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Introduction: Some Background on the Druze Notes Introduction: Some Background on the Druze 1 For a brief discussion of the problems involved in obtaining exact num- bers on the Druze population, see Kais Firro, A History of the Druzes (Lei- den: 1992), p. 3. 2 For a detailed survey of the origins and early history of the Druze, see Firro, A History of the Druzes, pp. 3–28, and ‘Abbas Abu Salih, Tarikh al- Muwahhidin al-Duruz al-Siyasi fi ‘l-Mashriq al-‘Arabi [The Political History of the Druze Unitarians in the Arab East] (Beirut: 1981), pp. 9–57. For a review of the more fantastical theories about the Druze, including one in which their origins are said to lie in a crusading regiment (led by a nobleman entitled ‘le Comte de Dreux’) which deserted and settled in the hills of Lebanon, see Philip Hitti, Origins of the Druze People (New York: 1966), pp. 15–17. Hitti has been criticized by modern Druze scholars for his out- moded views on the racial origins of the Druze. For a useful summary of the Fatimid background to Druzism, see Nejla M. Abu–Izzeddin, The Druzes: a New Study of Their History, Faith and Society (Leiden: 1984), pp. 29–74, and Shakib Saleh, Toldot Hadruzim [History of the Druzes] (Tel Aviv: 1989), pp. 19–38. For studies on al-Hakim see: Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edi- tion, Vol. 3 (Leiden: 1965), ‘Al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah’, pp. 76–82; and P.J. Vatikiotis, ‘Al-Hakim bi Amrillah: the God-King Idea Realised’, Islamic Cul- ture, 29/1, 1955. For a more reverent view of al-Hakim’s life (occasionally verging on hagiography) see Abu-Izzeddin, The Druzes, pp. 75–86, and Sami Nasib Makarem, The Druze Faith (Delmar, NY: 1974), pp. 14–18. 3 Firro, A History of the Druzes, p. 11. 4 Abu-Izzeddin cites recently discovered manuscripts which indicate that al- Hakim went to Sijistan in Persia, where he was later joined by Hamza and whence he continued to send forth mystic meditations (Abu-Izzeddin, The Druzes, p. 105). A more mundane theory is that al-Hakim was assassinated by agents of his sister Sitt Mulk who believed he was a threat to the integ- rity of the caliphate (Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, ‘Al-Hakim bi Amr Allah’, p. 80, and Vatikiotis, The God-King Idea Realised’, pp. 3–4). 5 As Firro points out: ‘Neither the historical personalities of Hakim and the unitarian da‘is [proselytizers] nor the history of the Fatimi caliphate as such have any importance for the Druze. Since the time of the Druze da‘wa in the eleventh century, the Druze have reconstructed the history of mankind in accordance with their beliefs: Hakim as well as the unitarian da‘is are no longer historical figures – they are what the Druze Epistles teach. Thus history has become ahistoric and the ahistoric history’; Firro, A History of the Druzes, p. 15. 145 146 Notes 6 Although the Canon is officially for Druze eyes only, there are transla- tions of parts of it in several secondary sources, namely, Silvestre de Sacy, Exposé de la religion des Druzes (Paris: 1964); Makarem, The Druze Faith; and Hitti, The Origins of the Druze People. The Druze belief that there have been no converts to Druzism since 1042 is of dubious validity. Relatively late converts from Islam to Druzism include the Junbalats, the celebrated Lebanese Druze family, who are said to be of Kurdish origin. 7 The author of many Druze epistles and treatises, he is described by Abu- Izzeddin as ‘the most deeply revered individual in Druze history after [those who] founded and propagated the faith’; Abu-Izzeddin, The Druze, p. 176. For a more detailed account of the Tanukhi family both before their conversion to Druzism and after, see Abu-Izzeddin, pp. 142–72. Firro casts some doubt on the actual historical connections between the Tanukhi family and the Buhturi family; ‘Is the kinship relationship be- tween Buhturs and Tanukhs a fiction of the Druze chroniclers?’ (A History of the Druzes, p. 26). It is interesting to note that Jamal al-Din ‘Abdallah al-Tanukhi was also revered as an arbiter of disputes by the non-Druze population. Abu-Izzeddin claims that ‘Dhimmis, Christians and Jews, came to him for the settlement of temporal disputes; they went away sat- isfied with his judgement and praising his justice’ (The Druze, p. 175). 8 Benjamin Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages (London: 1983), p. 79. 9 See, for example, Eliahu Epstein, ‘The Druze People: Druze Community in Palestine: Traditional Friendship to the Jews’, Palestine and Near East Economic Magazine, 29, 1939, p. 167. See also Robert Betts, The Druze (New Haven: 1988), p. 20, and Gabriel Ben Dor, The Druzes in Israel: Polit- ical Innovation and Integration in a Middle East Minority (Jerusalem: 1979), p. 90. 