Bibliographie
Primary Sources
Finn, James & Finn, Elizabeth A. McCaul (eds.), Stirring Times, Or, Records From Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856, 2 vols., London, C.K. Paul, 1878.
Lyde, Samuel, The Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh: A Visit to the Secret Sects of Northern Syria; with a View to the Establishment of Schools, London, Hurst & Blackett, 1853.
Lyde, Samuel, The Asian Mystery Illustrated in the History, Religion, and Present State of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria, London, Longman et al., 1860.
Secondary Sources
Alkan, Necati, “Fighting for the Nuṣayri Soul: State, Protestant Missionaries and the ʿAlawīs in the Late Ottoman Empire”, Die Welt des Islams 52, 2012, p. 23‒50.
Bar-Asher, Meir M. & Kofsky, Aryeh, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī Religion: An Enquiry into its Theology and Liturgy, Leiden, Brill, 2002.
Bar-El, Yair, Durst, Rimona, Katz, Gregory, Zislin, Josef, Strauss, Ziva & Knobler, Haim Y., “Jerusalem Syndrome”, The British Journal of Psychiatry 176, 2000, p. 86‒90.
Catafago, Joseph, “Die drei Messen der Nussairier”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 2, 1848, p. 388‒394.
Deveney, John P., Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1997.
Dussaud, René, Histoire et religion des Nosairîs, Paris, É. Bouillon, 1900.
Friedman, Yaron, “Ibn Taymiya’s Fatāwā against the Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī Sect”, Der Islam 82, 2005, p. 349‒363.
Friedman, Yaron, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs: An Introduction to the Religion, History, and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria, Leiden, Brill, 2009.
Gatier, Pierre-Louis, “Henri Lammens, Voyageur en Antiochène”, Tempora. Annales d’histoire et d’archéologie 19, 2011, p. 303‒347.
Hasluck, Frederick W., Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 2 vols., Margaret M. Hasluck (ed.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1929.
Kieser, Hans-Lukas, “Muslim Heterodoxy and Protestant Utopia: The Interactions between Alevis and Missionaries in Ottoman Anatolia”, Die Welt des Islams 41, 2001, p. 89‒111.
Krieger, Bella Tendler, “New Evidence for the Survival of Sexually Libertine Rites among some Nuṣayrī‒ʿAlawīs of the Nineteenth Century”, in Asad Q. Ahmed et al. (eds.), Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Patricia Crone, (Islamic History and Civilization, 114), Leiden, Brill, 2014, p. 565‒596.
Krieger, Bella Tendler, “The Rediscovery of Samuel Lyde’s Lost Nuṣayrī Kitāb al‒Mashyakha (Manual for Shaykhs) ”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24, 2014, p. 1‒16.
Lammens, Henri, “Au pays des Nosairis”, Revue de l’Orient chrétien 4, 1899, p. 570‒590 (Part I); 5, 1900, p. 99‒117, 303‒318, and 423‒444 (Part II).
Lammens, Henri, “Les Noṣairis. Notes sur leur histoire et leur religion”, Études 80, 1899, p. 461‒493.
Lammens, Henri, “Le pays des Noṣairis. Itinéraire et notes archéologiques”, Le Musée Belge 4, 1900, p. 278‒310.
Lammens, Henri, “Les Noṣairīs furent-ils chrétiens ? À propos d’un livre récent”, Revue de l’Orient chrétien 6, 1901, p. 33‒50.
Lammens, Henri, Fāṭima et les filles de Mahomet. Notes critiques pour l’étude de la Sīra, Romae, Sumptibus Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1912.
Lammens, Henri, “Une visite au śaiḫ suprême des Noṣairīs Ḥaidarīs”, Journal Asiatique 5 (11e série), 1915, p. 139‒159.
Massignon, Louis, art. “Nuṣairī”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam. First Edition, vol. 3 (1935), p. 963‒967.
