EN MINORITET SØGER IDENTITET: Drusisk religiøs identitet i den libanesiske offentlighed

Abstract

Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen: A Minority in

Search of Identity. Druze Religions

Identity in the context of the Lebanese

Public

In recent years a number of Middle Eastem

religious minorities have been engaged in

redefinitions of their religious identities.

One of the impulses for this activity has been

the growth of Islamic movements that give

strict and narrow definitions of what

constitutes proper Islam. Another impulse

has been the growing awareness of civil and

religious rights of minorities. The Druze in

Lebanon constitute such a minority that

seeks to establish its proper identity in the

aftermath of the Lebanese civil war 1975-90

and the general upheavals in the Lebanese

national consciousness. Tracing the history

of publications about the once-so-secretive

Druze religion, the article explores the

tendency to stress an Islamic identity for the

Druze religion. This Islamization of Druze

religion became apparent in a number of

publications in the 1960s but has received a

new impetus after the end of the civil war.

Since this period more sophisticated

arguments have centered on the Sufi

character of the Druze holy writings and

defended their Islamic character along the

lines of Sufi apologetics. The article argues

that this increased sophistication and

professionalization of the agrument is partly

due to the polemics against an Islamic

identity of the Druze coming from Sunni and

Maronite thinkers, some of whom were

writing under Druze pseudonyms during the

war. It is also due to a novel understanding of

the Druze as a religious public which must

be leamt about and adapt its Islamic identity

through a public debate.