Alawites are what some scholars call a cult, the traditionalist imams do not even consider them Islam and actually it is an initiatory religion, with secret implications and rites, known only to the initiated – not unlike the cult practiced by the Druze, allocated in the Golan and Lebanon.
The conflict in Syria broke out in 2011 with a series of popular demonstrations, internal conflict, apparently a civil war between the Government of the Ba’ath Party and the opposition forces. The demonstrators demanded that President Bashar Assad presented his resignation. The father, Afez Assad, leader of the Ba’ath, was elected president in 1971. Most of the supporters of President Assad is Shiite while the majority of his opponents is Sunni.
In April 2011, the Syrian Army was ordered to fire on demonstrators, probably already infiltrated by foreign fighters financed by CIA. Hence began a series of battles that were the prologue of an open rebellion.
The opposition forces consist in a part of the soldiers who have left the Syrian Army. In November the Islamic Al Nusra Front – the so-called “moderate” opposition – enters the battlefield, followed in 2013 by the Hezbollah who support Assad and his regular Army. Russia and Iran too militarily support the Assad government. Battles between Shiites and Sunnis begin. In 2014 ISIS starts supporting the conflict with an imposing military force, US and France begin an inconclusive bombing and militarily supporting the “moderate” opposition. In late 2015, the Russian forces join the conflict and sweep the territory ruled by ISIS bringing the troops of Assad to regain a part of the nation.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, however, support the “moderates” rebels and ISIS, Iran supports Assad. The two Arab countries are Sunni and Salafi, while Iran is Shiite. But the Assad family is Alawites, and this makes things very, very complicated.
The Alawites are currently around one million three hundred thousand faithful, of whom one million in Syria, where they represent 12% of the population. Three quarters of the Syrian Alawites live in the northwestern region of Latakia in Syria, bordering Turkey.
The Alawi doctrine dates back to the ninth century A.D. and it is derived from the Twelvers, a Shiite strand of Islam that rejects “standard” doctrine, and are therefore considered not authentic Muslims by other believers, especially by Sunni.
Some Alawi doctrines are considered to derive from Phoenician paganism, from the theories of Mazdak, Persian reformer of the 500 A.D., and Manichaeism. The stronger relevance and if we want, the more shocking, is there with Christianity. Alawi religious ceremonies see the use of bread and wine; in fact, drinking wine has a sacred role in the Alawi faith as it represents God, and so the communion of the faithful with Him. This religion sees Ali, the fourth Caliph, as the incarnation of the deity, just as in Christianity Jesus.
Also in the Alawite religion there is a Trinity, represented by Muhammad, Ali and Salman Al Farsi, Persian slave freed by the Prophet. Even more curious is the fact that the Alawis celebrate many Christian festivals, such as the Nativity of Jesus, the New Year, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost and Palm Sunday. Even they honor many Christian saints: St. Catherine, St. Barbara, St. George, St. John the Baptist, St. John Chrysostom and St. Mary Magdalene.
The Alawis tend to have friendly attitudes more with Christians than with Muslims. Some scholars, and particularly the missionaries, have argued that they combine Christian practices with the Shiite ones, resulting in a religion strongly affine to Christianity. Contrary to Islam, which does not require a intermediary between the divinity and the faithful, in the Alawite faith only to the males born by two Alawi parents is permitted to learn religious doctrines, kept strictly secret and they do not have institutional places of worship.
Women generally perform the jobs that men consider improper for a male, and are admired for this. They are not obliged to wear the veil and have more freedom of movement than the other Muslim.
The Sunnis have shown over the centuries their contempt for the Alawis, who were repeatedly massacred. As response the Alawites pray for the destruction of the Sunnis. They have always been part of the poorest and most uneducated part of the Syrian population, because kept at the margins, in the countryside and isolated in the rugged mountains of the north, which have represented for them a voluntary prison, protected them, and at the same time also isolated them from progress. This at least until the 40s, after they had found in the French, and in their mandate of government, a safe shelter.