Alauitas

Resumen

Assad's Alawi allies (Dore Gold, Jan 13, 2012):

Their faith provides a special role for the fourth caliph of Islam, Ali, and because of their name Alawis – or followers of Ali – are often thought to constitute a legitimate branch of Islam. But aside from their use of the Koran, Alawis rely on their own holy book that is not recognized by other Muslims. Their religious faith is based on revering a trinity of three individuals as divine manifestations: Muhammad, Ali, and a third individual named, Salman al-Farisi, a Persian Christian who became a Muslim and knew Muhammad in Medina. Their actual religious rituals are kept secret. They do not build mosques. Yet, in the 1970s, Lebanese Shiite leader Imam Musa Sadr issued a proclamation that the Alawis were legitimate Muslims. Unlike Imam Musa Sadr, Sunni religious clerics have viewed the Alawis over the centuries as heretics who are not part of the Islamic world. They were not even defined as "people of the book," like Jews and Christians under the Ottoman Empire. They sought to isolate themselves in the Nusayriya mountains in western Syria, above the city of Latakia.

The Cult: The Twisted, Terrifying Last Days of Assad’s Syria (Theo Padnos, Oct 4, 2011):

In the first place, Alawism is essentially a secret. It doesn’t proselytize as Sunni Islam does but rather selects its initiates from the male children of Alawite families, and only from those deemed worthy of instruction. In the second place, Alawism doesn’t exist anymore.