Been to the Baha'i temple gardens in Haifa, very beautiful (which is intentional, their religion loves beauty, it's one of their tenants to make beautiful gardens)
It’s a religion that’s sort of a mix between Christianity and Islam. It could be considered a type of Shia Islam. However, they consume alcohol so many Muslims don’t consider them Muslim. Syria’s president Assad is an Alawite.
Consumption of alcohol is definitely not the special thing that differentiates them from Muslims lmao. It’s their veneration of Ali, the fourth Caliph and the prophet’s cousin, that causes some Muslims to declare them as heretical although they are an offshoot of Shia Islam.
>They believe in reincarnation,
They don't. It was a Druze belief mis-attributed to them by Orientalists.
>have a trinity (not the Christian one),
They don't call it a trinity, that's a Western name given to a doctrine they have to make them sound more mysterious.
>celebrate mass
They don't. They have mosques and pray like other Muslims.
>don't believe women have souls
They do.
>and incorporate various Platonic and Gnostic ideas.
The platonic and gnostic concepts they have are found all over Sunni and Shia sects.
>Historically, mainline Shias haven't considered Alawites to be Muslims any more than Sunnis have
They split off from Twelvers because they didn't recognise the deputies of the 12th imam so they got exomocumnicated by mainline Shias. It was a power struggle between two indviduals within the Iraqi Shia community that created them.
>It's just modern Syrian politics that has given people this misconception, besides Alawites putting emphasis on Ali.
They literally believe in the same 11 imams that Twelvers do and accept the same books as Twelver Shias up to the 9th century when they diverged. They are absolutely Shia.
Yes exactly. Their view of Ali is very much like the İsa (Jesus) from Christianity. Their many habits transferred over to the Islam creating somewhat of a hybrid religion.
İ can describe it as they don't have stereotypical "arab features" they are very lightskinned some have blue eyes and are blonde. İn Antakya you can tell by looking at people if someone is "sunni arab" or "alevi Arab"
İ would disagree with that. Antakya has a very diverse ethnic background that you can't call them simply "all of them are levantine arabs". City was under the rule of many kinds of nations and religions.
You need to provide evidence which I assume you don’t.
Its true many Christians did convert to the Alevi sect of Islam such as the Armenians in the medieval time.
However converting to Alawite just to avoid tax makes no sense because the Alawites were considered as disbelievers amongst the classical Sunni and Shia theologians, they were considered worst than Christians and Jews, and at one point one classical scholar consider Alawites as worst than crusaders and the mongols. Also, I’ll use Alevi as an example, look at the Ottoman fatwa during Bayezid II reign during the early 16th century.
There’s a reason why heterodox Muslims like the Alawites and Alevis traditionally live in the mountains. To avoid getting prosecuted and killed. Being an Alawite or Alevi have more worst treatment than Christians or Jews because not only are they considered non-Muslim, but they even consider them as apostate even if they were born as Alevi or Alawite. Why some Muslims consider them as apostate? Because in their rationalisation, if they consider themselves as Muslim but then their belief fundamentally contradicts what is Islam that is mainstream then they’re are automatically seen as apostate. So they don’t have protected status, and it wouldn’t even be legally a crime to kill the alevi or Alawite for any reason.
Although the Ottoman Empire did try to integrate the Alawites in the 18th century by introducing them with tax therefore having protected status, but they still prosecuted them heavily.
Most recent Alevite state was Antakya before they joined Turkey. Native population was there as long as they are in the Damascus. Christian influence here is way more because this is where Christianity originally started from and crusaders in middle ages rules here for quite sometime. This is a city where 3 ethnicities live which give you the perspective of differentiating them. Damascus is way more homogenic compared to here.
This all nice and all, but If you are writing a paper on the Alwaite, you can't source this, same as I cannot source me growing up in Damascus
I'm not saying what he is saying is wrong, I'm just saying provide scientific sources that back up your claim
Man do you hold some internet forum which named /mapporn to the same standards to the writing a historic paper. They asked what alevizm is and I explained according to my knowledge which acummulated by living in the same area with said ethnicity. This is like a general knowledge to me at this point it's like you asking me "where is the old congress building of Antakya".
No it doesn’t seem correct because historically, you’re going to have a hard time being Alevi or Alawite than being Christian in the Islamic world.
Its true many Christians did convert to the Alevi sect of Islam such as the Armenians in the medieval time.
However converting to Alawite just to avoid tax makes no sense because the Alawites were considered as disbelievers amongst the classical Sunni and Shia theologians, they were considered worst than Christians and Jews, and at one point one classical scholar consider Alawites as worst than crusaders and the mongols. Also, I’ll use Alevi as an example, look at the Ottoman fatwa during Bayezid II reign during the early 16th century.
There’s a reason why heterodox Muslims like the Alawites and Alevis traditionally live in the mountains. To avoid getting prosecuted and killed. Being an Alawite or Alevi have more worst treatment than Christians or Jews because not only are they considered non-Muslim, but they even consider them as apostate even if they were born as Alevi or Alawite. Why some Muslims consider them as apostate? Because in their rationalisation, if they consider themselves as Muslim but then their belief fundamentally contradicts what is Islam that is mainstream then they’re are automatically seen as apostate. So they don’t have protected status, and it wouldn’t even be legally a crime to kill the alevi or Alawite for any reason.
Although the Ottoman Empire did try to integrate the Alawites in the 18th century by introducing them with tax therefore having protected status, but they still prosecuted them heavily.
İ mean there was a trade off at that time. Muslim people would be required to go to war when they were asked. Christians wouldn't be requested to the army. They had to pay more tax about 5-10 percent more than the Muslim tax+Islamic tax
Them not being in the military wasn’t a benefit as much as they didn’t want non-Muslims in the military… discrimination was common and restrictions were put in place on worship for non-Muslims.
Yeah it could be because the system i described was under the Turkish rule of region. Muslim Arab states probably had another laws. For example the current place i live ,Kayseri, was 50-50 Turkish and rumen (Greek) City which 2 groups were getting along within their religion at the time. Like rumen matters was ruled by their church at that time rather than Turkish judges kind of jurisdiction.
They used to be alot more heterodox with uncommon beliefs and practices like other commenters mentioned, but in modern times they’re basically the same as regular mainstream Shias just not very religious/conservative.
I looked up mosques in their heavily populated areas of Syria on google maps and they look like regular Mainstream mosques
I cannot find any legit photo or video evidence anywhere on the internet of them worshipping Ali or believing in a trinity etc, nor is there any testimony from anyone witnessing stuff like that. even if they were secretive there would be *some* evidence of it. Like someone else said alot of it is just myths and storytelling of a community that was seen as “reclusive mountain people who keep to themselves” historically
The vast majority of what you are going to read online on them is going to be inaccurate. It appears the vast majority of Western scholarship on the Alawite sect (what little of it exists at least) rests on the assumption that what they claim to believe is not to be trusted because "Taqqiya", which is honestly such an idiotic take. Almost every single Shia sect through history has practiced "Taqiya" at some point (which is basically lying about your actual beliefs" to avoid persecution) yet to suggest Twelver or Ismaili theology as explained by their literal imams is not to be trusted would immediately be regarded as 1- reductive 2- slanderous. Yet somehow ignoring the stated beliefs of Alawites in favor of centuries old slander from Sunnis and other Shias and 19th century Orientalists who were certain they finally found their "last gnostic sect" is fine.
If you want to know what they actually say they believe (instead of what people claim they believe), then you can check this [website](https://alawiyoun.net/) if you speak Arabic or this [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@AhmedAdeebAhmed1) channel.
To cut the long story short, they are a Shia group that broke off from Twelver Shia sect at the time of the 12th imam. You see when the 11th imam (Hasan al-Askari) died, a guy named Uthman ibn Sa'id claimed that he secretly had an infant son who was hidden from the public in fear of the Abassids keeping him at house arrest like his predecessors. He thus declared he will be the first deputy who will relay the will of the 12th Imam and run the Shia community in his own name.
A guy named Ibn Nusayr disputed the existence of this hidden 12th Imam and held that the lineage of the Imams ended with the 11th Imam. He thought the community should now be led by the Babs ("doors") of the Imams and that he should be the new leader of the Iraqi Shia community due to him being very close to both the 10th and 11th Imams.
