The Druze Community and the Lebanese State

Between Confrontation and Reconciliation

Yusri Hazran

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317931720
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

One of the fundamental questions of Middle Eastern, and Lebanese studies in particular, is the history of the relationship between the Druze community and the state in modern Lebanon. Arguing that the Druze community has been politically alienated from the Lebanese state, this book explores the historical and political origins of this alienation.

The Druze Community and the Lebanese State contends that the origins of this alienation lie in the state's national ideology, its political confessional system, and the Druze's historical background during the medieval period. Moreover, this book examines the extent to which the Druze's attitude vis-à-vis the Lebanese state has been influenced by their historical rivalry with the Maronites. Particular emphasis is placed on the political and ideological practices adopted by the Druze leadership and intelligentsia as they dealt with the changes taking place in their community's political status following the political settlements of 1920 and 1943 (the establishment of Greater Lebanon and the National Pact, respectively).

A welcome addition to existing literature on Lebanon, this book will be an essential reference tool for students and researchers with an interest in nationalism, identity and Middle East Politics more broadly.

1 The Druze and the Lebanese State

A Complex Dialectic

The Druze community began to stimulate the interest of Orientalists as early as the nineteenth century. Their histories as one of the heterodox minorities in the region, their origin, and their religion have been discussed in numerous publications. Additional works have been written about modern Druze history, and it is no surprise that a considerable number of these focus on the Druze of Lebanon, given the significance of their role (in comparison with the Druze of Syria and Israel), especially during the nineteenth century. The primary deficiency in a significant number of these works lies in the fact that their authors have adopted a rather primordial approach towards the subject, presenting a monolithic view of the history of the Druze without taking the political, cultural, and social aspects unique to each separate community into consideration. Other studies, which may be classified as “synoptic,” offer a general theoretical review, sometimes quite cursory, of Druze history.

Existing studies can be classified according to three categories:

1 Works which discuss the ethnic origin of the Druze and their religion and history from the Middle Ages. These include the works of De Sacy, Hitti, Makarim, Bryer, and Abu Izzeddin.¹

2 Synoptic studies whose primary focus is Druze political history since the founding of the Druze religion in the eleventh century and up to the modern period. Included in this group are the works of Abu Salih, Firro, and Betts.

3 Research which concentrates on the history of the Druze from the nineteenth century with regard to two specific historical events: the social and cultural transformations in Mount Lebanon during the nineteenth century, and the civil wars which erupted between the Druze and Maronites in the middle of that century.

The latter subject has garnered considerable attention from scholars, among whom should be noted Chevallier, Touma, Fawaz, Harik, and Akarli.

That the circumstances within which the Druze communities developed have exerted a significant influence on the community’s identity and patterns of behavior. Three elements stand out in this regard: its geographical location; its constitution as a small minority; and its uniqueness as a community isolated religiously from its surroundings. Nevertheless, the tendency to ignore the community’s adaptive qualities and its interaction with its changing socio-political environment represents a prominent deficiency in the monotonic approach. Any discussion of the relationship of the Druze to the state will highlight the defects in this primordial method and demonstrate that historical background and changing surroundings have played a vital role in shaping the modes of Druze political behavior in Lebanon.

The Druze Community in Lebanon: Between Past and Present

The number of Druze in the Middle East is estimated today as around a million, primarily scattered throughout Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. A small community also migrated to the north of the kingdom of Jordan at the end of the twentieth century. Syria contains the largest Druze community, numbering around 700,000 (about 3 percent of the total population). The name “Druze” appears for the first time in texts from the eleventh century, in the writings of the Christian Arab historian Yahya Bin Said al-Antaki. Antaki identified the members of the new community with Muhammad Bin Ismail al-Darazi, one of the first propagandists of the Druze religion. In other words, the name “Druze” was given to the community by their non-Druze neighbors and clung to them despite their own reservations, since Darazi fell out of favor and was expelled from the community. The Druze themselves prefer to be called by their original name, which derives from their holy writings—“al-Muwahidun.”²

The vast majority of Druze are a rural population living in the mountain areas of southern Mount Lebanon, Mount Huran, Mount Hermon, al-Jabal al-Aala (near Aleppo), the western Galilean hills, and Mount Carmel. The claim that such mountains served as a safe haven against persecution at the hands of the Muslim majority is insufficient to explain the Druze patterns of settlement, however. The tendency to isolate themselves from their surroundings in order to distance themselves from the central power and to organize themselves in the face of external influence was undoubtedly of no less significance.³

