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70-458: With its mild summer temperature, Slinfah is a popular destination for Syrians. The town is characterised with severe cold temperature and heavy snow in winter. Slinfah is inhabited by Alawites . The historical Citadel of Salah Ed-Din is only 13 km west of Slinfah. The town is located 50 km east of Latakia , and is located in the heart of the Coastal Mountains of Syria , with

140-622: A Jew becoming tsar in Russia—an unprecedented development shocking to the Sunni majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries." In 1971, al-Assad declared himself president of Syria, a position the constitution at the time permitted only for Sunni Muslims. In 1973, a new constitution was adopted, replacing Islam as the state religion with a mandate that the president's religion be Islam, and protests erupted. In 1974, to satisfy this constitutional requirement, Musa as-Sadr (a leader of

210-617: A campaign against Saleh al-Ali's forces in the Alawi Mountains. His forces entered al-Ali's village of Al-Shaykh Badr, arresting many Alawi leaders; however, al-Ali fled to the north. When a large French force overran his position, he went underground. Despite these instances of opposition, the Alawites mostly favored French rule and sought its continuation beyond the mandate period. When the French began to occupy Syria in 1920, an Alawite State

280-531: A concession by the French to the National Bloc (the party in power in the semi-autonomous Syrian government). The law went into effect in 1937. In 1939, the Sanjak of Alexandretta (now Hatay ) contained a large number of Alawites. The Hatayan land was given to Turkey by the French after a League of Nations plebiscite in the province. This development greatly angered most Syrians; to add to Alawi contempt, in 1938,

350-431: A highly secretive and esoteric sect, Nusayri religious priests tend to conceal their core doctrines, which are only introduced to a chosen minority of the sect's adherents. Alawites have also adopted the practice of taqiya to avoid victimization. Alawite doctrine incorporates elements of Phoenician mythology , Gnosticism , neo-Platonism , Christian Trinitarianism (for example, they celebrate Mass including

420-606: A major role in uniting the Alawite province with Syria. He was executed by the Syrian government in Damascus on 12 December 1946, only three days after a political trial. Syria became independent on 17 April 1946. In 1949, after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , Syria experienced a number of military coups and the rise of the Ba'ath Party. In 1958, Syria and Egypt were united by a political agreement into

490-460: A plot to absorb their ethno-religious identity into Iran's Twelver Shia umbrella and spread religious extremism in the country. Alawites and their beliefs have been described as "secretive" (Yaron Friedman, for example, in his scholarly work on the sect, has written that the Alawi religious material quoted in his book came only from "public libraries and printed books" since the "sacred writings" of

560-424: A process of ebb and flow in which spirit gradually unfolded itself in matter, attaining consciousness , and returning to spirit in a higher and more realised form." According to the emanationist cosmology of Madame Blavatsky all monads emerge from divine unity at the beginning of a cosmic cycle and return to this source at its close. Blavatsky in her book The Key to Theosophy (1889) wrote that: "We believe in

630-451: A separate Alawite nation, and tried to convert their autonomy into independence. The French Mandate Administration encouraged Alawites to join their military forces, in part to provide a counterweight to the Sunni majority (which was more hostile to their rule). According to a 1935 letter by the French minister of war, the French considered the Alawites and the Druze the only " warlike races " in

700-602: A significant Alawite presence developed in the mountains east of Latakia and Jableh during the Mamluk period (1260s–1516). According to Bar Hebraeus , many Alawites were killed when the Crusaders initially entered Syria in 1097; however, they tolerated them when they concluded they were not a truly Islamic sect. They even incorporated them within their ranks, along with the Maronites and Turcopoles . Two prominent Alawite leaders in

770-623: A significant minority in the Hatay Province of Turkey and northern Lebanon . There is also a population living in the village of Ghajar in the Golan Heights , where there had been two other Alawite villages ( Ayn Fit and Za'ura ), before the Six-Day War . The Alawites form the dominant religious group on the Syrian coast and towns near the coast, which are also inhabited by Sunnis , Christians , and Ismailis . They are often confused with