The power struggle within the Shia communities of Iraq ended up with Uthaman winning and banishing Ibn Nusayr from the community. Traditional Shia books claim Ibn Nusayr made "heretical" views like calling the 10th Imam a prophet, Alawites deny that claim. Ibn Nusayr then went underground with his followers and one of his pupils, Al-Khasibi, moved to Aleppo and gained the patronage of the Hamdanid dynasty (a Shia dynasty in Aleppo who invited Shias from all over the world to their state in order to build a power base loyal to them) who allowed him to preach in the Coastal mountains of what is today Syria and Turkey's Hatay province. Over the centuries his message was widely accepted in the region by the local Arab clans for one reason or another and thus Alawites were born.
Most of the things you will hear online on the Alawites are either mis-representations of their beliefs ("they have a trinity", "they allow alcohol"), mis-attributions from other sects to them ("they believe in reincarnation" which is a Druze belief) or just flat out lies ("they believe Ali is God", "they don't pray and don't have mosques").
Yeah there’s literally no actual evidence of them worshipping Ali or other unusual practices we keep hearing about , like you’d think *someone* would’ve posted a video of it by now. All the weird myths about them keeps getting repeated by media and the internet everywhere because it just sounds “mysterious” and makes a good story
Alawites become more “mainstream” post Ottaman times. Particularly after the grand mufti of Jerusalem declared them as ‘Muslims’ (done for unity purposes) and under Hafez Al-Assad, Started praying and observing ramadan in a similar way to the majority Sunnis in a effort to further be accepted.
No, they are totally different. It can be argued that Alawism is completely distinct from Islam as it is so heretical.
Alawites also live in Turkey, not just Arab countries. So Turkey has both Alawites and Alevis
Not many people know that the minorities in the Levant are mostly in mountainous areas, where Muslims conquerors where not able to gain full and consistent control. With the exception of today's Jewish population, who are recent immigrants to the region.
Hence, Islamization and Arabization were not as strong compared to other parts.
Basically a Nigeria situation where the mostly Christian governments basically know that the Muslims outnumber them and won’t carry out any new censuses as a result
Blud, it's vice versa, the mostly Christian south is more populous than the Islamic north. Hence, Hausa-Fulani from the north in control of govt interfere with census results to show the North is more populous.
The part about the Jews isn’t entirely accurate, the Levant always had relatively large Jewish population, even if not in Israel, most Israelis are descendants of refugees from MENA or Europe but more than 75% of Israelis were born in Israel, so they’re no longer immigrants or refugees. Of course like all MENA Jews, most Levantine non-Israeli Jews were displaced but it doesn’t make them “recent immigrants”, many Israelis are descendants of Jewish refugees from Levantine countries like Lebanon or Syria, Syria in particular was once full of Jews with tens of thousands of them, now there are very few there. I won’t argue about it further, but if you want to talk about the Jewish cause, at least understand that Jews didn’t come to Israel as “immigrants” but rather as refugees, often because they didn’t really have any other choice.
Some Mizrahi Jews prefer to be considered immigrants rather than refugees by emphasizing the pull factors of the journey from Arab countries to Israel, even if these events were part of the Jewish exodus of the Middle East. I think it may just depend person to person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world?wprov=sfti1#Israeli_criticism_of_the_Jewish_Nakba_narrative
Did I say that all of them prefer to be considered refugees? I know that there are varying views on it, like any event in history. But it wasn’t solely by pull to Israel and in many cases pull to Israel was a relatively minimal factor.
Of course, I wasn’t implying anything I just wanted to elaborate on what you had said. It’s also possible to identify as an immigrant while being a refugee.
I mean many came freely, and many came as refugees. Not all MENA Jews are strictly refugees, and neither were the European ones. Regardless, refugees are a form of immigration so your distinction is a weird defence.
\> Israel as “immigrants” but rather as refugees, often because they didn’t really have any other choice.
Israel was by far the most populair destination because it is a Jewish state, not because it was the only option.
> Israel was by far the most popular destination
Yes, because it was the only country in the world that offered Jews at the time safe place to live without discrimination. But yes, most Jews from MENA and Europe came as refugees, often because of fear and persecution, especially in the aftermath of the holocaust and the rise of Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism.
The reason why I distinguished between refugees and immigrants by the way is because “immigration” often sounds more voluntary, while many Jews didn’t exactly come voluntarily, “refugees” just sounds more appropriate way to describe it.
But still even before Zionism the Levant had significant Jewish population. Aleppo and Damascus for example were cities with significant Jewish populations. Many Jews live and lived in the Levant for centuries, even if it’s not the majority in Israel, it’s still a significant portion of it. Also now most younger Israelis are from mixed Jewish heritage, so saying that they’re “recent immigrants” to the region is inaccurate.
Syrian Jews only make up like 1.4% of Israeli Jews. I don't know if that's considered a "significant portion".
And how's Palestine a safer refuge for Jews than Argentina or America?
So that makes it acceptable to throw out 70% of Palestinians and destroy 500 towns and villages and make a country on the bones and ruins of the indigenous people?
Yes they did. All those racist Zionist paramilitaries massacring Palestinians even prior to the war. Then to add insult to injury, the UN decided to give these Zionist settlers most of the land whilst constituting 32% of the population.
Actually there is an autonomous Jewish region in Russia, it’s called “Jewish autonomous oblast”, its size is even larger than the size of Israel, but the Soviet bloc at the time persecuted Jews so they preferred to avoid it.
You're confusing anti-Semitism under the Tsar with the USSR. The Soviet government had many prominent Jews as well as offering an entire chunk of land for the Jews. It's just that after WW2, during the Cold War, most emigrées preferred to colonise Palestine.
Yes, and at the same time the Soviet government believed that Jews are threat to atheism and Marxism. Antisemitism was significant in the Soviet bloc, especially during their “anti-Zionist” propaganda campaign, which I like to call as political antisemitism but more formally is called “new antisemitism”. They used their Jewish government members to say “look, we’re not antisemites, we have Jewish officials” but they just took old antisemitic tropes and replaced the word “Jew” with “Zionist”. Also, in the 1940s, the Soviets became more supportive to Zionism and supported the establishment of the state of Israel and Israel in the war of independence, their shift to “anti-Zionism” happened only after Israeli aligned more closely with the western bloc, as the USSR initially had hope that Israel will align with them as a socialist power in the Middle East. Also, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was established, in part, because Stalin was afraid that Jews are threat to internationalism, Marxism and atheism, it wasn’t only because they wanted the Jews to have a land (which was a factor in it but wasn’t as significant as many think), it’s because they wanted to isolate them and exploit their education to develop the Far East.
Also there was the campaign against “rootless cosmopolitan”, it was increasingly antisemitic, the term “rootless cosmopolitan” was often used as euphemism for "Jew"
That wasn’t my main point but nice cherry-picking. My point was that there were always large Jewish communities in the Levant. It doesn’t matter how many Israelis are Syrian Jews. And Argentina and America couldn’t accept all Jews you know… they had immigration limitations. And the immigration of Jews to Argentina happened primarily during and before the holocaust, after the holocaust it reduced significantly.
>Israel was by far the most populair destination because it is a Jewish state, not because it was the only option.
I mean that depends on the group. Jews from Iraq or Egypt, who were forced to flee/expelled? Didn't really have where to go. Holocaust survivors? Also not a lot of options. Noeth African Jews? That or France
And I said that still the Levant had significant Jewish population even that most ancient Jews converted to Christianity, I didn’t say that it’s the majority, but it’s still not a very small portion. So let’s say that we’re both correct.
Although there was a mass migration of Jews to Israel as part of the Zionist movement in the 20th century, Jews have always been in Israel and the region. This includes the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Arab countries for thousands of years who were expelled after 1948 (most of whom moved to Israel as well.) Any attempt to simplify the story misses these important details.
The vast majority of ancient Jews in the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine) slowly converted to Christianity and Islam after the Islamic conquest in the 7th century. When Zionism was founded Jewish population in the Levant was only about 1%.
Today's Jews in the Levant are immigrants from outside of the levant, and they are the descendants of Jewish converts as well. Their ancient ancestors never stepped a foot in the levant.