10 Kamal Salibi, The House of Many Mansions: the History of Lebanon Recon- sidered (London: 1985), pp. 121–2. Hitti does mention a savage Mamluke attack on the Druze community of Kisrawan in 1305 (Origins of the Druze People, p. 3) but Abu-Izzeddin convincingly refutes this, saying that the Mamlukes were in fact attacking Shi‘ite Batinid Kisrawanis (hence the confusion with the Druze). In fact she maintains that there were no Druze living in Kisrawan at that time (The Druze, pp. 159–60). 11 Makarem, The Druze Faith, p. 2. 12 Abu Salih, Tarikh al-Muwahhidin al-Duruz, p. 99. 13 Ben Dor, The Druzes in Israel, p. 45. 14 Salibi, The House of Many Mansions, p. 122. 15 Hitti, Origins of the Druze People, p. 6. 16 Abu-Izzeddin, The Druzes, p. 179. 17 Salibi, House of Many Mansions, p. 124. According to Salibi, the first histor- ian to mention Ottoman support for the Ma‘nids was Haydar al-Shihabi (d. 1835) in the volume entitled ‘Al-ghurar al-hisan fi tarikh hawadith al- zaman’ of his work Tarikh al-Amir Haydar Ahmad al-Shihabi (Cairo: 1900). Salibi also mentions Haydar al-Shihabi in his article ‘The secret of the house of Ma‘n’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3/4, 1973, Notes 147 pp. 272–3. For a critique of Salibi’s revisionist position on the Ma‘nids see Firro, A History of the Druzes, p. 28. 18 For an account of Ma‘nid history between 1516 and the rule of Fakhr al- Din, see Salibi, ‘The secret of the house of Ma‘n’, pp. 272–8. 19 Nura S. Alamuddin and Paul D. Starr, Crucial Bonds (New York: 1980), p. 19. 20 Salibi, The House of Many Mansions, p. 127. Salibi claims that Fakhr al-Din was given the Governorship of Sidon in 1590 only on condition that he help his Ottoman patrons keep an eye on the Shi‘ites living in Ba‘albak and Jabal Amil. Ottoman officials apparently feared the emergence of a pro-Safavid fifth column amongst the Shi‘ites of the region. 21 For an account of Fakhr al-Din’s period of exile in Tuscany, see Abu- Izzeddin, The Druzes, pp. 187–90. This period is interesting because some scholars claim that during his stay in Tuscany he discussed becoming a European agent ready to help in a crusade to conquer ‘The Holy Land’ from the Turks. Abu-Izzeddin dismisses these claims. 22 For more on Druze settlement in Palestine under the Ma‘nids, see Salman Falah, ‘A history of the Druze settlements in Palestine during the Otto- man period’ in Moshe Ma‘oz (ed.), Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman Period (Jerusalem: 1975), pp. 31–49. 23 For more on Druze migration to the Hawran, see Firro, A History of the Druzes, pp. 31–53. Today the province of Hawran in Syria does not offici- ally include Jabal Druze. However the historical term ‘Hawran’ includes this area. 24 See Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 2 (Leiden: 1965), ‘Duruz’, p. 635. 25 The result was that they became ‘more concerned with gaining power within government rather than outside it’; M.E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792–1923 (London: 1987), p. 134. 26 For more on the Druze revolt against the Egyptians, see Firro, A History of the Druzes, pp. 66–78. 27 Given the involvement of the British in driving the Egyptian forces out of Syria and Lebanon in 1840, ‘the British government found itself more involved than ever in Lebanese affairs and sought to create some founda- tion for its policy in that country. Failing to replace France in the latter’s special relationship with the Maronites, the British government estab- lished a connection with their rivals, the Druze’; Shakib Saleh, ‘The Brit- ish–Druze connection and the Druze rising of 1896 in the Hawran’, Middle Eastern Studies, 13/2, 1977, pp. 251–60. 28 This dispatch is cited by Joseph Abu Nohra in his article, ‘L’évolution du système politique libanais dans le contexte des conflits régionaux et locaux (1840–1864)’, in Nadim Shehadi and Dana Haffar Mills (eds), Leb- anon: a History of Conflict and Consensus (London, 1988), p. 38. 29 This will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 1. 30 ‘The new political division widened the line of religious cleavage and aggravated rather than assuaged the tensity of the situation’; Philip Hitti, Lebanon in History (London: 1957), p. 436. For a vivid eyewitness account 148 Notes of the events of 1845, see C.H.S. Churchill, The Druzes and the Maronites under Turkish Rule from 1840 to 1860 (New York: 1973), pp. 91–2.
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