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840-458: A third of 250,000 young Alawite men of fighting age has been killed in the conflict by 2015, due to being disproportionately sent to fight in the frontlines by the Assad government. In April 2017, a pro-opposition source claimed 150,000 young Alawites had died. Another report estimates that around 100,000 Alawite youths were killed in combat by 2020. Many Alawites feared significant danger during

910-515: A universal divine principle, the root of all, from which all proceeds, and within which all shall be at the end of the great cycle of being." Occultist Samael Aun Weor taught emanationism from his studies with the Kabbalah and Gnosticism . He mapped out a complex esoteric cosmology with matter flowing from different planes of existence all existing in the absolute . As Dawson (2007) comments: As with esoteric thought in general, Weor holds that

980-460: Is 12.8 °C (55.0 °F). About 1,282 mm (50.5 in) of precipitation falls annually. Alawites The Alawites , also known as Nusayrites , are an Arab ethnoreligious group that live primarily in the Levant and follow Alawism , a religious sect that splintered from early Shia Islam as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib ,

1050-523: Is a forgery. Even during this time of increased Alawite rights, the situation was still so bad for the group that many women had to leave their homes to work for urban Sunnis. In May 1930, the Alawite State was renamed the Government of Latakia in one of the few concessions by the French to Arab nationalists before 1936. Nevertheless, on 3 December 1936, the Alawite State was re-incorporated into Syria as

1120-416: Is derived, as opposed to creationism , that considers the universe to be created by a sentient God who is separate from creation, and to materialism , which posits no underlying subjective and/or ontological nature behind phenomena, all phenomena being considered immanent . Emanationism is a cosmological theory which asserts that all things "flow" from an underlying principle or reality, usually called

1190-527: Is interesting to note that in the above-mentioned petitions of 1892 and 1909 the Nuṣayrīs called themselves the 'Arab Alawī people' (ʿArab ʿAlevī ṭāʾifesi) 'our ʿAlawī Nuṣayrī people' (ṭāʾifatunā al-Nuṣayriyya al-ʿAlawiyya) or 'signed with Alawī people' (ʿAlevī ṭāʾifesi imżāsıyla). This early self-designation is, in my opinion, of triple importance. Firstly, it shows that the word 'Alawī' was always used by these people, as ʿAlawī authors emphasize; secondly, it hints at

1260-749: Is likely the Alawite presence in Latakia dates to Tabarani's lifetime, it is unclear if Alawite teachings spread to the city's mountainous hinterland, where the Muslim population generally leaned toward Shia Islam, in the eleventh century. In the early part of the century, the Jabal al-Rawadif (part of the Syrian Coastal Mountains around Latakia) were controlled by the local Arab chieftain Nasr ibn Mushraf al-Rudafi, who vacillated between alliance and conflict with Byzantium. There

1330-509: Is nothing in the literary sources indicating al-Rudafi patronized the Alawites. To the south of Jabal al-Rawadif, in the Jabal Bahra, a 13th-century Alawite treatise mentions the sect was sponsored by the Banu'l-Ahmar, Banu'l-Arid, and Banu Muhriz , three local families who controlled fortresses in the region in the 11th and 12th centuries. From this southern part of the Syrian coastal mountain range,

1400-460: Is now generally regarded as antiquated, and has even come to have insulting and abusive connotations. The term is frequently employed as hate speech by Sunni fundamentalists fighting against Bashar al-Assad 's government in the Syrian civil war , who use its emphasis on Ibn Nusayr in order to insinuate that Alawi beliefs are "man-made" and not divinely inspired. Nekati Alkan argued in an article that

1470-433: Is the mode by which all existing things are derived from a 'first reality', or first principle . In the emanationist concept all things are derived from this first reality or perfect God, by consecutive steps of degradation, to a lower degree of this first reality or God: at every consecutive step the emanating beings are less pure, less perfect, less divine. Emanationism posits a transcendent principle from which everything

