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Druze People (Syria)

Druze Mountains, Jabal ad-Duruz

by David Kendall

Description

See also:

Description

The Druze people are 400,000 living in Syria (mainly in the area of Jabal ad-Duruz - Druze Mountains), Lebanon and Israel and the shape of the flag is common to all of them. You may notice the former independent state of the Druze in Jabal ad-Duruz under the French in the 20's. The flag has no fixed proportions and the items I examined varies from 2:3 to 8:11. Usually the 8:11 is used in Israel (possibly to ease production by using the same proportions as the Israeli flag).

Dov Gutterman, 1 October 1998

The Druze flag is combined from 5 colors which represent the 5 prophets of the Druze secret religion. This is what a Druze friend told me and I hope he knows what he was talking about... The Druze religion is based principally on reincarnation. The exact rules and orders, all the prayers and even books are well hidden by this community even to its own members and only when they are of a certain age are they allowed in. It all started a few centuries ago in Iran where they were prosecuted by the Muslims. Their temples back there were burnt and they fled to the Middle East. The Druze people never seek their own country but are loyal to the country which holds their lands. You can find them in Israel, Lebanon and Syria and they are said to be the best warriors (since they are not afraid to die). By the way they are not exactly Arabs (although speaking Arabic), they are of Persian origin.

Shai Tejman, 11 January 1999

I've looked into Concise Encyclopaedia of Arabic Civilization, S. and N. Ronart, Amsterdam, 1966:

"The basis of the Druze creed is the belief in the periodical manifestation of God in a human form (makam, lit. place), comparable to a veil behind which the Divine Nature is hidden. For the last five incarnations were chosen the persons of the Fatimid caliphs al-Qa'im (934-946), al-Mansur (946-952), al-Mu'izz (950-975), al-'Aziz (975-996) and al-Hakim (997-1021), the ultimate and most sublime. From him emanate the Five Principles expressing the Creative Force."

Furthermore are mentioned: al-Hakim, Hamzah ibn-'Ali, Moise, Christ and Muhammad, 5 prophets.

Jarig Bakker, 11 January 1999

At last, I received written material about the Druze and their flag. It seems the verbal information that I received and posted before was misleading and mistaken. The current source is a booklet issued by the Druze in Hebrew so here is a translation of its interesting parts:

The Druze congregation: The origin of the congregation's name is taken from the name of el-Drzi, one of the known propagandists of the Druze religion at its beginning. The religion was called at the beginning al-Tukhid and the Druze were called al-Mukhadun.

The Druze religion was established at the beginning of the 11th century but only in the 19th century were they recognized as an independent congregation by the Ottoman regime.

The Druze are recognized today as independent and separate congregations by the governments of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

The only Druze flag is combined by a green triangle at the hoist side, and four horizontal stripes of red-yellow-blue-white. The meanings of the colours are:

Red - symbolizes the heart and love of humanity
Green - symbolizes the farmer and the life
White - symbolizes the purity and the air
Yellow - symbolizes the sun and the wheat
Blue - symbolizes the sky and the faith

The five-striped flags (blue-white-red-yellow-green) and their symbolism (blue for sky, white for purity, red for blood, yellow for wheat and green for soil) were based on former, misleading information and they are wrong.

Dov Gutterman, 9 May 1999

2:3 8:11
Incorrect reported variations
by Jorge Candeias

Here is an explanation [for the colour scheme] from the Israel Druze Society website:

Druze religious symbol is a five-coloured flag consisting of Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and White respectively. These colours represent the five wise prophets of Al-Mowahideen.

Green (Al-Akl) symbolizes "the mind," Christ's Consciousness, the pristine mirror of truth, Plato's sun whose light makes knowledge of the truth possible.
Red (Al-Nafs) symbolizes "the soul," the moon (the gentle reflector of the sun) the reciever of the light, and the shaheed of the truth in every age.
Yellow (Al-Kalima) symbolizes "the word", who's the mediator between Plato's realm of eternity and Aristotle's realm of material existence. "The word," after all is the purest form of expression and the softest embodiment of the truth.
Blue (Al-Sabik) symbolizes the potential, the mental power of the will to be-come.
White (Al-Tali) Symbolizes the actualization of the potential, the be-coming of the blue power, the full materialization of Plato's world of forms in the world of matter.

Dov Gutterman, 13 September 1999