DRUSES, the adherents of an esoteric religion founded in the 1 ith century after Christ by the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, Al-hakim bi'amrillahi, the son of a Russian mother, who pro claimed himself an incarnation of God, established a reign of terror at Cairo and finally disappeared mysteriously (A.D. ion). They take their name from his missionary, Ismail Ad-darazi, who preached the cult of Al-hakim among the Syrians. Their origin is probably mixed; their traditions derive them from Arab col onists, but some of their chief families claim Turkoman or Kurdish descent and there is an obvious North Syrian (Armenoid) infusion among some of the Druses in the Lebanon. They have al ways been confined to Syria, and like other small and often per secuted Near Eastern sects, such as the Yazidis and the Assy rian Christians, have preferred the relative security of the mountains to the insecure advantages of the plains. They have three strongholds—the districts of Shuf and Metn in the Lebanon, the western slopes of Mt. Hermon, and the mountains which separate the cornlands of the Hauran from the Syrian desert. There are Druse villages on Mt. Carmel, and small outliers of no political importance in Northern Syria and in the Anti Lebanon. French statistics estimate their numbers at 48,000 in the Hauran mountains, which are generally known as the Jabalu'd-Duruz (i.e., mountain of the Druses), 7,00o in the Hermon area, and 43,00o in the Lebanon. There are about 7,000 Druses in the British mandated territory of Palestine, and an unknown number in the United States of America, where the Druse immigrant usually passes as a Syrian Christian. The per mission given to a Druse to conform outwardly to the faith of the unbelievers among whom he dwells, which is an interesting feature of their religion, makes it difficult to attempt an estimate of the number of Druses living outside the Syrian strongholds of the sect.
The name Druse is first mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela (c. A.D. r r 70) and little is known of the beginnings of the politi cal power of the great families whose history is that of the Druse community. The Druses first appear in Arab records as mountain villagers of Lebanon, Hauran and West Hermon, yielding feudal service in return for military and political protection to various families of seigneurs (Al-umara) who quarrelled incessantly for the headship of the community. Their chief political centre lay in the southern Lebanon. Khalwatu'l-Bayadh in the Hermon was their religious centre at a very early date ; the Hauran community was unimportant. Religious proselytism has been discouraged or forbidden by their spiritual chiefs in recent centuries; but the fact that Maliku '1-Ashraf, the Mameluke sultan of Egypt com pelled the Lebanese Druses to conform outwardly to Sunni Islam about A.D. 13oo suggests that their leaders, the Tnuh House, had sought more than political domination over the mixed population of "the mountain." After their defeat by the Mamelukes the power of the Tnuh waned, to the advantage of the Maan family, recent immigrants from northern Arabia who may have been proselytes.
The Maan amirs were shrewd and politic ; the family threw its influence and retainers into the scale against the Mamelukes when Selim the Grim invaded Syria in 1516. The victor recognized their supremacy over the Druse, Muslim and Maronite chiefs of the Lebanon, and for three generations they throve mightily under Turkish protection. The reign of Fakru'd-din Maan II. marked the zenith of their power. By treaties, by the protection of small chiefs against great, and by successes in various baronial wars, he extended the feudal sway of his house nearly as far as Antioch in the north, built a castle at Palmyra in the eastern desert and drew a large revenue from the ports of Beirut, Saida (Sidon), Latakia and Tripoli in Syria. Success, however, turned his head ; he intrigued against the Turk, and in 1614 was defeated by the pasha of Damascus and fled to Italy, where he intrigued with the rulers of Tuscany and Naples and apparently invented the prop agandist myth that the Druses were descendants of a crusading count of Dreux. In 1619 he returned, recovered his power and ruled as an independent prince until 1633, when a Turkish army defeated and captured him with his sons. The bow-string ter minated their lives at Constantinople.