Massignon, Louis, “Esquisse d’une bibliographie Nusayrie”, in Mélanges syriens offerts à Monsieur René Dussaud, 2 vols., Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (ed.), (Bibliothèque archéologique et historique, 30), Paris, P. Geuthner, 1939, vol. 2, p. 913‒922.
Moosa, Matti, Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1988.
[Mouterde, René,] “In Memoriam: Le père Henri Lammens, S.J. (1862-1937). Notice et bibliographie”, Mélanges de l’Université Saint‒Joseph 21, 1937, p. 335‒358.
Prager, Laila, “Alawi Ziyāra Tradition and its Interreligious Dimensions: Sacred Places and their Contested Meanings among Christians, Alawi and Sunni Muslims in Contemporary Hatay (Turkey)”, The Muslim World 103, 2013, p. 41‒61.
Procházka-Eisl, Gisela & Procházka, Stephan, The Plain of Saints and Prophets: The Nusayri-Alawi Community of Cilicia (Southern Turkey) and its Sacred Places, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2010.
Randolph, Paschal B., The Ansairetic Mystery: A New Revelation Concerning Sex! Toledo, OH, Liberal Printing House, n.d. [ca. 1873] (reprint in John P. Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1997, Appendix A).
Salibi, Kamal, “Islam and Syria in the Writings of Henri Lammens”, in Bernard Lewis & Peter M. Holt (eds.), Historians of the Middle East, London, Oxford University Press, 1962, p. 330‒342.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, “Comparative Religion: Whither, and Why?”, in Mircea Eliade & Joseph M. Kitagawa (eds.), The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1959, p. 31‒58.
Springett, Bernard H., Secret Sects of Syria and the Lebanon: A Consideration of Their Origin, Creeds and Religious Ceremonies, and their Connection with and Influence upon Modern Freemasonry, London, G. Allen & Unwin, 1922.
Talhamy, Yvette, “American Protestant Missionary Activity among the Nusayris (Alawis) in Syria in the Nineteenth Century”, Middle Eastern Studies 47, 2011, p. 215‒236.
Tibawi, Abdul Latif, British Interests in Palestine, 1800‒1901: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise, London, Oxford University Press, 1961.
Winter, Stefan, A History of the ʿAlawis: From Medieval Aleppo to the Turkish Republic, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2016.
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Notes
“Les interactions entre šīʿites imāmites (duodécimains) et chrétiens : histoire, théologie, littérature”, held at the Institut Catholique de Paris, 10‒13 April, 2018.
Throughout this essay, simply the term ʿAlawī will be used when possible. The sect was originally named for Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr (d. 218/833), a disciple of the tenth and eleventh imāms, and a figure of early esoteric Šīʿism. The term Nuṣayrī is usually applied to the sect in the context of their teaching as it has been preserved in elite manuscripts. While the term ʿAlawī is thought to have been a 20th-century designation for the group, N. Alkan traces the term ʿAlawī as a self-designator back further to the 19th century. See Alkan, “Fighting for the Nuṣayri Soul”, p. 49.
The Nuṣayrī religion is given extensive treatment in Moosa, Extremist Shiites, p. 255‒418.
Lyde’s initial study is an overview of the area, written after his initial mission journey: Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh. The second book, which is the more extended treatment of the religion, was as a result of his missionary residency in the ʿAlawī village of Bḥamrā outside of Latakia: Asian Mystery.
The following studies exemplify this approach: Bar-Asher & Kofsky, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī Religion; Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs.
See for example, Procházka-Eisl & Procházka, Plain of Saints.
See Winter, A History of the ʿAlawis.
In common usage, the term ziyāra (visitation) is most associated with a sacred building or shrine. However, a ziyāra is actually deemed sacred vicinity before any man-made structures are built to commemorate sanctity. Local usage may be confusing, because the term ziyāra is used for both phenomena, for example: once a geographical place is discerned to be a ziyāra, then a ziyāra (shrine) is constructed to commemorate it as such.
