The Druze are of Arab origin. It is well known that Arabs arrived in natural Syria before the Islamic conquest in multiple waves and collective tribal migrations.
They established a civilization in Syria, a land of water, fertile plains, rivers, and a good climate. A testament to this is the Kingdom of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert, which reached a high peak of commerce, politics, and power in its three centuries before Christ, controlling the road that linked the East and the West.
The ruins of Palmyra are sufficient to indicate the greatness of this Arab kingdom, which achieved worldwide fame during the days of Queen Zenobia.
The Arab Nabataeans also established their state, which extended as far as Damascus, including the cities of Salkhad and Jerash. This was in the third century BC, linking the trade route between the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf. Their capital was Petra. The Arabs also established regions they ruled in the name of the tribe in various places in prosperous Syria, such as the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids, until these lands became, in their overwhelming majority, the property of Arabs coming from the desert, which had become barren after once being fertile with flowing rivers, following the destruction of the Marib Dam; the desert sands still reveal traces of furrows and riverbeds.
The presence of many Arab tribes in Syria served as support for the Islamic conquest, which was carried out by Arabs in the name of Islam. The Syrian Arab tribes supported it effectively, driven by race and blood, until Syria became the center of the Arab Caliphate during the Umayyad era. Those who had ties to the Byzantines fled, and they were replaced by Arabs, both newcomers and established ones.
Therefore, having learned that the Arab Semitic waves into all of Syria were multiple and successive, it is easy—based on what historians have written—to understand the truth of this from the names of some regions that the Arabs entered and which were named after the tribe; such as Diyar Bakr in the northern Tigris basin, Diyar Rabia near Mosul, and Diyar Mudar on the Euphrates River. Likewise, the Tanukh tribe, coming from Al-Hira, settled in the Aleppo region, including Jabal Al-Summaq. They also settled in Latakia. When the call of the Unitarians (Al-Muwahhidun), known as the Druze, appeared, the Tanukh tribe embraced it in 1017 AD in Aleppo and in the Syrian coastal regions to the north and south.
The Druze are Pure Arabs
It is clear from this that the Druze are pure Arabs. They have preserved their Arab blood completely throughout the generations because they did not intermarry with other peoples for the sake of religion. Therefore, the Arab traits inherited from their ancestors have remained deeply rooted in them.
They trace their lineages back to the Arab tribes of Tayy, Lakhm, and Judham.
Their books are in Arabic, and the language they speak in their daily lives is Arabic. Talented writers, poets, and Arabic language scholars, both ancient and modern, have emerged among them. In reality, they do not conflate Arabism with Islam. For not every Muslim is an Arab, and not every Arab is a Muslim.
This is a self-evident matter. The number of non-Arab Islamic countries, and some Arabs deeply rooted in Arabism who are not Muslims, is not hidden from anyone.
We are not here to explain that, as it is outside the scope of our research.
Thus, one cannot say that the Druze are non-Arabs, or hostile to Islam, even if they understand their Islam in their own way, possessing their own special spiritual concepts in some of its aspects.
Is there an enigma?
Historians have erred in their study of the Druze creed; some called it an "enigma." It is, in truth, an enigma only to those who have not reached a sufficient level of knowledge and have not delved deep into the history of spiritual and human philosophies.
There is a prevailing opinion that the Druze were only a war-faring group and were not involved in agriculture, trade, and the arts. This is an opinion that is not based on reality. The Druze practiced agriculture in their regions in the best possible way, and it was an important source of their livelihood. If we were to look back at the Lebanese villages that were owned by them, we would see their agricultural projects and their interest in irrigation and the creation of wells and canals, through their monuments, some of which are still visible to the naked eye.
Perhaps the reason for the spread of this opinion among people was that the landowners treated their peasants with kindness, goodness, and respect, which made people unable to distinguish between the owner and the worker. This is natural for the Druze, because they did not keep slaves; their creed abolished slavery. Perhaps Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah was the first to emancipate slaves and abolish slavery.
The humane relationship that prevailed between the owner and the peasant, and the respect for the workers, viewing them as equals in their creation, humanity, and dignity to any landowner, led people to say that the Druze were not people of agriculture, and they attributed agricultural work to peasants who were not of them. This is a historical error. The farmers in the beginning were Druze, and the Druze still practice agriculture in their villages to this day.
Druze Trade
As for trade, they practiced it in the best possible way both externally and internally, during the days of the Tanukhids and the Ma'nids. Their commercial relations extended beyond borders, to Egypt, Italy, France, and Cyprus, and they were skilled in marketing their goods and knowing the varieties that would find a market outside their country.
Beirut was their general port during the Tanukhid days, and it was their port during the Ma'nid days, in addition to Sidon. As for Damascus, it was the passage for their trade to the Arab East.
Their trade was based on their agricultural products and their industries of oil, cotton, soap, ash, and silk, as well as artistic works, calligraphy, wood decoration, and goldsmithing, using gold they extracted from their lands on the slopes of Bsous and the Baisour area, and the vicinity of rivers and deep valleys.
They also extracted iron and exploited it commercially, in addition to coal. They cut rocks, becoming skilled in carving them with drawings and calligraphy. Their monuments are still visible to the naked eye in what they left behind.
Prince Izz al-Din Jawad al-Tanukhi from Abeih is considered the first to take an interest in miniatures and fine calligraphy. He was the first calligrapher to write on a grain of rice. He was also famous for making bows, to the point that he invented a bow that could fire successive arrows in a way similar to a machine gun today.
Hafez Abu Musleh – Book “History of the Druze in Beirut and their relations with its sects”
