[40] The Druze faith originated in Isma'ilism (a branch of Shia Islam),[41] and has been influenced by a diverse range of traditions, including Christianity,[42][43][44] Gnosticism, Neoplatonism,[42][43] Zoroastrianism,[45][46] Manichaeism,[47][48] Pythagoreanism.

[53] Additionally, Druze tradition honors figures such as Salman the Persian,[54] al-Khidr (whom they identify with Elijah, John the Baptist and Saint George),[55] Job, Luke the Evangelist, and others as "mentors" and "prophets".

The only early Arab historian who mentions the Druze is the eleventh century Christian scholar Yahya of Antioch, who clearly refers to the heretical group created by ad-Darazī, rather than the followers of Hamza ibn 'Alī.

[81] Outside the Middle East, significant Druze communities exist in Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America (mainly Venezuela,[10] Colombia and Brazil[dubious – discuss]), the United States, and West Africa.

Hamza gained the support of the Fātimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who issued a decree promoting religious freedom[87][88] and eventually became a central figure in the Druze faith.

These concepts superseded all ritual, law and dogma and requirements for pilgrimage, fasting, holy days, prayer, charity, devotion, creed and particular worship of any prophet or person was downplayed.

[102] In 1043, Baha al-Din al-Muqtana declared that the sect would no longer accept new pledges, and since that time proselytism has been prohibited awaiting al-Hakim's return at the Last Judgment to usher in a new Golden Age.

From their fortresses in the Gharb area (now in Aley District of southern Mount Lebanon Governorate), the Tanukhs led their incursions into the Phoenician coast and finally succeeded in holding Beirut and the marine plain against the Franks.

[112][page needed] Certain aspects of the faith, such as transmigration of souls between adherents and incarnation, were viewed as heretical or kufr (infidelity) and foreign by Sunni and Shia Muslims,[113] but contributed to solidarity among the Druze, who closed their religion to new converts in 1046 due to the threat of persecution.

The Sultan had Fakhr-al-Din and his sons killed on 13 April 1635 in Istanbul, bringing an end to an era in the history of Lebanon, which would not regain its current boundaries until it was proclaimed a mandate state and republic in 1920.

See the new biography of this Prince, based on original sources, by TJ Gorton: Renaissance Emir: a Druze Warlord at the Court of the Medici (London, Quartet Books, 2013), for an updated view of his life.

The sanguinary feuds between these two factions depleted, in course of time, the manhood of the Lebanon and ended in the decisive battle of Ain Dara in 1711, which resulted in the utter defeat of the Yemenite party.

[126] The battle's outcome also precipitated a mass migration of pro-Yamani Druze nobility and peasants from Mount Lebanon to the eastern Hauran, in a mountainous area today known as Jabal al-Druze.

[127] The relationship between the Druze and Christians has been characterized by harmony and coexistence,[128][129] with amicable relations between the two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus.

[139] The European powers then determined to intervene, and authorized the landing in Beirut of a body of French troops under General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, whose inscription can still be seen on the historic rock at the mouth of Nahr al-Kalb.

[145][page needed][146] Although most Druze no longer consider themselves Muslim, Al Azhar of Egypt recognized them in 1959 as one of the Islamic sects in the Al-Azhar Shia Fatwa due to political reasons, as Gamal Abdel Nasser saw it as a tool to spread his appeal and influence across the entire Arab world.

[148][page needed] When a local paper in 1945 reported that President Shukri al-Quwatli (1943–49) had called the Druze a "dangerous minority", Sultan Pasha al-Atrash flew into a rage and demanded a public retraction.

On 25 July 2018, a group of ISIS-affiliated attackers entered the Druze city of Suwayda and initiated a series of gunfights and suicide bombings on its streets, killing at least 258 people, the vast majority of them civilians.

The tumultuous reception that Sfeir received not only signified a historic reconciliation between Maronites and Druze, who had fought a bloody war in 1983–1984, but underscored the fact that the banner of Lebanese sovereignty had broad multi-confessional appeal[163] and was a cornerstone for the Cedar Revolution in 2005.

[271] Maté is made by steeping dried leaves of the South American yerba-maté plant in hot water and is served with a metal straw (بمبيجة bambīja or مصاصة maṣṣāṣah) from a gourd (فنجان finjān or قَرْعَة qarʻah).

[298] In contrast, according to Ibn Abidin, whose work Radd al-Muhtar 'ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar is still considered the authoritative text of Hanafi fiqh today,[299] the Druze are neither Muslims nor apostates.

[305] This fatwa was not accepted by all in the Islamic world, many dissenting scholars have argued the Druze recite the Shahada as a form of taqiya; a precautionary dissimulation or denial of religious belief and practice in the face of persecution.

[343][344] The Deir el Qamar Synagogue was built in 1638, during the Ottoman era in Lebanon, to serve the local Jewish population, some of whom were part of the immediate entourage of the Druze Emir Fakhr-al-Din II.

[355] The Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred as "a covenant of blood" (Hebrew: ברית דמים, brit damim) in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.

Talea' adds that, over time, the Druze developed a strong sense of their pure Arab origins, believing that, apart from their unique religious practices, their spiritual and material culture closely mirrored that of the broader population of Greater Syria.

[112][page needed] Travelers like Niebuhr, and scholars like Max von Oppenheim, undoubtedly echoing the popular Druze belief regarding their own origin, have classified them as Arabs.

[73] According to Jewish contemporary literature, the Druze, who were visited and described in 1165 by Benjamin of Tudela, were pictured as descendants of the Itureans,[378] an Ismaelite Arab tribe, which used to reside in the northern parts of the Golan plateau through Hellenistic and Roman periods.

[380] In a 2005 study of ASPM gene variants, Mekel-Bobrov et al. found that the Israeli Druze people of the Mount Carmel region have among the highest rate of the newly evolved ASPM- Haplogroup D, at 52.2% occurrence of the approximately 6,000-year-old allele.

Recent genetic clustering analyses of ethnic groups are consistent with the close ancestral relationship between the Druze and Cypriots, and also identified similarity to the general Syrian and Lebanese populations, as well as the major Jewish divisions (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Iraqi, and Moroccan Jews) (Behar et al.

[388] A 2016 study based on testing samples of Druze in the historic region of Syria, in comparison with ancient humans (including Anatolian and Armenian), and on Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool by converting genetic distances into geographic distances, concluded that Druze might hail from the Zagros Mountains and the surroundings of Lake Van in eastern Anatolia, then they later migrated south to settle in the mountainous regions in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.