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Alawites [b] are an Arab ethnoreligious group [17] who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism. [18] A sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ghulat branch during the ninth century, [19] [20] [21] Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence.
Both the opposition and government have accused each other of employing sectarian agitation. The opposition accused the government of agitating sectarianism. [20] Invoking minority sentiments and fears had long been a key policy of the Assads to ensure the regime's support amongst disenchanted Alawites.The regime dispatched the most loyal of the Alawite army units to fiercely crush the biggest ...
The Alawites are the biggest Muslim minority sect (10% of the country's population [2]), followed by Isma'ili and Twelver Shia Muslims, which constitute about 3% percent of the country's population. [3] Some Sufi orders are also active in the country, including the Naqshbandiya, the Qadiriya and the Shadhiliya orders, most of whom identify as ...
The Alawite community - from which the Assad family originates - are the largest Muslim minority group in Syria, making up roughly 10 per cent of the population and situated largely in Syria’s ...
The Alawites are the second largest religious group in Syria, after the Sunni Muslims. [8] They are divided into two main groups: traditional Alawites, who form the majority, and the minority Murshid Alawites (which rose from a modern schism in the Alawite sect at the beginning of the 20th century).
Bāṭiniyyah is a name given to an allegoristic type of scriptural interpretation developed among some Shia groups, stressing the bāṭin (inward, esoteric) meaning of texts. It has been retained by all branches of Isma'ilism and its Druze offshoot. Alevism, Bektashism and folk religion, Hurufis and Alawites practice a similar system of ...
Alawites had also opposed Iranian intervention in Syria and complained that Iran was a threat to the Alawite faith due to its Shia conversion campaigns in the Alawite regions with tacit approval of the Assad government. [15] The Assad regime faced increasing opposition from the Alawite community as the Syrian civil war progressed. [16]
A surprise offensive by rebel forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime has led to a new round of fighting in the Middle Eastern country's long-running – but until recently ...