The village is Ǧīlliyya (now Cilli) outside of Samandağ, Turkey. See Lammens, “Une visite au śaiḫ suprême”.
For an early critique of Lammens’ orientalist views, see Salibi, “Islam and Syria”, p. 330.
This contradiction is also noted in Gatier, “Henri Lammens”, p. 308. Lammens’ romantic portrait of the ʿAlawī is seen clearly in Lammens, “Au pays des Nosairis”, p. 570‒590.
Lammens’ negative views on early Šīʿī figures are most cited from his 1912 monograph, Fāṭima et les filles de Mahomet.
For a detailed obituary and full bibliography, see [Mouterde,] “In Memoriam”.
See, especially, Lammens, “Le pays des Noṣairis”.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 477.
On his initial manuscript sources, see Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 461‒462. The first notable publication of Nuṣayrī manuscripts was undertaken by a translator for the Prussian Consulate in Syria. See Catafago, “Die drei Messen”. By the time of Dussaud’s seminal 1900 publication, the number of similar manuscripts in academic circulation had grown.
Lammens devoted little space to ethical teaching, however: “As for their morality, but a few lines will suffice”, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 482.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 482‒483.
Maʿnā is identified as ʿAlī, the archetypical divinity; ism (lit.: name) that is, Muḥammad, is the external manifestation of the divinity; and bāb (lit.: gateway), is identified as Salmān al-Fārisī, or the interpreter of the divinity. In Lammens’ words, the bāb is the “Paraclet noṣairi”: see Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 482.
Often translated as “mass”, the term quddās, comes from the root q-d-s, the term quddās does indeed denote the sacrament of the Eucharist in Eastern (Arabic-speaking) churches. However, “ritual” is a better translation for quddās in this context. Moosa, Extremist Shiites, p. 398, in accordance with Nuṣayrī manuscripts, confines the term quddās to the “consecration of wine” segment within the larger ritual.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 488.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 491.
G. Procházka-Eisl & St. Procházka also note what could be a possible disappearance of feasts shared by Christian in their fieldwork; see their Plain of Saints, p. 100‒102. For a survey of the ʿAlawī calendar of feasts based on manuscript sources, see Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, p. 152‒173. For a recent study of inter-religious interactions, see Prager, “Alawi Ziyāra Tradition”.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 492.
Gatier, “Henri Lammens”, p. 309.
In the study of Bar-Asher & Kofsky, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī Religion, p. 73‒74, the Christian element of ʿAlawī syncretic belief is emphasized.
His archaeological survey of ʿAlawī villages is the subject of Lammens, “Au pays des Nosairis”.
Dussaud, Histoire et religion.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairīs furent-ils chrétiens ?” In this article, he criticizes Dussaud’s monograph by integrating archaeology into his own Christian-origins thesis.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 491.
Lammens, “Les Noṣairis. Notes”, p. 492.
“Where the population is of mixed religion, all sects tend to frequent a shrine that has acquired fame by its healing miracles”, Hasluck, Christianity and Islam, vol. 2, p. 692.
Massignon, “Esquisse”, p. 914; Massignon, “Nuṣairī”.
Massignon, “Esquisse”, p. 914.
Considered lost until the manuscript’s recent rediscovery in a Cambridge library. See Krieger, “Rediscovery”.
According to B.T. Krieger, with publication of formerly guarded Nuṣayrī manuscripts by the Lebanese press Dār li-Aǧl al-Maʿrifa, “our understanding of this [ʿAlawī-Nuṣayrī] faith can increase exponentially”, Krieger, “Rediscovery”, p. 13. Published under a pseudonym, the editors and publishers of the press are associated with publications exhibiting “great hostility” towards the Nuṣayrī, according to Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, p. 2‒3. Nevertheless, Y. Friedman and others maintain the authenticity of the primary sources published by the press, and therefore employ them.
See Friedman, “Ibn Taymiya’s Fatawa”.
