Alawites

For the mainly Turkish Shia religious group, see Alevism. For the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib, see Alids. For the royal house of Morocco, who practice Sunni Islam, see Alawi dynasty. For other uses, see Alawi (disambiguation).

Alawites
Zulfiqar, the stylised representation of the sword of Ali, is a crucial symbol for both Alawites and Shias
The Shrine of Khidr, located near the Syria-Turkey border, is a typical Alawite shrine with its striking white color and dome.
Total population
Approx. 4 million[1]
Founder
Ibn Nuṣayr[2] and Al-Khaṣībī[3]
Regions with significant populations
 SyriaBetween 2 and 3 million[4]
 Turkey500,000 to 1 million[5][6]
 Argentina180,000[7][8]
 Lebanon150,000[9][10][11]
 Germany70,000[12][13]
Lebanon/Golan Heights2,824 live in Ghajar, most with dual Syrian and Israeli citizenship[14]
 Australia25,000[a][15]
Languages
Levantine Arabic, Turkish and other languages in diaspora.

The Alawites,[b] also known as Nusayrites,[c] are an Arab ethnoreligious group that live primarily in the Levant and follow Alawism, a religious sect that splintered from early Shia Islam as a ghulat branch during the ninth century.[16][17][18] Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God.[19][20] The group was founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century.[21] Ibn Nusayr 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.[22]

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 (Ayn Fit and Za'ura), before the Six-Day War.[23] 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 distinct religious sect in Turkey.[24]

Some Alawites identify as a separate ethnoreligious group while others see themselves as a part of the wider Muslim community.[25] The Quran is only one of their holy books and texts, and their interpretation thereof has very little in common with the Shia Muslim interpretation but is in accordance with the early Batiniyya and other ghulat sects. Alawite theology and rituals sharply differ from Shia Islam in several important ways. For instance, various Nusayrite rituals involve the drinking of wine and the sect does not prohibit the consumption of alcohol on its adherents.[26] As a creed that teaches the symbolic/esoteric reading of Qur'anic verses, Nusayrite theology is based on the belief in reincarnation and views Ali as a divine incarnation of God.[27][28] Moreover, Alawite clergy and scholarship insist that their religion is also theologically distinct from Shi'ism.[d]

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).[29] However, since the early 2000s, Western scholarship on the Nusayrite religion has made significant advances.[30] 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 (meaning), Ism (Name) and Bab (Door). Nusayrite 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, Muhammad and Salman al-Farisi.[31][32]

Alawites, considered disbelievers by classical Sunni and Shi'ite theologians, 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. French administration prescribed the label "Alawite" to categorise the sect alongside Shiism in official documents.[33] French recruited a large number of minorities into their armed forces and created exclusive areas for minorities, including the Alawite State. 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. Since Hafiz al Assad's seizure of power during the 1970 coup; the Ba'athist state has enforced Assadist ideology amongst Alawites to supplant their traditional identity.[34] During the Syrian revolution, communal tensions were further exacerbated, as the country was destabilized into a full-scale civil war.[35][36]

