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The Nusayri-'Alawis: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria. By YARON FRIEDMAN. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 77. Leiden: BRILL, 2010. Pp. xxii + 325. $186.
René Dussaud' s Histoire et religion des Nosairîs (Paris, 1900) was the first comprehensive publication on the history and doctrines of the Nus ay ris, an esoteric religious minority inhabiting the coastal mountains of northern Syria. Since then, publications on the Syrian sect have focused mainly on specific texts and doctrines, which has resulted in narrowing interest in the sect to a small number of specialists, despite the growing attention the Nusayri-cAlawis received after their rise to power in Syria in the second half of the twentieth century.
An up-to-date, thorough study of Nusayri history and doctrines is therefore long overdue, making Yaron Friedman's The Nusayrl-cAlawls a most welcome publication. Much like Dussaud, Friedman provides a synthesis of the works of his predecessors. However, what distinguishes his contribution to the field is the use of new primary sources, such as manuscripts in Western libraries that have not yet received adequate attention and a series of Nusayri primary texts recently published in Lebanon by the same hard-line Maronite establishment that was behind the publication of the Druze Rasayil al-hikma ("Epistles of Wisdom") and other anti-Druze literature during the Lebanese civil war. The changes in the political alliances in post-civil war Lebanon dictated a shift in the uncompromising Maronite propaganda, from the Druze, with whom they have since established closer relations, to the Syrians, who are now viewed as the main obstacle in the way of full Lebanese independence. Thus "divulging the secrets of the Nusayri faith" has become a tool in the fight against Syrian influence in Lebanon, resulting in a set of ten volumes of religious texts by some of the most prominent figures from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries ce., the "golden age" in Nusayri history. The larger part of these sources was previously unavailable to scholars and Friedman's book represents the first systematic analysis of these texts.
The book is divided into a section each on the history, religion, and identity of the Nusayris. According to Friedman, the group rose from within the ghulat circles in Kufa that were...