Hisham Bou Nassif wrote in Call of the Nation
Druze Islam and Arabism periodically resurfaces as an issue that needs reconsolidation. What is striking is that no one in Lebanon outside one of its Druze leaders seems interested in the issue.
I have not heard a single Muslim leader in our country, or opinion holder, or writer, express his opinion on it, or criticize the Druze that their Islam is incomplete, and this is credited to the Muslims of Lebanon.
Compare, for example, the lack of interest in this issue with the debate surrounding Hezbollah’s weapons, federalism, the relationship with Iran, or corruption and financial collapse.
It is clear that the Lebanese are interested. If any Muslim does not care about the issue, then the validity or otherwise of Druze Islam is not, of course, on the mind of a single Christian.
Whoever raises the issue seems every time he does so like a local Don Quixote fighting imaginary enemies that no one sees except him.
The Druze are one of Lebanon’s four major components, along with its Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites. Whether they are true Muslims from a legal point of view, or a group in which Islamic beliefs are mixed with other tributaries such as Greek philosophy, or a completely separate religion, they will remain a Lebanese component.
Unlike all the constitutions of other Arab countries, the Lebanese constitution does not impose Islam as the state religion, nor does Sharia as a primary source of legislation. The Druze beliefs are theirs alone, and they are free to hold them. The matter ends here.
Digression: The Druze are not required to prove their loyalty to Arabism. On the other hand, Arabism is required to prove that it accommodates the Druze. Does it accommodate them?
As a reminder: After Sultan al-Atrash spent a lifetime fighting the French, he boycotted Syria’s independence celebration from them in 1946. Why? Because the Arab independence government intended to show its lack of interest in him and the Alawite leader, Saleh Al-Ali, and reserved rooms for them in an old, inappropriate hotel in Damascus in which they were supposed to spend the night after the celebration (here you can review Hassan Al-Qalish’s book, The Alawite Express Train).
Also as a reminder: Ahmed Hamroush is one of the Free Officers, companions of Abdel Nasser. Hamroush wrote in his memoirs that the Egyptian leadership required that officers be religious in order to appoint them to sensitive positions in Syria.
As for Nabil Al-Shuwairi, the old Baathist, he reveals in his long dialogue with Saqr Abu Fakhr that the officials of the Nasserist regime at the time of the United Republic were refusing to appoint Christian officers to leadership positions, and they argued that the Druze and Alawite officers should convert to Islam, and that the Druze and Alawite clerics should be sent to Al-Azhar in Egypt to teach them the correct Islam.
If the Arab regime par excellence, that is, Nasser’s regime, dealt with the Druze in this way, then why are they forced to evacuate Arabism day and night? Later, of course, Arabism returned to rule Syria through the Baath Party starting in 1963.
What were the first achievements of Baathist officers at that time? The coup against their Druze comrades Fahd Al-Shaer and Salim Hatoum, who was brutally killed by Abdul Karim Al-Jundi and his ribs broken, before the Baathists expelled dozens of Druze officers from the ranks of the Syrian army.
In fact, several Syrian Druze officers wrote their memoirs, most notably Fadlallah Abu Mansour, Abd al-Karim Zahr al-Din, and Amin Abu Assaf. What is confirmed in the memoirs is the feeling of the Druze officers that the successive regimes in Damascus were biased against them, all of which after the independence of Syria were Arab.
So I repeat my question: Does Arabism accommodate the Druze? Does it accommodate any non-Sunni component? Is Arabism anything other than a code name for the priority of Sunnis over others in the region, just as resistance is an ideological justification for the priority of Shiites?
The situation is that whoever puts the Druze in a position of constant begging for others to acknowledge their Islam and Arabism is insulting them. If his argument is that the Druze of Syria went too far in their alliance with Israel, and it became necessary for their brothers in Lebanon to revive the traditions of verbal exaggerations about Arabism and Islam, then the argument is not convincing because the Druze of Lebanon are not responsible for what the Druze of Syria or Israel do.
Knowing that the real question in Syria is not why Hikmat Al-Hijri bets on Israel, but rather who put the knife to his neck and pushed him towards it? In the end, no one is required to apologize for choosing life over death.
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