Two recent articles on this subject include: Alkan, “Fighting for the Nuṣayri Soul”; Talhamy, “American Protestant Missionary Activity”. See also Kieser, “Muslim Heterodoxy”. Although H.-L. Kieser’s study is about the Qizilbāš-Alevi religion of Kurdish and Turkish-speaking Anatolia, his investigation into the eschatological motivations of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) as well as missionaries’ contribution to the scholarship of Alevism apply to the ʿAlawī-Nuṣayrī case as well. For a comparison of ʿAlī-centred heterodox groups which employ many missionary sources, see Moosa, Extremist Shiites.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. iv.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. v.
Randolph, Ansairetic Mystery. Randolph’s biographer finds Lyde’s published works on the Nuṣayrī “uninspired”, stating they are “notable only for their charitable defense of Nusa’iri from the charges of ‘licentiousness, obscenity and incest’”, Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, p. 486. Ironically, it is exactly those charges of a sexual nature that likely attracted Deveney’s subject to the sect.
Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, p. 66. In a similar speculative vein, B.H. Springett’s 1921 book examines the Nuṣayrī and similar sects in order to establish the origins of Masonry. His section on the Nuṣayrī is in part based on Lyde’s Asian Mystery. See Springett, Secret Sects of Syria.
Including wife-sharing, incest, and “orgiastic night”. For a revisionary treatment of antinomian practice, see Krieger, “New Evidence”.
Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, p. 216. Lyde actually takes pains to deny the various charges at length in Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 102‒109.
A complete, if biased account of the incident that sparked the riot as well as the trial is in Finn & Finn, Stirring Times, vol. 2, p. 427‒438. On Lyde’s mental health issues, see Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine, p. 166.
Defined as a “psychotic decompensation” that afflicts foreign visitors to Jerusalem, see Bar-El et al., “Jerusalem Syndrome”.
Inspired by the Second Awakening (1800‒1830) the ABCFM was established to govern foreign American missions, and began sending members to Ottoman provinces in 1819. See Alkan, “Fighting for the Nuṣayri Soul”. On foreign missionaries’ views of the Nuṣayrīs as “Lost Christians”, see Moosa, Extremist Shiites, p. 405.
Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 118.
Krieger, “Rediscovery”.
Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 166.
Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 167.
“To the east of my village, about a mile distant, under a magnificent deciduous oak, is another famous tomb, reputed to belong to a certain Sheikh Bedr (full moon) il Halabee (from Aleppo), and to have the power of curing bad eyes, and of restoring sight to the blind. Often have people come to me for the cure of ophthalmia, who have borne marks of having previously visited the tomb,—a forehead smeared with earth from it, and leaves of the oak in their head-dress”, Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 168.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, describes a multi-tiered approach to healing: “Ali’s mother, poor thing, when I was in the village was very ill. She sought the benefit of my prayers, and one night one of the Sheikhs came to read some prayers over her, and invoked all the prophets in her behalf. Once she was taken to a tomb in the vicinity, and passed the night there, in the hope that this would have the miraculous effect of curing her”, p. 130.
“Inside the sepulcher, over the grave, is a kind of ark of wood, and on it a piece of green calico. Strips of this are given to visitors, and worn round their necks as amulets”, Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 170.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. 134.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. 182, describes a circumcision ritual which took place on the platform of one of the “whitewashed tombs crowning the surrounding hills”.
Lyde, Asian Mystery, p. 169.
Speaking of a ziyāra which consisted of a grove of trees: “There have been accidents to confirm the people in their belief in the sanctity of the Banwaseyeh grove. A few years ago a camp was pitched near, and a soldier, having been sacrilegious enough to ascend into one of the trees, fell, and was killed. […] I myself know of a poor little fellow who got up into one of the trees to gather carobs, and, in doing so, lacerated his thigh so much that he died of lock-jaw a fortnight later”, Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. 169.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. 222.
Lyde, Ansyreeh and Ismaeleeh, p. 167.
Smith, “Comparative Religion”.
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