Patriarch and Nuncio to visit village where Druze attacked Christians

Maghar (AsiaNews) – Next Sunday, Mgr Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Mgr Pietro Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio to the Holy Land, will visit the village of Maghar, in the Galilee, where Druze residents recently attacked local Christians—who did not react in kind—forcing some 2,000 of them to flee their homes.

At 10:30 am, the Patriarch and the Nuncio will celebrate a festive liturgy as a token of solidarity towards Maghar Christians. Leaders from other Christian Churches in the Holy Land shall also take part in the event. Foreign ambassadors have been invited.

Maghar is a village of about 18,000 residents 15 km from the Sea of Galilee (aka Lake Kinneret or Lake Tiberias) and 40 km from Nazareth. Half of its population is Druze*, Muslims are 35 per cent and Christians, largely Melkite Catholics represent the remaining 15 per cent.

The violence was sparked by a false rumour, namely that a Christian schoolboy had posted photos of naked Druze girls on the internet. For two days Druze youths rioted in the Christian neighbourhood under the indifferent eye of Israeli police and without any violent counteraction by Christians.

In a letter to Israeli President Moshe Katzav, Archbishop Michel Sabbah and Catholic leaders in Israel placed the responsibility for what happened to the Christians on Israel’s security forces.

In an interview with Israeli daily Haaretz, Sabbah said that while Israel stationed almost an entire army to guard a tiny group of settlers in Hebron, a neighbourhood in Maghar was almost destroyed without any reaction from the police. Only the intervention of Nuncio Sambi did lead to the police re-establishing control over the village.

Fr Maher Abud, the parish priest of St George’s Catholic Church in Maghar, spoke to AsiaNews about the incident.

“The Druze attacked us four times. The first two times with the Israeli police looking on, actually withdrawing from the village. I called the nuncio to tell him about the situation. Mgr Sambi then called the authorities demanding that they intervene.” Only on Sunday, three days after the unrest had begun, did 300 police officers arrive.

Thinking about what happened on Friday and Saturday, Christians are simply dismayed at the inaction of the Israeli police, Father Maher said.

The violence left “seven people injured—two from gunshot wounds—and 70 stores and homes looted and burnt,” Father Maher said. “The façade of the church is damaged from stone throwing, 155 cars were torched and 2,000 Christians fled to nearby villages.”
After intervening the commanding officer of the police unit sent to the village called what he saw a ‘pogrom’.

The police arrested 26 Druze; 18 of them are still in custody waiting trial, including four Druze police officers.

Father Maher pointed out that Maghar Catholics “have been bearing the brunt of the idea that might is right. It is not the first time that the Druze have targeted them.”

“I do not mean to accuse all Druze,” the priest stressed. “There are among them people of good will but they cannot keep in check those who are violent”.

Eyewitnesses said that in this attack—others took place in 1990—Druze “went after Christian homes and businesses”. And what’s more, in spite of several calls, the local fire department did not intervene to put off the fires.

Maghar Christians now fear for themselves and their children. “Our students,” Father Maher said, “don’t want to go back to school in the village because they are afraid that the humiliation Druze students were already inflicting upon them will just get more violent.”

Even before the latest violence, some 200 Christian students from Maghar attended school in nearby villages to avoid being pestered by Druze.

“I am not a Saint, but neither am I afraid,” said Father Maher. “If the road to sainthood requires martyrdom I am ready.”

Catholic leaders: Israel has abandoned our security

By Jack Khoury

Police on Tuesday arrested five Druze men on suspicion of involvement in violent weekend clashes between Druze and Christians in the mixed village of Maghar in the Galilee.

Leaders of the Catholic community in Israel said Monday that Israel has abandoned its responsibility for the security of members of their community.

In a tough letter sent to President Moshe Katzav, Archbishop Michel Sabah and Catholic leaders in Israel placed the responsibility for their security on Israel's security forces.

In an interview with Haaretz, Sabah said that while Israel stationed an entire army to guard a tiny group of settlers in Hebron, an entire neighborhood in Maghar was almost destroyed without any reaction from the police.

Earlier on Monday, police said a 16-year-old Druze boy admitted to spreading a rumor that sparked the violence, a charge the teen later denied.

