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The Druze
Druze faith extended to many areas in the Middle East , Epistles of Wisdom, but most of the surviving modern Druze can trace their origin to the Wadi al-Taym in South Lebanon, which is named after an Arab tribe Taym-Allah (formerly Taym-Allat) which, according to the greatest Persian historian, al-Tabari, first came from Arabia into the valley of the Euphrates where they were Christianized prior to their migration into the Lebanon. Many of the Druze feudal families whose genealogies have been preserved by the two modern Syrian chroniclers Haydar al-Shihabi and al-Shidyaq seem also to point in the direction of this origin. Arabian tribes emigrated via the Persian Gulf and stopped in Iraq on the route that was later to lead them to Syria. The first feudal Druze family, the Tanukh family, which made for itself a name in fighting the Crusaders, was, according to Haydar al-Shihabi, an Arab tribe from Mesopotamia where it occupied the position of a ruling family and was apparently Christianized.[29]
The Tanukhs must have left Arabia as early as the second or third century A.D. The Ma‘an tribe, which superseded the Tanukhs and produced the greatest Druze hero in history, Fakhr-al-Din, had the same traditional origin. The Talhuq family and ‘Abd-al-Malik, who supplied the later Druze leadership, have the same record as the Tanukhs. The Imad family is named for al-Imadiyyah, near Mosul in northern Iraq, and, like the Jumblatts, is thought to be of Kurdish origin. The Arsalan family claims descent from the Hirah Arab kings, but the name Arsalan (Persian and Turkish for lion) suggests Persian influence if not origin.[29]
The most accepted theory is that the Druzes are a mixture of stocks in which the Arab largely predominates while being grafted onto an original mountain population of Aramaic blood.[46]
Nevertheless, many scholars formed their own hypotheses: for example, Lamartine (1835) discovered in the modern Druzes the remnants of the Samaritans[47]; Earl of Carnarvon (1860), those of the Cuthites whom Esarhaddon transplanted into Palestine[48]; Professor Felix von Luschan (1911), according to his conclusions from anthropometric measurements, makes the Druze, Maronites, and Alawites of Syria, together with the Armenians, Bektashis, ‘Ali-Ilahis, and Yezidis of Asia Minor and Persia, the modern representatives of the ancient Hittites.[49]
During the 18th century, there were two branches of Druze living in Lebanon: the Yemeni Druze, headed by the Hamdan and Al-Atrash families; and the Kaysi Druze, headed by the Jumblat and Arsalan families.
The Hamdan family was banished from Mount Lebanon following the battle of Ain Dara in 1711. This battle was fought between two Druze factions: the Yemeni and the Kaysi. Following their dramatic defeat, the Yemeni faction migrated to Syria in the Jebel-Druze region and its capital, Soueida. However, it has been argued that these two factions were of political nature rather than ethnic, and had both Christian and Druze supporters.
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Originally Posted by Sicilianu101
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