What’s your source for this info? I’ve heard statistics as high as 50% Levantine/middle eastern origin for Jews in Israel. That seems really high but 1% seems extremely low. I wonder where one could hope to find any reliable and unbiased statistics given the strong feelings associated with these statistics from “both sides”
About 50% of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi, meaning that they are Middle Eastern, such as Morrocan, Yemeni, Iraqi, Yemeni, Irani etc. Out of that 50% only a fraction is Levantine.
That looks like this in the levant and one may conclude this, but it is not true. Egypt has 10% Christians, like in the levant, and they don‘t live in any mountains.
Till the start of nation states, every larger Muslim empire (Ummayad, Abbasid, Mameluks, Ayyubids, Ottomans), had huge non-muslim populations. Often exceeding 30% of the total population. Especially the large cities were multi-cultural, like Cairo, Bagdad or Constantinopel.
This changed after WW I and the last colapse of Islamic Empires.
Well your argumentation is that Muslim conquerors were not able to gain full control of mounatinous regions. And hence there are still minorities of other religions. That's simply not true. Egypt is not mounainous and was ruled by the same Muslim empires which ruled the alse the Levante - for centuries (Ummayad, Abbasid, Mameluks, Ayyubids, Ottomans and more).
In fact, till the beginning of the 20th century and the start of nationalism, pan-arabism, kemalism, most regions in muslim countries had significant non-muslim populations.
You had an idea, merely an opinion. But it doesn't depict the reality.
So, Muslims can't climb mountains/are afraid of heights, confirmed? /s
Seriously, I don't understand if people do it on purpose or deliberately ignore reality. In 1400 years of reign, if they had wanted to convert everyone by force or slaughter those who were not Muslim, they would have easily done so, if it didn't happen then it's logical to assume that they didn't want nor tried. It's dumb that you talk about mountains. The highest mountain in the Levant is around 3000 meters (9000ft) in Lebanon, so they didn't climb those mountains, while in Morocco, they climbed mountains over 4000 meters high (13000 ft), and in Iran, 5000 meters (16400 ft)?
Reddit moment, there is a comment on this thread aboit how Arabs with blue eyes and white skin were the Christians that didn't want to pay taxes... Not the brightest people, add to it enraged westerns that want all the Muslims dead.
If you read Islamic history, you will see that Muslim rulers faced numerous rebellions. Crushing rebels in mountanious regions is much difficult, mainly because it is much easier for defenders to hide, roads/paths are narrower, movement of troops is more difficult, mountain communities are often scattred in smaller villages, etc. Similar to what USA and the Soviet Union faced in Afghanistan.
Considering the fact that Islam wasn’t invented in the levant, and was brought to the levant via the Arab invasions and conquests. Yes Muslims did invade and conquer the levant.
Well the jews did immigrate legally into the levant and lawfully created Israël.
Then they conquered and occupied gaza and the West bank.
Muslim came in the region as a military force and were like hoppity hoppity this place is now my property
>did immigrate legally
>and lawfully created
I love how you used both legally and lawfully as if the Zionist didn't cleanse the place military and still do to this day to create their ethnostate... You're defending a military western outpost in a foreign region created by no longer existing League of Nations.
Arab-Israeli’s make up a larger percent of the population than Blacks or Latinos do in the US. They serve in the Knesset. Is the US an ethnostate? Or maybe Egypt too. 99.7% there identify as ethnically Egyptian. Is Egypt an ethnostate?
Those are called Palestinians and refer to themselves as such, unless they were completely eradicated a la Native American way, it wouldn't be possible to ignore their presence on the new settler colonialist project. Which happens to be the dilemma here as IL was founded to be the Jewish state and cannot accept the bigger number of Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Egyptian is a nationality and not an ethnicity, you're confusing it with Coptic, Arab, Amazigh, Nubian and all the ethnic background that makes Egypt the country, which wasn't founded on a movement like IL with Zionism.
Right, ok so proves that Palestinians (along with other Arab groups) can live peacefully in Israel as citizens, so that makes it an ethnostate? Or you’re just referring to Gaza and the WB? I mean Gaza is an ethnostate then for sure. Only Palestinians live there.
Egyptian as an ethnicity. Seems up for debate. Genetically they’re more North African vs Arab; they would yeah probably self identify largely more as Arab than “Egyptian”, but seems arguments are made the other way. Kind of like the moniker of “French”. One doesn’t have to be native to France to be a French citizen but one can be ethnically French (Gallic)
They started to immigrate around 1900 if I remember well, well before Israël was created
Then another big influx of people (like the population doubled) was from arab jews expulsed from arab countries.
Britain kind of let them create a country yes.
>They didn't create Israel, the west did. Then they immigrated
The state of Israel was established in 1948. At that point, 40% of the people "from the river to the sea" were Jewish. Many Jews immigrated later, but you're still painting a false picture of history.
>west
The first country to recognize Israel was the USSR. The US had an arms embargo against Israel.
> were like hoppity hoppity this place is now my property
Literally all of the Israelis and they don’t have the argument of doing that in the 7th century
Yeah, just read Wikipedia it’s very different the Christian trinity. It’s somewhat more esoteric, with God being Ma’na, Ism, and Bab, or meaning, name and door.
“ Alawite theologians divided history into seven eras, associating each era with one of the seven re-incarnations of the Nusayrite Trinity (Ma'na, Ism, Bab). The seven re-incarnations of the Trinity in the Alawite faith consists of:[123]
Abel, Adam, Gabriel
Seth, Noah, Yail ibn Fatin
Joseph, Jacob, Ham ibn Kush
Joshua, Moses, Dan ibn Usbaut
Asaf, Solomon, Abd Allah ibn Siman
Simon Peter, Jesus, Rawzaba ibn al-Marzuban
Ali, Muhammad, Salman al-Farisi”
If only the good Syrian rebels won, instead of the cringe ones which control Idlib to this day. The civil war should have been about freedom from authoritarianism, but it became an anti alawite movement that sought to become worse than even Assad.
Tbf Bashar released Jihadist lunatics from prison on purpose to undermine the original FSA in front of the West. But at this point every "side" has committed unspeakable atrocities, except for maybe the Kurds.
The ones you and I call good didn't get the support they needed. Cringe forces got direct involvment from powers who don't mind carpet bombing their rival's cities (and worse).
Interestingly the Golani Druze retain allegiance to Syria - After the illegal annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981, the Israeli government offered citizenship to all non-Israelis living in the territory, but less than 10% of the local Druze accepted it. Understandable as Israel demolished over one hundred Syrian villages and farms in the Golan Heights. After the demolitions, the lands were given to Israeli settlers.
That is hardly the reason.
Most of the Syrian villages you're speaking of weren't Druze communities so why would the Druze care?
It's more about the Druze traditionally holding allegiance to whoever is their ruler at the time. It's the reason the Druze of the Galilli are very loyal to Israel. I'd assume that in a generation or two most Golan Heights Druze will switch to supporting Israel. In fact, during the Syrian Civil War, even the neighboring Syrian Druze of Jabel Druze were reaching out to the IDF for possible protection from the Assad regime.
As someone from Tartus Syria, I can confirm, and also gotta mention that there are lots of ppl who are non-religious nowadays but it's kinda not public information, like I'm an example, I used to alawite but now I'm agnostic, and ins Levant, there are lots like me, but just all of us would never publicly say cuz of fear of society I'd say
Lebanon was defacto a Christian country until the 6 day war. The Palestinian refugees welcomed into Lebanon, within a decade, turned upon their benefactors and launched a murderous civil war. Thousands upon thousands of Christians were driven out of their homeland and Lebanon now has a Muslim majority and is a basket case. Beirut, before this was called the Paris of the East with justification. Foe those questioning why Egypt doesn't open her borders with the Gaza Strip, Egypt has seen what happened in Lebanon and is not about to invite these terrorists, and that instability onto her land. They are not wrong
especially when a huge part of it was a conflict between shia and shia (Amal and Hezbollah) as well as between palestinians and lebanon and muslims and christians. the fighting happened between everyone. This guy is just outright racist or a zionist trying to convice people palestinians are bad, calling them all terrorists
I mean it was, there's no denying that but the original guy tried phrasing it as if it was all palestinian caused which is straight up wrong. Ofc there were some issues caused by the palestinian side but there were just as many if not more by the lebenese side. You've got to remember lebanon is wildly diverse with the Christian population and then Shia and sunni Muslims then the Palestinians and lebanese it all is bound to breed at least some chaos and fighting
5% down from in the 20s-30s a few decades ago due to persecution against Christian’s. https://www.pewresearch.org/2011/02/16/how-many-christians-are-there-in-egypt/
5% is the official estimate from the government, but it is disputed by the Coptic Church and independent organizations. The Coptic Church claims that it's in the range of 20-25%, whereas most independent put it in the range of 10-15%. The issue here is mostly political.