Dozens of Christian businesses were burned to the ground, and many Christian families fled the village during riots that began Thursday evening after a rumor spread that Christian youths had placed pornographic pictures of Druze girls on the internet.

After an extensive investigation that included experts on computer-related crimes, police determined the youth had lied to his friends about the pictures after he was angered by derogatory marks about Druze made by an unidentified man with whom he had corresponded by e-mail.

However, the teen said Monday that police were searching for a scapegoat and wrongly blamed him in an attempt to solve the problems in the village.

"Everything the police said is simply a lie," he said, adding that he has many Christian friends.

The youth's attorney, Zayed Salah, blamed the police for allowing the situation to get out of control.

"Last Monday the police had already received a complaint from the school principal regarding the story about the pictures, but didn't deal with it appropriately and waited until the rumor took off," Salah said. "I regret that the police are trying to solve all the problems of Maghar [by placing them] on the young shoulders of [my client]."

Police have seized the computers of four people who claimed to have either seen or received the pictures. An inspection revealed that the pictures were never on the computers.

The youth was held for questioning in connection with spreading false information, and police are continuing the investigation with the objective of locating additional suspects.

Police finished questioning the youth Sunday afternoon, but preferred not to make the information public due to fears of additional riots. A Northern Valleys District spokesman said the information was passed on to both Druze and Christian community leaders.

On Sunday night a large crowd of Druze gathered in the village due to a rumor that a large number of Christians were gathering in the village and the surrounding area. The Druze crowd was dispersed by community leaders.

A large police force remained in the village yesterday in order to prevent further outbreaks of violence.

The violent clashes peaked Saturday afternoon when eight residents of the village were injured, two moderately and the rest lightly. Three police officers were also lightly injured Saturday, including Northern Valleys District commander Yaakov Zigdon, who sustained a leg injury.

Northern District commander Dan Ronen called the violence "a pogrom."

......................

Clashes over 'naked women'

Jerusalem - Sectarian clashes erupted between Christians and Druze in the Israeli Arab village of Maghar for a second straight day on Saturday, wounding 10, including three policemen, residents said. Police intervened to quell the violence which was sparked by rumours that photographs of naked Druze women had been posted on the internet.

Two of the seven wounded villagers suffered bullet wounds.

Saturday's unrest broke out after Christians held a silent protest outside the village church against what they charged was police inaction during a rampage by hundreds of Druze youths on Friday in which Christian cars and businesses were attacked.

Regional police chief Dan Ronen acknowledged that the Christians had a point, charging that the Druze violence had amounted to a "pogrom", a strong word in an Israeli context given its original use to describe sectarian attacks on East European Jewish communities.

"I'm ashamed for the Druze community," said Ronen. "It's deplorable that a pogrom should have broken out because of rumours about pictures of naked Druze women being posted on the internet."

Police deployed in strength on Saturday and said they had no evidence to support the Druze allegations of improper photographs.

Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra visited the village and said: "These are the worst sectarian riots I have ever seen in the Israeli Arab community."

A breakaway sect of Shiite Islam, the 80 000 Druze are normally considered the most loyal of Israel's Arab communities and, unlike the Christians, do military service in the army.

A separate Druze community lives in the Golan Heights, where they have remained loyal to Syria, despite Israel's 38-year occupation of the territory.

In all, Israel counts some 1.2 million Arabs, of whom some nine percent are Christian.

The Middle East Peace Process: Patriarch Michel Sabbah's View

By Renée Schafer Horton

Not all Arabs are Muslims. Very few Palestinians are terrorists. Some are Catholic ambassadors for peace in the land of Jesus' birth.

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, from the pages of this magazine, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah issued a plea to U.S. Catholics concerning the plight of Holy Land Christians: "Please hurry. Our fate is here and the solution to our problem is in the United States. If the United States decides to solve the problem, it will be solved. If it does not decide, it will not be solved."

Precious little has changed in the ensuing years, although there have been intermittent peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Holy Land remains, for many, a place of nightmares, a world of two peoples drowning in an undertow created by the circular nature of their accusations against each other.

