In reading up on the civil war in Syria, I learned that the recently overthrown President Bashar al-Assad and the members of his ruling faction are Alawites. Digging deeper, I found that Alawism is a strange mash-up of Islam and Christianity.
The two major divisions of Islam are the Sunnis, which comprises most of the world’s Muslims, and the Shi’ites, who are dominant in Iran, Lebanon, and parts of Iraq. Both sects go back to the death of Muhammed. The faction that became the Sunnis chose Abu Bakr as the caliph, the successor to their prophet. The Shi’ites thought the prophet’s son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib should be his successor.
In the consequent power struggle, Ali was assassinated, as were his successors, his sons Hasan and Hussein. This led the Shi’ites to develop a cult of martyrdom. Their first 12 caliphs were from the prophet’s family. After that line died out, Shi’ites continued to believe that Islam required a living, human hierarchy and thus invested their imams with significant spiritual authority, to the point of considering at least some of them infallible. Shia Islam would thus be roughly equivalent to Catholic Christianity, while the Sunnis are closer to the Protestants.
Both share the central tenets of Islam as found in the Quran, though the two strains have different customs and a long history of enmity. This is why Iran (the center of Shia Islam) and Saudi Arabia (the center of Sunni Islam) are in conflict with each other. Both strains have their jihadists and terrorists: Al Qaida, Hamas, and ISIS are Sunni; Hezbollah and Iran’s Republican Guard are Shia.
The Alawites grew out of the Shia movement in the late 900s after the death of the last caliph descended from Muhammed. The name means “followers of Ali,” an allegiance they took to the ultimate extreme. They believe that Ali is the incarnation of God! Whereas Orthodox Muslims confess their faith by saying, “There is no God but Allah,” Alawites say, “There is no God but Ali.”
They also have a trinitarian view of God, sort of, consisting of Ma’na (meaning), Ism (Name), and Bab (Door). Lest you think Alawitism is just a Christian leaning Islamic heresy, they also believe in reincarnation. Their triune god has been re-incarnated seven times, most recently as Ali, Muhammed, and his Persian companion Salman al-Farisi. Before that, as Simon Peter, Jesus, and Rawzaba ibn al-Marzuban (whom neither I nor artificial intelligence nor Google have been able to identify). Others include Old Testament figures plus Arabic names, going back to the first incarnation of Abel, Adam, and Gabriel.
Men were originally stars or divine lights that were cast out of heaven because of sin. They must be repeatedly reincarnated before they will be accepted back into Heaven. Women, however, are not reincarnated.
The Alawites have no religious buildings, other than tombs, which must be built above the ground. Among their holidays are Christmas, Epiphany, and the Feast Days of Mary Magdalene and John Chrysostom. They pray to certain saints including St. George and Simon Stylites. They have a ceremony parallel to Holy Communion, open only to men, in which bread and wine are consecrated. Unlike other Muslims, they are allowed to drink alcohol.
There are some 4 million Alawites, mainly in Syria and Turkey. Most Muslims consider them heretics, though some accept them as a branch of their religion. They have historically been persecuted, though they organized to defeat the French colonial power in Syria, leading to their presence in the military and their political power. Many Alawites, such as the Assad family, became part of the Ba’athist Party.
Alawism is what a syncretic religion looks like. As an attempt to fuse Islam, Christianity, and Gnosticism, it violates them all. And the fruit that it has borne is misogyny and brutal dictatorship.
It is, however, a fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy: “Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’” . . . . Do not go after them” (Luke 21:8).
Photo: The Assad Family by Unknown author – http://www.mideastmonitor.org/issues/0609/0609_5.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3001078