After a welter of civil war, in which the combatants were divided into the ancient Arab factions of Yemenis and Qaisis—the Shana vests and Caravats of the Arab world—a new family, the Shehab of Mt. Hermon, became master of the mountain. They were descendants of early Arab governors of Hauran, had intermarried with the Maan family, and deserted them when they fell. But they never adopted the Druse creed and several of them appear to have become Maronite Christians in the i8th century, thus causing the dangerous suspicion of apostasy to fall on the house. From Haidar, third of the line, who defeated the Turks and Druse rivals at Ain Dara in r 7 r i, to Beshir the last great Shehab amir, they played the old game, now rebelling against the weak sultans of the decadence, now bribing their governors, and constantly at war with the rival house of Jumblat. Beshir became amir of the mountain in 1786 and for 54 years, with two brief intervals of exile, held his own by the time-honoured expedient of aiding and betraying one rebel satrap of ter another. He successively supported and betrayed Ahmad Jezzar and Abdullah of Acre, and cultivated the friendship of infidel admirals; threw in his lot with Mohammed Ali of Egypt and his son Ibrahim, but deserted them in 1839 when the Powers, save France, were turning against them. But Ibrahim held Druse hostages, and so Beshir, though he promised much, gave little help to Powers or Porte. After Ibrahim's expulsion from Syria the Turks called him to account. He fled to Malta on a British ship but was induced to go to Constantinople, where he died in 185r.
Beshir may have been a crypto-Christian ; his successor Beshiru'l-Qassim openly joined the Maronites, hoping to defeat Druse rivals with their aid. It was a suicidal policy; even the Druses of the Shehab faction distrusted and disliked their Chris tian allies; the rest became perforce pro-Muslim, and the Turkish Government, which was carrying out the centralizing policy ini tiated by Mahmud the Reformer, saw danger in the alliance. For the next 20 years the history of the Lebanon is a monotonous record of murder, intrigue and civil war. The Maronites rebelled once, the Druses twice, against the Turks, who half-heartedly attempted or pretended to impose reforms desired by the European Powers upon the turbulent mountain chiefs. Three constitutions were successively bestowed upon the Lebanon, which was twice "disarmed"; European interference increased the exasperation of Druses and Muslims against the Maronites, and the scandal cul minated in massacres of Christians which extended to the coast and to Damascus, where some 2,50o Christians were slaughtered and foreign consulates sacked (July 9, r 86o) . The Powers inter vened. A French army occupied the Lebanon for nearly a year, and the Porte, after appointing a Christian governor-general of the Lebanon, conferred a large measure of autonomy on the province by the Organic Statute of Sept. 6, 1864. The change made an end of the political importance of the Lebanese Druses. Beshiru'l-Qassim had been murdered; his family had lost wealth and prestige, and henceforth Druse political interests in Lebanon were mainly confined to such harmless subjects as the rivalry be tween a Jumblat or an Arslan for the governorship of a county. Those who found the change too distasteful migrated to the Hauran. The rest made the best of it, and till 1918 remained a conservative, rather aloof community, influential in the parish politics of the southern Lebanon.
The Hauran Druses.—By r 84o the influx of malcontents from the Lebanon had increased the small Druse community in the Hauran to 7,00o souls. For some time they remained inde pendent and held out successfully in their stronghold, the lava field of the Leja, against Ibrahim Pasha's Egyptians in 1839, and Kibrisli Pasha's Turks in 1852. Their government was then theocratic under the Rais (chief) of the `Uqqala (initiated) in Suwayda. In 1879 Midhat, the reforming governor-general of the Damascus province, found them troublesome and formidable neighbours. Their numbers had increased to over 20,000 and their repression required an army corps. He imposed a qaimaqam (lieutenant-governor) upon them and the office after a while became vested in the house of Atrash (pl. Turshun), but the majority of the clans refused taxes and military service. In 1896 the contumacious clans were defeated and their country ravaged by a Turkish army; but the campaign was costly and the Turks agreed to a compromise whereby the Druses were to pay taxes and serve as frontier guards on the desert edge in their own territory. A governor with a small Turkish force was stationed at Sheikh Saad, outside Druse territory proper, and the clans were left to fight as they pleased with the Beduin whom they usually defeated. After the Turkish revolution of r 908 the Government decided to garrison points in Druse territory. Some of the Turshun re volted in r 9 r o but the rebels were defeated and their chief, Yahya, executed. (D. G. H.; G. BE.) The French Mandate.—The Druse polity in the Hauran at the end of the World War remained feudal. The cultivated land attached to each village was communally owned and re-allotted at varying periods among the cultivators. The lords had pre scriptive rights to the produce of certain demesne lands which their peasants cultivated for them, but a peasant revolt late in the 19th century had restricted these demesnes. The ten noble families kept open house and maintained armed retainers. Clan solidarity and the sense of obligation between nobles and peasants were strong, but family jealousies usually prevented the chiefs from acting in unison.