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1540-461: The Absolute or Godhead . Any teachings which involve emanation are usually in opposition to creation ex nihilo as emanation advocates that everything has always existed and has not been "created" from nothing. Kleinham (2007) writes: Underlying the worldview of traditional cosmology is the idea that the universe is an emanation of a unitary divine principle. Although this idea has been blended with

1610-573: The Alawite revolt (1834–35) against the Egyptian rule of the region, which was later suppressed by the Governor of Homs . By the mid-19th century, the Alawite people, customs and way of life were described by Samuel Lyde , an English missionary among them, as suffering from nothing except a gloomy plight. The 19th century historian Elias Saleh described the Alawites as living in a "state of ignorance" and having

1680-696: The Alevis , a distinct religious sect in Turkey. Some Alawites identify as a separate ethnoreligious group while others see themselves as a part of the wider Muslim community . The Quran is only one of their holy books and texts, and their interpretation thereof has very little in common with the Shia Muslim interpretation but is in accordance with the early Batiniyya and other ghulat sects. Alawite theology and rituals sharply differ from Shia Islam in several important ways. For instance, various Nusayrite rituals involve

1750-663: The Arameans , Canaanites , Hittites , and Mardaites . Many prominent Alawite tribes are also descended from 13th century settlers from Sinjar . In his Natural History , Book V, Pliny the Elder said: We must now speak of the interior of Syria. Coele Syria has the town of Apamea , divided by the river Marsyas from the Tetrarchy of the Nazerini . The "Tetrarchy of the Nazerini" refers to

1820-617: The Byzantine Empire ). Al-Tabarani succeeded his mentor al-Jilli of Aleppo as head missionary in Syria and became "the last definitive scholar of Alawism", founding its calendar and giving Alawite teachings their final form, according to the historian Stefan Winter . Al-Tabarani influenced the Alawite faith through his writings and by converting the rural population of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range. Winter argues that while it

1890-467: The Coastal Mountains of Syria wherein they established a distinct community. Nusayri creed views Ali , companion of the Prophet Muhammad, as "the supreme eternal God" and consists of various gnostic beliefs. Nusayrite doctrine regards the souls of Alawites as re-incarnations of "lights that rebelled against God." Alawite beliefs have never been confirmed by their modern religious authorities. As

1960-667: The Ism , which in turn built the Bab . These beliefs are closely tied to the Nusayri doctrine of re-incarnations of the Trinity. Emanationism Emanationism is a theory in the cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious and philosophical systems, that posits the concept of emanation . According to this theory, emanation, from the Latin emanare meaning "to flow from" or "to pour forth or out of",

2030-482: The Syrian Civil War which began in 2011, the Ba'athist state imposed forced conscription of able-bodied men, mainly the youth. Due to the Assad government's fear of mass defections in military ranks, it prefers to send Alawite recruits for active combat on the frontlines and the conscriptions disproportionately targeted Alawite regions. This has resulted in a large number of 'Alawite casualties and Alawite villages in

2100-437: The Syrian opposition and preventing their community from being perceived as being associated with the Assad government. Some have claimed many Alawite loyalists fear a negative outcome for the government may result in an existential threat to their community. In May 2013, pro-opposition SOHR stated that out of 94,000 Syrian regime soldiers killed during the war, at least 41,000 were Alawites. Reports estimate that up to

2170-484: The United Arab Republic . The UAR lasted for three years, breaking apart in 1961 , when a group of army officers seized power and declared Syria independent. A succession of coups ensued until, in 1963 , a secretive military committee (including Alawite officers Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid ) helped the Ba'ath Party seize power. In 1966, Alawite-affiliated military officers successfully rebelled and expelled

