CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE DRUSES
One branch of the Ismaelis has developed along quite different lines from the others growing from the same parent stock. In the mountainous districts of Syria south-west of Damascus dwell the Druses, a people with curious customs and a religion peculiar to themselves. They number from 200,000 to 300,000. Their only employments are agriculture and the manufacture of silk. They are a fierce, warlike and virile race; fine horsemen, and splendid fighters. One of their war chiefs, Hussein Pasha Atrash, Lord of Anz, helped to raise three regiments of Arab cavalry for Lord Allenby in the Great War, and was created a colonel of native forces in the British Army.
They were formerly nominally subject to the Ottoman Empire as they now are to the French mandate in Syria; but neither control has been accepted willingly, and the Druses are ever inclined to revolt. In a recent outbreak in 1925 Druse cavalry actually attacked and captured a French tank, a feat worthy of the people whose war-song runs:
“ We are the children of the Maruf.
Among our rocks is sanctuary.
When our spears grow rusty
We make them bright
With the blood of our enemies.”1
Old established custom with almost the force of a moral obligation decrees that the Druse must always carry arms, so as to be able to help his brother in time of need.
1 W. B. Seabrook, Adventures in Arabia, 1 928.
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This and other precepts of their religion have caused the Druses to be regarded as bound together in one national secret society, derived at the taste of the reporter from the Templars or Freemasonry or heaven knows what else, and for this reason a synopsis of what is known concerning their rites will not be out of place.
The Ismaeli sect produced some unamiable scions in the Karmathians, Ansars, and Assassins; but the original Druses were also of this sect, and have evolved for the better. The peculiar Druse religion was established in the eleventh century a.d. 1 At that time there was reigning in Egypt the sixth Fatimite Caliph Flakim Biamr Allah. He became ruler at a very early age, and his reign was distinguished for cruelty, persecution of the Jews and Christians, and conflicting decrees declaring the orthodoxy of this or that tenet of the Mohammedan religion. En¬ couraged by two men, Darazi, a Turkish mulatto, and Hamsa, a Persian, in the year 1029 Hakim made a public declaration of his own divinity. This was too much for his monotheistic subjects to accept, and within a short time he was assassinated, his own sister being the instigator of the murder. She feared for her own life, for Hakim was a puritan where women were concerned, and had forbidden them to put a foot outside their houses on penalty of death ; and Sitt Almouc, the sister in question, had overstepped many other moral limits besides her own threshold.
The Arab writer Nowairi said of Hakim: “He was a man of corrupted beliefs, continually changing his conduct and manner of being. At the beginning of his reign he displayed great luxury, at its close a simplicity carried to extremes. He was seized with the mania of passing himself off as God, of professing the doctrine of metempsychosis publicly, and of urging people to accept these dogmas.”
The population had arisen and tried to massacre the favourites who were encouraging their ruler in his madness, and to save his life Darazi was sent into the Lebanon district, where he converted the tribe of the Druses to the new
1 In the following account, where authorities differ, I have usually followed Silvestre de Sacy.
324 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
doctrine which they have held ever since then. His work was completed by Hamsa (or Hanitsa) the Persian mystic who composed the Druse Scriptures, Kitab-el-Hikmet, or the “Book of Wisdom,” supposed to have been in the first instance dictated by God to Hakim.1 The Druses venerate Hamsa as the actual founder of their faith.
To sum up that religion in a condensed form: God is unity; He has manifested himself to men several times in a human incarnation, the last occasion being in the form of Hakim Biamr Allah; and Hakim did not die, but dis¬ appeared to test the faith of believers, and will reappear in glory and majesty, and extend his empire all over the earth. The Druses further hold that the Universal Intelligence is the first creation of God, and that it has always revealed itself on earth at the time of one of His manifestations; and that in the time of Hakim it appeared in the form of Hamsa. Further, that Hamsa is the first minister of true religion, which he communicates directly or indirectly to all true believers, together with the knowledge and grace which he receives directly from God.
As for reincarnation, the number of men is always the same, and their souls pass consecutively into different bodies, in an ascending or descending scale as they have observed or neglected the tenets of the true religion, and the practice of its seven commandments.
