 |
   |
||||
|
|
|
 |
||
|
 |
 |
 |
||
|
in Publications: Font size:    
|
|
Who Are the Druze?
The Druze [duruzî (singular) durûz (plural)]* are an Arab people who prefer being left alone in the mountains of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan where they have farmed, grown their olive and fruit orchards, and raised their families for the past one thousand years (see Photo A). In addition to living in remote places, the Druze deflect outside involvement in their communities and affairs through “dissimulation” (taqiya), meaning they disguise or conceal their beliefs. Unlike Shia Muslims, the Druze place no religious virtue on martyrdom. This protective habit, which developed in response to historical persecution by outside groups, including Shiite Muslims, has made the Druze very hard to know much about for certain and has resulted in many myths about them, which they say are false, but which cannot be truly ruled out because of their ongoing dissimulation. The Druze have occasionally produced visible regional leaders including socialist “I Speak for Lebanon” Kamal Jumblatt, who was assassinated in 1977. (See Photo B)
The Druze belief system is a Semitic creed that does not conform to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Greek, or Marxist belief systems. The Druze however trace their origin to the early eleventh century Muslim Shiite Ismaili sect of south Lebanon and North Africa, which persecuted them (more on this below). As a result, the connection between the Druze and Muslims is palpable but adversarial. Meanwhile, the Israelis love the Druze for the most part and the Christian Maronites of Lebanon have often joined forces with the Druze to fight battles against Islamist groups, including, for example, the Iranian-controlled Lebanese Hizbullah (see Biot #174 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_174.html). Druze separatism has also made them a “target for the French, British, and later Israeli occupying forces seeking to undermine Arab nationalism and its quest for Arab unity in the wake of the Ottoman collapse after World War I,” according to historian Robert Brenton Betts** (p. 83). How many Druze are there in the world today? Best estimates place their number at approximately 700,000 worldwide, including 210,000 in Lebanon, 300,000 in Syria, 70,000 in Israel, 15,000 in Jordan, and 75,000 in other countries, including Australia, Canada, Europe, the Philippines, South and Central America, the U.S., and West Africa.*** In the U.S., the American Druze Society has organized annual conventions since 1946 and established its main center in Eagle Rock in Southern California, which is home of the largest concentration of Druze in the U.S. One of the most famous American Druze is the radio and TV personality, Casey Kasem, who was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1992 and whose voice you can hear at: http://www.radiohof.org/discjockey/caseykasem.html. The Druze, through the American-Arabian Ladies Society, were involved in the early history of the Bridgeview mosque in suburban Chicago, which has of late acquired notoriety for its Hamas connectedness through its Palestinian member, Mr. Salah (see Biot #168 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_168.html). In 1973 the Mosque Foundation and the American-Arabian Ladies Society purchased for $50,000 the plot of land on which the mosque was eventually built at 7360 W. 93rd St. Both groups worked to raise money for construction of the mosque. The co-founder and first president of the American-Arabian Ladies Society was Mrs. Salimi Azzam Joseph, a Lebanese-born Druze who emigrated to Cuba with her family before coming to the U.S. in 1948. She worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and, in 1962, was elected Vice President of the American Druze Society.**** Before the Bridgeview mosque was completed, the Mosque Foundation transferred its title to the North American Islamic Trust, a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of North America, headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana, and the largest Muslim group in the U.S. The Islamic trust now owns nearly a third of all American mosques and Muslim centers, which it acquired in the 1980s mostly through funds provided by the Saudi government. The American-Arabian Ladies Society at the time of the title transfer protested what they perceived as a takeover of their mosque by the Saudi Arabia-funded Wahhabists (see Biot #123 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_123.html). The women of the American-Arabian Ladies Society complained bitterly that moderate Muslims were being driven out of the Chicago-Bridgeview community. The fascinating history of the Druze began with the Shia sect descendents of the prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima. One branch of the Shia sect was the Ismaili or Sevener sect, named after Ismail ibn Jafar who was the drunken older brother of the seventh Shia imam. Ismail’s strong following lived in the mountains of south Lebanon and in North Africa where they conquered Egypt in 969 AD and founded their capital city Cairo. For a period of two hundred years until the end of the Fatimid caliphate in 1174, Egypt’s Muslims were Shiite, an astounding concept since before and after, they have been