An Alawi falconer in Baniyas, Syria, during World War II. Photographed by Frank Hurley |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| About 4 million | |
| Founder | |
| Ibn Nuṣayr | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Syria | About 3.5 million[1] |
| Lebanon | An estimated 100,000[2][3] |
| Turkey | About 450,000[4] |
| Lebanon/Golan Heights | About 2000 live in Ghajar[5] |
| Australia | Alawites comprise 2% of Lebanese born people in Australia[6] |
| Religions | |
| Shia Islam | |
| Scriptures | |
| Qur'an, Kitab al Majmu[7] | |
| 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 and syncretic[8] religious group who are a branch of Shia Islam centred in Syria.[9][10]
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The Alawis take their name from ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib cousin and son-in-law of Muḥammad,[11] who was the fourth and the last "Rightly Guided Caliph" of Sunni Islam.
Until fairly recently, Alawis were referred to as "Nusairis", named 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. Another term is "Kızılbaş". These names are considered derogatory, and they refer to themselves as Alawis.[12] They have allegedly "generally preferred" to be called 'Alawis, because of its association with 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, rather than Abu Shu'ayb Muhammad Ibn Nusayr.[13] 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. Another source states that "Ansari", as referring to Alawites, is simply a Western mistransliteration of Nosairi.[14][15]
Alawis are distinct from the Turkish-based Alevi religious sect, although the terms share similar etymologies.[16]
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).[17]
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.[18] Samuel Lyde believed the population was of ancient Canaanite origins, but that parts had come from where the sect originated.[19] Professor Felix von Luschan (1911), according to his conclusions from anthropometric measurements, made the Alawites and other Near Eastern religious minorities the modern representatives of the ancient Hittites.[20]
Under the Ottoman Empire they were ill treated,[21] and they resisted an attempt to convert them to Sunni Islam.[22] They revolted against the Ottomans on several occasions, and maintained virtual autonomy in their mountains.[23] 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."[24] In the early part of the 20th century, the Sunnis sat on the wealth and dominated politics, while Alawites lived as poor peasants.[25][26]
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Lebanon came under a French mandate. The French, when they occupied Syria in 1920, recognized the term "Alawi", gave autonomy to them and other minority groups, and accepted them into their colonial troops.[27] Under the mandate, many Alawi chieftains supported the notion of a separate Alawi nation and tried to convert their autonomy into independence. A territory of "Alaouites" was created in 1925. In May 1930, the Government of Latakia was created; it lasted until February 28, 1937, when it was incorporated into Syria.[28]
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.[29] Before this, Alawi Arabs and Armenians were the majority of the province's population [29] 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.
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.
In 1970, then-Air Force General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power and instigated a "Correctionist Movement" in the Ba'ath Party.[30] His coming to power has been compared 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."[27]
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,[31] 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,[3] issued a fatwa stating that Alawis were a community of Twelver Shia Muslims.[32][33] Under the dictatorial but secular Assad regime, 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 regime. 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.
Alawis are self-described Shi'i Muslims, and have been called Shia by other sources[9][10] including the highly influential Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr of Lebanon.[32] Sunni scholars such as Ibn Kathir, on the other hand, have historically categorized Alawis as pagans in their religious works and documents.[21] 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 that "it has always been the consensus of the Muslim Ulama, both Sunni and Shi'i, that the Nusayri Alawi are kuffar unbelievers and mushrikun polytheists."[13] 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.[34]
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.[35] The most obvious difference between Alawites and Shi'ite Muslims, is that Alawis believe the Sunni Caliph and Shi'ite Imam Ali is an incarnation of one of the persons of God and wholly divine, along with Jesus Christ, The Prophet Muhammad and many other eastern holy men. Many of the tenets of the faith are secret and known only to a select few Alawi.[21] In the 19th century, however, an Alawite named Sulaiman al-Adni converted to Christianity and in 1863, compiled a book called Al-Bakurah as-Suliamaniya fi Kashf Asrar ad-Diyanah an-Nusairiyah (The First Fruits of Sulaiman in Revealing the Secrets of the Nusairi Religion). Orientalists like Louis Massignon gained access to a number of Nusairi manuscripts.[13]
According to some sources, Alawis have integrated doctrines from other religions (Syncretism), in particular from Ismaili Islam and Christianity.[8][21][33] 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,[33] while maintaining their own beliefs, and "pretended to adhere to the dominant religion of the age."[33] Alawites are reported to celebrate certain Christian festivals, "in their own way",[33] including Christmas, Easter, and Palm Sunday, and their religious ceremonies make use of bread and wine.[27] According to Matti Moosa, a "leading scholar of the Nusayris",
The Christian elements in the Alawite sect 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 (although Shia scholars dispute these allegations) (a lengthy prayer proclaiming the divine attributes of Ali and the personification of all the biblical patriarchs from Adam to Simon Peter, who preached the gospel sermon originating the Church (Matthew 16:18, Acts 2), who is perceived as the embodiment of true Islam).[36]
Glasse writes that they also practice a religious feast called by the Persian name Naw Ruz.
