the genetics of Alawites is disputed. Local folklore suggests that they are descendants of the followers of the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari, and his pupil, Ibn Nusayr. During the 19th and 20th centuries some Western scholars believed that Alawites were descended from ancient Middle Eastern peoples such as the Arameans, Canaanites, Hittites, and Mardaites. Many prominent Alawite tribes are also descended from 13th century settlers from Sinjar.In his Natural History, Book V, Pliny the Elder said:
The "Tetrarchy of the Nazerini" refers to the western region, between the Orontes and the sea, which consists of a small mountain range called Alawi Mountains bordered by a valley running from southeast to northwest known as Al-Ghab Plain; the region was populated by a portion of Syrians, who were called Nazerini. However scholars are reluctant to link Nazerini and Nazarenes. Yet the term "Nazerini" can be possibly connected to words which include the Arabic triliteral root n-ṣ-r such as the subject naṣer in Eastern Aramaic, which means "keeper of wellness".
History
and his followers are considered the founders of the religion. After the death of the Eleventh Imam, al-Askari, problems emerged in the Shia Community concerning his succession, and then Ibn Nusayr claimed to be the Bab and Ism of the deceased Imam and that he received his secret teachings. Ibn Nusayr and his followers' development seems to be one of many other early ghulat mystical Islamic sects, and were apparently excommunicated by the Shia representatives of the 12th Hidden Imam.The Alawites were later organised during Hamdanid rule in northern Syria by a follower of Muhammad ibn Nusayr known as al-Khaṣībī, who died in Aleppo about 969, after a rivalry with the Ishaqiyya sect, which claimed also to have the doctrine of Ibn Nusayr. The embrace of Alawism by the majority of the population in the Syrian coastal mountains was likely a protracted process occurring over several centuries. Modern research indicates that after its initial establishment in Aleppo, Alawism spread to Sarmin, Salamiyah, Homs and Hama before becoming concentrated in low-lying villages west of Hama, including Baarin, Deir Shamil, and Deir Mama, the Wadi al-Uyun valley, and in the mountains around Tartus and Safita.
In 1032, al-Khaṣībī's grandson and pupil, Abu Sa'id Maymun al-Tabarani, moved to Latakia. Al-Tabarani succeeded his mentor al-Jilli of Aleppo as head missionary in Syria and became "the last definitive scholar of Alawism", founding its calendar and giving Alawite teachings their final form, according to the historian Stefan Winter. Al-Tabarani influenced the Alawite faith through his writings and by converting the rural population of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range.
Winter argues that while it is likely the Alawite presence in Latakia dates to Tabarani's lifetime, it is unclear if Alawite teachings spread to the city's mountainous hinterland, where the Muslim population generally leaned toward Shia Islam, in the eleventh century. In the early part of the century, the Jabal al-Rawadif were controlled by the local Arab chieftain Nasr ibn Mushraf al-Rudafi, who vacillated between alliance and conflict with Byzantium. There is nothing in the literary sources indicating al-Rudafi patronized the Alawites.
To the south of Jabal al-Rawadif, in the Jabal Bahra, a 13th-century Alawite treatise mentions the sect was sponsored by the Banu'l-Ahmar, Banu'l-Arid, and Banu Muhriz, three local families who controlled fortresses in the region in the 11th and 12th centuries. From this southern part of the Syrian coastal mountain range, a significant Alawite presence developed in the mountains east of Latakia and Jableh during the Mamluk period.
According to Bar Hebraeus, many Alawites were killed when the Crusaders initially entered Syria in 1097; however, they tolerated them when they concluded they were not a truly Islamic sect. They even incorporated them within their ranks, along with the Maronites and Turcopoles. Two prominent Alawite leaders in the following centuries, credited with uplifting the group, were Shaykhs al-Makzun and al-Tubani, both originally from Mount Sinjar in modern Iraq.
In the 14th century, the Alawites were forced by Mamluk Sultan Baibars to build mosques in their settlements, to which they responded with token gestures described by the Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta.