Jews and Druze
by Joe Palmer
[ opinion - july 04 ]
There was such sweetness in his visage that no one, once in his presence, could leave him... Before him all forgot their griefs and pains.
- Ali, Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law, Fatima's husband, the Fourth Caliph, father of Hussein, describing Mohammed
All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife... Believe there is a great power silently working for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.
- Beatrix Potter
The Druze provide a model of compromise and agreement for all the ethnic groups in the Middle East by keeping to themselves, preserving their own special identity, and earning and maintaining the respect and support of their neighbors. All other religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups, major and minor, powerful and weak, could be held in the esteem of all, protected and honored as are the Druze in their homeland in the Levant.
The Druze of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria get along very well with their neighbors because nobody has ever been able to tell the Druze what to do. The Turks and the French exploited the people of the Levant, but they did not conquer the Druze. They kept them at arm's length, as do the governments in those countries today. There is something special about the Druze.
Today Druze soldiers are the only Arabs allowed to serve in the Israeli army, except for the Bedouin Desert Patrol Unit, a volunteer militia group that helps to keep the Gaza Strip isolated. Other Arab Israelis do not want to fight against Arabs, and some Israelis do not trust their fellow Arab citizens, so their exclusion from the military is accepted.
It is not so with the Druze, known for their guerrilla tactics. They fought alongside the Jews in 1948 against the Arabs after the partition of Palestine, just as they fought against the Turks and the French to preserve their special identity during centuries of colonial strife. They have a special status in Israel among the many ethnic, religious, and national groups in the region.
In many ways the Druze are like Mormons; they take care of their own, minding their own business, and fighting to the death if necessary to preserve their own ways. Their society is traditionally feudal and tribal, held together by blood ties, instead of by money as in much of the world.
The Druze (Druse, Druzes, or Druses) are a religious sect living in the mountains of the Levant, in their villages in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, where they have always resisted assimilation. In their religion they discarded the puritan determinism of Islam, sloughing off the metaphysical hindrance, spiritual imprisonment, and psychic restraint of strict Islamic law and practice. They believe in the freedom to make choices not determined by prior causes or divine intervention. Their religion stresses gnostic revelation and reincarnation, it is said, but little is known about their beliefs and practices, for their sacred books are secret, and they do not allow strangers to join them.
Originally a schismatic group of Ismaili Muslims in Egypt (the smaller of the Shiite branches) following the Eleventh Century Fatimid Caliph Hakim, they hold personal experience of the Divine to be their guiding principle. Persecuted in Egypt, they fled to the Levant where they fought against the Turks and Christians, notably against the Falangist Maronite Catholics, and against the French colonizers.
Living separately but equally among neighbors is typical of old societies, and it is also typical of many new societies, such as those in Canada, where identity is a badge one carries to the market as a Native American, an Oriental, a European, an African, and so on. The Sikh in his turban is not an unusual sight there. Similarly, in Singapore too a mosaic of peoples can be found living together, proudly maintaining their outward differences in a productive and peaceful community.
The Ismailis, the Druze's forefathers, are Shias [Seveners], schismatic Muslims who hold to complex, syncretic beliefs combining elements of Judaism, Christianity, and of Eastern religions, notably of Lamaism. They believe that the Shari'ah (Islamic Law) should be repealed. More than 20 million Ismailis, including the Agha Khan and his followers, live in India, Pakistan, Central Asia, Africa, and Canada.
The Ismailis, in particular the Assassins, are said to have greatly influenced the Knights Templar, with whom they collaborated during the Crusades. The Old Man of the Mountain, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Ismaili leader, gave his counsel and learning to the Templars, who then organized their paramilitary enterprise after the model of the Assassins, with equivalent degrees and ranks. During those years as international entrepreneurs, they carried back to Europe their newly-acquired business acumen, banking practices, and indifference to the authority of organized religions, where they influenced the rise of Freemasonry, the philosophies of the Enlightenment, and the revolutions that created the modern Western world. The Templars' religious beliefs were derived from those of the Bogomils, the Paulicians, and the Cathars, that is, from a Manichean, Gnostic philosophy that included that of Johanism, the knowledge of the Nazorean Essenes, who were in effect Buddhist Christians, and of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical books called the Zohar.