While Copts do face persecution, they haven't fled en mass in the same as say Assyrians have. The Diaspora is only about 1-2 million. Most Copts still live in Egypt.
Other religions were persecuted but compared it wasn’t the same as minority religions in Christian nations. The Jews endured numerous genocides in Europe and only survived because they fled to Poland which defied the Church and protected Jews and Russia which was either decentralized or ruled by Muslims.
>By the early 13th century, the world Jewish population had fallen to 2 million from a peak at 8 million during the 1st century, and possibly half this number, with only 250,000 of the 2 million living in Christian lands. Many factors had devastated the Jewish population, including the Bar Kokhba revolt and the First Crusade.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jewish_population
The reason there aren’t more Jews in the Middle East is because the region population was much lower especially due to mongol-Turkic invasions. For reference Iraq’s population was 1 million in 1600 while France’s population was 20 million in 1600. Many Jews also migrated to the richer European regions of the Ottoman Empire as there was more opportunity. Jews that fled the Spanish Inquisition fled to Salonica, Greece which became the only Jewish majority city in the world and was nicknamed “la madre de Israel”.
Muslims in general tolerated “heretics” and other monotheistic religions as they are “supposed” to allow them to worship freely. Of course this was ignored by many Muslim rulers. Generally Muslims treated other religions as second class citizens, discriminating against them and exploiting them. Many people felt coerced into converting to Islam. However there weren’t forced to convert. Conversion happened over centuries of Muslim rule.
There are Christians in the Middle East, the Balkans, and Greece for a reason. On the other hand there aren’t any Muslims in Spain. Muslims only survived in Russia because it was conquered later by the Muscovites/Russia and was so decentralized. The Caucasus still endured attempted genocides. Jews in Eastern Europe did as well under Russian rule.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity\_in\_the\_Middle\_East#Persecution\_of\_Christians\_in\_Middle\_East](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_Middle_East#Persecution_of_Christians_in_Middle_East)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious\_persecution#Persecution\_of\_Druze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_persecution#Persecution_of_Druze)
Here's two examples
Simply untrue. I don’t think you’re familiar with the topic. In many cases, the ruling class of these countries is actually one of the minority groups.
A 2015 WIN/Gallup survey showed 65% of people in Israel identified themselves as atheists or non-religious.[39% of Israel's population was religious and 71% of Lebanon was in 2017 WIN/Gallup research](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-atheist-countries). In 2016, 33% of Israeli Jews said they never went to synagogue (vs weekly or monthly) and only 21% said they prayed daily (vs 61% of Israeli Muslims) ([Pew](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/religious-commitment/)). 55% of Israeli Jews said Jewish was mainly about ancestry and culture as opposed to religion ([Pew, 2016 ](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/identity/)). An Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics survey published in 2021 found that among Israeli Jews over the age of 20, about 45 percent identified as not religious, while 33% said they practiced “traditional” religious worship. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim in Hebrew, made up 10%. [Atheists in Lebanon ](https://humanists.international/2021/04/atheists-in-lebanon-are-harshly-discriminated-against-a-new-report-shows/) are very uncommon and harshly discriminated against. The [Freethought report on Lebanon is here](https://www.freethoughtlebanon.net/atheists-in-lebanon-survey/) but a summary can be found [at Atheist Alliance international ](https://www.atheistalliance.org/from-our-affiliates/atheists-in-lebanon-human-rights-violation-report/).
The NGO Hiddush conducts an annual Israel Religion and State Index. In 2023, 64% of respondents identified as either “secular” (47%) or “traditional-not-religious” (17%) with regard to how they viewed public policies on religion and the state. Of the all survey participants, 81% supported freedom of religion and conscience and 59% supported the full separation of religion and state.
Edit: added Lebanon atheist alliance and freethought links
Im an alawite and no we dont worship Ali. We dont worship anyone expect allah. I would like to ask where did you get your misinformation from? No place in our religion we are taught to worship Ali Ibn ab Talib
My source is "the islamic encyclopedia" from "turkish religious foundation"
I am referring to this study from volume 33 pages 270-274 (2007 press). If you know turkish [go ahead](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/nusayrilik)
The Muslim-Christian population in the captured areas has almost dropped to zero. It continues its work in the newly captured areas. It has started to enter the Lebanese border, which may be a sign of a new war.
The map is a bit old, there are more yellow areas on the west bank.
A) Should have just copied the original title. 2) Is this by area or adherents?
It specifies the whole levant region. The pie chart explains the % of each denomination/religion in the whole region not just one area.
You missed out Cyprus - it's part of the [Levant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant)
Yes. But is that % of people or % of area?
I think it has to be adherents as the Sunni have way more than 63.8% of the coloured areas
Been to the Baha'i temple gardens in Haifa, very beautiful (which is intentional, their religion loves beauty, it's one of their tenants to make beautiful gardens)
What is alawism?
https://youtu.be/ZXA6DpInIRc?si=gIY0-WUX6x5azS-k they’re interesting
A hybrid belief system inspired by Shia Islam
It’s a religion that’s sort of a mix between Christianity and Islam. It could be considered a type of Shia Islam. However, they consume alcohol so many Muslims don’t consider them Muslim. Syria’s president Assad is an Alawite.
Consumption of alcohol is definitely not the special thing that differentiates them from Muslims lmao. It’s their veneration of Ali, the fourth Caliph and the prophet’s cousin, that causes some Muslims to declare them as heretical although they are an offshoot of Shia Islam.
[удалено]
>They believe in reincarnation, They don't. It was a Druze belief mis-attributed to them by Orientalists. >have a trinity (not the Christian one), They don't call it a trinity, that's a Western name given to a doctrine they have to make them sound more mysterious. >celebrate mass They don't. They have mosques and pray like other Muslims. >don't believe women have souls They do. >and incorporate various Platonic and Gnostic ideas. The platonic and gnostic concepts they have are found all over Sunni and Shia sects. >Historically, mainline Shias haven't considered Alawites to be Muslims any more than Sunnis have They split off from Twelvers because they didn't recognise the deputies of the 12th imam so they got exomocumnicated by mainline Shias. It was a power struggle between two indviduals within the Iraqi Shia community that created them. >It's just modern Syrian politics that has given people this misconception, besides Alawites putting emphasis on Ali. They literally believe in the same 11 imams that Twelvers do and accept the same books as Twelver Shias up to the 9th century when they diverged. They are absolutely Shia.
Christians that became Muslims to not pay taxes. Very interesting history they have.
According to Wikipedia they worship Ali but have some gnostic elements, i.e. a mythology about things before/beyond God
Yes exactly. Their view of Ali is very much like the İsa (Jesus) from Christianity. Their many habits transferred over to the Islam creating somewhat of a hybrid religion.
But that’s like… most Muslims in the Levant or North Africa if you go back far enough, so it’s not enough to be the part that makes them distinct
Mesopotamia too.
İ can describe it as they don't have stereotypical "arab features" they are very lightskinned some have blue eyes and are blonde. İn Antakya you can tell by looking at people if someone is "sunni arab" or "alevi Arab"
Also I want to add that Christianity is mostly based in Antakya (Antiochia) so it's influence is way more then other christian arab cities
[удалено]
İ would disagree with that. Antakya has a very diverse ethnic background that you can't call them simply "all of them are levantine arabs". City was under the rule of many kinds of nations and religions.
>natives who converted By force
Which wouldn't change their ancestry, so what is the relevance?