resolute Sunnis. Ismaili theology that dominated the Fatimid empire and its government promised a messianic kingdom, which unfortunately did not arrive. The Ismailis still looked for messianic rule, and would-be messiahs began to appear, including those the people imbued with divinity, such as the ruling Fatamid caliph Al-Hakim bi Amr Allah. Druzism originated in the thirteenth year of the al-Hakim’s reign (1009-1010) when his behavior became bizarre. He destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, restricted traditional Muslim religious practices such as the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and persecuted the Jews and Christians. For the last 11 years of caliphate, he was regarded as a madman, except by his “many…subjects, however, [who viewed] his behavior [as giving] increasing evidence of the divinity that was claimed by and for him.” One historian wrote “his astonishing independence of all established ways marked him as superhuman.” (Betts, p. 9) In 1016, a new figure entered the stage: Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad al-Zuzani, a Persian Ismaili theologian from an area of present-day Afghanistan. After moving to Cairo he rapidly rose to become the leading figure among the devotees of al-Hakim as the Mahdi (messiah). When al-Hakim proclaimed himself divine, Hamza took over al-Hakim’s mortal duties as imam, including proclaiming the new faith (da wa) of Druzism throughout the Fatamid empire. “Hamza’s crucial innovation seems to have been to make al-Hakim not merely an imam on however exalted a level, but the indefinable One itself. (Betts, p. 10) “Druzism, even in its earliest stages was not merely a sect of Islam but a new religion, which aimed at establishing a new world order. Hamza evidently looked to al-Hakim to introduce, by his caliphal power, the messianic culmination of history, forcing all men to discard the various symbolisms of the old revealed religions, including Ismailism, and to worship the One alone, revealed clearly in al-Hakim.” (Betts, p. 11) As Druzism took root throughout the Middle East, al-Hakim in February 1021 proclaimed that he was disillusioned with the results of his efforts to correct the religious divisions, social disparities, and moral ills of his time, and disappeared. Hamza went into hiding because the new caliph, al-Zahir (1021-1035) instantly “denied any claim by his ancestors to divinity and threatened those who adhered to such a beliefs with eradication by the sword.” (Betts, p. 12) Indeed al-Zahir ruthlessly exterminated the Druze in Cairo and as far north as Aleppo, Syria, leaving survivors primarily in the mountains of southern Lebanon and Syria. In the meantime, Baha al-Din, a deputy to Hamza, began to codify the religious teaching (tawhid) of Druzism. “Having survived the initial wave of persecution launched immediately after al-Hakim’s disappearance, under Baha al-Din’s leadership the Druze were bound together into a tightly knit society by the tawhid. After 1043, a closed and secretive community, they effectively blended into the Levantine landscape as yet another religious cult that had aimed for universal acceptance but survived as a reduced remnant that kept very much to itself, refusing to share its beliefs with the various neighboring religious communities that this day make up the religious patchwork that is Mount Lebanon.” (see Photo E) (Betts, p.14)
The tenets of the Druze faith have been held in secret since the closing of the da wa in 1043. Only a small number from among the community in each succeeding generation (uqqal) know the tenets. The beliefs and characteristics that set the Druze apart from Muslims include the following:
One historian notes that “the Druze concept of the Deity combines almost all notions current at the time of its emergence. Besides Jewish and Christian belief, we find Gnostic, Neo-Platonist and Persian elements, and all this under the flag of strict monotheism. The Druze faith is founded on the Quran as interpreted by the propagator of the da wa. It accepts the Old and New Testaments as divine books, in line with the attitude of Islam towards the two earlier monotheistic religions. It reaches beyond the traditionally recognized monotheisms to earlier expressions of man’s search for communion with the One. Hence its reverence for Hermes, the bearer of a diving message, for Pythagoras, the ascetic sage who rose to the heavens and came back to preach the unity of the Godhead, [and] for the divine Plato…” (Betts, p. 20) Editor’s Note: The Druze comprise a people with distant historical links to Islam, but who revere peaceful coexistence among all religions in the Middle East. Sources/Notes: *Visit http://lexicorient.com/cgi-bin/eo-direct-frame.pl?http://i-cias.com/e.o/druze.htm to hear the two words spoken. **Robert Brenton Betts: “The Druze,” Yale University Press, 1988. ***Encyclopaedia of the Orient: “Druze” available at: http://lexicorient.com/cgi-bin/eo-direct-frame.pl?http://i-cias.com/e.o/druze.htm. ** “The Druzes: One Thousand Years of Tradition and Reform: Institute of Druze Studies, available at: http://www.druzestudies.org/druzes.html. ****Mrs. Joseph currently serves on the American Druze Foundation based in Flint, Michigan (see: http://www.druzeadf.com/trustees.html). |
Copyright
2007 - SEMP INC., All Rights Reserved.