The Nusayri - ‘Alawis: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria

Friedman offers new and updated research on the Nusayri-‘Alawi sect, today a leading group in Syria, covering a variety of aspects and focusing on the Middle Ages. A century after Dussaud’s Histoire et religion des Nosairis (1900), he reviews the history and religion of the sect in the light of old documents used by orientalists in the nineteenth century, documents that became available in the twentieth century, and later sources of the Nusayri-'Alawi sect published most recently in Lebanon. Also studied in depth for the first time is the question of the identity of the sect through the 'Alawi-Sunni-Shi'i triangle.