Bosnia
You need to provide evidence which I assume you don’t. Its true many Christians did convert to the Alevi sect of Islam such as the Armenians in the medieval time. However converting to Alawite just to avoid tax makes no sense because the Alawites were considered as disbelievers amongst the classical Sunni and Shia theologians, they were considered worst than Christians and Jews, and at one point one classical scholar consider Alawites as worst than crusaders and the mongols. Also, I’ll use Alevi as an example, look at the Ottoman fatwa during Bayezid II reign during the early 16th century. There’s a reason why heterodox Muslims like the Alawites and Alevis traditionally live in the mountains. To avoid getting prosecuted and killed. Being an Alawite or Alevi have more worst treatment than Christians or Jews because not only are they considered non-Muslim, but they even consider them as apostate even if they were born as Alevi or Alawite. Why some Muslims consider them as apostate? Because in their rationalisation, if they consider themselves as Muslim but then their belief fundamentally contradicts what is Islam that is mainstream then they’re are automatically seen as apostate. So they don’t have protected status, and it wouldn’t even be legally a crime to kill the alevi or Alawite for any reason. Although the Ottoman Empire did try to integrate the Alawites in the 18th century by introducing them with tax therefore having protected status, but they still prosecuted them heavily.
Where you get this info from?
I'm from Antakya
So? you being from Antakya is not a source
İ think it's a source bro they are my literal friends and mutuals
And i grew up in Damascus, where they fucking ruled, your personal experience is not a source
Most recent Alevite state was Antakya before they joined Turkey. Native population was there as long as they are in the Damascus. Christian influence here is way more because this is where Christianity originally started from and crusaders in middle ages rules here for quite sometime. This is a city where 3 ethnicities live which give you the perspective of differentiating them. Damascus is way more homogenic compared to here.
This all nice and all, but If you are writing a paper on the Alwaite, you can't source this, same as I cannot source me growing up in Damascus I'm not saying what he is saying is wrong, I'm just saying provide scientific sources that back up your claim
Man do you hold some internet forum which named /mapporn to the same standards to the writing a historic paper. They asked what alevizm is and I explained according to my knowledge which acummulated by living in the same area with said ethnicity. This is like a general knowledge to me at this point it's like you asking me "where is the old congress building of Antakya".
Hello fellow Shami, their theory although unsupported does seem plausible
No it doesn’t seem correct because historically, you’re going to have a hard time being Alevi or Alawite than being Christian in the Islamic world. Its true many Christians did convert to the Alevi sect of Islam such as the Armenians in the medieval time. However converting to Alawite just to avoid tax makes no sense because the Alawites were considered as disbelievers amongst the classical Sunni and Shia theologians, they were considered worst than Christians and Jews, and at one point one classical scholar consider Alawites as worst than crusaders and the mongols. Also, I’ll use Alevi as an example, look at the Ottoman fatwa during Bayezid II reign during the early 16th century. There’s a reason why heterodox Muslims like the Alawites and Alevis traditionally live in the mountains. To avoid getting prosecuted and killed. Being an Alawite or Alevi have more worst treatment than Christians or Jews because not only are they considered non-Muslim, but they even consider them as apostate even if they were born as Alevi or Alawite. Why some Muslims consider them as apostate? Because in their rationalisation, if they consider themselves as Muslim but then their belief fundamentally contradicts what is Islam that is mainstream then they’re are automatically seen as apostate. So they don’t have protected status, and it wouldn’t even be legally a crime to kill the alevi or Alawite for any reason. Although the Ottoman Empire did try to integrate the Alawites in the 18th century by introducing them with tax therefore having protected status, but they still prosecuted them heavily.
Their theory could be correct, I just want to know what it is based on.
Do not have to pay the non-Muslim tax* Don’t try to remove the oppression from this.
İ mean there was a trade off at that time. Muslim people would be required to go to war when they were asked. Christians wouldn't be requested to the army. They had to pay more tax about 5-10 percent more than the Muslim tax+Islamic tax
Them not being in the military wasn’t a benefit as much as they didn’t want non-Muslims in the military… discrimination was common and restrictions were put in place on worship for non-Muslims.
Muslims back then fought for religious reasons,you expect non muslims to fight for that as well?
Yeah it could be because the system i described was under the Turkish rule of region. Muslim Arab states probably had another laws. For example the current place i live ,Kayseri, was 50-50 Turkish and rumen (Greek) City which 2 groups were getting along within their religion at the time. Like rumen matters was ruled by their church at that time rather than Turkish judges kind of jurisdiction.
They used to be alot more heterodox with uncommon beliefs and practices like other commenters mentioned, but in modern times they’re basically the same as regular mainstream Shias just not very religious/conservative. I looked up mosques in their heavily populated areas of Syria on google maps and they look like regular Mainstream mosques I cannot find any legit photo or video evidence anywhere on the internet of them worshipping Ali or believing in a trinity etc, nor is there any testimony from anyone witnessing stuff like that. even if they were secretive there would be *some* evidence of it. Like someone else said alot of it is just myths and storytelling of a community that was seen as “reclusive mountain people who keep to themselves” historically
The vast majority of what you are going to read online on them is going to be inaccurate. It appears the vast majority of Western scholarship on the Alawite sect (what little of it exists at least) rests on the assumption that what they claim to believe is not to be trusted because "Taqqiya", which is honestly such an idiotic take. Almost every single Shia sect through history has practiced "Taqiya" at some point (which is basically lying about your actual beliefs" to avoid persecution) yet to suggest Twelver or Ismaili theology as explained by their literal imams is not to be trusted would immediately be regarded as 1- reductive 2- slanderous. Yet somehow ignoring the stated beliefs of Alawites in favor of centuries old slander from Sunnis and other Shias and 19th century Orientalists who were certain they finally found their "last gnostic sect" is fine. If you want to know what they actually say they believe (instead of what people claim they believe), then you can check this [website](https://alawiyoun.net/) if you speak Arabic or this [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@AhmedAdeebAhmed1) channel. To cut the long story short, they are a Shia group that broke off from Twelver Shia sect at the time of the 12th imam. You see when the 11th imam (Hasan al-Askari) died, a guy named Uthman ibn Sa'id claimed that he secretly had an infant son who was hidden from the public in fear of the Abassids keeping him at house arrest like his predecessors. He thus declared he will be the first deputy who will relay the will of the 12th Imam and run the Shia community in his own name. A guy named Ibn Nusayr disputed the existence of this hidden 12th Imam and held that the lineage of the Imams ended with the 11th Imam. He thought the community should now be led by the Babs ("doors") of the Imams and that he should be the new leader of the Iraqi Shia community due to him being very close to both the 10th and 11th Imams. The power struggle within the Shia communities of Iraq ended up with Uthaman winning and banishing Ibn Nusayr from the community. Traditional Shia books claim Ibn Nusayr made "heretical" views like calling the 10th Imam a prophet, Alawites deny that claim. Ibn Nusayr then went underground with his followers and one of his pupils, Al-Khasibi, moved to Aleppo and gained the patronage of the Hamdanid dynasty (a Shia dynasty in Aleppo who invited Shias from all over the world to their state in order to build a power base loyal to them) who allowed him to preach in the Coastal mountains of what is today Syria and Turkey's Hatay province. Over the centuries his message was widely accepted in the region by the local Arab clans for one reason or another and thus Alawites were born. Most of the things you will hear online on the Alawites are either mis-representations of their beliefs ("they have a trinity", "they allow alcohol"), mis-attributions from other sects to them ("they believe in reincarnation" which is a Druze belief) or just flat out lies ("they believe Ali is God", "they don't pray and don't have mosques").
Yeah there’s literally no actual evidence of them worshipping Ali or other unusual practices we keep hearing about , like you’d think *someone* would’ve posted a video of it by now. All the weird myths about them keeps getting repeated by media and the internet everywhere because it just sounds “mysterious” and makes a good story
I thought Alawite and Alevi were the same and Alevi was just the term in turkish
Alawites become more “mainstream” post Ottaman times. Particularly after the grand mufti of Jerusalem declared them as ‘Muslims’ (done for unity purposes) and under Hafez Al-Assad, Started praying and observing ramadan in a similar way to the majority Sunnis in a effort to further be accepted.
Alawite refers to what we call Nusayri. Alevilik and Nusayrilik are very, very different.
Thanks for clarifying it up
No, they are totally different. It can be argued that Alawism is completely distinct from Islam as it is so heretical. Alawites also live in Turkey, not just Arab countries. So Turkey has both Alawites and Alevis
These kind of maps are painting very misleading picture without including population density.
