Samer Areej – Lebanon Today
Recently, campaigns targeting symbols of the Unitarian Druze sect and its historical and religious references have escalated, but what is striking at this stage is that the attack is no longer limited to sheikhs or contemporary figures, but rather is targeting one of the most important founding figures of Druze identity throughout history, Prince Jamal al-Din Abdullah al-Tanukhi.
What is most striking is that this targeting does not come from one side, but rather from two apparently contradictory trends that are politically and intellectually at odds, but they converge at one point, which is the reinterpretation of the personality of the Emir and his history in a way that serves contemporary political projects that have nothing to do with the historical reality in which he lived nor with the role he played in consolidating the Druze Unitarian identity.
Mr. Prince is not just a religious figure or jurist who lived at a certain stage in history. Rather, he is one of the most prominent people who preserved the heritage of monotheism, established the specificity of the Druze monotheistic sect, and established the features of its religious and intellectual identity over the centuries. For this very reason, he has today become the target of contradictory attempts, each of which seeks to exploit his legacy for the benefit of its own project.
The first trend seeks to present the Druze as part of the broader Sunni political and sectarian framework. In this context, dozens of publications and video clips have emerged from partisan media outlets covering the prince’s biography under the title of defending him or responding to those who attack him.
However, many believe that the problem does not lie in defending Mr. Illiterate, but in the way in which this defense is presented.
Some of these materials not only highlight his affiliation to Islamic civilization, but go further by trying to portray him as a Sunni figure in the sectarian sense common today, suggesting that the Druze sect is nothing but an extension of the Sunni doctrine.
Here lies the great irony.
The man who devoted his life to consolidating the uniqueness of the Druze and their religious independence, his name is being used today to justify the abolition of this same specificity. The man who preserved the sect’s identity through centuries of transformations is presented in a way that suggests that this identity did not exist in the first place.
On the other hand, another trend appears that goes in the exact opposite direction, but reaches the same result.
This trend attempts to separate the Druze from their Islamic and Arab surroundings, and works to portray the sect as if it were a completely separate entity from the Islamic history in which it emerged and developed.
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This trend is led by accounts on social media of expatriates at times and fake accounts at other times, and it is not unlikely that the Israeli intelligence services support this campaign with the aim of alienating the Druze from their history and establishing a new religious framework that serves Israeli geopolitical interests, in a plan that began in Suwayda following the massacres that took place under.In sight The Israeli forces before those forces decided to intervene after it was too late and thousands of martyrs had fallen
Hence the campaigns targeting the Emir, the sheikhs, and major religious figures, which seek to reread history in a way that uproots the Druze from their cultural and religious roots, and places them in confrontation with the environment in whose history they were an integral part for centuries.
Between these two contradictory projects, Mr. Prince becomes the biggest obstacle for both parties.
The first movement needs to be presented as a symbol of Sunni doctrine in order to justify the project of dissolution within the Sunni political and sectarian framework.
The second movement needs to distort its image or distort its legacy in order to justify the project of separating the Druze from their Islamic and Arab surroundings.
As for the historical truth that both parties are trying to overcome, it is that Mr. Prince embodied a completely different equation, which is Islamic affiliation on the one hand, and preserving the independent monotheistic identity on the other hand.
He was not a caller for the dissolution of the Druze monotheists into any other sect, nor was he the author of a project to break with the Islamic world.
It is not a coincidence that these campaigns are accompanied by repeated targeting of sheikhs, religious authorities, and historical symbols of the sect. Every project that seeks to change the identity of a group usually begins with rewriting its history and reinterpreting its founding symbols.
In the midst of this conflict, the position of the supreme spiritual authority of the Druze Unitarian sect, His Eminence Sheikh Abu Yusuf Amin Al-Sayegh, stands out as an extension of this historical line, based on protecting identity as the Unitarians inherited it from their fathers and grandfathers and from Prince Jamal al-Din Abdullah al-Tanukhi, not as others are trying to reformulate it according to political calculations and the interests of the moment.
The real battle today is not over the person of Mr. Prince, but over the meaning that he represents. Therefore, defending him is not by turning him into a tool in a political project, nor by uprooting him from his historical context, but rather by reading his biography as it is, and understanding the role he played in consolidating an identity that has remained steadfast despite all attempts at distortion and alteration.
Precisely for this reason, Prince Al-Tanukhi remains a constant target for anyone who wants to change the identity of the Druze sect, because he represents living proof that the Druze monotheists were able throughout history to be part of their Arab and Islamic surroundings, without losing their privacy or abandoning their religious and intellectual independence.