To their credit and by virtue of their beliefs, the Druze stand above and serve as an example to the Jews, Muslims, and Christians. They are an intercessionary presence, owing their identity to the people around them while standing apart, providing a model of tolerance and acceptance for others to emulate. Typically, Bashir al-Shihabi (1788-1840) the Emir who ruled Lebanon for half a century was "Christian by religion, Moslem in matrimony, and Druze through convenience."
The Druze are one of many peoples the in Middle East who are different from others and remarkable. People of differing origins have been living side by side in the Levant for as long as we know. Are the Druze Arabs? If Arabs are people who speak Arabic at home, then the Druze are Arabs, but such is not necessarily the case with other conspicuous groups in the area: Armenians, Assyrians, Azeris, Baha'is, Bedouin, Berbers, Chaldeans, Fellahin, Greeks and other Europeans, Iranians, Kurds, Maltese, Nubians, Sudanese, Turks, and Jews from anywhere in the Diaspora and before, including the Falasha, Amharic-speaking, black Ethiopian Jews who found refuge in Israel, and of those speaking many languages of the former Soviet Union. See Note.
Similarly, the Alawites maintain their identity in the Levant, not by defying the majority, but by assimilating to a degree, bowing and scraping in a show of deference that gets them off the hook and gets the government off their backs. Nearly a million and a half Alawites, two-thirds of them in Syria, live as Shiites, having been officially recognized as Moslems by none other than the Imam Musa al-Sadr. They accept the five pillars of Islam - the creed, prayers, alms, fasting, and pilgrimage, and also jihad, the holy, spiritual struggle, and waliya, devotion to Caliph Ali, all of which they politely ignore.
When their Turkish overlords wanted to Islamicize them so that they would not be counted as Christians along with the Maronites by their French colonizers, the Turks built mosques for every Alawite community. Gratefully, the Alawites used the mosques for cattle barns, community centers, and taverns. They are wine-growers who produce and consume excellent wine, with which they celebrate the Eucharist. They hold their religious services in their homes, owning no churches.
In addition to their Moslem faith, the Alawites celebrate Christmas, New Years, Easter, Epiphany, Pentecost, and Nawruz, the Zoroastrian New Year. Their faith originated with but departs from that of the Druze. In Disraeli's novel Tancred, he says that they are not Moslems, Christians, Jews, or Guebres [Zoroastrians]. They take on the outward practices of all sects, pretending to pray in the mosques with their Moslem friends. When France ruled, they were Christians. When pan-Arabism was the trend (for example, the United Arab Republic under Nasser of Egypt) they were Arabs, claiming to be Sunnis before the Assads came to power. Now they are Twelver Shiites, like the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite who came to power and prominence with the use of the Ba'ath socialist party and the army. His neighbor in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is a Sunni who might have deposed the Shiite Alawite al-Assads, had he remained a player.
Dissimulators and apostates, the Alawites are exemplary of the way sane people should behave towards others. Ibn Taymmiya (1268-1328), the great Moslem lawgiver, wrote of the Alawites that they were "more infidel than many polytheists, and have done more harm than Franks and Turks," this in reaction to the Crusades and the Turkish invasion of the Middle East.
Other ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups in the area should be kept in mind when we try to understand what goes on in the Middle East. We have learned how the Moslems must be thought of as two different but similar religious communities, the Sunnis and Shiites, spread throughout the world. They are analogous to Roman and Orthodox Catholics in many ways. Other sects such as the Druze, Alawites, Ahmadis, and Baha'is are analogous to Protestant Christians.
