who are the Druze of the Golan Heights, at the center of tensions with Israel?

► Where does the name “Druze” come from?

The Druze religion comes from Islam, and more particularly from Ismaili Shiism, also known as Septimanian. This refers to Caliph Ali, his wife (Fatima, daughter of the prophet of Islam Mohamed) and their direct descendants, the seven imams, “guides”, the last of whom has been hidden.

Ismailism came to power in 969 in Egypt, with the Fatimid dynasty, then spread to Syria. The split between the Druze and the Ismailis occurred at the beginning of the 11th century, under the Fatimid caliph Al Hakim (996-1021). He declares himself a “divine incarnation” and is recognized as such by the preacher Muhammad Al Darazi. According to researchers, he – originally from what is now Uzbekistan – would have brought his Manichean, Mazdaean, even Christian or Buddhist influences to the emerging faith.

The thesis of the divinity of the caliph and the Greek philosophy which supports it caused a scandal in the Muslim world. But a few faithful gathered around Al Darazi and followed him to Syria where he was forced to go into exile following the death of Al Hakim.

The word Druze – in Arabic duruz – derives from his name, which he also gave to the “Djebel Druze”, in southern Syria. But the members of the community contest this appellation: they themselves recognize as the first guide or imam only Hamza, an Ismaili originally from Persia and close to the caliph Al Hakim, to whom they attribute one of their main works: the Book of testimonies and mysteries of unity.

► What do the Druze believe in?

The main belief of the Druze is that of the unity of God. They call themselves “unitarians” or “monotheists” (the Mouwahhidoun). Druzism claims to be the last of the revealed religions, and the Druze as the sole depositories of “true monotheism”.

While during the first years of their installation in Syria and Lebanon, Druze missionaries preached their religion, proselytizing suddenly stopped under Baha’el-Din, Hamza’s fourth successor, and conversions were prohibited. Even today, no one can become a Druze if they are not born to a Druze father and mother.

Researchers are divided on the question of whether Druzism can still be linked to Islam. In fact, its practices differ markedly from those of Sunnis and Shiites, to which they add the heritage of cosmogonic conceptions and Neoplatonic and Aristotelian philosophy.

According to the great Turkologist Robert Mantran, the Druze reject the five pillars of Islam which Hamza would have replaced by seven other commandments, including mutual aid and mutual protection between believers, renunciation of all other religions and recognition of unit of Mawlana (“our master”, in other words Al Hakim).

► Why the secrecy surrounding them?

The religious universe of the Druze remains little known. Several explanations have been put forward. For those who defend the belonging of Druzism to Islam, their discretion, their geographical fragmentation and their community withdrawal can be explained by the hostility of the majority of Muslims (Sunnis in particular).

Like the Alawites in Syria, the Druze are known to use the Shiite practice of dissimulation (taqiyya). A practice that allows them to adopt the external forms of Islam to protect themselves, while maintaining their internal faith. She can go so far as to appear Muslim and claim to practice the rites of Islam… Hence the difficulty of situating Druzism in the religious landscape.

For others, their religion unites the Druze into a community closed in on itself, around very specific books and doctrine.. “To ensure the secrecy of their doctrine, the Druze entrusted it to the control of a class of initiates (…) within the community,” remarks the anthropologist Isabelle Rivoal, specialist in the Druze community of Lebanon (1).

Additional protection against any external intrusion, the community is divided into “wise” and “ignorant”. Only the first, born into initiated families, have the right to initiation and then undertake to practice faithfully. They will then have access to sacred texts, essentially handwritten letters, interpreting the Koran in an esoteric way, “exchanged by the missionaries at the time of preaching, grouped together in a set, The book of wisdom “, writes Isabelle Rivoal. There are no educational establishments.

► Where do the Druze live?

Estimates of the Druze population range between 500,000 and 1 million individuals. The difficulty in counting them undoubtedly comes from their geographical fragmentation: very united by family ties and solidarity, the community is scattered between Syria, Lebanon and Israel, but also in a more modest way in Palestine and Jordan.

Apart from the Ghouta plain, close to Damascus, all their settlement areas are mountainous massifs, places conducive to the isolation and defense of the community. The Druze often share these mountain territories with members of other religious “minorities”, notably Christians: Maronites in Lebanon, Latins and Greek Orthodox in southern Syria, whom the Sunni power also rejected.

Some Druze emigrated at the end of the 19th century to the American continent and Australia: a legacy of this era, an American Druze Society works to preserve their culture in the United States. By including small diaspora communities – in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America, Canada and other countries – the organization puts forward the range of “1 to 2.5 million members” in the world.