A Chance Encounter with a Druze




I met Amin just by chance. He is a Druze. The only thing I knew about Druze was that they are a very secretive people and they live mostly in the mountains of Lebanon and Syria. Apart from this, I had not much information. Very little is known about the Druze faith.



Amin and I got talking and surprisingly he was quite open about his beliefs and shared some information with me. Druze do not follow the Five Pillars of Islam (shahadah, salat, zakat, sawmm, hajj). They prefer to live in isolation but if forced to live among people of other religions - due to extraordinary circumstances - they blend in with them and pray like Muslims and Christians do. They speak Arabic.



The Druze faith is an offshoot of the Ismaili faith. Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad, an Ismaili mystic, began preaching this faith sometime in the early eleventh century in Egypt, in a place near Cairo. The Druze believe that God is both transcendent and immanent. They also believe in the concept of theophany (tajalli). Kitab- al- Hikma (Epistles of Wisdom) is one of their sacred texts.



Their most fundamental belief is in reincarnation. The moment a person (Druze) dies, his soul gets transferred into another human body, unlike in Hindu and Buddhist belief systems, wherein the soul can transfer into any living creature. A Druze will reincarnate into another Druze only and the male Druze in a male Druze and a female Druze in a female Druze.  Their place of worship is called khalwat.   

 What I understood from Amin is that Druze is a monotheistic religion and is a combination of Islam, Hindu and Greek philosophy. But they are neither Muslim, Christian, Hindu nor Jew.  Circumcision is optional. There is no concept of clergy and there are no ceremonies and rituals that they follow.   



From him, I also learnt that one of the most famous Druzes is Amal Clooney – now, that was quite a news for me. So, I went on the internet to seek Google Aunty’s help to find some more famous Druze’s but even though there was a list of names available, unfortunately I could not relate with any of them except Amal Clooney’s.



-          NZ

6.9.2019

BN: 119 

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