Chapter 1
THE NUSAYRIS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: A âHETERODOXâ TRIBAL COMMUNITY AND THE STATE
1.1. The Nusayri-Alawis: Beliefs and history
In his book about âhereticsâ in the Ottoman Empire in the fifteen to seventeenth centuries the Turkish scholar Ahmet YaĆar Ocak quotes Xenophon,1 a student of Socrates, asking himself by what arguments his teacher was indicted and why the Athenians believed that he had to die for the good of the state: âFor the indictment against him was something like the following: Socrates commits an injustice by not believing in the gods in which the city believes and by bringing in new and different divine things (daimonia); he commits an injustice also by corrupting the young.â2
This being just one example, throughout history followers of various religions and groups within religions accused each other of being deviant from what was perceived as the âtrueâ or âsound faithâ; those who were labelled as âhereticsâ were blamed for misleading or corrupting the people. Looking at the statement just quoted, we can infer that states that have an official religion can force people to follow it with all its obligations. Anything else introduced from outside is regarded as blasphemy and heresy.
There are differences in all religious traditions due to several factors, such as theological, socio-political, cultural, economic and ethnic. As a result, each group tends to label those who are different from them as âthe otherâ, despite the fact that they belong to the same religion. Such is the case not only in Islam.
While divergence from the mainstream does not ipso facto create a need for a formal split into factions, there will always be groups who use opposition to the dominant tradition as a means of affirming their separateness; and similarly, the mainstream understanding of a tradition can be strengthened by criticising alternative understandings.3
Within Islam, the groups outside the mainstream, âthe other among usâ or the âinternal othersâ, are called al-firaq ad-dalla (âmisguided sectsâ) or ahl al-bidâa (âpeople of innovationâ, sectarians); labels that refer to âdeviantâ conceptual trends or sects within Islam. Their conflicting viewpoints are perceived as the origin of fitna (âseditionâ) and hence as a threat to the unity of Islam. And whereas these sects accuse the mainstream of being insufficient and heretical, they are themselves called âoutsidersâ (khawarij) in the mainstream traditions. Another term that has been used pejoratively by Sunnis for âinternal othersâ who refuse legitimate Islamic leadership and authority is rafida/rawafid, meaning ârejecter(s)â. This has been especially applied to the mainstream Twelver Shiâa and any of the Shiâi groups.4 In the Ottoman Empire followers of Shiâa Islam and various of its off-shoots such as the Ismaâilis, Nusayris, Alevis, BektaĆis, etc., were called rĂąfizĂź/revĂąfız, or ehl-i rafz.5 Yet, interestingly, the Ottoman state also called sedentary Sunni tribes and the ultra-Sunni Wahhabi movement as of the eighteenth century rĂąfizĂź due to their opposition to the state.6 Another widely used term for âheresy, hereticalâ, borrowed from Persian, is zindiq (Arab.) or zındık (Turk.).7 dalal (and its variants), i.e. âerror; going astrayâ (cf. Q 1:7) is a term mentioned in many places in the Qurâan and needs to be seen in combination with al-firaq ad-dalla for sects deemed as âmisguidedâ.
Looking from this âorthodoxâ viewpoint, we may argue that Islam bases its beliefs primarily on the Qurâan as a revealed holy text; hence the Word of God is the âtrue beliefâ and the foundation. âGuide us in the straight path (ihdina as-sirat al-mustaqim)â (Q 1:6)8 is the middle way; anything else outside it is excess (ifrat) or deficiency (tafrit or taqsir). The recipients of the Prophet Muhammadâs (d. 632) message were, firstly, the polytheistic Arabs who had to be brought back to the true belief in the one God (Allah) and so abandoned all other deities, and secondly the Jews and Christians who had corrupted their teachings. They all had strayed from the âstraight pathâ, not obeying the real commandments of Allah and so not submitting to His will (islam). They needed to be reminded of the true religion, named islam in the Qurâan, and receive guidance (huda) to it. The third recipient of the Quranâs message is, of course, the Muslims. The first Sura (1:7) stresses at the end that God may preserve the believers from the path of âthose who are astrayâ (ad-dallin).