Alawis have much in common with the Ismailis in terms of overall beliefs, and they are sometimes regarded as "an offshoot of this group."[13] According to scholar Umar F. Abd-Allah, who uses Sulaiman al-Adni's book along with other sources, the Alawis, like the Ismailis and related groups, believe that the Shariah has both an esoteric, allegorical (Batini) meaning and an exoteric, literal (zahiri) meaning and that only the hidden meaning is intended. Alawis believe the esoteric meaning is known only to the Imams and later to the Bab and was hidden even to the Islamic prophet Muhammad himself. Only the Bab has access to this esoteric meaning in the absence of the Imam.[13]
Alawis believe in a "trinity"[21] or "schema"[33] 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.[33] According to Abd-Allah, each of these three is said to have been an incarnation of God. Ali, however, constitutes the most important part of this trinity. The Alawi testimony of faith is: `I have borne witness that there is no God but He, the most High, the object of worship and that there is no concealing veil (hijab) except the lord Muhammad, the object of praise, (as-Sayyid Muhmmad al-Mahmud), and there is not Bab except the lord Salman al-Farisi` The Nusairis believe in the subsequent incarnation of God in other persons after the passing of `Ali, Muhammad, and Salman al-Farisi...[13]
Some sources have suggested that the non-Muslim nature of many of the historical Alawi beliefs notwithstanding, Alawi beliefs may have changed in recent decades. In the early 1970s a booklet entitled al-`Alawiyyun Shi'atu Ahl al-Bait (The Alawis are Followers of the Household of the Prophet), was issued in which doctrines of the Imami Shi'ah were described as 'Alawi, and which was "signed by of numerous `Alawi` men of religion".[13] This book and Musa Sadr's proclamation have led one scholar to wonder whether "a mass conversion from Nusairism to Shi'ah Islam" has taken place.[13] Another scholar suggests that factors such as the high profile of Alawi in Syria, the strong aversion of the Muslim majority to apostasy, and the relative lack of importance of religious doctrine to Alawi identity may have induced Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad and his successor son to press their fellow Alawi "to behave like 'regular Muslims', shedding or at least concealing their distinctive aspects."[37]
Alawis have their own scholars, referred to as shaikhs, although more recently there has been a movement to bring Alawism and the other branches of Twelver Islam together through educational exchange programs in Syria and Qumm.[38]
Some sources have talked about "sunnification" of Alawites under Baathist Syrian leader and Alawite Hafiz al-Asad.[39][40] Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, writes that Hafiz al-Asad "tried to turn Alawites into `good` (read Sunnified) Muslims in exchange for preserving a modicum of secularism and tolerance in society." While al-Asad "declared the Alawites to be nothing but Twelver Shiites", he "set the example for his people by adhering to Sunni practice. He built mosques in Alawite towns, prayed publicly and fasted and encouraged his people to do the same." [39] In a paper on "Islamic Education in Syria", Landis wrote that "no mention" is made in Syrian textbooks controlled by the Al Assad regime, of Alawites, Druze, and Ismailis or even Shi`a Islam. "Islam is presented as a monolithic religion and Sunni Islam is it."[41] Ali Sulayman al-Ahmad, chief judge of the Baathist Syrian state, has stated: “We are Alawi Muslims. Our book is the Quran. Our prophet is Muhammad. The Ka`ba is our qibla, and our religion is Islam.”[42]
According to author Theo Padnos, who lived in Syria from 2007 to 2010, the Alawi religion "doesn’t exist anymore." During the years under Hafez Al Assad's rule, Alawites became not Shia, but effectively Sunni. Public manifestation or "even mentioning of any Alawite religious activities" was banned, as was any Alawite religious organizations or "any formation of a unified religious council" or a higher Alawite religious authority. "Sunni-style" mosques were built in every Alawite village, and Alawi were encouraged to perform Hajj. While some Alawites may still participate in their religious rites in Syria, Padnos says "it’s hard to find anyone who takes these ceremonies seriously."[40]
Traditionally Alawis have lived in the Alawite Mountains along the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Latakia and Tartous are the region's principal cities. Today Alawis are also concentrated in the plains around Hama and Homs. Alawis also live in all major cities of Syria. They have been estimated to constitute about 15% of Syria's population (which would be in 2011 about 3.5 million people of about 23.1 million people in Syria).