The Druze doctrine, which is in essence secret, has kindled the imagination of many scholars and authors. An article written in 1838 by the French Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy marked a watershed in the research of the Druze religion.⁴ This religion was founded in Fatimid Egypt in the eleventh century under the patronage of the sixth Fatimid Caliph, al-Mansur, known as al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah (ad 996–1021). From the perspective of orthodox Islam, the Druze doctrine—which its adherents call “al-Tawhid”—represents an unquestionably heterodox sect. It is also a prominent example of a syncretistic religion, combining elements and concepts from other religions and philosophical sources such as Shiism, Greek philosophy (particularly the Neo-Platonic and Gnostic streams), and Islamic Sufism.⁵

With the dissemination of the new doctrine in the eleventh century, four centers emerged: Mount Lebanon, Wadi al-Taym, Aleppo, and the north of Palestine. The majority of adherents were located in Lebanon, however, where they existed as a coherent tribal community which accepted the new religion.⁶ The appearance of the new religion signals the commencement of Druze history in Lebanon, as well as opening a new chapter in the history of Mount Lebanon. In comparison to the Syrian and the Druze in Israel, the Lebanese Druze community is more developed and dominant, having succeeding in stamping its seal on Lebanese history over the course of several centuries.⁷

The Druze are the sixth-largest community in Lebanon, constituting around 6 percent of the total population.⁸ According to the sole official population census, conducted in 1932, Lebanon was home to 53,000 Druze at that time.⁹ Today, no accurate estimate of their number is available, due to the fact that confessional population statistics are a taboo subject in Lebanon; however, estimates range between 200,000 and 250,000, indicating that the size of the Lebanese Druze community has tripled since the 1930s.¹⁰ The community is concentrated in four geographic regions: the Shuf Mountains in the southern part of Mount Lebanon; Rashayyah in the south; al-Matin; and Aley, considered to have the largest Druze population in Lebanon.¹¹ This geographic distribution demonstrates that the Druze community is, in its overwhelming majority, a rural one. We can point to six elements which shape the distinct politico-social experience of the Lebanese Druze community: the Druze religious doctrine; the Arab tribal heritage—especially the clan structure; the geographic environment and rural lifestyle deriving from it; the governmental tradition existent for centuries in Mount Lebanon; the status of the feudal families; the dualistic structure of the community (i.e., its division into two political parties competing for prestige and power); and finally, the community’s symbiosis or historic rivalry with the Maronite community.¹²

The dualistic structure is especially significant given its implications for Druze political behavior in Lebanon. While the community’s familial solidarity strengthened internal Druze unity—“le Monolithisme Druse,” as Junblat called it¹³—it also created the primordial basis for the traditional Yazbaki-Junblati division which had characterized the community’s life since the eighteenth century.¹⁴ Traditionally, the established, veteran political leadership of the community, as well as the religious leadership (Mashyakhat al-Aql), was divided into Yazbaki and Junblati factions. Since 1825, each faction has been served by one religious leader¹⁵ and the Mashyakhat al-Aql was and continues to be subject to the political leadership and acts under its aegis.¹⁶ The division into two factions was not limited to the political arena but extended to all the internal social dynamics of the community. The pioneering research of Nura Alamuddin and Paul Starr has demonstrated that this dualistic structure existed in virtually every Druze village, and clearly impacted day-to-day inter-family relationships.¹⁷ The Nakadi family, which did not belong to either of the two factions and adopted a neutral position in the struggle fought between them, formed an exception in this regard.¹⁸

Some scholars maintain that the Yazbaki-Junblati division constitutes a natural continuation of the traditional Qaysi-Yamani divide which had characterized the Druze from their beginnings, while the majority of Druze scholars perceive the phenomenon as a later development, the creation of the Chehabi emirs (1711–1841) who sought to weaken the power and status of the Druze feudal system. In contrast, Lebanese scholars contend that the division constituted a natural outcome of the power struggle fought amongst the Manasibs. The polarization of the community gained momentum as the Junblat family became stronger and more affluent. This trend aroused apprehensions amongst other families, who made haste to establish an anti-Junblati coalition, leading to the eventual development into two camps.¹⁹ Whatever the origins of the split, the alliance of the Arslan family with the Yazbaki faction was undoubtedly a later development which only emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. Until the second half of that century, the Arslans had not participated in the factional struggle between the two camps, but had retained a neutral position. This explains the Ottoman policy during the Mutasarrifiya period of regularly electing the governor of al-Shuf from the Arslan fami...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern History
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration
• Introduction
• 1 The Druze and the Lebanese State: A Complex Dialectic
• 2 Lebanon from Mandatory Rule to the Independence Era: The Druze in the Center of the Storm
• 3 Lebanon under the Shadow of Revolution: The Druze and the First Civil War
• 4 In the Shadow of Chehabism: Between Cooptation and Radicalization
• 5 End of the Race: The Second Civil War
• 6 The Confessionalism Tangle
• 7 The Struggle over Lebanon's History: Selected Matters of the Druze Historiography
• Summary and Conclusions
• An Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index