Alawis علوية

An Alawi falconer in Baniyas, Syria, during World War II. Photographed by Frank Hurley
Total population
3 million[1]
Founder
Ibn Nuṣayr
Regions with significant populations
Syria	2.1 million [2]
Turkey	About 450,000[3]
Lebanon	An estimated 100,000-120,000[4][5][6]
Lebanon/Golan Heights	2,100 live in Ghajar
Australia	Alawites comprise 2% of Lebanese born people in Australia[7]
Religions
Shia Islam
Scriptures
Qur'an, Nahj al-Balagha, Kitab al Majmu[8]
Languages
Arabic, Turkish

The Alawis, also known as Alawites, Nusayris and Ansaris (‘Alawīyyah (Arabic: علوية‎), Nuṣayrī (Arabic: نصيريون‎), and al-Anṣāriyyah) are a prominent mystical^[9] religious group centred in Syria who follow a branch of the Twelver school of Shia Islam.^[10][11][12]

Etymology[link]

Zulfiqar, a stylized representation of the sword of Ali, is an important symbol for Alawis

The Alawis take their name from Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of Muḥammad,^[13] who was the first Shi'a Imam and the fourth and last "Rightly Guided Caliph" of Sunni Islam.

Until fairly recently, Alawis were referred to as "Nusairis", after Abu Shu'ayb Muhammad ibn Nusayr (d. ca 270 h, 863 AD) who is reported to have attended the circles of the last three Imams of the prophet Muhammad's line. This name is considered derogatory, and they refer to themselves as Alawis.^{[page needed][14]} They have allegedly "generally preferred" to be called Alawis, because of the association of the name with Ali ibn Abi Talib, rather than commemorating Abu Shu'ayb Muhammad Ibn Nusayr. In September 1920 French occupational forces instituted the policy of referring to them by the term "Alawi".

In older sources they are often referred to as Ansaris, as this is how they referred to themselves, according to the Reverend Samuel Lyde, who lived among Alawis in the mid-19th century. Other sources state that "Ansari", as referring to Alawites, is simply a Western mis-transliteration of "Nosairi".^{[page needed][15][16]}

Alawis are distinct from the Alevi religious sect in Turkey, although the terms share similar etymologies.^[17][18]

History[link]

Origins[link]

The origin of the Alawis is disputed. The Alawis themselves trace their origins to the followers of the eleventh Imām, Hassan al-'Askarī (d. 873), and his pupil ibn Nuṣayr (d. 868).^[19]

The sect seems to have been organised by a follower of Muḥammad ibn Nuṣayr known as al-Khasibi, who died in Aleppo about 969. In 1032 Al-Khaṣībī's grandson and pupil al-Tabarani moved to Latakia, which was then controlled by the Byzantine Empire. Al-Tabarani became the perfector of the Alawi faith through his numerous writings. He and his pupils converted the rural population of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range and the plain of Cilicia to the Alawi faith.^[20] Around the turn of the last century, some Western scholars believed Alawites to be descended from ancient Middle Eastern peoples such as Canaanites and Hittites.^{[page needed][21][22]}

Under the Ottoman Empire[link]

Under the Ottoman Empire they were ill treated,^[23] and they resisted an attempt to convert them to Sunni Islam.^[24] The Alawites were traditionally good fighters, and revolted against the Ottomans on several occasions, and maintained virtual autonomy in their mountains.^[25] In his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence wrote:

"The sect, vital in itself, was clannish in feeling and politics. One Nosairi would not betray another, and would hardly not betray an unbeliever. Their villages lay in patches down the main hills to the Tripoli gap. They spoke Arabic, but had lived there since the beginning of Greek letters in Syria. Usually they stood aside from affairs, and left the Turkish Government alone in hope of reciprocity."^[26]

In the early part of the 20th century, the Sunnis sat on the wealth and dominated politics, while Alawites lived as poor peasants.^[27][28]

The French Mandate period[link]