During the World War the Druses, who had gained economic advantages by the opening of the Hejaz railway on the western edge of their territory, sat prudently on the fence and made money out of their crops until Sept. 1, 1918, when a section led by Sultan Pasha Al-Atrash assisted Feisul and Col. Lawrence during their advance on Damascus. There Sultan Pasha gave the Sherifians trouble, and Lawrence has recorded that he was well-nigh strangled during a conference by the redoubtable Auda abu-Tayyi. The Druses maintained an attitude of reserve towards the Sherifian Government and after its overthrow by the French under Gen. Gouraud in July 192o, refused to join the Hauran Muslims in resisting the French mandate. Late in the year they entered into negotiations with the French, and on March 4, 1921, an agreement was signed by the acting high commissioner, M. de Caix, and sealed by a number of Druse spiritual and temporal chiefs, where by the Druse mountain (Jabalu'd-Duruz) was granted an inde pendent national government headed by an elected native governor under the French mandate. On May 1 an informal assembly of notables elected Salim Pasha Al-Atrash governor at Suwayda, the capital of the new state. His relatives gave trouble, and in the same year his kinsman, Sultan Pasha, exasperated by the arrest in his house of a suppliant who had attempted to murder Gen. Gouraud and was seeking asylum, revolted with his retainers. Next year he was amnestied of ter some skirmishing. In Sept. 1923 Salim died, and the Druse council, which had not been con stitutionally elected but appointed by private understanding among the lords, could not agree concerning the election of a governor, and unconstitutionally elected Capt. Carbillet the French adviser to the Druse state as their provisional governor.
War with France.—In Prof. Toynbee's words (Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, vol. i., pp. 1925), the new governor, while sincere, disinterested and energetic, was "tyrannical in his methods and psychologically blind . . . to a degree which made it inevitable that his well-meant efforts should end in disaster. . . ." He filled the treasury, supplied the country with roads, schools, irrigation channels, reservoirs, and justices of the peace, founded a museum, and in the autumn of 1924 gave effect to Article 4 of the de Caix Agreement by conducting elec tions for a new council, which promptly violated Article 3 of the agreement by electing him as the regular governor. Capt. Car billet's policy was directed against the chiefs, notably the Turshun, but his strict imposition of forced labour and of a rigid system of passes, and his imprisonment of recalcitrants, who were occa sionally incarcerated in his coal-cellar, exasperated the peasantry.
In April 1925 Druse delegates waited on Gen. Sarrail, the new French high commissioner in Syria, to complain of their governor, and to point out that his election was a violation of the de Caix Agreement. The general brusquely dismissed them, and subse quently stated in writing that he repudiated the agreement. Mean while the governor went on leave. His French locum tenens warned Sarrail of the growing excitement among the Druses and was dismissed. Druse petitions remained unheard, and another delegation was rebuffed. On July II Gen. Sarrail ordered his delegate at Damascus to summon the Druse "conspirators . . . on the pretext of receiving their demands" and then hold them as hostages. Three confiding notables appeared, and were exiled to Palmyra. On July 20 Sultan Pasha rebelled, and having sur prised and defeated a small French force next day, invested Suwayda on July 22. Gen. Sarrail made light of the revolt, and on Aug. 2-3 a column 3,00o strong, comprising some unreliable colonial troops, was attacked near Azra' while marching to relieve Suwayda, and lost its transport, most of its guns, and more than a quarter of its men. A general Druse rising followed.
