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Khalwat is the name of the prayer-houses of the Druze. The primary sanctuary of the Druze is at Khalwat al-Bayada. [1]
| Part of a series on Druze |
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Khalwat is the name of the prayer-houses of the Druze. The primary sanctuary of the Druze is at Khalwat al-Bayada. [1]
The Khalwat al-Bayada, Khalwet el Biyad, Khalwat al-Biyyada or White houses of communion is the central sanctuary, and theological school of the Druze, located in Lebanon and founded in the 19th century by El Sheikh Hamad Kais. [2] [1] [3] Located near Hasbaya, the khalwat is the location where Ad-Darazi is supposed to have settled and taught from during the first Druze call. [4] It features a large, stone, circular bench next to an ancient oak tree known as Areopagus of the Elders that is secluded amongst nature and trees. The Kalwaat provides around forty hermitages for Al-ʻuqqāl (the initiated) at various times of the year. [5] In 1838, copies of the Epistles of Wisdom were taken from the site by invading Egyptians. [3] Visitors are politely requested to seek permission from the resident sheikh before entering the site and female visitors are requested to cover their heads as a courtesy.
The Druze are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad and ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Zeno of Citium. Adherents of the Druze religion call themselves "the Monotheists" or "the Unitarians" (al-Muwaḥḥidūn).
Walid Kamal Jumblatt is a Lebanese Druze politician and former militia commander who has been leading the Progressive Socialist Party since 1977. While leading the Lebanese National Resistance Front and allying with the Amal Movement during the Lebanese Civil War, he worked closely with Suleiman Frangieh to oppose Amine Gemayel's rule as president in 1983. After the civil war, he initially supported Syria but later led an anti-Assad stance during the start of the Syrian Civil War. He is still active in politics, most recently leading his party, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in the 2022 Lebanese general election.
Daliyat al-Karmel is a Druze town located on Mount Carmel in the Haifa District of Israel, around 20 km southeast of Haifa. In 2021 its population was 18,001.
Emir Bashir Shihab II was a Lebanese emir who ruled the Emirate of Mount Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. Born to a branch of the Shihab family which had converted from Sunni Islam, the religion of previous Shihabi Emirs, he was the only Maronite ruler of the Mount Lebanon Emirate.
The al-Atrash, also known as Bani al-Atrash, is a Druze clan based in Jabal Hauran in southwestern Syria. The family's name al-atrash is Arabic for "the deaf" and derives from one the family's deaf patriarchs. The al-Atrash clan migrated to Jabal Hauran in the early 19th century, and under the leadership of their sheikh (chieftain) Ismail al-Atrash became the paramount ruling Druze family of Jabal Hauran in the mid-19th century, taking over from Al Hamdan. Through his battlefield reputation and his political intrigues with other Druze clans, Bedouin tribes, the Ottoman authorities and European consuls, Ismail consolidated al-Atrash power. By the early 1880s, the family controlled eighteen villages, chief among which were as-Suwayda, Salkhad, al-Qurayya, 'Ira and Urman.
Hisah is a northern Lebanese village in Akkar Governorate, close to the Syrian border. It is mostly inhabited by Alawites and Sunni Muslims.
Amin Tarif was the qadi, or spiritual leader, of the Druze in Mandatory Palestine from 1928 and then Israel until his death in 1993. Such was the esteem in which he was held among Druze internationally that Sheikh Amin was regarded by many within the community as the preeminent spiritual authority in the Druze world.
The Shihab dynasty is an Arab family whose members served as the paramount tax farmers and local chiefs of Mount Lebanon from the early 18th to mid-19th century, during Ottoman rule. Their reign began in 1697 after the death of the last Ma'nid chief. The family centralized control over Mount Lebanon, destroying the feudal power of the mostly Druze lords and cultivating the Maronite clergy as an alternative power base of the emirate. The Shihab family allied with Muhammad Ali of Egypt during his occupation of Syria, but was deposed in 1840 when the Egyptians were driven out by an Ottoman-European alliance, leading soon after to the dissolution of the Shihab emirate. Despite losing territorial control, the family remains influential in modern Lebanon, with some members having reached high political office.
Rashaya, Rachaya, Rashaiya, Rashayya or Rachaiya, also known as Rashaya al-Wadi or Rachaya el-Wadi, is a town of the Rashaya District in the west of the Beqaa Government of Lebanon. It is situated at around 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) above sea level on the western slopes of Mount Hermon, south east of Beirut near the Syrian border, and approximately halfway between Jezzine and Damascus.
Israeli Druze or Druze Israelis are an ethnoreligious minority among the Arab citizens of Israel.
The Mountain War, also known as the War of the Mountain and Guerre de la Montagne in French, was a subconflict between the 1982–83 phase of the Lebanese Civil War and the 1984–89 phase of the Lebanese Civil War, which occurred at the mountainous Chouf District located south-east of the Lebanese Capital Beirut. It pitted the Christian Lebanese Forces militia (LF) and the official Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) against a coalition of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the PNSF's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), Fatah al-Intifada and As-Sa'iqa backed by Syria. Hostilities began when the LF and the LAF entered the predominantly Druze Chouf district to bring back the region under government control, only to be met with fierce resistance from local Druze militias and their allies. The PSP leader Walid Jumblatt's persistence to join the central government and his instigation of a wider opposition faction led to disintegration of the already fragile LAF and the eventual collapse of the government under President Amin Gemayel.
Deir El Aachayer is a village north of Rashaya, in the Rashaya District and south of the Beqaa Governorate in Lebanon.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Beirut, Lebanon.
Wadi al-Taym, also transliterated as Wadi el-Taym, is a wadi that forms a large fertile valley in Lebanon, in the districts of Rachaya and Hasbaya on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. It adjoins the Beqaa Valley running north to south towards the Jordan Valley where it meets the northwest corner of Lake Huleh. Watered by the Hasbani river, the low hills of Wadi al-Taym are covered with rows of silver-green olive trees with the population in the area being predominantly Druze and Sunni, with a high number of Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox. Wadi al-Taym is generally considered the "birthplace of the Druze faith".
Sahwat al-Khudr is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the al-Suwayda District of the al-Suwayda Governorate, located south of al-Suwayda. In the 2004 census, it had a population of 3,625. The village is named after a Byzantine-era church named dedicated to Saint George. It was resettled by Druze in the mid-19th century after a period of abandonment.
The Druze power struggle of 1658–1667 was one of the most violent episodes of tribal disputes during Ottoman rule in the Levant. The conflict erupted between rebel and pro-Ottoman Druze factions over succession of the Maani rule.
Druze in Syria is a significant minority religion. According to The World Factbook, Druze make up about 3.2 percent of the population of Syria, or approximately 700,000 persons, including residents of the Golan Heights. The Druzites are concentrated in the rural, mountainous areas east and south of Damascus in the area known officially as the Jabal al-Druze.
Christianity and Druze are Abrahamic religions that share a historical traditional connection with some major theological differences. The two faiths share a common place of origin in the Middle East, and are monotheistic.