Did you know there is a secretive religious group in the Middle East called the Druze who have been strictly marrying within their villages and bloodlines for thousands of years?
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Who are the Druze?
Druze, also spelled Druse, are a small Middle Eastern esoteric group whose religion incorporates concepts close to Sufism, Greek philosophy and Gnosticism. You are born into the religion, you cannot convert.
The Druze number around 1,500,000 and live in Northern Israel (most in Golan Heights Galilee/Nazareth), Lebanon (around Jabal al-Druze or the "Mountain of the Druze") and Syria, with smaller communities in other countries. They call themselves muwaḥḥidūn (“unitarians”).
The Druze do not associate with Islam or follow Islam's practices. Druze faith originated in Egypt as an offshoot of Isma’ili Shi’ism.
Many Druze religious practices are kept secret, even from the community as a whole. Only an elite of initiates, known as ʿuqqāl (“knowers”), participate fully in their religious services and have access to the secret teachings of the scriptures, Al-Ḥikmah al-Sharīfah.
The seven pillars of the Druze faith
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Truth in words: Speak the truth to other Druze. However, lying to unbelievers to defend yourself or the community is OK. They think it fine to appear to be Muslims to Muslims, or appear as Christians to Christians, and to say false things about what they believe.
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Watchfulness: Defend each other (including by force) and help and aid one another.
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Absolute renunciation all former religion, including non-Druze Islam.
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Dissociate completely from unbelievers.
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Recognize al-Hakim as the One visible God. (Includes recognizing other previous manifestations of God too)
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Complete resignation, content with what God does.
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Complete obedience, submitting to the orders of God, or his agents, until al-Hakim's return.
In the Druze faith, reincarnation is the soul’s journey from one life to another on a path towards the ultimate Truth. The soul builds on previous knowledge acquired in its previous life.
The Druze believe that through reincarnation, our experiential knowledge from previous lives never goes to waste. The spiritual knowledge that we acquire in one life is preserved into our next life. To continue to grow that knowledge, a Druze child must be born to parents who can nurture their progress in faith towards the ultimate Truth. Therefore, both parents have to be Druze to foster the eagerness to acquire more spiritual and non-spiritual knowledge in their children.
The five-pointed star
The Druze symbol is a five-pointed star, symbolizing the five ministers of the call:
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Green symbolizes the mind (Arabic al-akl), which is necessary for understanding the truth
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Red symbolizes the soul (Arabic an-nafs)
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Yellow represents the word (Arabic al-kalima), the purest form of expression of the truth
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Blue (Arabic as-sabiq) is for the mental power of the will
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White (Arabic al-tali) is the realization that the power of the will has been materialized in the world of matter.
Druze sheikh holding a gold coin minted in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Fatimid caliphs Al-Hakim and his son and successor Al-Zahir.
Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh, Israeli Druze politician and journalist on election day, April 9, 2019.
Star of Druze: green=intelligence and reason), red=soul, yellow=word, blue=precedent and white=immanence.
Approximately 1.5million Druze people exist, residing primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.
More Druze information
As one of the oldest and rarest religious communities on Earth, the Druze offer many examples of choosing the less trodden path.
"Say Hello to the Druze of Israel!" Full documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyov605Xy5I
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