Jabal Druze State


Jabal al-Druze was an autonomous state in the French Mandate of Syria from 1921 to 1936, designed to function as a government for the local Druze population under French oversight.
A separate independent Druze state to be established in the Golan Heights was proposed by Israeli politician Yigal Allon in his Allon Plan.

Nomenclature

On 4 March 1922, it was proclaimed as the State of Souaida, after the capital As-Suwayda, but in 1927 it was renamed Jabal al-Druze or Jabal Druze State. The name comes from the Jabal al-Druze mountain.

History

The Druze state was formed on 1 May 1921 in former Ottoman territory, while other statelets were installed in other parts of the Syrian mandate. Jabal al-Druze was home to about 50,000 Druze. It was the first, and remains the only, autonomous entity to be populated and governed by Druze. The 1925 Syrian Revolution began in Jabal al-Druze under the leadership of Sultan al-Atrash, and quickly spread to Damascus and other non-Druze areas outside the Jabal al-Druze region. Protests against the division of Syrian territory into statelets were a main theme of Syrian anti-colonial nationalism, which eventually won the victory to reunite the entire French-mandated territory, except Lebanon and the Sanjak of Alexandretta, which was annexed to Turkey as the Hatay Province.
As a result of Syrian nationalist pressure, under the Franco-Syrian Treaty of 1936, Jabal al-Druze ceased to exist as an autonomous entity and was incorporated into Syria.
ReligionInhabitantsPercentage
Druze43,00084.8%
Christians7,00013.8%
Sunni7001.4%
Total50,700100%

Governors

  • Amir Salim Pasha al-Atrash
  • Trenga
  • Gabriel Marie Victor Carbillet, provisional to 1 October 1924
  • Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, chief of state; in dissidence
  • Charles Andréa
  • Marie Joseph Léon Augustin Henry
  • Abel Jean Ernest Clément-Grancourt
  • Claude-Gabriel-Renaud Massiet
  • Justin-Antoine Devicq
  • Pierre-Joseph-François Tarrit