Patriarch Sabbah stands in the middle of the melee calling for justice. A man of very small stature—he is barely five feet tall—the patriarch possesses a great moral strength that he uses in his mission to free the people held hostage by this national conflict. His title bespeaks the honor accorded to the See of Jerusalem, one of only five patriarchates or principal historical sees in the Latin-rite Catholic Church, the others being Rome (Italy), Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Alexandria (Egypt) and Antioch (Syria).

War-weary Churchman

Patriarch Sabbah is tired, he says, of death. But he insists that Israel is the one who must now compromise because the Palestinians have already given up so much.

"The State of Israel encompasses 78 percent of historical Palestine," the patriarch said during an interview with St. Anthony Messenger last August, at the time of his meetings with the Arab-American Catholic community in San Francisco. "The remaining 22 percent was occupied by Israel in 1967 and this is all Palestinians want—a small part of what they had before 1947. This is not too much to ask. They want that 22 percent to be free of occupation, all of it. Israel cannot have both things—security and occupation. They must give up occupation for security."

The years of tension have taken their toll on the 68-year-old leader of the Holy Land's Roman Catholics. Patriarch Sabbah looked war-weary last summer when he visited the 800 Palestinian families who have relocated from his patriarchate to the Archdiocese of San Francisco. He spoke softly but with great intent, delivering the message he's been carrying with increasing vigor to various religious and political leaders over the past year: To end the violence in the Middle East, we must end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

This message mirrors that of Pope John Paul II since the Holy See established diplomatic relations with the State of Israel in 1994. "The Holy Father has been clear that the situation needs to be resolved in terms of international law," explained Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen, counselor on international affairs to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was in San Francisco for the patriarch's visit. "By the Lateran treaty, the Holy See cannot take a position on borders, but it reserves its right to make comment as to the moral adequacy of any Israeli-Palestinian agreement. And it holds that East Jerusalem is illegally occupied by military force."

Patriarch Sabbah's stand against occupation and in favor of nonviolent resistance has not won him many friends on either side of the issue. The Israeli government is angry that the patriarch insists Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip violates international law. Fundamentalist Muslims are upset because the patriarch condemns the violent resistance and because he began meeting in July with leading Israeli rabbis to dialogue for peace. There are even a few in his own flock of approximately 100,000 in Israel, Jordan and Cyprus who feel he does not pressure Rome hard enough to issue more forceful condemnations of the Israeli occupation.

But anyone spending time with the patriarch soon learns he is not concerned with being popular. He is concerned with only one thing: bringing peace to the land of Jesus Christ by prayerfully, yet powerfully, speaking the truth.

"Between the bombardments, the throwing of stones, demolished homes and hatred, the Church speaks of pardon and reconciliation, a language that is difficult for everyone," he said softly.

First Palestinian Patriarch

The Holy Land is historical Palestine, situated between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in the east and west, and bordered by Syria and Lebanon in the north and by Egypt in the south. The political-geographical terms for this area currently are Israel (78 percent of the land) and the Occupied Territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip), also called Palestine (22 percent of the land). It is on this land the Palestinians want to create their state.

Patriarch Sabbah hails from Nazareth, an Arab city within the State of Israel. He attended seminary in Bethlehem and was ordained in 1955 for the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem. He was a parish priest for a few years before being sent to the University of St. Joseph in Beirut to study Arab language and literature. Shortly thereafter, he became director of schools for the Latin patriarchate. He held that position until the Arab-Israeli war in 1967 in which Israel militarily occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which had previously been under the administration of Jordan.

Sabbah then moved to the East African nation of Djibouti to teach Arabic and Islamic studies until 1973 when he began doctoral studies at the Sorbonne in France. In 1980, he was named president of the University of Bethlehem, finding himself back where he started his journey toward priesthood.

In 1987, Pope John Paul II picked Sabbah as the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, making him the first native Palestinian in that position and the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land. Sabbah replaced Archbishop Giacomo Beltritti, one of a long line of Italian clerics to oversee the Latin-rite Church in Jerusalem.

Roman Catholics are approximately one third of the Christian population in the Holy Land (300,000 people out of a total population in Israel, Palestine and Jordan of 14 million people), with the remaining being primarily Greek Orthodox or Eastern-rite Catholics. There also are about 10 small Protestant denominations in the area.

