Who Are The Alawites?

• published: 09 Apr 2015
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The Alawites, also known as Alawis (ʿAlawīyyah Arabic: علوية‎), are a prominent religious group, centred in Syria, who follow a branch of the Twelver school of Shia Islam but with syncretistic elements. Alawites revere Ali (Ali ibn Abi Talib), and the name "Alawi" means followers of Ali. The sect is believed to have been founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. For this reason, Alawites are sometimes called "Nusayris" (Nuṣayrī Arabic: نصيرية‎), though this term has come to have derogatory connotations in the modern era; another name, "Ansari" (al-Anṣāriyyah), is believed to be a mistransliteration of "Nusayri". Today, Alawites represent 12 percent of the Syrian population and are a significant minority in Turkey and northern Lebanon. There is also a population living in the village of Ghajar in the occupied Golan Heights. They are often confused with the Alevis of Turkey, another Shia sect. Alawites form the dominant religious group on the Syrian coast and towns near the coast which are also inhabited by Sunnis, Christians, and Ismailis. 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 (either positively or negatively). However, since the early 2000s, Western scholarship on the Alawite religion has made significant advances. At the core of Alawite belief is a divine triad, comprising three aspects of the one God. These aspects or emanations appear cyclically in human form throughout history. The last emanations of the divine triad, according to Alawite belief, were as Ali, Muhammad and Salman the Persian. Alawites were historically persecuted for these beliefs by the Sunni Muslim rulers of the area. The establishment of the French Mandate of Syria marked a turning point in Alawi history. It gave the French the power to recruit Syrian civilians into their armed forces for an indefinite period and created exclusive areas for minorities, including an Alawite State. The Alawite State was later dismantled, but the Alawites continued to be a significant part of the Syrian army. Since Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970, the government has been dominated by a political elite led by the Alawite Al-Assad family. During the Islamic uprising in Syria in the 1970s and 1980s the establishment came under pressure, and the conflict continues as part of the Syrian civil war. The Alawites take their name from Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin, son-in-law and first male follower of Muhammad] who is considered by Shia Muslims the first Shia Imam and the fourth Rashidun (Rightly-Guided Caliph) by Sunni Muslims. French occupying forces used the term Alaouites, a transliteration into French. 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 "Nosairi". 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 (which implied "a separate ethnic and religious identity") as an "invention of the sect's enemies", ostensibly favouring an emphasis on "connection with mainstream Islam"—particularly the Shia branch. As such, "Nusayri" is now generally regarded as antiquated, and has even come to have insulting and abusive connotations. The term is frequently employed as hate speech by Sunni fundamentalists fighting against Bashar al-Assad's government in the Syrian civil war, who use its emphasis on Ibn Nusayr in order to insinuate that Alawi beliefs are "man-made" and not divinely inspired. Recent research has shown that the Alawi appellation was used by the sect’s adherents since the 11th century. The following quote from Alkan (2012) illustrates this point: “In actual fact, the name ‘Alawī’ appears as early as in an 11 th-century Nuṣayrī tract (…). Moreover, the term ‘Alawī’ was already used at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 the Belgian-born Jesuit and Orientalist Henri Lammens (d. 1937) 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’ (ʿArab ʿAlevī ṭāʾifesi) 'our ʿAlawī Nuṣayrī people’ (ṭāʾifatunā al-Nuṣayriyya al-ʿAlawiyya) or ‘signed with Alawī people’ (ʿAlevī ṭāʾifesi imżāsıyla). This early self-designation is, in my opinion, of triple importance.