Saleh al-Ali, leader of the 1919 Alawite Revolt against French rule

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Lebanon came under a French mandate. On December 15, 1918, prominent Alawi leader Saleh al-Ali called for a meeting of Alawi notables in the town of Sheikh Badr, and urged them to revolt and expel the French from Syria. When the French authorities heard of the meeting, they sent a force in order to arrest Saleh al-Ali. Al-Ali and his men ambushed them, and the French forces were defeated and suffered more than 35 casualties.^[29] After the initial victory, al-Ali started to organize his Alawi rebels into a disciplined force, with its own general command and military ranks, which resulted in the Syrian Revolt of 1919.^[29][30]

In 1919, Al-Ali retaliated to French attacks against rebel positions by attacking and occupying al-Qadmus from which the French conducted their military operations against him.^[29] In November, General Henri Gouraud mounted a full-fledged campaign against Saleh al-Ali's forces in the An-Nusayriyah Mountains. They entered al-Ali's village of Ash-Shaykh Badr and arrested many Alawi notables. Al-Ali fled to the north, but a large French force overran his positions and al-Ali went underground.^[29]

Map showing the states of the French Mandate from 1921-22 (Alawite State in green)

When the French finally occupied Syria in 1920, they recognized the term "Alawi", gave autonomy to them and other minority groups, and accepted them into their colonial troops.^[31] On 2 September 1920 an Alawite State was created in the coastal and mountain country comprising Alawi villages; the French justified this separation with the 'backwardness' of the mountain-dwelling people, religiously distinct from the surrounding Sunni population. It was a division meant to protect the Alawi people from more powerful majorities.^[32] Under the mandate, many Alawi chieftains supported the notion of a separate Alawi nation and tried to convert their autonomy into independence. The French considered the Alawites, along with the Druze, as the only "warlike races" in the mandate territories, as excellent soldiers, and the communities from where they could recruit their best troops.^[33]

The region was both coastal and mountainous, and home to a majorly rural, highly heterogeneous population. During the French Mandate period, society was divided by religion and geography: the landowning families of the port city of Latakia, and 80% of the population of the city, were Sunni Muslim. However, more than 90% of the population of the province was rural, 62% being Alawite peasantry. ^[34] In May 1930, the Alawite State was renamed "the Government of Latakia", the only concession the French made to Arab nationalists until 1936^[34]. There was a great deal of Alawite separatist sentiment in the region, but these political views could not be coordinated into a unified voice. This was attributed to the majority of Alawites being peasants "exploited by a predominantly Sunni landowning class resident in Latakia and Hama." ^[34] On 3 December 1936 (effective in 1937), the Alawite state was re-incorporated into Syria as a concession by the French to the Nationalist Bloc, the party in power of the semi-autonomous Syrian government^[35].

Alawite woman gleaning in 1938

In 1939 a portion of northwest Syria, the Sanjak of Alexandretta, now Hatay, that contained a large number of Alawis, was given to Turkey by the French following a plebiscite carried out in the province under the guidance of League of Nations which favored joining Turkey. However, this development greatly angered the Alawi community and Syrians in general. In 1938, the Turkish military had gone into Alexandretta and expelled most of its Arab and Armenian inhabitants^{[neutrality is disputed]}.^[36] Before this, Alawi Arabs and Armenians were the majority of the province's population^{[neutrality is disputed][36]} Zaki al-Arsuzi, the young Alawi leader from Iskandarun province in the Sanjak of Alexandretta, who led the resistance to the annexation of his province to the Turks, later became a founder of the Ba'ath Party along with the Eastern Orthodox Christian schoolteacher Michel Aflaq. After World War II, Salman Al Murshid played a major role in uniting the Alawi province with Syria. He was executed by the newly independent Syrian government in Damascus on December 12, 1946 only three days after a hasty political trial.

After Syrian independence[link]

Syria became independent on April 17, 1946. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Syria endured a succession of military coups in 1949, the rise of the Ba'ath Party, and unification of the country with Egypt in the United Arab Republic in 1958. The UAR lasted for three years and broke apart in 1961, when a group of army officers seized power and declared Syria independent again. A further succession of coups ensued until a secretive military committee, which included a number of disgruntled Alawi officers, including Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid, helped the Ba'ath Party take power in 1963. In 1966, Alawi-oriented military officers successfully rebelled and expelled the old Ba'ath that had looked to the Christian Michel Aflaq and the Sunni Muslim Salah al-Din al-Bitar for leadership. They promoted Zaki al-Arsuzi as the "Socrates" of their reconstituted Ba'ath Party.