"We must thank God we have very good relations among the Churches in the Holy Land," Patriarch Sabbah said. "There are 13 Churches altogether and three patriarchates whose religious life focuses around the holy places and who understand that through all the changes here in 2,000 years, there's been a continuity of Christianity in the Holy Land. We are as integral to this place as are Jews and Muslims."

All Christians in the Holy Land revere Patriarch Sabbah, not just Roman Catholics, according to Marianist priest Charles Miller, president of Ratisbonne Pontifical Institute in Jerusalem. Father Miller has served in the Holy Land for 30 years and spoke with the Arab-American community in San Francisco.

"They see Patriarch Sabbah as the person who can speak the truth. Christians, with Sabbah as their leader, have tried very hard to hold to an extremely difficult position here," Father Miller said. "They identify with the frustrations and justified aspirations of the Palestinians, which they themselves are, of course. But they call for a nonviolent approach to the problem, which is certainly not accepted by the vast majority of Muslims. I have been much impressed by the depth of his letters and sermons since the intifada began [in October 2000]. I think he is as good a leader as the Palestinian Christians have in any of the Churches."

Problem Not Muslims, But Fanatics

Patriarch Sabbah told St. Anthony Messenger that the biggest misconceptions U.S. Catholics have about the Holy Land are that all people of Arab origin are Muslim and that all Palestinians are terrorists. This makes it difficult for Catholics in the United States to remember that there are Christians in the Holy Land, indeed, that Christians have been there since the time of Christ. Father Labib Kobti, pastor of San Francisco's Arab-American Catholic community, agreed, noting that nearly 10 percent of the Arabic-speaking population is Christian.

"There are 150 million people in the world who are Arab Muslims and about 800 million people are Muslim, but not Arabic—these are in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, India and the old Soviet Union," Father Kobti said. "Then there are Arabs who are Christian. The Catholic priests serving the patriarchate in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth are all Palestinians—they are Catholics who are Arab."

Muslims in the Holy Land trace their beginnings to the seventh century when Muslim invaders ransacked the Holy Land and forced people to convert to Islam. Five centuries later, the Crusaders came through and did much the same thing in reverse: Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity. Various religious wars ensued, but for the better part of the past few hundred years, Christian Arabs have existed peacefully with Muslims as neighbors in the Holy Land and a number of surrounding countries. There is a mutual understanding that neither Muslims nor Christians can evangelize each other's flock.

"We must try to live in equal respect," Patriarch Sabbah said, "and this we work at daily."

"The problem has never been Muslims," Father Kobti added. "The problem is fanaticism. Palestinians are Christian and Muslim. Together in the Middle East they have created national states: Egypt, Syria, Iraq are all Christian and Muslim, so there is no problem with Islam, per se, for Christians. The problem is fanaticism, which can be a Christian phenomenon as well as a Muslim one. There are Christian Zionists, for instance, who are very supportive of Israel and do not even recognize that Christians in the Holy Land are persecuted and have their human rights violated."

Jews in the Holy Land consist of two sets of people, the first being a very small group present before 1947 when what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza was a British colony called Palestine. The second group of Jews—by far the larger—are those who came from all parts of the world after the creation of Israel in 1948 following a vicious war involving local residents, the British government and those Arab nations directly surrounding Palestine.

"In terms of our relationship with Jews and Palestinians, I think it is important to recognize that in World War II, two out of every three Jews in Europe were murdered," said Dr. Len Trubmann, cofounder of the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group in San Francisco. "After the war, no country would take the remainder, including the United States, so there was a great need for them to have a safe place to be. This is why a Jewish state was needed. But unfortunately, it was a very imperfect beginning for the State of Israel, and the Palestinians were not invited to the table when all these agreements concerning land were made. And we are now trying to recover all those traumas to both the Jews and Palestinians at that one moment in time."

Some Palestinians stayed in their homes during the 1947 invasion and refused to leave. They became Israeli citizens, although they do not have the same legal rights as the Jewish citizens of Israel. But most Palestinians fled and set up refugee camps across what was called the Green Line—the land on the west bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, and in what is now Jordan.

