An Arab country that’s pro-Western and has a non-Muslim majority? Though it sounds like something that could exist only in an alternate universe, there’s a chance that such a state could emerge from the ongoing conflict in Syria. Alawites make up only 12 percent of the Syrian population, but they overwhelmingly dominate the regime: the family of the tyrant-ruler Bashar al-Assad is Alawite, as are the elite members of the military, the bureaucracy, and the intelligence agencies. The majority of Syria’s population, by contrast, is Sunni Muslim, and the opposition to Alawite rule is overwhelmingly Sunni. When the dust clears in Syria, the Alawites could conceivably beat a retreat to their historic heartland in the northwestern mountains along the Mediterranean. “It is now clear that this is where the Syrian conflict is headed,” writes Syrian expert Tony Badran in Foreign Policy. “Sooner or later, Assad will abandon Damascus. . . . Reports are emerging of internal population migration as Alawites begin moving back to the ancestral mountains.”
Alawites are sometimes inaccurately described as Muslims. In fact, their religion has as much in common with Christianity and Gnosticism as with Islam. They splintered from Shia Islam more than 1,000 years ago and have been going their own way ever since. They venerate Ali, the cousin of the prophet Mohammed, but they also believe that human beings used to be stars. They don’t pray five times a day as Muslims do. Much of their religion is secret. No one can convert to Alawism: you’re either born an Alawite or forever frozen out of the fold.
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