This is a three-part series about the Alawite sect in Syria and the March massacre in its community. To read the previous story on how Ziad and his relatives survived an event that claimed the lives of many in his extended family, click here.
As an Alawite, Ziad identifies with the main markers of Islam.
“Our book is the Quran, our prophet is Muhammad, and our direction of prayer is the Kaaba in Mecca,” he said.
Ziad, a pseudonym granted because of the still-unstable situation in Syria, believes in God and called out to him during the Sunni militant attack on Alawite cities and villages in the coastal northwest. However, he does not perform the prescribed ritual prayers, fast for Ramadan, or consider a pilgrimage to Mecca necessary. And he drinks alcohol, which is forbidden for other Muslims.
Yet mainstream rejection of his sect goes far beyond these offenses. To understand why most Muslims consider Alawite beliefs heretical, we must first know a little about the religion’s main sects—Sunni and Shiite.
When Muhammad died in AD 632, disputes arose within the community over who would assume leadership. Sunnis, who today represent 85 percent of Muslims, hold that the prophet left this choice open for believers to decide. They chose Abu Bakr, an early convert and respected tribal leader, as the first caliph.
Shiites, on the other hand, hold that Muhammad designated his cousin Ali as his successor and that the tribal confederation bypassed his will. Ali was eventually chosen as the fourth caliph but assassinated within an Islamic civil war. The caliphate thereafter passed into hereditary rule. This political history matters practically little to Alawites, but they share with Shiites the belief that Ali was the first imam.
Most Shiites count a succession of 12 imams from the bloodline of Ali, whom they say God endowed with supernatural insight to interpret the Quran and Muslim religious traditions. The 12th imam is believed to have concealed himself—entering a period of what is called “occultation”—and will reappear at the end of the age.
However, Alawites follow Muhammad Ibn Nusayr, who was a 10th-century disciple of the 11th imam and declared himself to be the “gate” of divine inspiration. As a result, Alawites have been called Nusayris, often in derision.
Christians once called Muslims “Muhammadans” after their prophet. But Islam teaches that only God is to be revered. (Muslim in Arabic refers to “one who submits [to God].”) In alignment with this belief, the Shiite name refers in Arabic to the political “party” of Ali, not to Ali himself. In contrast, the term Alawite focuses on the person of Ali, causing the community to face accusations of elevating—even deifying—the role of the first imam.
The notion of deification—which Ziad rejects completely—comes from the ideas introduced by Ibn Nusayr and his later disciples. They taught that God sent his message to humanity through seven cycles of three linked individuals: a gate, a name, and a meaning. (Ibn Nusayr, the founder of the sect, is not counted among these triads, though he is believed to be the one through whom this knowledge came.)
The first cycle began with Adam, who represented God’s name, while Abel revealed God’s meaning through the instructive gate of the angel Gabriel. In the subsequent cycles, the figures associated with most gates come from outside the scriptural canon, but the name–meaning combinations fit within the biblical cast of characters, including Jacob-Joseph, Moses-Joshua, and Jesus-Peter.
Experts link this cosmological scheme to ancient Neoplatonism, which influenced the Gnostic tendency in early Christianity. History notes many other heterodox Shiite sects that held similar hidden, esoteric understandings of the faith available only to a limited number of faithful disciples. Such deeper knowledge of God makes ritual obedience unnecessary.
Alawites uninitiated in this deeper knowledge emphasize right behavior consistent with a generally moral life: Help others, be loyal, do not steal, do not kill. In this spirit, Ziad considers himself “secular” and is not privy to the secrets of his sect. He labeled “God, Muhammad, and Ali” as the final Alawite trinity. Yet scholars of the sect maintain that while Muhammad revealed the name of God and Ali provided the meaning, the gate of the seventh and concluding cycle is Salman al-Farisi, a freed slave and companion of Muhammad and Ali.
Islam’s conception of God is unitary—absolute monotheism.
Muslims reject the Christian Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although Alawites see their seven-cycle figures as emanations of a single God, Islamic jurists have issued fatwas declaring the sect as deviant and subject to jihad. In the 13th century, Alawites relocated from Iraq to the Syrian coast for safety in relative isolation but still suffered massacres in the thousands in both 1317 and 1516.
Beyond these divergent conceptions of God, Alawites also believe in reincarnation. Again, this contrasts with other Muslims, who reject the idea of multiple lives—to them, after death comes judgment.
According to Ziad’s sister, when her brother was 18 months old, he began speaking with an imaginary conversation partner, describing in detail a prior existence in a lakefront home, a military insignia that outranked his colleague, and the gunshot wound in his leg. The sister, who was nine at the time, wasn’t surprised. Memories of past lives are common in the community.
Alawites believe that the transmigration of souls traces back to before creation, when they originally existed with God as “light beings.” But after they asserted equality with their Creator, God condemned them to human form on earth. Still, God extended his mercy through his trinitarian messengers. In obeying the revelations received, Alawites can return to their essence and each appear as a star in the sky.
Reincarnation is necessary because it accords with the justice of God, says Ziad. He feels it would not be fair for God to judge rich and poor alike or for a person’s eternity to rest on a single life. Instead, with each life lived, individuals purify their transgressions until the experience of heaven reestablishes their nearness to the love of God.
After centuries of proximity to Christians, Alawites have adopted several similar practices. They celebrate Christmas, honor Mary Magdalene, and seek the intercession of saints like Simeon Stylites, the fourth-century Syrian ascetic who meditated 36 years atop a pillar. Ziad’s sister keeps a small, transparent box of dried flowers with an image of the Virgin Mary in her purse. She never removes it—and lent the brown leather handbag to her daughter during her school exams.
T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, described Alawites and Christians as drawn together by shared persecution. Other scholars have referred to the practice of taqiyya—misrepresenting one’s beliefs to ensure survival—as a crucial element of Alawite identity. Shiites have historically adopted this controversial concept during times of Sunni persecution, and perhaps the Alawites have followed.
The latest massacre in Syria reverses the modern trend that accorded Alawites their status as Muslims. While political factors contributed, in 1936 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a Sunni, declared they were not apostates. In 1972 an Iranian Shiite cleric close to Syria’s then-president Assad issued a similar fatwa. And Lebanon grants Alawites two seats within the Muslim share of its parliament. (The larger and differently heterodox Druze sect receives eight.)
Unlike Muslims and Christians, Alawites do not propagate their faith. But it is not unusual for religion and politics to mix, as Islam witnessed with Abu Bakr and Ali from the very beginning. So it was in the Syrian civil war.
“After the revolution, we want to kill them,” asserted a 13-year-old boy in 2012, at the onset of the conflict. Perhaps he grew up to be one of the Islamist militants who declared, “Every Alawite killed is one Alawite killed because of Assad.” But for Ziad, whatever political mistakes Alawites may have made, Syria should honor all its religions.
“I don’t care about your sect or what you believe,” said Ziad. “We just want to be in good relations with everyone.”
