The Druze, who call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn, are an Arab esoteric religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and syncretic religion whose main tenets assert the unity of God, reincarnation, and the eternity of the soul.
The history of Lebanon covers the history of the modern Republic of Lebanon and the earlier emergence of Greater Lebanon under the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, as well as the previous history of the region, covered by the modern state.
Kamal Fouad Jumblatt was a Lebanese politician who founded the Progressive Socialist Party. He led the National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War. He was a major ally of the Palestine Liberation Organization until his assassination in 1977. He authored more than 40 books centered on various political, philosophical, literary, religious, medical, social, and economic topics. In September 1972, Kamal Jumblatt received the International Lenin Peace Prize. He is the father of the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and the son-in-law of the Arab writer and politician Shakib Arslan.
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
Walid Kamal Jumblatt is a Lebanese politician who was the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party from 1977 until 2023. A Druze and former militia commander, Jumblatt led the Lebanese National Resistance Front and allied 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.
The Jumblatt family, also transliterated as Joumblatt and Junblat) is a Druze political dynasty. The current head of the family is veteran politician Walid Jumblatt, the son and successor of Kamal Jumblatt, one of the most influential figures in modern Lebanese politics. Other members of the family have contributed to cultural, economic and social life in Lebanon. Khaled Jumblatt, a distant cousin of Walid Jumblatt, held the position of minister of economy and was a prominent politician in Lebanon for many years until his death in 1993. Besides the Chouf, the family owns mansions and villas within the distinguished Clemenceau area of Beirut and in the northwest area of Sidon.
The Lebanese National Movement was a front of Leftist, pan-Arabist and Syrian nationalist parties and organizations active during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War, which supported the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was headed by Kamal Jumblatt, a prominent Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP). The Vice-President was Inaam Raad, leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and Assem Qanso of the pro-Syrian Lebanese Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The general secretary of the LNM was Mohsen Ibrahim, leader of the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (CAOL).
Chouf is a historic region of Lebanon, as well as an administrative district in the governorate (muhafazat) of Mount Lebanon.
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.
Fouad Bey Jumblatt was the father of Kamal Jumblatt. He was assassinated on 6 August 1921.
The Battle of Ain Dara occurred in the village of Ain Dara, in Mount Lebanon in 1711, between the Qaysi and Yamani, two rival tribo-political factions.
The Shihab dynasty is an Arab family whose members served as the paramount tax farmers and emirs of Mount Lebanon from the early 18th to mid-19th century, during Ottoman rule (1517–1918). Before then, the family had been in control of the Wadi al-Taym region, purportedly as early as the 12th century. During early Ottoman rule, they maintained an alliance and marital ties with the Ma'n dynasty, the Chouf-based, paramount Druze emirs and tax farmers of Mount Lebanon. When the last Ma'nid emir died without male progeny in 1697, the chiefs of the Druze in Mount Lebanon appointed the Shihab emir, Bashir, whose mother belonged to the Ma'n, as his successor. Bashir was succeeded by another Shihab emir with a Ma'nid mother, Haydar, after his death.
The Lebanese Druze are an ethnoreligious group constituting about 5.2 percent of the population of Lebanon. They follow the Druze faith, which is an esoteric Abrahamic religion originating from the Near East, and self identify as unitarians.
Ibtisam Mara'ana-Menuhin is an Israeli Arab politician, film director, and producer. She was a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party from 2021 to 2022. Upon her election, she made history as the first Knesset member in a mixed Jewish-Muslim relationship. Mara'ana was not reelected in the 2022 election.
Nazira Jumblatt (1890–1951) was a Druze leader and the mother of Lebanese politician and Kamal Jumblatt. She was styled sitt.
Nazira Zain al-Din (1908–1976) was a Druze Lebanese scholar. She criticized Arab culture for what she claimed were its "degrading" practices. She railed against the traditional "head to toe veil" worn by Muslim women at the time and the seclusion of these women.
Ismail al-Atrash was the preeminent Druze sheikh (chieftain) of Jabal Hauran, a mountainous region southeast of Damascus, in the mid-19th century. His family had moved to the area in the early 19th century. As relative newcomers, they lacked influence in their new home, but Ismail gradually established himself as a power in the village of al-Qurayya and maintained virtual independence from the prominent Druze clans. This was largely due to the battlefield reputation he gained during the campaigns of the Druze leader Shibli al-Aryan in the 1840s. Ismail's leadership of the Druze in territorial struggles with the local Bedouin tribes, relations with the Ottoman authorities and in support of fellow Druze against the Christians during the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war firmly established his paramountcy. He was a patron of Druze newcomers from Mount Lebanon and with their support he supplanted the Al Hamdan clan as the major force in Jabal Hauran. In 1868, the Ottoman governor of Syria, Rashid Pasha, appointed Ismail as the regional governor (mudir) of Jabal Hauran, drawing the ire of his Druze rivals who formed alliances with the Bedouin tribes and the Muslim peasants of the Hauran plain to restrict Ismail's power. Nonetheless, by then, he controlled 18 villages, many of which were put under the leadership of his eight sons. One of the latter, Ibrahim, became head of the al-Atrash clan following Ismail's death.
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 both monotheistic. Christian and Druze communities share a long history of interaction dating back roughly a millennium, particularly in Mount Lebanon. Over the centuries, they have interacted and lived together peacefully, sharing common social and cultural landscapes, despite occasional exceptions. Moreover, Druze beliefs, scriptures and teachings incorporate several elements from Christianity.
May Arslan (1928–2013) was a Lebanese Druze woman who was a member of the Arslan family, and her father was Shakib Arslan. She was the mother of Walid Jumblatt and the spouse of Kamal Jumblatt, founder and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party.