These seven commandments are:
To be true in their words.
To watch over their reciprocal security.
To renounce any former religion.
To have no connection with anyone professing another faith.
To confess that the Lord (Hakim) has existed in every epoch.
To be content with his will, whatever it may be.
To resign themselves without reserve to his orders, whether in happiness or adversity.
1 A copy of this book was stolen by a Syrian Christian doctor in the seventeenth century and presented to Louis XIV. It is still to be found in the Bibliotheque Royale, and there is a French translation in the Vatican.
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In fulfilment of these commandments, a Druse is not bound to tell the truth to a person of another religion. Special laws exist relating to marriage and conduct, so that a woman will be put to death for unfaithfulness or for marrying an unbeliever. Converts and renegades are practically unknown.
In the administration of their laws they are just and impartial. It is a point of honour with them to do justice and make restitution to all, whether Druse, Mohammedan or Christian. A Druse chief has been known to kill his own brother for dishonouring a Christian woman. Guests are held sacred, and a familiar proverb runs: “A house that cannot protect its guests is unworthy to stand.”
Their towns, even as everything else about them, have distinct characteristics. A recent traveller 1 has likened one of them, Souieda the capital, to a hill-town of Britanny — massive grey stone walls, square parapets, and solid, closely set buildings intersected by narrow streets. No domes or minarets as are usual in Mohammedan cities appear in the Druse country.
In such fastnesses the feudal Druse aristocracy maintain the old customs and traditions, though influenced nowa¬ days by their contact with the coastal cities. In the interior, however, the peasants are absolutely untouched by civiliza¬ tion, and remain dominated by their own faith. In such parts superstition (i.e. belief in Black Magic and in possession by evil spirits) holds sway. The local wizards have tremen¬ dous influence over the peasantry. Many of these seers are said to display strange occult powers, which are probably the result of mesmeric phenomena.
As has been said, the Druses are pure Unitarians. One of their legends runs that the prophets (Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed) were all sent in turn, and converted the whole world save the small Druse tribe. The Angel Gabriel was subsequently despatched to inquire why the Druses alone remained obdurate, and the message he took back to Heaven ran: “God is enough for us.” The story cannot of course be accepted literally, for the Druses
y 1 Seabrook, ut. sup.
326 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
were actually Moslems till the eleventh century; but it does illustrate the stern monotheistic creed of the people.
A sharp cleavage in dress and customs exists between the religious Druses, known as Akils or elders, and the warrior class or J akils. All Druses take part in the religious services, but only the Akils have been admitted to the inner mysteries. These are probably symbolic rituals with secret words and litanies, whereby initiates recognize one another, although this is not actually known to be a fact.
Akils are men of upright life who have assumed special vows and obligations. They are sworn to monogamy, and are required to give advice and material help at the request of any member of their race. Neither smoking nor drinking is permitted to them, and they are forbidden to show signs of anger, excitement, pride, hunger or thirst. They are obliged to walk in a stately, dignified manner and must never break into a run, and they are not allowed to fight in tribal raids or family feuds, but only in defence of the whole tribe.
A candidate for Akilship must go through three very severe tests.
He fasts for three days and two nights. Then on the third night he attends a feast of the Akils, but no food must touch his lips. When the banquet is over he is left with some of the best dishes untasted before him for the remainder of the night. No spies are employed, but it is left to the candidate’s honour to confess if he succumbs to the frailties of the flesh and tastes food. If he withstands the temptation, he enters upon the second stage.
Here he rides for three days under the desert sun without water, and on the third night sits holding a goblet in his hands while the other Akils drink refreshing sherbets, etc. Again he remains alone all night with water within reach. Should he again emerge undefeated, he rests and regains his strength for a week, and then attempts the third and last test.
He attends a sumptuous banquet, and then enters a room where a beautiful naked girl is reclining on a divan. She is trained in every erotic art, and may use all her wiles and
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allurements in the struggle to arouse his physical desires during that one night. If by morning he has van¬ quished the temptations of lust as he has previously with¬ stood the temptations of hunger and thirst, he is created an Akil, and the inner mysteries are revealed to him. About them nothing certain is known; they are popularly supposed to contain elements of Black Magic.