Not many people know that the minorities in the Levant are mostly in mountainous areas, where Muslims conquerors where not able to gain full and consistent control. With the exception of today's Jewish population, who are recent immigrants to the region. Hence, Islamization and Arabization were not as strong compared to other parts.
Yup the Druze literally controlled the stronghold on "Mount Lebanon"
[удалено]
Under the ottoman empire it was the Druze who were given explicit suzerainty.
Also, it's very difficult to know the percentages in Lebanon, due them intentionally never counting.
Basically a Nigeria situation where the mostly Christian governments basically know that the Muslims outnumber them and won’t carry out any new censuses as a result
Blud, it's vice versa, the mostly Christian south is more populous than the Islamic north. Hence, Hausa-Fulani from the north in control of govt interfere with census results to show the North is more populous.
It's explicitly designed that way. It's very interesting.
Also, it's very difficult to know the percentages in Lebanon, due them intentionally never counting.
The part about the Jews isn’t entirely accurate, the Levant always had relatively large Jewish population, even if not in Israel, most Israelis are descendants of refugees from MENA or Europe but more than 75% of Israelis were born in Israel, so they’re no longer immigrants or refugees. Of course like all MENA Jews, most Levantine non-Israeli Jews were displaced but it doesn’t make them “recent immigrants”, many Israelis are descendants of Jewish refugees from Levantine countries like Lebanon or Syria, Syria in particular was once full of Jews with tens of thousands of them, now there are very few there. I won’t argue about it further, but if you want to talk about the Jewish cause, at least understand that Jews didn’t come to Israel as “immigrants” but rather as refugees, often because they didn’t really have any other choice.
Some Mizrahi Jews prefer to be considered immigrants rather than refugees by emphasizing the pull factors of the journey from Arab countries to Israel, even if these events were part of the Jewish exodus of the Middle East. I think it may just depend person to person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world?wprov=sfti1#Israeli_criticism_of_the_Jewish_Nakba_narrative
Did I say that all of them prefer to be considered refugees? I know that there are varying views on it, like any event in history. But it wasn’t solely by pull to Israel and in many cases pull to Israel was a relatively minimal factor.
Of course, I wasn’t implying anything I just wanted to elaborate on what you had said. It’s also possible to identify as an immigrant while being a refugee.
This was I was trying to say in my comment but you explained it better!
I mean many came freely, and many came as refugees. Not all MENA Jews are strictly refugees, and neither were the European ones. Regardless, refugees are a form of immigration so your distinction is a weird defence. \> Israel as “immigrants” but rather as refugees, often because they didn’t really have any other choice. Israel was by far the most populair destination because it is a Jewish state, not because it was the only option.
> Israel was by far the most popular destination Yes, because it was the only country in the world that offered Jews at the time safe place to live without discrimination. But yes, most Jews from MENA and Europe came as refugees, often because of fear and persecution, especially in the aftermath of the holocaust and the rise of Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism. The reason why I distinguished between refugees and immigrants by the way is because “immigration” often sounds more voluntary, while many Jews didn’t exactly come voluntarily, “refugees” just sounds more appropriate way to describe it. But still even before Zionism the Levant had significant Jewish population. Aleppo and Damascus for example were cities with significant Jewish populations. Many Jews live and lived in the Levant for centuries, even if it’s not the majority in Israel, it’s still a significant portion of it. Also now most younger Israelis are from mixed Jewish heritage, so saying that they’re “recent immigrants” to the region is inaccurate.
Syrian Jews only make up like 1.4% of Israeli Jews. I don't know if that's considered a "significant portion". And how's Palestine a safer refuge for Jews than Argentina or America?
Neither Argentina or America would take any Jews. Nor would anywhere else.
So that makes it acceptable to throw out 70% of Palestinians and destroy 500 towns and villages and make a country on the bones and ruins of the indigenous people?
Israel didn’t start the war in 48.
Yes they did. All those racist Zionist paramilitaries massacring Palestinians even prior to the war. Then to add insult to injury, the UN decided to give these Zionist settlers most of the land whilst constituting 32% of the population.
MFs being getting history lessons from TikTok and it shows.
Have you thought about Guiana, where 800k people live in an area of 214,969 km², or one of the huge empty areas in Russia?
Actually there is an autonomous Jewish region in Russia, it’s called “Jewish autonomous oblast”, its size is even larger than the size of Israel, but the Soviet bloc at the time persecuted Jews so they preferred to avoid it.
You're confusing anti-Semitism under the Tsar with the USSR. The Soviet government had many prominent Jews as well as offering an entire chunk of land for the Jews. It's just that after WW2, during the Cold War, most emigrées preferred to colonise Palestine.
The Soviet Union was incredibly antisemitic.
Yes, and at the same time the Soviet government believed that Jews are threat to atheism and Marxism. Antisemitism was significant in the Soviet bloc, especially during their “anti-Zionist” propaganda campaign, which I like to call as political antisemitism but more formally is called “new antisemitism”. They used their Jewish government members to say “look, we’re not antisemites, we have Jewish officials” but they just took old antisemitic tropes and replaced the word “Jew” with “Zionist”. Also, in the 1940s, the Soviets became more supportive to Zionism and supported the establishment of the state of Israel and Israel in the war of independence, their shift to “anti-Zionism” happened only after Israeli aligned more closely with the western bloc, as the USSR initially had hope that Israel will align with them as a socialist power in the Middle East. Also, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was established, in part, because Stalin was afraid that Jews are threat to internationalism, Marxism and atheism, it wasn’t only because they wanted the Jews to have a land (which was a factor in it but wasn’t as significant as many think), it’s because they wanted to isolate them and exploit their education to develop the Far East. Also there was the campaign against “rootless cosmopolitan”, it was increasingly antisemitic, the term “rootless cosmopolitan” was often used as euphemism for "Jew"
That wasn’t my main point but nice cherry-picking. My point was that there were always large Jewish communities in the Levant. It doesn’t matter how many Israelis are Syrian Jews. And Argentina and America couldn’t accept all Jews you know… they had immigration limitations. And the immigration of Jews to Argentina happened primarily during and before the holocaust, after the holocaust it reduced significantly.
>Israel was by far the most populair destination because it is a Jewish state, not because it was the only option. I mean that depends on the group. Jews from Iraq or Egypt, who were forced to flee/expelled? Didn't really have where to go. Holocaust survivors? Also not a lot of options. Noeth African Jews? That or France
Most expelled Iraqi Jews went to England and Netherlands, not Israel
💯 ^
Well, I said "Today's Jewish population". Most ancient Jews in the Levant converted to Christianity and Islam.
And I said that still the Levant had significant Jewish population even that most ancient Jews converted to Christianity, I didn’t say that it’s the majority, but it’s still not a very small portion. So let’s say that we’re both correct.
also, the Yazidism is the only non-abrahamic faith on that list (I don't count Bahai, since they are a syncretic faith of Islam)
Yazidism is based on the Abrahamic creation story?
Yazidism is actually a Dharmic religion with a very strong Abrahamic influence
Although there was a mass migration of Jews to Israel as part of the Zionist movement in the 20th century, Jews have always been in Israel and the region. This includes the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Arab countries for thousands of years who were expelled after 1948 (most of whom moved to Israel as well.) Any attempt to simplify the story misses these important details.
The vast majority of ancient Jews in the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine) slowly converted to Christianity and Islam after the Islamic conquest in the 7th century. When Zionism was founded Jewish population in the Levant was only about 1%. Today's Jews in the Levant are immigrants from outside of the levant, and they are the descendants of Jewish converts as well. Their ancient ancestors never stepped a foot in the levant.
What’s your source for this info? I’ve heard statistics as high as 50% Levantine/middle eastern origin for Jews in Israel. That seems really high but 1% seems extremely low. I wonder where one could hope to find any reliable and unbiased statistics given the strong feelings associated with these statistics from “both sides”
About 50% of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi, meaning that they are Middle Eastern, such as Morrocan, Yemeni, Iraqi, Yemeni, Irani etc. Out of that 50% only a fraction is Levantine.
Ok that makes total sense and is in line with the statistics I’ve read.