The rebels promptly established contact with the pro-Sherifian elements in Damascus and with the nationalist and anti-French "People's Party." Its leader, Dr. A. Shahbandar, and other chiefs fled to the Druses to avoid arrest, and early in September pro claimed a "National Syrian Government." The French repulsed a Druse raid on Damascus on Aug. 24 and relieved Suwayda a month later, but were unable, owing to transport difficulties, to force the Sultan to a general action. The retreats that followed their advances encouraged the hostile Muslim elements in their rear, and the revolt in Damascus and the bombardment of the city (Oct. 18-2o) marked the beginning of the Syrian Nationalist revolt, the history of which is narrated elsewhere. (See SYRIA : History.) In the course of this unequal struggle the Druses proved themselves far better fighters than the Muslim insurgents, and they were the last to submit. At one moment they seemed likely to inflict a grave disaster upon the French. The Hermon Druses joined the revolt late in Sept. 1925; Zaydu'l Atrash son of the Sultan came to their aid, surprised Hasbayya on the night of Nov. 9-1o, and prepared to invade the Lebanon, where he ex pected to be joined by the local Druses and the Shiah Muslims (Matawilah) of the Sidon hinterland. The heroic defence of Rashayya by a handful of troops saved the situation, and French reinforcements cleared the Hermon region in December. Thence forward the Hauran Druses fought a losing battle. Abdu'l-Ghaffar Al-Atrash and other chiefs opened negotiations with Gen. Andrea in Oct. 1926, which ended of ter some months in their surrender on honourable terms. The Leja was conquered in the spring of 1927, and Sultan, who had established a camp at Qasru'l Azraq, in the British mandatory territory of Transjordan, was compelled by British armoured cars and Transjordanian police to withdraw into Ibn Sa'ud's desert dominions with the remnant of his fol lowers, and their families. He settled at Qurayyatu'l-Milh in the Wadi Sirhan with, perhaps, Soo families, who were well received by the Wahabi king, though a lasting friendship between the "Puritans of Islam" and the non-Muslim Druses seems improbable. Col. Clement Grandcourt was appointed governor of the Hauran in 1927 and the French military chiefs, who respected Druse valour, did their best to restore good relations.
Customs.—The Hauran Druses have some of the vices and all the virtues of oriental mountaineers. They are intelligent, self respecting, and hospitable, but cruel and, by Western standards, treacherous. The women enjoy much consideration; polygamy is forbidden, and they join the men in religious functions. Divorce may be initiated by the wife. The veil is obligatory; some Druse women, indeed, will not unveil in the presence of a foreign woman. Feminine dress is black, with red slippers. The men usually wear a black under-robe with white girdle, and a white roll round the red fez, which is now almost the sole distinguishing mark of the Lebanon Druses. (For religious observances see above.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-G. H. Churchill, The Druzes and Maronites under Bibliography.-G. H. Churchill, The Druzes and Maronites under Turkish Rule from 1840 to 186o (1862) ; Gertrude L. Bell, The Desert and the Sown (1907) ; T. P. Hughes' article "Druses," Dictionary of Islam; British Admiralty, Handbook of Syria (H. M. Stationery Office, 192o) ; French Government's Provisional Report to the League of Nations (1925) ; the League of Nations Minutes of the Eighth Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission (1926) ; A. J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, vol. i., pp. (1927). (P. GR.) Druses, a term for the Muwahhidin (Unitarians), as the Druses call themselves, who believe that there is one and only one God, indefinable, incomprehensible, ineffable, passionless. He has made himself known to men by successive incarnations, of which the last was Hakim, the sixth Fatimite caliph. How many these incarnations have been is stated variously; but 7o, one for each period of the world, seems the best-attested number. Jesus appears to be accepted as one such incarnation, but not Muham mad. No further incarnation can now take place: in Hakim a final appeal was made to mankind, and after the door of mercy had stood open to all for 26 years, it was finally and for ever closed. When the tribulation of the faithful has reached its height, Hakim will reappear to conquer the world and render his religion supreme. Druses, believed to be dispersed in China, will return to Syria. The combined body of the Faithful will take Mecca, and finally Jerusalem, and all the world will accept the Faith. The first of the creatures of God is the Universal Intelligence or Spirit, impersonated in Hamza, Hakim's vizier. This Spirit was the creator of all subordinate beings, and alone has immediate communion with the Deity. Next in rank, and equally supporting the throne of the Almighty, are four Ministering Spirits, the Soul, the Word, the Right Wing and the Left Wing; and beneath these again are spiritual agents of various ranks. The material world is an emanation from, and a "mirror" of, the Divine Intel ligence. The number of human beings admits neither of increase nor of decrease, and a regular process of metempsychosis goes on continually. The souls of the virtuous pass after death into ever new incarnations of greater perfection, till at last they reach a point at which they can be re-absorbed into the Deity itself ; those of the wicked may be degraded to the level of camels or dogs. All previous religions are mere types of the true, and their sacred books and observances are to be interpreted allegorically. The Gospel and the Qur'an