There are four Alawi confederations – Kalbiyah, Khaiyatin, Haddadin, and Matawirah – each divided into tribes.[21] Alawis are concentrated in the Latakia region of Syria, extending north to Antioch (Antakya), Turkey, and in and around Homs and Hama.[43]
Before 1953 they held reserved seats in the Syrian Parliament, like all other religious communities. After that, including for the 1960 census, there were only general Muslim and Christian categories, without mention of subgroups in order to reduce "communalism" (taïfiyya).
There are also about 2000 Alawis living in the village of Ghajar, split between Lebanon and the Golan Heights.[44] In 1932, the residents of Ghajar were given the option of choosing their nationality and overwhelmingly chose to be a part of Syria, which has a sizable Alawite minority.[45] Prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the residents of Ghajar were counted in the 1960 Syrian census.[46] When Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, Ghajar remained a no-man's land for two and a half months.
There are an estimated 40.000 to 100,000[3][47][48] Alawis in Lebanon, where they are recognized as one of the 18 official Lebanese sects. Due to the efforts of their leader Ali Eid, the Taif Agreement of 1989 gave them two reserved seats in the Parliament. Lebanese Alawis live mostly in the Jabal Mohsen neighbourhood of Tripoli, and in 15 villages in the Akkar region[49][50][51], and are mainly represented by the Arab Democratic Party.
In order to avoid confusion with Alevis, they prefer the self-appellation Arap Alevileri ("Arab Alevis") in Turkish. The term Nusayrī, which used to exist in (often polemical) theological texts is also revived in recent studies. In Çukurova, they are named as Fellah and Arabuşağı, the latter considered highly offensive by Alawis, by the Sunni population. A quasi-official name used particularly in 1930s by Turkish authorities was Eti Türkleri ("Hittite Turks"), in order to conceal their Arab origins. Today, this term is almost obsolete but it is still used by some people of older generations as a euphemism.
The exact number of ‘Alawī in Turkey is unknown, but there were 185 000 Alawis in 1970[52] (this number suggest ca 400 000 in 2009). As Muslims, they are not recorded separately from Sunnis in ID registration. In the 1965 census (the last Turkish census where informants were asked their mother tongue), 180,000 people in the three provinces declared their mother tongue as Arabic. However, Arabic-speaking Sunni and Christian people are also included in this figure.
Alawis traditionally speak the same dialect of Levantine Arabic with Syrian Alawis. Arabic is best preserved in rural communities and Samandağ. Younger people in Çukurova cities and (to a lesser extent) in İskenderun tend to speak Turkish. Turkish spoken by ‘Alawī is distinguished by ‘Alawī and non-‘Alawī alike with its particular accents and vocabulary. Knowledge of Arabic alphabet is confined to religious leaders and men who had worked or studied in Arab countries.
‘Alawī show a considerable pattern of social mobility. Until 1960s, they used to work bound to Sunni aghas around Antakya and they were among the poorest folk in Çukurova. Today, ‘Alawī are prominent in economic sectors such as transportation and commerce. A large professional middle-class had also emerged.
In recent years, there has been a tendency of exogamy, particularly among males who had attended universities and/or had lived in other parts of Turkey. These marriages are highly tolerated but exogamy of women, as in other patrilineal groups, is usually disfavoured.
‘Alawī , like Alevis, mainly have strong leftist political preferences. However, some people in rural areas (usually members of notable ‘Alawī families) may be found supporting secularist conservative parties such as True Path Party. Most ‘Alawī s feel discriminated by the policies of Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı.[53][54]