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2240-465: The " first Imam " in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God. The group was founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. Ibn Nusayr was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari . For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris . Surveys suggest Alawites represent an important portion of the Syrian population and are

2310-450: The "Alawi" appellation was used in an 11th century Nusayri book and was not a 20th century invention. The following quote from the same article illustrates his point: "As to the change from "Nuṣayrī" to "ʿAlawī": most studies agree that the term "ʿAlawī" was not used until after WWI and probably coined and circulated by Muḥammad Amīn Ghālib al-Ṭawīl, an Ottoman official and writer of the famous Taʾrīkh al-ʿAlawiyyīn (1924). In actual fact,

2380-550: The Alawi "are kept secret" ); some tenets of the faith are kept secret from most Alawi and known only to a select few, they have therefore been described as a mystical sect. Alawite doctrines originated from the teachings of Iraqi priest Muhammad ibn Nusayr who claimed Prophethood and declared himself as the " Bāb (door) of the Imams " and attributed divinity to Hasan al-Askari . Al-Askari denounced Ibn Nusayr and Islamic authorities expelled his disciples, most of whom emigrated to

2450-568: The Alawites continued to play a significant role in the Syrian military and later in the Ba'ath Party . Since Hafiz al Assad's seizure of power during the 1970 coup ; the Ba'athist state has enforced Assadist ideology amongst Alawites to supplant their traditional identity. During the Syrian revolution , communal tensions were further exacerbated, as the country was destabilized into a full-scale civil war. In older sources, Alawis are often called "Ansaris". According to Samuel Lyde , who lived among

2520-405: The Alawites during the mid-19th century, this was a term they used among themselves. Other sources indicate that "Ansari" is simply a Western error in the transliteration of "Nusayri". Alawites historically self-identified as Nusayrites, after their religious founder Ibn Nusayr al-Numayri. However, the term "Nusayri" had fallen out of currency by the 1920s, as a movement led by intellectuals within

2590-841: The Arabic triliteral root n-ṣ-r such as the subject naṣer in Eastern Aramaic which means " keeper of wellness ". Ibn Nusayr and his followers are considered the founders of the religion. After the death of the Eleventh Imam, al-Askari, problems emerged in the Shia Community concerning his succession, and then Ibn Nusayr claimed to be the Bab and Ism of the deceased Imam and that he received his secret teachings. Ibn Nusayr and his followers' development seems to be one of many other early ghulat mystical Islamic sects, and were apparently excommunicated by

2660-638: The Ba’ath Party old guard followers of Greek Orthodox Christian Michel Aflaq and Sunni Muslim Salah ad-Din al-Bitar , calling Zaki al-Arsuzi the " Socrates " of the reconstituted Ba'ath Party. In 1970, Air Force General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power and instigated a "Corrective Movement" in the Ba'ath Party. The coup of 1970 ended the political instability which had existed since independence. Robert D. Kaplan compared Hafez al-Assad's coming to power to "an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or

2730-533: The French forces at Al-Shaykh Badr, inflicting more than 35 casualties. After this victory, al-Ali began organizing his Alawite rebels into a disciplined force, with its general command and military ranks. The Al-Shaykh Badr skirmish began the Syrian Revolt of 1919 . Al-Ali responded to French attacks by laying siege to (and occupying) al-Qadmus , from which the French had conducted their military operations against him. In November, General Henri Gouraud mounted

2800-667: The Mandate territories. Between 1926 and 1939, the Alawites and other minority groups provided the majority of the locally recruited component of the Army of the Levant —the designation given to the French military forces garrisoning Syria and the Lebanon. The region was home to a mostly-rural, heterogeneous population. The landowning families and 80 percent of the population of the port city of Latakia were Sunni Muslims; however, in rural areas 62 percent of

2870-608: The Ottoman Empire, the Alawites would again experience significant persecution; especially in Aleppo when a massacre occurred in the Great Mosque of Aleppo on 24 April 1517. The massacre was known as the "Massacre of the Telal" ( Arabic : مجزرة التلل ) in which the corpses of thousands of victims accumulated as a tell located west of the castle . The horrors of the massacre which caused