Should any novice fail in one of the tests, he is not subjected to ridicule or reproach. The Akils merely say: “It is no small thing to be a Jakil ,” and the candidate is then sent to join the ranks of the less ascetic warriors.
Probably the best-known and most curious article attributed to the Druse religion by its opponents is that of the golden calf. Venture wrote in 1786: “The common opinion is that this golden calf is the object of adoration by the Adepts; but I feel myself authorized to give the assurance that, far from being the object of their creed, it is only exposed to view as the emblem of other dominating religions, which are on the point of being overthrown by the legislator of the Druses.”
With this opinion De Sacy agrees.1 He suspects that the calf is the emblem of Iblis, the enemy or rival of Hakim ; whereas the commonly received opinion was that Hakim was worshipped in the shape of a calf.
Both these authorities therefore accept the calf as an integral part of the Druse religious ceremonial, but a recent observant traveller2 states that many of the people deny its existence, and that he could find no authentic evidence to suggest a hiding-place for this image. His theory is that if it does exist, probably Hakim (that is, Hamsa) incorporated into his teaching the symbol of the calf (already familiar to many of the ancient religions) but intended it as an emblem only. Later it was idolatrously worshipped, and though the practice was condemned by many of the Druse sages the image may have been retained
1 Silvestre de Sacy, Expose de la religion des Druzes, 1838.
2 Seabrook, ut. sup.
328 FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
secretly, merely as the original symbol of Hakim’s doctrine, and may still be worshipped by some of the unenlightened, who confuse the emblem with the spirit behind it. All this is pure supposition, and when he elaborated his theory to an old and highly educated Druse, the only answer he received was the enigmatic : “Well, it’s an ingenious theory.”
The Druse belief in Reincarnation was probably derived and adapted from the Indian theory of the transmigration of souls. The Druses hold that each Druse soul returns immediately after death into the body of new-born baby, a habitation which may be better or worse than its previous abode.1 Ultimately, they maintain, all will have had an equal chance, and on the Judgment Day the Druses will have Heaven or Hell decided for them on their averages. There have been, it is said, certain curious cases of the survival of personal memory, but these are exceptional.
In war, when deaths outnumber births, the warriors’ souls are supposed to fly to a mountainous region in Western China and are born again in Chinese babies — thus re¬ cruiting a race that will one day help the Druses to conquer Arabia and the world.
Seabrook was privileged to attend a service in the Druse Temple — a big, one-storeyed stone structure with a vaulted roof, completely devoid of interior decorations, save for rugs on the floor and high stools where the Scriptures are laid. Heavy black curtains in the centre screen the Druse women from inquisitive eyes. He considers it probable that the most secret and closely guarded mysteries are celebrated in the crypts of the Temples.
No priest presides at these public services. Several Akils read passages from Kitab-el-Hikmet relating to precepts of morality and general conduct, and later the congregation join in prayers which in their form are akin to litanies: they are generally couched in terms of formal praise and thanksgiving and seldom take the form of petitions, since specific requests are regarded as unbecoming when addressed
1 It will be noted that the belief recorded in this form by Mr. Seabrook varies from the doctrine attributed by De Sacy to the orthodox Druses, that the souls pass consecutively into different bodies in an ascending or descending scale as they have observed or neglected the tenets of the true religion.
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to the Omnipotent. The extracts from the “Book of Wisdom” often have striking parallels in the Bible and the Koran.
In the matter of religious tolerance, the Druses combat the Moslem sects of the Sunnites, attached to the letter of the Koran, and the Ismaelis partizans of the allegorical interpretation; but towards Christians and Jews they are not so bitter, and hold that the Gospels preach unitarianism symbolically, and were inspired by Hamsa.
A general survey of all the available evidence points to the conclusion that they comprise what is undoubtedly a religious sect and no secret society. Whatever the mysteries of that religion may be, or whatever the reasons for concealing them from the profane, it has certainly succeeded in forming a brave and moral people, worthy in many respects of our admiration and esteem.