The Assad family

In 1970, then-Air Force General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power and instigated a "Correctionist Movement" in the Ba'ath Party.^[37] Robert D. Kaplan has compared his coming to power to "an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming tsar in Russia—an unprecedented development shocking to the majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries."^[31]

In 1971 al-Assad became president of Syria, a function that the Constitution allows only a Sunni Muslim to hold. In 1973 a new constitution was published that omitted the old requirement that the religion of the state is Islam and replaced it with the statement that the religion of the republic's president is Islam. Protests erupted when the statement was altered,^[38] and to satisfy this requirement in 1974, Musa Sadr, a leader of the Twelvers of Lebanon and founder of the Amal Movement who had earlier sought to unite Lebanese Alawis and Shias under the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council without success,^[39] issued a fatwa stating that Alawis were a community of Twelver Shia Muslims.^[40][41] Under the authoritarian but secular Assad government, religious minorities were tolerated, political dissent was not.

After the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad maintained the outlines of his father's governance.^{[citation needed]} Although the Alawis comprise the entirety of the top military and intelligence offices, government employees from lower bureaucratic ranks are largely from the majority Sunni Muslim faith, who represent about 74% of Syria's population. Today the Alawis exist as a minority, but are the most politically powerful sect in Syria and the only one with direct government control.

Beliefs[link]

Alawis are self-described Shia Muslims, and have been called Shia by other sources^[10][11] including the highly influential Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr of Lebanon.^[40] The Alawis get their beliefs from the Quran and the majority get it from the Shia book Nahj al-Balagha.^{[citation needed]} At least one source has compared them to Baha'is, Babis, Bektashis, Ahmadis, and "similar groups that have arisen within the Muslim community", and declared not truly Muslim by some^[42]. However the prominent Sunni Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, issued a fatwah recognizing them as part of the Muslim community in the interest of Arab nationalism.^[43][44] Sunni scholars such as Ibn Kathir, on the other hand, have categorized Alawis as pagans in their religious works and documents.^[23]

Heterodox[link]

Alawis celebrating a festival in Banyas, Syria, during World War II

According to Yaron Friedman, distinct Alawi beliefs include the belief that prayers are not necessary, they don't fast, nor perform pilgrimage, nor have specific places of worship.^[45] Many of the tenets of the faith are secret and known only to a select few Alawi.^[23]

According to some sources, Alawis have integrated doctrines from other religions (Syncretism), in particular from Ismaili Islam and Christianity.^[9][23][41] According to scholar Cyril Glasse, it is thought that "as a small, historically beleaguered ethnic group", the Alawi "absorbed elements" from the different religions that influenced their area from Hellenistic times onward,^[41] while maintaining their own beliefs, and "pretended to adhere to the dominant religion of the age."^[41] Alawites are reported to celebrate certain Christian festivals, "in their own way",^[41] including Christmas, Easter, and Palm Sunday, and their religious ceremonies make use of bread and wine.^[31] According to Matti Moosa, a "leading scholar of the Nusayris":

"The Christian elements in the Nusayri religion are unmistakable. They include the concept of trinity; the celebration of Christmas, the consecration of the Qurban, that is, the sacrament of the flesh and blood which Christ offered to his disciples, and, most important, the celebration of the Quddas (a lengthy prayer proclaiming the divine attributes of Ali and the personification of all the biblical patriarchs from Adam to Simon Peter, founder of the Church, who is seen, paradoxically, as the embodiment of true Islam).^[46]"

Alawi man in Latakia, early 20th century

Glasse writes that they also practice a religious feast called by the Persian name Naw Ruz and that they believe in a "trinity"^[23] or "schema"^[41] of `Ain-Mim-Sin, which stands for `Ali, Muhammad, and Salman al-Farsi, the Persian Companion of Muhammad. Muhammad is known as ism, or "name", Ali as bab, or "door", and Salman al-Farsi as ma'na, or "meaning", with both Muhammad and Ali considered to be emanations of Salman al-Farsi.^[41]