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2940-648: The Ottomans employed a number of Alawite leaders as tax collectors under the iltizam system. Between 1809 and 1813, Mustafa Agha Barbar , the governor of Tripoli, attacked the Kalbiyya Alawites with "marked savagery." Some Alawites supported Ottoman involvement in the Egyptian-Ottoman Wars of 1831–1833 and 1839–1841 , and had careers in the Ottoman army or as Ottoman governors. Moreover, they even initiated

3010-515: The Shia representatives of the 12th Hidden Imam. The Alawites were later organised during Hamdanid rule in northern Syria (947–1008) by a follower of Muhammad ibn Nusayr known as al-Khaṣībī , who died in Aleppo about 969, after a rivalry with the Ishaqiyya sect, which claimed also to have the doctrine of Ibn Nusayr. The embrace of Alawism by the majority of the population in the Syrian coastal mountains

3080-499: The Syrian Civil War; particularly from Islamic groups who were a part of the opposition , though denied by secular opposition factions. Alawites have also been wary of the increased Iranian influence in Syria since the Syrian civil war , viewing it as a threat to their long-term survival due to Khomeinist conversion campaigns focused in Alawite coastal regions. Many Alawites, including Assad loyalists, criticize such activities as

3150-813: The Turkish military went into İskenderun and expelled most of the Arab and Armenian population. Before this, the Alawite Arabs and Armenians comprised most of the province's population. Zaki al-Arsuzi , a young Alawite leader from Iskandarun province in the Sanjak of Alexandretta who led the resistance to the province's annexation by the Turks, later became a co-founder of the Ba'ath Party with Eastern Orthodox Christian schoolteacher Michel Aflaq and Sunni politician Salah ad-Din al-Bitar . After World War II, Sulayman al-Murshid played

3220-639: The Twelvers of Lebanon and founder of the Amal Movement , who had unsuccessfully sought to unite Lebanese Alawites and Shiites under the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council) issued a fatwa that Alawites were a community of Twelver Shiite Muslims. Throughout the 1970 ‘s the Muslim Brotherhood led anti-Ba'athist Islamic revolts , culminating in the 1982 Hama massacre . After the outbreak of

3290-441: The coastal areas have suffered immensely as a result of their support for the Assad government. Many Alawites, particularly the younger generation who believes that the Ba'athists have held their community hostage, have reacted with immense anger at Assad government's corruption and hold the government responsible for the crisis. There have been rising demands across Alawite regions to end the conflict by achieving reconciliation with

3360-497: The community during the French Mandate sought to replace it with the modern term "Alawi". They characterised the older name (which implied "a separate ethnic and religious identity") as an "invention of the sect's enemies", ostensibly favouring an emphasis on "connection with mainstream Islam"—particularly the Shia branch. The French also popularised the new term by officially categorising them as "Alawites". As such, "Nusayri"

3430-463: The community had commonly self-identified as "Nusayris", emphasizing their connections to Ibn Nusayr . French administration prescribed the label "Alawite" to categorise the sect alongside Shiism in official documents. French recruited a large number of minorities into their armed forces and created exclusive areas for minorities, including the Alawite State . Alawite State was later dismantled, but

3500-443: The consecration of bread and wine); blending them with Muslim symbolism and has, therefore, been described as syncretic . Alawite Trinity envisions God as being composed of three distinct manifestations, Ma'na (meaning), Ism (Name) and Bab (Door); which together constitute an "indivisible Trinity". Ma'na symbolises the "source and meaning of all things" in Alawite mythology. According to Alawite doctrines, Ma'na generated