are both regarded as inspired books, but not as religious guides. The latter function is performed solely by the Druse Scriptures. As the admission of converts is no longer permitted, the faithful are enjoined to keep their doc trine secret from the profane ; and in order that their allegiance may not bring them into danger, they are allowed to make out ward profession of whatever religion is dominant around them. To this latter indulgence is to be attributed the apparent indiffer entism which leads to their joining Muslims in prayers and ablu tions, or sprinkling themselves with holy water in Maronite churches. Obedience is required to the seven commandments of Hamza, the first and greatest of which enjoins truth in words (but only those of Druse speaking with Druse) ; the second, watchful ness over the safety of the brethren ; the third, absolute renuncia tion of every other religion ; the fourth, complete separation from all who are in error; the fifth, recognition of the unity of "Our Lord" in all ages; the sixth, complete resignation to his will; and the seventh, complete obedience to his orders. Prayer, how ever, is regarded as an impertinent interference with the Creator; while, at the same time, instead of the fatalistic predestination of Islam the freedom of the human will is distinctly maintained. Not only is the charge of secrecy rigidly obeyed in regard to the alien world, but full initiation into the deeper mysteries of the creed is permitted only to a special class designated 'Aqils (Arabic Aql, intelligence), in contradistinction from whom all other members of the Druse community, whatever may be their position or attainments, are called Jail, the Ignorant. About 15% of the adult population belong to the order of `Aqils. Ad mission is granted to any Druse of either sex who expresses will ingness to conform to the laws of the society, and during a year of probation gives sufficient proof of sincerity and stability of purpose. There appears to be no formal distinction of rank among the various members. Exceptional influence depends upon excep tional sanctity or ability. All are required to abstain from to bacco and wine ; the women used not to be allowed to wear gold or silver, or silk or brocade, but this rule is commonly broken now ; and although neither celibacy nor retirement from the af fairs of the world is either imperative or customary, unusual re spect is shown to those who voluntarily submit themselves to as cetic discipline. The `Aqils are distinguished by the wearing of a white turban, emblematic of the purity of their life. Their food must be purchased with money lawfully acquired ; and lest they should unwittingly partake of any that is ceremonially unclean. they require those Jahils, whose hospitality they share, to supply their wants from a store set apart for their exclusive use. The ideal `Aqil is grave, calm and dignified, with an infinite capacity of keeping a secret, and a devotion that knows no limits to the interests of his creed. On Thursday evening, the commencement of the weekly day of rest, the members of the order meet to gether in the various districts, probably for the reading of their sacred books and consultation on matters of ecclesiastical or po litical importance. Their meeting-houses, khalwas, are plain, un ornamented edifices, in which the women assemble at the same time as the men, a part of the space being fenced off for them by a semi-transparent black veil. It has been frequently as serted that the image of a calf is kept in a niche, and traces of phallic and gynaecocratic worship have been vaguely suspected; but there is no authentic information in support of either state ment; and it is certain that the sacred books of the religion con tain moral teaching of a high order on the whole.
As a formulated creed, the Druse system is not a thousand years old. In the year A.D. 996 (386 A.H.) Hakim Biamrillahi (i.e. he who judges by the command of God), sixth of the Fa timite caliphs (third in Egypt), began to reign; he believed that he held direct intercourse with the deity, or even that he was an incarnation of the divine intelligence; and in A.D. 1o16 (4o7 A.H.) his claims were made known in the mosque at Cairo; in 1017 (408 A.H.) the new religion found a successful apostle in the person of Hamza ibn `Ali ibn Ahmad, a Persian mystic, who be came Hakim's vizier, gave form and substance to his creed, and by an ingenious adaptation of its various dogmas to the pre judices of existing sects, finally enlisted an extensive body of ad herents. In 1020 (411 A.H.) the caliph was assassinated; but it was given out by Hamza that he had only withdrawn for a season, and his followers were encouraged to look forward with confi dence to his triumphant return.
It is possible, even probable, that the segregation of the Druses as a people dates only from the adoption of Hamza's creed. But when it is recalled that other inhabitants of the same mountain system e.g., the Maronites, the Ansarieh, the Metawali and the Isma'ilites, also profess creeds which, like the Druse system, differ from Sunni Islam in the important feature of admitting incarna tions of the Deity, it is impossible not to suspect that Hamza's emissaries only gave definition and form to beliefs long estab lished in this part of the world. Many of the fundamental ideas of Druse theology belong to a common West Asiatic stock; but the peculiar history of the Mountain is no doubt responsible for beliefs, held elsewhere by different peoples, being combined there in a single creed. Some allowance, too, must be made for the probability that Hamza's system owed something to doctrines, Christian and other, with which the metropolitan position of Cairo brought Fatimite society into contact.