In 1967, Egypt, Jordan and other Arabic-speaking nations attacked Israel hoping to force Jews out of the Holy Land. Israel won the war, took control of all of Jerusalem and placed the West Bank under military control. While the cities inside the West Bank (except for illegal Jewish settlements) are under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, Israel owns the roads between the cities and Israel controls water rights. Thus, a Palestinian orchard can be without water while an Israeli golf course is green. Palestinians trying to get from Beit Jala to Bethlehem—both West Bank cities—have to go through Israeli checkpoints on the roads between the cities and can be denied entrance at whim.

Peace Process Far From Peaceful

Since 1967, Jewish settlers have been installing villages throughout the Occupied Territories in violation, Palestine asserts, of UN Resolutions 224, 194 and 478. In spite of the Madrid Conference in 1991 and the Oslo Accords in 1994, the peace process in the Middle East has been marked more by violence than by peace.

The latest rounds of talks ended in stalemate in January 2001. Father Christiansen said there is disagreement about what caused the breakdown of those talks. "There is this assumption that [then-Prime Minister Ehud] Barak offered the 1967 borders and Arafat said it wasn't good enough," the Jesuit said. "But he didn't offer those borders. Cartographers tell us he offered 55 to 70 percent of the West Bank, insisted upon leasing the Jordan Valley for 100 years and was going to keep control of the roads in the West Bank. There's no way Arafat could agree with that.

"In Arabic we have a saying, Inshallah—which means 'With God's will.' So yes, God willing, there's a possibility for peace," Father Christiansen said. "Conditions, however, are as bleak as I've seen them in the 10 years I've been involved in the region. People involved in second-track diplomacy are talking three years down the line, that after the Sharon government we will make some peace."

Patriarch Sabbah concurred. "Our hope is that this present generation of the Israeli government will pass and we'll have a new generation of Israeli leaders who will understand the situation and the rights of the Palestinians and have enough courage to give back to the Palestinians their land and their rights," he said.

U.S. Catholics Can Help

The patriarch still holds that the U.S. government is key to bringing peace to the Middle East because the United States "is the main country supporting Israel."

"They bear the same responsibility as Israel in the resolution of the conflict. Peace or war is in the hands of the Israelis and the United States together," he asserted.

U.S. Catholics can help in this area, Patriarch Sabbah said. "The Church is doing its best in order to help justice be done in the Holy Land. The bishops have stated we need to honor the 1967 borders and international law. Therefore, Catholics in America should find out what the Church is saying and listen to the bishops and do what they say.

"The American administration is trying to protect the Jewish people, but instead of helping, they are exposing the Jewish community to anger on the part of the Arab world. What can make the Arab countries friends for Israel? Justice for the Palestinians. U.S. Catholics must encourage their government for justice so Israel can truly be safe and the Palestinians can live in freedom and peace."

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

Both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have their figurative stones to throw. Palestinians decry Israeli President Ariel Sharon as a war criminal, remembering his actions as an army general with the Israeli Defense Forces.

Israel says that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat—who is married to a Christian Arab—harbors terrorists and refuses to make peace. Neither side wants to "give" much because Israeli leaders fear they will be perceived as rewarding violence if they agree to what Palestine is demanding and Palestinian leaders feel they will be seen as rewarding occupation if they give up some of their demands. So the cycle of violence continues.

"The Israelis don't call what they do violence—the shelling of civilian neighborhoods, the curfews, the blanket sieges of entire cities," Father Christiansen said. "It is presented as retaliation against Palestinian violence and prevention against more violence. But what [the Israeli government] does is violence. It is state terrorism, plain and simple."

Patriarch Sabbah said he prays daily for the peace of Jerusalem. In his letters, speeches and homilies, he never wavers from the Christian message of loving one's enemy. "The new education for peace and mutual acceptance must help the Palestinian and the Israeli see that the other is not an enemy to be hated, but a brother with whom a new Israeli and Palestinian society must be built," said Patriarch Sabbah, who is also president of Pax Christi International.

"All people we must love—those with whom we suffer and those who cause the sufferings—because, despite the evil which they can do, they remain the image of God, the children of God, loved by God their creator and their father," he continued. "Despite any evil they can do, they remain unable to demolish the love of God in themselves. But with this vision, we have to say to the Israelis, 'You are causing big damage. I love you, but you must give back what you took away.'