  1. ^ "The Politics of Sectarian Insecurity: Alawite 'Asabiyya and the Rise and Decline of the Asad Dynasty of Syria - University of Otago". www.otago.ac.nz. page 6
  2. ^ "MOḤAMMAD B. NOṢAYR". Encyclopaedia Iranica. electricpulp.com.
  3. ^ "ḴAṢIBI". Encyclopaedia Iranica. electricpulp.com.
  4. ^ "The 'secretive sect' in charge of Syria". BBC News. 17 May 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  5. ^ Cassel, Matthew. "Syria strife tests Turkish Alawites".
  6. ^ Spencer, Richard (3 April 2016). "Who are the Alawites?". The Telegraph.
  7. ^ Montenegro, Silvia (2018). "'Alawis in Argentina: Religious and political identity in the diaspora". Contemporary Islam. 12: 23–38. doi:10.1007/s11562-017-0405-7. hdl:11336/76408. S2CID 255312769.
  8. ^ "Early_Muslim_immigration in Argentina", in: ‘Early_Muslim_immigration , Published: 18 December 2022
  9. ^ [1] Archived 6 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "Lebanese Allawites welcome Syria's withdrawal as 'necessary'". The Daily Star. 30 April 2005.
  11. ^ "Lebanon's Alawi: A Minority Struggles in a 'Nation' of Sects". Al Akhbar English. 8 November 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
  12. ^ "Mitgliederzahlen: Islam", in: Religionswissenschaftlicher Medien- und Informationsdienst|Religionswissenschaftliche Medien- und Informationsdienst e. V. (Abbreviation: REMID), Retrieved 13 February 2017
  13. ^ "Anzahl der Muslime in Deutschland nach Glaubensrichtung im Jahr 2015* (in 1.000)", in: Statista GmbH, Retrieved 13 February 2017
  14. ^ UNIFIL Press Kit Archived 14 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine p.6
  15. ^ Ghassan Hage (2002). Arab-Australians today: citizenship and belonging (Paperback ed.). Melbourne University Publishing. p. 40. ISBN 0-522-84979-2.
  16. ^ Madeleine Pelner Cosman; Linda Gale Jones (2009). "The Nusayriyya Alawis". Handbook to Life in the Medieval World, 3-Volume Set. Infobase Publishing. pp. 406, 407. ISBN 978-1-4381-0907-7. The Alawis are a sect of extremist (ghuluw) Shiism, so called because of their doctrine of the deification of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the nephew of the prophet Muhammad. The movement was founded in the mid-ninth century by Muhammad ibn Nusayr al-Namiri, who also proclaimed that the 10th of the 12 Shiite imams, Ali ibn Hadi, possessed a divine nature. Alawi doctrine is secret, esoteric, and Gnostic in nature.
  17. ^ "Alawites and the Fate of Syria". Origins. The Ohio State University. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
  18. ^ Feldman, Noah (12 May 2020). The Arab Winter: A Tragedy. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-20144-3.
  19. ^ Nisan, Mordechai (2002). "6: Alawites: To Power and the Unknown". Minorities in the Middle East (2nd ed.). McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-7864-1375-1. 'Alawite religious faith, that is the belief-system of the Nusairi sect, is rooted in a doctrine whose ideas reflect multiple theological and philo-sophical influences. ... Greek or gnostic conceptions of the divinity intersperse with human incarnation as a key element in its theology.
  20. ^ Sources:
    • Madeleine Pelner Cosman; Linda Gale Jones (2009). "The Nusayriyya Alawis". Handbook to Life in the Medieval World, 3-Volume Set. Infobase Publishing. p. 407. ISBN 978-1-4381-0907-7. Alawi doctrine is secret, esoteric, and Gnostic in nature. They believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib is the supreme eternal God...
    • Prager, Laila; Prager, Michael; Spenger, Guido, eds. (2016). Parts and Wholes. LIT Verlag. p. 146. ISBN 978-3-643-90789-9. A major difference between the Shia and the Alawi, however, is that the latter worship Ali as a manifestation of the divine essence and believe in the reincarnation and transmigration of souls.
  21. ^ Madeleine Pelner Cosman; Linda Gale Jones (2009). "The Nusayriyya Alawis". Handbook to Life in the Medieval World, 3-Volume Set. Infobase Publishing. pp. 406, 407. ISBN 978-1-4381-0907-7.
  22. ^ Gisela Procházka-Eisl; Stephan Procházka (2010). The Plain of Saints and Prophets: The Nusayri-Alawi Community of Cilicia (Southern Turkey) and Its Sacred Places. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 20. ISBN 978-3-447-06178-0. ...for nearly a millennium the term by far most often used in both Oriental and Western sources for this group has been 'Nusayri'.
  23. ^ Mara'i, Tayseer; Halabi, Usama R. (1992). "Life under Occupation in the Golan Heights". Journal of Palestine Studies. 22 (1): 78–93. doi:10.2307/2537689. ISSN 0377-919X.
  24. ^ Zhigulskaya, Darya. "Alevis vs. Alawites in Turkey: From the General to the Specific". International Journal of Humanities and Education. 5 (10): 195–206.
  25. ^ "What does it mean to be Alawite, and why does it matter in Syria?". Los Angeles Times. 8 February 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
  26. ^ Michael Knight (10 December 2009). Journey to the End of Islam. Soft Skull Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-59376-552-1.[permanent dead link‍]
  27. ^ Abdel Bari Atwan (2015). Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate. Saqi. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-86356-101-6.
  28. ^ Tom, Heneghan (24 December 2011). "Who are the Alawites?". Reuters. Archived from the original on 7 March 2022.
  29. ^ Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 2010: p.68
  30. ^ Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 2010: p.67
  31. ^ Ismail, Raihan (2016). Saudi Clerics and Shī'a Islam. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-19-023331-0.
  32. ^ Moosa, Matti (1987). Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects (1st ed.). Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 311–312. ISBN 0-8156-2411-5.
  33. ^ Carlos BC, Juan (9 December 2021). "The Assad Family Has Been Shaping Syria for 50 Years". Fair Observer. Archived from the original on 9 December 2021.
  34. ^ Rosen, Nir (10 October 2011). "Assad's Alawites: The guardians of the throne". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 22 June 2023. The state – even "Assadism" – supplanted the Alawite religion as the focus of their identity...To be accepted as leader, Assad had to persuade Sunnis and Alawites alike that Alawites were, in fact, mainstream Muslims... Alawites struck a bargain; they lost their independence and had to accept the myth that they were "good Muslims".. Assadism then filled the gap left by the negation of traditional Alawite identity. The loss of the traditional role of community leaders fragmented Alawites, preventing them from establishing unified positions and from engaging as a community with other Syrian sects – reinforcing sectarian fears and distrust.
  35. ^ Tom, Heneghan (24 December 2011). "Who are the Alawites?". Reuters. Archived from the original on 7 March 2022.
  36. ^ Rosen, Nir (10 October 2011). "Assad's Alawites: The guardians of the throne". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 22 June 2023.


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