The Alawi Community in the Syrian Civil War

Religion and Politics

The Alawi Community in the Syrian Civil War

• Historical overview of the Alawites in Syria

• Who are the Alawites?

• Alawi follower of Ali, the Prophet’s Muhammad Cousin and Son-in-Law split from Shia Islam dating back to the 9th century in Iraq

• 10th-11th centuries: relocation of the Alawite community from Iraq to Syria due to persecution period of relative security and social integration in Syria long period of isolation in mountain refuges played a major role in the formation of the group’s socio-economic and cultural identity

• 14th century: Mamluks in control of the Levant: represented a challenge to Alawites interests and security: Alawites rituals were deemed illegal: Alawite rebellion in 1318 violently repressed first attempt of the Alawites to assert themselves militarily against a Sunni power: their complete failure undoubtedly dictated their passiveness in the centuries that followed

• Under the Ottoman rule: still a marginal and despised minority, the new rulers were Sunni Muslims, who emphasized religion as the core identity of their empire, lending legitimacy to their rule. The new authorities sought to crackdown on minority groups (Alawites and Shia) to consolidate their rule: but the Alawites’ stubborn resistance and entrenchment in the mountains meant that they posed a challenge to complete subjugation: for the Ottomans, like the Mamluks, there were more pressing issues that deserved the priority. Later, efficient tax collection became a priority for the Ottoman Empire’s survival the Alawites thus became somewhat awkwardly integrated into a system of millets and the general economy of the empire: mostly, the Alawites served some purpose and posed no real strategic threat.

• Practice Taqiyya; secretive religion (professing beliefs they do not hold); religion held with the Elders (like the Druze), mixture of Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs, transmigration of souls; secret esoteric religion – knowledge hidden from the masses

• Belief in Ali as incarnation of God; Holy Trinity: Ali Ma’na (meaning or essence); Muhammad is the Ism (name); Salman al-Farsi (the Persian; one of the Companions of the Prophet) is al-Bab (the gate); Alawite belief is summarised in the formula: "I turn to the Gate; I bow before the Name; I adore the Meaning"

• The religious differences between the Alawites and the Syria’s Sunni orthodoxy have been the underlying cause in a long history of discrimination and persecution by the majority population towards a minority: 14th century Ibn Tamiyya and Wahhabists today view the Alawites as heretics

• Within only a couple of decades of their emergence in the 10th century, Abbasid persecution and the fatwas of Ibn Tammiya, forced the nascent sect to flee Baghdad and eventually settle in the mountainous regions of Syria.

• Alawite similitude with Christianity and the secrecy that surrounds their beliefs (as a consequence of Sunnis’ viewing Alawites as infidels worthy of death) the sect was previously confined to the mountains of Latakia through seeking protection they simultaneously solidified their exclusive idiosyncrasies and furthered their minority identity

• Michael Kerr: The practice of religion wasn’t of great significance to the Alawi community

• Leon Goldsmith: From its very beginning, Alawite history contained episodes of persecution by political and religious authorities which shaped the community’s identity of particularism, self-reliance and insecurity. For seven centuries, the Alawites merely survived, developing a unique social and religious identity in their mountain refuge. They remained marginalized until Sunni imperial rule finally began to wane in the 19th century: ironically, it was their downtrodden state and political irrelevance that was a major reason for their survival.

Leon Goldsmith: 1830s-1970: Alawites made gradual progress towards integration in the wider Syrian society: despite ups and downs, the general trajectory seemed to lean towards the end of their long history of social and geographic isolation

• After 7 centuries of isolation, in the mid-19th century the Alawi minority took advantage of Ottoman decline and engaged itself in the local politics of the coastal regions of Syria. Better access to education under the French 4 Mandate meant that by 1940 the sect was heading eastwards in search of socio-economic opportunities.

• Alawites and the French Mandate system

• Leon Goldsmith: 1919-1945: Alawite participation in a pluralistic political environment in the form of the French-sponsored Alawite state but artificial construct engineered according to French imperial needs and the Alawites didn’t end up opposing their integration into an independent Syrian state

• Post-WWI and collapse of the Ottoman Empire: 1921, Syria was placed under a French mandate this alleviated circumstances for the Alawites

• Alawites as the reliable community: foil to Arab nationalism and Islamism urbanisation of the rural Alawite community gaining political autonomy

• To consolidate a façade of control by lessening Arab nationalism and increasing communal separatism, the French adopted a policy of divide and rule that favoured minority communities over Sunni Muslims, whom the French saw as the advocates of Arab nationalism in Syria; division of Syria and Lebanon into cantons to prevent Sunni hegemony

• Patrick Seale: Through the creation of an autonomous Alawite state and the recruitment of many Alawites into the Troupes Speciales du Levant, the French created a new sense of purpose and influence for the minority group that set them on their path to establish power.

• 1920-1936: Alawite state, yet the Alawite territory was not fully integrated into a Syrian state until WWII

• As a result, when Syria achieved independence in 1946, despite a Sunni 7 led government, the Alawis held signifiant positions within the military. By 1963, due to endless 8 coups and subsequent intra-Sunni purges, the Alawi minority had quickly progressed through the army and the Ba’ath party

• Patrick Seale: A hope for a brighter future in conjunction with their history of oppression meant ‘…it was to be expected that Alawis should seek redress for the injustices of the past and should be utterly determined never to be subdued again.’

• 1950s: This determination transformed into action as the