3570-641: The drinking of wine and the sect does not prohibit the consumption of alcohol on its adherents. As a creed that teaches the symbolic/esoteric reading of Qur'anic verses , Nusayrite theology is based on the belief in reincarnation and views Ali as a divine incarnation of God. Moreover, Alawite clergy and scholarship insist that their religion is also theologically distinct from Shi'ism . Alawites have historically kept their beliefs secret from outsiders and non-initiated Alawites, so rumours about them have arisen. Arabic accounts of their beliefs tend to be partisan (either positively or negatively). However, since

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3640-491: The early 2000s, Western scholarship on the Nusayrite religion has made significant advances. At the core of the Alawite creed is the belief in a divine Trinity, comprising three aspects of the one God. The aspects of the Trinity are Mana (meaning), Ism (Name) and Bab (Door). Nusayrite beliefs hold that these emanations underwent re-incarnation cyclically seven times in human form throughout history. According to Alawites,

3710-551: The fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Lebanon were placed by the League of Nations under the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon . On 15 December 1918, Alawite leader Saleh al-Ali called for a meeting of Alawite leaders in the town of Al-Shaykh Badr , urging them to revolt and expel the French from Syria. When French authorities heard about the meeting, they sent a force to arrest Saleh al-Ali. He and his men ambushed and defeated

3780-424: The following centuries, credited with uplifting the group, were Shaykhs al-Makzun (d. 1240) and al-Tubani (d. 1300), both originally from Mount Sinjar in modern Iraq. In the 14th century, the Alawites were forced by Mamluk Sultan Baibars to build mosques in their settlements, to which they responded with token gestures described by the Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta . During the reign of Sultan Selim I , of

3850-655: The immigration of the survivors to the coastal region are documented at the National and University Library in Strasbourg . The Ottoman Empire took aggressive actions against Alawites, due to their alleged "treacherous activities" as "they had a long history of betraying the Muslim governments due to their mistrust towards Sunnis." The Alawis rose up against the Ottomans on several occasions, and maintained their autonomy in their mountains. In his book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom , T. E. Lawrence wrote: The sect, vital in itself,

3920-484: The name 'Alawī' appears as early as in an 11th century Nuṣayrī tract as one the names of the believer (…). Moreover, the term 'Alawī' was already used at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 the Belgian-born Jesuit and Orientalist Henri Lammens (d. 1937) visited a certain Ḥaydarī-Nuṣayrī sheikh Abdullah in a village near Antakya and mentions that the latter preferred the name 'Alawī' for his people. Lastly, it

3990-424: The negative traits of "laziness, lying, deceitfulness, inclination to robbery and bloodshed, and backstabbing." By the 1870s, Alawite bandits were impaled on spikes and left on crossroads as a warning, according to the historian Joshua Landis . Early in the 20th century, the mainly-Sunni Ottoman leaders were bankrupt and losing political power; the Alawites were poor peasants . After the end of World War I and

4060-484: The population were Alawite. According to some researchers, there was considerable Alawite separatist sentiment in the region, their evidence is a 1936 letter signed by 80 Alawi leaders addressed to the French Prime Minister which said that the "Alawite people rejected attachment to Syria and wished to stay under French protection." Among the signatories was Sulayman Ali al-Assad , father of Hafez al-Assad. However, according to Associate Professor Stefan Winter , this letter

4130-411: The reformation of the Nuṣayrīs, launched by some of their sheikhs in the 19th century and their attempt to be accepted as part of Islam; and thirdly, it challenges the claims that the change of the identity and name from 'Nuṣayrī' to 'ʿAlawī' took place around 1920, in the beginning of the French mandate in Syria (1919–1938)." The Alawites are distinct from the Alevi religious sect in Turkey, although

4200-408: The revealed creationist doctrines of the major monotheistic religions , orthodox theologians have generally regarded it with suspicion. They have relegated it to the shadowy spheres of mysticism , pantheism , and the occult, which have always been at odds with orthodoxy. The traditional view is summed in the doctrine of emanation formulated by Plotinus. The primary classical exponent of emanationism