According to Islamâs message, the previous confessions or religions, such as Arab Paganism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity, were subverted and so made a new divine message necessary, which in turn needed to abrogate their administrations, laws and excesses. As is expressed in Qurâan 5:48, âTo every one of you We have appointed a right way and an open road (li-kullin jaâalna minkum shirâatan wa minhajan)â, we can say that each prophet abrogates the laws of his predecessor.9 Islam replaces difficulties or hardships in previous dispensations; in other words, it restores the âdeterioration of the pristine, easy-going relationship between God and His creatures (sometimes characterized in the sources by the term fiáčra) into a series of abstruse and arduous legal systemsâ.10 In the words of Zeâev Maghen:
Islamic tradition on the whole envisions what amounts to only two ĂŒber-phases in the forward march of humankind: (1) the world under the spiritual sovereignty of a wide range of sinfully innovative and harmfully excessive doctrines; (2) the world under the spiritual sovereignty of the restorative and moderating doctrine of Islam⊠To the extent that the pristine, fiáčra-based faith of Adam - and its later reincarnation, the millat IbrÄhÄ«m [religion of Abraham] â are included in this legendary historical process, we might better speak of a bell-curve in three stages: (1) the reign of right religion, (2) doctrinal deviation/innovation across the board, and (3) return to Truth with Islam.11
Harmfully excessive doctrines or âwrong beliefsâ in pre-Islamic dispensations, then, needed to be replaced. One of the concepts that is central to Islamic belief and has been used to this day in discourses about ârightâ and âwrongâ belief is ghuluww or âtransgressionâ with regard to religious beliefs. Apart from oral traditions (sg. hadith), the ghuluww concept occurs twice in the Qurâan; in 4:171 and 5:72â77 in the context of the âcorruptedâ beliefs of the Christians calling Jesus âson of Godâ, and in 9:30 â though in this latter verse ghuluww is not mentioned but implied â the Jews are condemned for calling the prophet âUzayr/Ezra âson of Godâ:
People of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion (la taghlu fi dinikum), and say not as to God but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not, âThree.â Refrain; better is it for you. God is only One God. Glory be to Him â That He should have a son! To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth; God suffices for a guardian.
4:171
They are unbelievers who say, âGod is the Messiah, Maryâs son.â For the Messiah said, âChildren of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord. Verily whoso associates with God anything, God shall prohibit him entrance to Paradise, and his refuge shall be the Fire; and wrongdoers shall have no helpers.â They are unbelievers who say, âGod is the Third of Three.â No god is there but One God. If they refrain not from what they say, there shall afflict those of them that disbelieve a painful chastisement.⊠The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a Messenger; Messengers before him passed away; his mother was a just woman; they both ate food. Behold, how We make clear the signs to them; then behold, how they perverted are! ⊠Say: âPeople of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion (la taghlu fi dinikum), other than the truth, and follow not the caprices of a people who went astray (dallu) before, and led astray (adallu) many, and now again have gone astray from the right way.â
5:72â77
The Jews say, âEzra is the Son of Godâ; the Christians say, âThe Messiah is the Son of God.â That is the utterance of their mouths, conforming with the unbelievers before them. God assail them! How they are perverted!
9:30
Thus Jews and Christians were criticized for overstating the roles of âUzayr and Jesus, by referring to them as âGodâ or as âthe son of Godâ. The Christians were also criticized for the âmonasticism they invented â We did not prescribe it for themâ (57:27). The Jews in turn were also castigated for their defamation of Jesus as being an âillegimateâ child; as well as for sanctioning marriage between half-siblings.12 Owing to such extremes in religious beliefs, Muhammad is reported to have admonished his followers not to be excessive in their beliefs: âThose who went before you came to ruin because of extremism in their religion (halaka man qablakum biâl-ghuluwwi fÄ«âl-dÄ«n)â and âbeware of exaggeration in religion (iyyÄkum waâl-ghuluww fÄ«âl-dÄ«n).â13
A further central concept to which Muslims must adhere is the injunction âcommanding right and forbidding wrongâ (al-amr bi al-maârĆ«f wa an-nahy âan al-munkar), a central and vital concept, mentioned in various places in the Qurâan (3:104, 110, 114; 7:157; 9:71, 112; 22:41, and 31:17).14 Within these directives, for example, the followers of Muhammad are called the âbest nationâ (khayr umma), and they are âcommanding right and forbidding wrongâ (3:110). It is a religious obligation that also concerns Muslim rulers and can be summarized as follows:
The principal function of government is to enable the individual to lead a good Muslim life. This is, in the last analysis, the purpose of the state, for which alone it is established by God, and for which alone statesmen are given authority over others.⊠The basic rule for Muslim social life and political life, commonly formulated as âto enjoin good and forbid evil,â is thus a shared responsibility of the ruler and the subject, or in modern terms, of the state and the individual.15
Apart from the believersâ active engagement in âcommanding right and forbidding wrongâ, âdisorderâ or âchaosâ (fitna) should be prevente...