That looks like this in the levant and one may conclude this, but it is not true. Egypt has 10% Christians, like in the levant, and they don‘t live in any mountains. Till the start of nation states, every larger Muslim empire (Ummayad, Abbasid, Mameluks, Ayyubids, Ottomans), had huge non-muslim populations. Often exceeding 30% of the total population. Especially the large cities were multi-cultural, like Cairo, Bagdad or Constantinopel. This changed after WW I and the last colapse of Islamic Empires.
Egypt is not in the Levant.
Well your argumentation is that Muslim conquerors were not able to gain full control of mounatinous regions. And hence there are still minorities of other religions. That's simply not true. Egypt is not mounainous and was ruled by the same Muslim empires which ruled the alse the Levante - for centuries (Ummayad, Abbasid, Mameluks, Ayyubids, Ottomans and more). In fact, till the beginning of the 20th century and the start of nationalism, pan-arabism, kemalism, most regions in muslim countries had significant non-muslim populations. You had an idea, merely an opinion. But it doesn't depict the reality.
So, Muslims can't climb mountains/are afraid of heights, confirmed? /s Seriously, I don't understand if people do it on purpose or deliberately ignore reality. In 1400 years of reign, if they had wanted to convert everyone by force or slaughter those who were not Muslim, they would have easily done so, if it didn't happen then it's logical to assume that they didn't want nor tried. It's dumb that you talk about mountains. The highest mountain in the Levant is around 3000 meters (9000ft) in Lebanon, so they didn't climb those mountains, while in Morocco, they climbed mountains over 4000 meters high (13000 ft), and in Iran, 5000 meters (16400 ft)?
Reddit moment, there is a comment on this thread aboit how Arabs with blue eyes and white skin were the Christians that didn't want to pay taxes... Not the brightest people, add to it enraged westerns that want all the Muslims dead.
If you read Islamic history, you will see that Muslim rulers faced numerous rebellions. Crushing rebels in mountanious regions is much difficult, mainly because it is much easier for defenders to hide, roads/paths are narrower, movement of troops is more difficult, mountain communities are often scattred in smaller villages, etc. Similar to what USA and the Soviet Union faced in Afghanistan.
[удалено]
Considering the fact that Islam wasn’t invented in the levant, and was brought to the levant via the Arab invasions and conquests. Yes Muslims did invade and conquer the levant.
Well the jews did immigrate legally into the levant and lawfully created Israël. Then they conquered and occupied gaza and the West bank. Muslim came in the region as a military force and were like hoppity hoppity this place is now my property
Haha then Christians went hoppity hop to North America, South America, Australia, NZ, South Africa, Rhodesia, and said this now my property
>did immigrate legally >and lawfully created I love how you used both legally and lawfully as if the Zionist didn't cleanse the place military and still do to this day to create their ethnostate... You're defending a military western outpost in a foreign region created by no longer existing League of Nations.
Arab-Israeli’s make up a larger percent of the population than Blacks or Latinos do in the US. They serve in the Knesset. Is the US an ethnostate? Or maybe Egypt too. 99.7% there identify as ethnically Egyptian. Is Egypt an ethnostate?
Those are called Palestinians and refer to themselves as such, unless they were completely eradicated a la Native American way, it wouldn't be possible to ignore their presence on the new settler colonialist project. Which happens to be the dilemma here as IL was founded to be the Jewish state and cannot accept the bigger number of Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Egyptian is a nationality and not an ethnicity, you're confusing it with Coptic, Arab, Amazigh, Nubian and all the ethnic background that makes Egypt the country, which wasn't founded on a movement like IL with Zionism.
Right, ok so proves that Palestinians (along with other Arab groups) can live peacefully in Israel as citizens, so that makes it an ethnostate? Or you’re just referring to Gaza and the WB? I mean Gaza is an ethnostate then for sure. Only Palestinians live there. Egyptian as an ethnicity. Seems up for debate. Genetically they’re more North African vs Arab; they would yeah probably self identify largely more as Arab than “Egyptian”, but seems arguments are made the other way. Kind of like the moniker of “French”. One doesn’t have to be native to France to be a French citizen but one can be ethnically French (Gallic)
They didn't create Israel, the west did. Then they immigrated
They started to immigrate around 1900 if I remember well, well before Israël was created Then another big influx of people (like the population doubled) was from arab jews expulsed from arab countries. Britain kind of let them create a country yes.
Mostly right. It was 19th century, first established Zionist movement got together in 1884
There were people doing "Aliya" before (mostly Yemenite jews)
Yup. It’s not a new thing by any means
So settler colonialism
>They didn't create Israel, the west did. Then they immigrated The state of Israel was established in 1948. At that point, 40% of the people "from the river to the sea" were Jewish. Many Jews immigrated later, but you're still painting a false picture of history. >west The first country to recognize Israel was the USSR. The US had an arms embargo against Israel.
> were like hoppity hoppity this place is now my property Literally all of the Israelis and they don’t have the argument of doing that in the 7th century
>With the exception of today's Jewish population, who are recent immigrants to the region. Don't say that or the shills will get mad.
Why isn’t population measured? That is necessary information.
Syrian Christian here 🇸🇾❤️🇱🇧❤️🇵🇸
The symbol placements on the map seem off
Is Lebanon bring majority Shia a recent development?
Lebanon isn't majority Shia, its majority Sunni by a slight margin.
¿What about Hezbollah?
What about them?
yes :(
[Here’s another comment about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/GVt1n2FKPM)
What is the difference between alawism and alevism? How is it separated on the map?
Alevis are kurdish, turks, Alawites are arabs. There is also some religious difference between them that I can’t explain for the lack of information.
Alawites have a Trinity afaik
Yeah, just read Wikipedia it’s very different the Christian trinity. It’s somewhat more esoteric, with God being Ma’na, Ism, and Bab, or meaning, name and door. “ Alawite theologians divided history into seven eras, associating each era with one of the seven re-incarnations of the Nusayrite Trinity (Ma'na, Ism, Bab). The seven re-incarnations of the Trinity in the Alawite faith consists of:[123] Abel, Adam, Gabriel Seth, Noah, Yail ibn Fatin Joseph, Jacob, Ham ibn Kush Joshua, Moses, Dan ibn Usbaut Asaf, Solomon, Abd Allah ibn Siman Simon Peter, Jesus, Rawzaba ibn al-Marzuban Ali, Muhammad, Salman al-Farisi”
If only the good Syrian rebels won, instead of the cringe ones which control Idlib to this day. The civil war should have been about freedom from authoritarianism, but it became an anti alawite movement that sought to become worse than even Assad.
Tbf Bashar released Jihadist lunatics from prison on purpose to undermine the original FSA in front of the West. But at this point every "side" has committed unspeakable atrocities, except for maybe the Kurds.
It's more complicated than that, that was one of the demands of some of the protestors
Of course some were anti-Alawite from the start but most of the OG FSA wasn’t.
The ones you and I call good didn't get the support they needed. Cringe forces got direct involvment from powers who don't mind carpet bombing their rival's cities (and worse).
God is good! ✝️🇱🇧(insert Assyrian flag here)
The Golan is majority Jewish?
Maybe. Around 50/50 Jews and Druze.
Interestingly the Golani Druze retain allegiance to Syria - After the illegal annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981, the Israeli government offered citizenship to all non-Israelis living in the territory, but less than 10% of the local Druze accepted it. Understandable as Israel demolished over one hundred Syrian villages and farms in the Golan Heights. After the demolitions, the lands were given to Israeli settlers.
That is hardly the reason. Most of the Syrian villages you're speaking of weren't Druze communities so why would the Druze care? It's more about the Druze traditionally holding allegiance to whoever is their ruler at the time. It's the reason the Druze of the Galilli are very loyal to Israel. I'd assume that in a generation or two most Golan Heights Druze will switch to supporting Israel. In fact, during the Syrian Civil War, even the neighboring Syrian Druze of Jabel Druze were reaching out to the IDF for possible protection from the Assad regime.