4270-410: The seventh incarnation of the trinity consists of Ali, Muhammad and Salman al-Farisi . Alawites, considered disbelievers by classical Sunni and Shi'ite theologians, faced periods of subjugation or persecution under various Muslim empires such as the Ottomans, Abbasids, Mamluks, and others. The establishment of the French Mandate of Syria in 1920 marked a turning point in Alawite history. Until then,

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4340-404: The terms share a common etymology and pronunciation. The origin of the genetics of Alawites is disputed. Local folklore suggests that they are descendants of the followers of the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari (d. 873) and his pupil, Ibn Nusayr (d. 868). During the 19th and 20th centuries, some Western scholars believed that Alawites were descended from ancient Middle Eastern peoples such as

4410-444: The town reaching an elevation of 1130 meters. Slinfah's highest point is the peak of the Prophet Yunis which has a height of 1300 metres above sea level. The nearby Shooh mountains are covered with 500 hectares of fir trees. In Slinfah, the climate is warm and temperate. In winter there is much more rainfall in Slinfah than in summer. According to Köppen and Geiger climate is classified as Csb. The average annual temperature in Slinfah

4480-413: The universe. Theosophy contends that all organisms—including animals and human beings—and all matter "flow" from a pure spiritual formation in the Absolute to a material one over time to become materialised and that they will later return to the Absolute after the cosmic cycle of life. As Morgan summarises: " The Secret Doctrine laid out an emanationist view of the development of the physical universe,

4550-429: The western region, between the Orontes and the sea, which consists of a small mountain range called Alawi Mountains bordered by a valley running from south-east to north-west known as Al-Ghab Plain ; the region was populated by a portion of Syrians, who were called Nazerini. However, scholars are reluctant to link between Nazerini and Nazarenes . Yet, the term "Nazerini" can be possibly connected to words which include

4620-433: Was Michael Servetus , who was burned at the stake for his nontrinitarian cosmology. Emanationism is a common teaching found in occult and esoteric writings. According to Owen (2005): Theosophy draws on Neoplatonic emanationism, in particular the concept of separation from and return to the Absolute, and reworks the Eastern concepts of karma and reincarnation to provide an evolutionary theory of both humankind and

4690-402: Was clannish in feeling and politics. One Nosairi would not betray another, and would hardly not betray an unbeliever. Their villages lay in patches down the main hills to the Tripoli gap. They spoke Arabic, but had lived there since the beginning of Greek letters in Syria. Usually they stood aside from affairs, and left the Turkish Government alone in hope of reciprocity. During the 18th century,

4760-427: Was created in the coastal and mountain country comprising most Alawite villages. The division also intended to protect the Alawite people from more powerful majorities, such as the Sunnis. The French also created microstates , such as Greater Lebanon for the Maronite Christians and Jabal al-Druze for the Druze . Aleppo and Damascus were also separate states. Under the Mandate, many Alawite chieftains supported

4830-518: Was likely a protracted process occurring over several centuries. Modern research indicates that after its initial establishment in Aleppo, Alawism spread to Sarmin , Salamiyah , Homs and Hama before becoming concentrated in low-lying villages west of Hama, including Baarin , Deir Shamil , and Deir Mama , the Wadi al-Uyun valley, and in the mountains around Tartus and Safita . In 1032, al-Khaṣībī's grandson and pupil, Abu Sa'id Maymun al-Tabarani (d. 1034), moved to Latakia (then controlled by

4900-461: Was the neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus , who in his Enneads described all things phenomenal and otherwise as an emanation ( Greek : ἀπορροή aporrhoe (Ennead ΙΙ.3.2) or ἀπόρροια aporrhoia (II.3.11)) from the One (ἕν, hen ). In 5.1.6, emanationism is compared to a diffusion from the One, of which there are three primary hypostases , the One, the Intellect (νοῦς, nous ), and the Soul (ψυχή, psyche ). Another advocate of emanationism

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