Alawite

The Alawites (Alawiyyun, historically called Nusayris after Muhammad ibn Nusayr, a 9th-century follower of the eleventh Shia imam) are an Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious people whose heartland is the coastal mountains of north-western Syria around Latakia and Tartus. The tradition was organised by al-Khasibi in the 10th century and carried to the Syrian coast, where persecution under Sunni rulers pushed the community into remote mountain villages. Under the French Mandate they had their own Alawite State (1920-1936). From 1970 the Assad family, Alawites from Qardaha, ruled Syria, which made the community the backbone of the army and security services; after the regime fell in December 2024, sectarian massacres on the coast in March 2025 killed well over a thousand Alawite civilians. Smaller communities live in northern Lebanon (Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli, Akkar), in Turkey's Hatay, Adana and Mersin provinces, where they call themselves Arab Alevis to set themselves apart from the Turkish and Kurdish Alevis, and in the single village of Ghajar on the Israel-Lebanon line.

Alawite villages are clan-based and close-knit, with marriage inside the community. Women have traditionally enjoyed more freedom of dress and movement than in conservative Sunni society, and wine and arak are not taboo. Shrines (ziyaras) of saints and prophets dot the coastal mountains and are visited for vows and sacrifices, mostly by women. Food is Levantine: kibbeh, bulgur dishes, mitabla and bisara in Ghajar. Rural Alawites farmed tobacco, olives and citrus in the mountains; in Syria many moved into the army, the civil service and the cities.

Alawites revere Ali ibn Abi Talib as the manifestation (ma'na) of God, with Muhammad as the name (ism) and Salman al-Farisi as the gate (bab), and believe in the transmigration of souls. The full doctrine and scriptures are taught only to initiated men; outwardly the community identifies as Shia Muslim. Worship takes place in homes and gathering places rather than mosques, wine is used in ritual, and the calendar includes Eid al-Ghadir, Nowruz and Christmas. Religious practice is better preserved in Turkey than in Syria, where decades of Ba'athist rule secularised much of the community.

Arabic Bibles, the JESUS film and audio resources are available in Arabic. The Alawite honouring of Christ, Christmas and saints such as St George offers bridges, while secrecy, community loyalty and, in Syria, fear and trauma after 2024-2025 are barriers. JP counts about 0.02% evangelical; very few Alawite churches are known.

Ghajar, on the Hasbani river where Israel, Lebanon and Syria meet, is the only Alawite village under Israeli rule. Its people chose Syrian nationality in 1932 and asked to remain with the Syrian Golan in 1967; after the 1981 annexation they received Israeli citizenship. The UN's 2000 Blue Line put the northern half in Lebanon, Israel took the whole village again in the 2006 war, and Hezbollah cites it as Lebanese land. For two decades a closed military zone, the village opened to Israeli visitors in September 2022 and became a destination for Syrian-Alawite food.

On 6 March 2025 insurgents loyal to the fallen Assad government ambushed security forces near Jableh and seized parts of the coast. The government mobilised its forces and allied factions, and over the following days fighters swept through Alawite villages and quarters of Latakia, Jableh, Baniyas and the Tartus, Homs and Hama countryside, killing families in their homes. Syria's National Commission of Inquiry counted at least 1,426 dead, mostly civilians; monitors' counts range from 1,334 to about 1,700, and some estimates are higher. Thousands fled to the Russian base at Hmeimim and to Lebanon. A government trial of 14-16 accused (seven from government forces, seven Assad supporters) opened in November 2025, and the first verdicts, on 17 September 2026, gave one death sentence, one life term and one 20-year term.