Law and Identity of the Druze Community in Mount Lebanon in the Late Ottoman Period
Law and Identity of the Druze Community in Mount Lebanon in the Late Ottoman Period

Summary/Abstract: The Druze were a community outside the Ottoman-Sunni ideology, both in terms of rhetoric and legal principles. However, the Druze leaders had been the administrative representatives of the state in Mount Lebanon until the beginning of the 19th century and managed to hold the political authority. In addition, the Druze, who protected their traditional law had acquired the different identity in the “Nation System” -Millet Sistemi- of the Ottoman State. However the introduction of Tanzimat reforms in Mount Lebanon caused the Druze to go beyond the political paradigms in their identity definitions. Acting to complete its Ottoman identity with Islamic terminology, the community started to use their legal status as a legitimacy tool and tried to gain a legal place in the face of the state’s changing reformist stance. This study examines the views of the Druze of Mount Lebanon on the identity problem that emerged in the last period of the Ottoman State and examines the measures taken by the community against the legitimacy concerns and the state’s policy. In this context, the legal differences of the community were mentioned by giving some examples of Druze cases in their sources and in the Ottoman archive. In addition, the effect of the method followed by the state in sectarian politics on Druze was analyzed.

• Details
• Contents