Of general concern today is the plight of the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Mostly Sunnis, the Kurds are not Arabs; their language is historically related to English and similar to Farsi, the official language of Iran. They would like to have their part of the world recognized as Kurdistan, a separate and equal country in its own right that will necessitate taking a part of the territory claimed by Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. They have no more right to do this than the Israelis had to take the territory of Palestine, but perhaps that right will be sufficient in the eyes of their neighbors to make a new country out of an old region. Perhaps we will have to look forward to Kurds dispossessing Turks, Iraqis, and Iranians, building very long walls like the Israelis shutting out the Palestinians.
The Ahmadis, another offshoot of Islam claiming 160 million people worldwide in 150 countries (20,000 met recently in Toronto), promise to hold the key to peace and universal brotherhood. A modern movement founded by a Punjabi, Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), who claimed to be both Messiah and Mahdi, the Ahmadis hold that Jesus escaped the cross, fled to India, and lived to 120 years. One reason why Pakistan remains a beacon of hope is that wealthy Ahmadis helped form the modern country, teaching tolerance of others with no compulsion in religion, and they remain influential, although bigots continue to persecute them and the Christians under anti-blasphemy laws. Many Ahmadis have fled Pakistan, even though Chief Executive General Musharraf claimed that the protection of minorities was a priority for his government.
Today the Baha'is, another group stemming from Islam, are found in 235 countries. Numbering more than five million, with their world center in Haifa, Israel, they come from more than 2,100 ethnic, tribal, and racial groups. The Baha'is follow the teachings of Baha Ullah (Mirza Hussein Ali), successor to the Bab ed-Din, the Gate of Faith (Mirza Ali Mohammed of Shiraz), a Sufi, a Gnostic Shiite, who claimed to be the successor of Moses, Christ, and Mohammed. He was executed by the Shah in 1850. Baha Ullah emphasized the spiritual unity of mankind and all religions, universal education, the equality of men and women, simple living, and world peace. The Baha'is are analogous to the Unitarians and Universalists, who came from the Congregationalists, who in turn are what remains of the old Puritan Christian faith, not to be confused with today's Evangelicals, who have a somewhat different provenance.
We must accept and tolerate all creeds, religions, cults, sects, and eccentric groups with their queer ways, with the proviso that they do the same for us, just as the Jews and Druze do in Israel. The Druze are typical of the special, peculiar communities found throughout the world today - people broken off from their larger communities by war and property disputes, and isolated at home or thrown into a foreign country. Were such people to be included in community life as are the Druses in Israel, traditional and arbitrary social and other class distinctions could be ignored to allow all individuals to participate in a democracy, holding elective offices and making choices for the common good.
We must forget religion, as do the Druse, when it comes to making a living. We must keep the political process at the level of the well-being of all, at the level of economics instead of religion. We must raise the public dialogue to another plane by disregarding race, religion, and origin. The proper work of government in the New Rome is to help people to make and share the necessities of life, physical wealth and real property, and to pursue their happiness. For example, as Edward Gibbon wrote of a model way to treat religious fantasy, delusion, and mass hysteria:
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosophers as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious accord.
Note:
In addition to and sometimes including Sunni and Shia Moslems, some of the groups of the region are:
Ahmadis: 160,000,000+, declared non-Muslims in 1974.
Armenians: Descendants of 1,175,000 Apostolic Christians deported to Syria and Lebanon after WWI, speaking Armenian, an Indo-European language. Turks killed many, fighting Russia for their territory. Then what was left of Armenia became a Soviet republic.
Assyrians: Nestorian Christians using the Chaldean rite in the Akkadian language.
Azeris: Any of several peoples of Azerbaijan, including Lezgin, Avar, Ukrainian, and Tatar.
Baha'is: International, unitary, ethical religious group.
Bedouin: Nomadic, desert people of Arabia.
Berbers: Caucasian Muslims of the Maghreb.
Chaldeans: Southern Iraqis.
Fellahin: Peasants of the Maghreb and Egypt.
Kurds: Indo-European people in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Maltese: Roman Catholics with pounds sterling.
Nubians: Southern Egyptians.
Palestinians: Two million in Jordan, a million in Israel, half a million in Lebanon
Sudanese: Arabs, Dinka, Nuba, Beja, Nuer, Azande.
And so on.