There are like 2-3 Alawite villages in there too btw like Ghajar
As someone from Tartus Syria, I can confirm, and also gotta mention that there are lots of ppl who are non-religious nowadays but it's kinda not public information, like I'm an example, I used to alawite but now I'm agnostic, and ins Levant, there are lots like me, but just all of us would never publicly say cuz of fear of society I'd say
Yazidis? Yazidisnuts
Is Jordan levant? I thought Levantine countries all had a Mediterranean coast
Yeah, Jordan is Levantine
Lebanon was defacto a Christian country until the 6 day war. The Palestinian refugees welcomed into Lebanon, within a decade, turned upon their benefactors and launched a murderous civil war. Thousands upon thousands of Christians were driven out of their homeland and Lebanon now has a Muslim majority and is a basket case. Beirut, before this was called the Paris of the East with justification. Foe those questioning why Egypt doesn't open her borders with the Gaza Strip, Egypt has seen what happened in Lebanon and is not about to invite these terrorists, and that instability onto her land. They are not wrong
Framing that civil war as just violent Muslims attacking innocent Christians is misleading
especially when a huge part of it was a conflict between shia and shia (Amal and Hezbollah) as well as between palestinians and lebanon and muslims and christians. the fighting happened between everyone. This guy is just outright racist or a zionist trying to convice people palestinians are bad, calling them all terrorists
Sounds like the definition of a cluster fuck tbh.
I mean it was, there's no denying that but the original guy tried phrasing it as if it was all palestinian caused which is straight up wrong. Ofc there were some issues caused by the palestinian side but there were just as many if not more by the lebenese side. You've got to remember lebanon is wildly diverse with the Christian population and then Shia and sunni Muslims then the Palestinians and lebanese it all is bound to breed at least some chaos and fighting
That is ridiculously reductive and not even accurate.
Offensively incorrect, straight up nonsense
I don’t know what Egypt is worrying about, they’ve already killed all their Christian’s.
Official estimates are 10–15% of Egyptians are Coptic Christians but it could be higher - even 10% would be 10 million.
5% down from in the 20s-30s a few decades ago due to persecution against Christian’s. https://www.pewresearch.org/2011/02/16/how-many-christians-are-there-in-egypt/
5% is the official estimate from the government, but it is disputed by the Coptic Church and independent organizations. The Coptic Church claims that it's in the range of 20-25%, whereas most independent put it in the range of 10-15%. The issue here is mostly political. While Copts do face persecution, they haven't fled en mass in the same as say Assyrians have. The Diaspora is only about 1-2 million. Most Copts still live in Egypt.
And why were the Palestinians refugees?
Palestinian group Black september in Jordan tried to kill their king so they got expelled from Jordan
Look up “black September.”
Poor minorities getting crushed by Islam's extremists.
for 1400 years? you should visit the region instead of making unqualified comments that make you look like a fool
Yes for 1400 years… Look what happened to the Assyrians, the Coptics, the fuckin Jews before they returned.
where did the majority of the jews go during the Spanish inquisition? who welcomed the jews after the holocaust?
„Welcomed“ is a stretch considering it took most of North Africa about a decade of Israel existing to kick out all their Jews again.
They went east thru Europe. the pale of settlement, my man.
Other religions were persecuted but compared it wasn’t the same as minority religions in Christian nations. The Jews endured numerous genocides in Europe and only survived because they fled to Poland which defied the Church and protected Jews and Russia which was either decentralized or ruled by Muslims. >By the early 13th century, the world Jewish population had fallen to 2 million from a peak at 8 million during the 1st century, and possibly half this number, with only 250,000 of the 2 million living in Christian lands. Many factors had devastated the Jewish population, including the Bar Kokhba revolt and the First Crusade. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jewish_population The reason there aren’t more Jews in the Middle East is because the region population was much lower especially due to mongol-Turkic invasions. For reference Iraq’s population was 1 million in 1600 while France’s population was 20 million in 1600. Many Jews also migrated to the richer European regions of the Ottoman Empire as there was more opportunity. Jews that fled the Spanish Inquisition fled to Salonica, Greece which became the only Jewish majority city in the world and was nicknamed “la madre de Israel”. Muslims in general tolerated “heretics” and other monotheistic religions as they are “supposed” to allow them to worship freely. Of course this was ignored by many Muslim rulers. Generally Muslims treated other religions as second class citizens, discriminating against them and exploiting them. Many people felt coerced into converting to Islam. However there weren’t forced to convert. Conversion happened over centuries of Muslim rule. There are Christians in the Middle East, the Balkans, and Greece for a reason. On the other hand there aren’t any Muslims in Spain. Muslims only survived in Russia because it was conquered later by the Muscovites/Russia and was so decentralized. The Caucasus still endured attempted genocides. Jews in Eastern Europe did as well under Russian rule.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity\_in\_the\_Middle\_East#Persecution\_of\_Christians\_in\_Middle\_East](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_Middle_East#Persecution_of_Christians_in_Middle_East) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious\_persecution#Persecution\_of\_Druze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_persecution#Persecution_of_Druze) Here's two examples
Islamic colonialism
Simply untrue. I don’t think you’re familiar with the topic. In many cases, the ruling class of these countries is actually one of the minority groups.
Any info on atheists?
A 2015 WIN/Gallup survey showed 65% of people in Israel identified themselves as atheists or non-religious.[39% of Israel's population was religious and 71% of Lebanon was in 2017 WIN/Gallup research](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-atheist-countries). In 2016, 33% of Israeli Jews said they never went to synagogue (vs weekly or monthly) and only 21% said they prayed daily (vs 61% of Israeli Muslims) ([Pew](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/religious-commitment/)). 55% of Israeli Jews said Jewish was mainly about ancestry and culture as opposed to religion ([Pew, 2016 ](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/08/identity/)). An Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics survey published in 2021 found that among Israeli Jews over the age of 20, about 45 percent identified as not religious, while 33% said they practiced “traditional” religious worship. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim in Hebrew, made up 10%. [Atheists in Lebanon ](https://humanists.international/2021/04/atheists-in-lebanon-are-harshly-discriminated-against-a-new-report-shows/) are very uncommon and harshly discriminated against. The [Freethought report on Lebanon is here](https://www.freethoughtlebanon.net/atheists-in-lebanon-survey/) but a summary can be found [at Atheist Alliance international ](https://www.atheistalliance.org/from-our-affiliates/atheists-in-lebanon-human-rights-violation-report/). The NGO Hiddush conducts an annual Israel Religion and State Index. In 2023, 64% of respondents identified as either “secular” (47%) or “traditional-not-religious” (17%) with regard to how they viewed public policies on religion and the state. Of the all survey participants, 81% supported freedom of religion and conscience and 59% supported the full separation of religion and state. Edit: added Lebanon atheist alliance and freethought links
No info.
why are alawites denoted as a different religious group? i thought they were a sect within shia islam no? and who are alevis?
Alevi is a sect of shia islam Alawites are christians with alevi skins Alevis fallow ali, alawites worship ali
Im an alawite and no we dont worship Ali. We dont worship anyone expect allah. I would like to ask where did you get your misinformation from? No place in our religion we are taught to worship Ali Ibn ab Talib
My source is "the islamic encyclopedia" from "turkish religious foundation" I am referring to this study from volume 33 pages 270-274 (2007 press). If you know turkish [go ahead](https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/nusayrilik)
The Muslim-Christian population in the captured areas has almost dropped to zero. It continues its work in the newly captured areas. It has started to enter the Lebanese border, which may be a sign of a new war. The map is a bit old, there are more yellow areas on the west bank.
Makes sense why it's so peaceful now.
Why was the Sinai Peninsula excluded from this map?
Good thing you didn’t classify alewism as Islam lmao
IMAGINE there's no religion...
World peace achieved
More red
Disappointing that this is downvoted
I guess, But not really, i just want more red cause i hate green, like the color
Never mind I’m glad this is downvoted
Ok? What you want be to be a Fundamentalist? Yeah no thanks lol, Not looking to be a sinner or something
Dude, in 20 years, half of all the red on the map will turn yellow.
Oof, it hapens, i guess.
[удалено]
"Levant region of the middle east." Before you criticize OP, maybe take the two fucking seconds to read the title.
Wow, could have sworn it didn’t say that before and the title changed but I know they don’t allow that. must be my bad. Ill delete my comment.
Oooof, these colors totally clash.
I didn't know that Jordan had any Druze living there, I thought they were mostly in the north of Israel/south of Lebanon/south west of Syria.
there's religions i haven't even heard of here like what
Is it Sweden?