"Strengthened by the vision of God and his love for us all, we pray, we act, and we wait for the day when God will respond to the prayers of thousands and thousands who implore him for the peace of Jerusalem."

For more information on the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, visit www.al-bushra.org.

Patriarch Sabbah Deplores Terrorist Acts of September 11

"I would like to express...to the Church of America and the entire American people our solidarity and condolences for the terrible events which took place today in the U.S.A....We condemn these horrifying crimes and we are shocked and deeply saddened when we watched the extent of the catastrophe inflicted upon innocent people, which was caused by horrible acts of terrorism."

—Michel Sabbah, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem September 11, 2001

A Palestinian Primer on Middle East Terminology

The Holy Land: Historical Palestine, situated between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in the east and west, bordered in the north by Syria and Lebanon and in the south by Egypt. The political-geographical terms for this area are Israel (78 percent of the land) and Palestine or the Occupied Territories (22 percent of the land).

Israelis: A small number of Jews who lived in Palestine before the creation of Israel in 1948 and the immigrants from Europe and the United States who moved there between 1948 and the present.

Palestinians: Arabs who lived in Palestine before the creation of Israel and their descendants who now live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They may be either Christian or Muslim.

Arab-Israelis: Palestinians who refused to give up land and homes during the Arab-Israeli war of 1947 which resulted in the creation of Israel. They live inside the State of Israel, but are not allowed the same voting or human rights given to Jewish Israelis.

Zionists (sometimes referred to as settlers): Jews who believe it is God's will that all of historic Palestine—including the current Palestinian-controlled West Bank and Gaza—be settled by Jews. This is the minority of all Jews, but a larger group than fundamentalist Islamics, and they have gained more political control in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) recently since the election last year of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Fundamentalist Islamics: A small but growing faction of Muslims who believe Jews must be driven out of Israel. Their "military branch," Hamas, is often cited as responsible for suicide bombings.

Renée Schafer Horton has been published in The Texas Catholic, the Hawaii Catholic Herald, the North Texas Catholic, Catholic San Francisco, the Intermountain Catholic and San Francisco Faith. She is a staff writer for Catholic Vision in Tucson, Arizona. She spent five days in Israel last February interviewing and four days in August with the Arab-American Catholic community in San Francisco during the visit of Patriarch Michel Sabbah.

FYI
http://i-cias.com/e.o/druze.htm

Druze

Arabic: duruzî (singular) durûz (plural)

DRUZE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Last column: % Druze of the population
Israel 70,000 1.1%
Jordan 15,000 0.2%
Lebanon 210,000 5.7%
Syria 300,000 1.7%
Total *) 595,000 0.15%
Other countries 75,000
*) Calculated for the total population of North Africa and the Middle East, approx. 430,000,000.

Religion and group of people with somewhere between 350,000 (estimate of Western scholars) and 900,000 (figures as presented by the Druze) members (our estimates put it at around 600,000 in the Middle East and nearly 700,000 all over the world), living in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan, often in mountainous regions. There are also important Druze communities abroad, living in Europe and USA.
While the Druze are not regarded as Muslims by other Muslims, they regard themselves as Muslims as well as carriers of the core of this religion. The origin of Druze is to a large extent from a group of Shi'is, the Isma'ilis, but they have diverged much, and the Koran does not seem to be a part of their religion.

The Druze call themselves muwahhidun, 'monotheists'.
THEOLOGY

The theology of Druze religion is called hikma and its main theme is that God incarnated himself in the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, who disappeared in 1021. While most Muslims believe he died in 1021, the Druze disagree and believe that al-Hakim is awaiting to return to the world in order to bring a new golden age to true believers.
Druze believe in one God and claim that the qualities of God cannot be understood or defined by humans. Al-Hakim is worshiped in Druze religion, he is called 'Our Lord' and his cruelties and eccentricities are all interpreted symbolically.
But while God incarnated himself in al-Hakim in his unity, other aspects of God can be incarnated in other human beings. These aspects are represented with 5 superior ministers. Under the ministers one finds three other groups: functionaries, preachers, and heads of communities. The knowledge of this hierarchal system is the highest knowledge in the Druze religion.
Frequently we hear from sources about a calf in Druze religion. It is believed that the calf is a central symbol which represents the negative forces in the world.
The moral system of Druze religion consists of seven principles:

love of truth
take care of one another
renounce all other religions
avoid the demon (the calf?) and all wrongdoers
accept divine unity in humanity
accept all of al-Hakim's acts
act in total accordance to al-Hakim's will
Central in the the Druze world system is the belief in reincarnation, where all souls are reborn as humans, good as well as bad. Good people have a more fortunate rebirth than bad people. Behind this system is the belief that man cannot reach perfection and unite with God. Hell and heaven in this world view differ from most other Middle Eastern religions, and bear clear resemblances with Gnostic philosophy and religion, as heaven is only spiritual, where man stops being man and is saved from more rebirths. Hell is just as spiritual and is the distance from, and the longing to, unity with God which goes on in life time after life time for the bad.

MEANING OF THE DRUZE STAR

The Druze star symbolizes the five wise superior ministers, each with his quality. Green is for "the mind", 'al-'akl, which is necessary for understanding the truth. Red is for "the soul", 'an-nafs. Yellow is for "the word", 'al-kalima, which is the purest form of expression of the truth. Blue, 'as-sabik is for the mental power of the will. White, 'al-tali, is the realization of Blue, where its power has been materialized in the world of matter.

ORGANIZATION OF THE DRUZE COMMUNITY

The hikma is only known to an elite of religiously trained men, the uqqal. Most Druze know only parts of their religion's theology, and they are referred to as juhhal, 'ignorants'. One out of 50 members of the uqqal, reach as high as perfection, and are called 'ajawid, 'noble', and work as the real leaders of the Druze religion.
The uqqal take care of the religion for the juhhal, and they alone attend the religious meetings taking place at the night between Thursday and Friday, in ordinary buildings in the outskirts of Druze villages. For the Druze, the centre of religious activities is located to the mountainous region called Jabalu d-Duruz in Syria.
The juhhal perform few of the typical Muslim rituals, prayer is not performed in mosques, fast is not performed during the Muslim month of Ramadan, and there are no obligations of performing the hajj, Muslim pilgrimage.

LIFE STYLES

The Druze follow a life style of isolation where no conversion is allowed, neither out of, or into, the religion. When Druze live among people of other religions, they try to blend in, in order to protect their religion and their own safety. They can pray as Muslims, or as Christians, depending on where they are.
This system is apparently changing in modern times, where more security has allowed Druze to be more open about their religious belonging.
Druze have earlier been reported to practice polygamy. But there is no evidence of such a practice among Druze today.
Druze abstain from wine and tobacco. There are clear prohibitions against any practice that could involve profanity of the religion.
Druze have a strong community feeling, where they identify themselves as related even across borders of countries.
There are sources suggesting that the Druze was a people of their own even before conversion to the faith al-Hakim. Unsubstantiated theories point in direction of the Druze being descendants of Persian colonists, while another theory says they are descendants of Christians from the time of the crusades. The latter is not very likely, due to the fact that the first crusade came about 80 years after al-Hakim's disappearance.
Despite their practice of blending with dominant groups in order to avoid persecution, the Druze have had a history of brave resistance to occupying powers, and they have at times enjoyed more freedom than most other groups living in the Levant.

HISTORY

1017: The religion is established in Cairo. The religious orientation gets its name from one of the earliest followers of Caliph al-Hakim, Muhammadu d-Darazi. It is believed that it spread to many regions in the Middle East and North Africa, but that it is only the Druze that kept it up.
1516: The Druze comes under Turkish pressure as the Levant is conquered by the Ottomans. The Druze offers strong opposition, and keep a higher level of independence than their neighbours.
1918: Druze participates in the army of Faisal, thereby breaking a principle of non-participation outside their own community.
1921 March 4: The Druze are granted autonomy in the region of Jabalu d-Duruz, from the League of Nations.
1925: The Druze revolt, where Druze leaders protests against the liberalization of the society as promoted by French governor of Jabalu d-Duruz. The revolt ends with the arrest of the Druze leaders, and their being exiled to Palmyra.
1927: The Druze revolt is over, and the French starts a politics that is intended to keep the Druze away from Arab nationalism, and hence dependent upon the safety offered by the French.

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