or Alawite or Nuṣayriyyah
Minority sect of Shīite Islam.
The sect, which exists mainly in Syria, traces its roots to the teachings of Muḥammad ibn Nuṣayr al-Namīrī (fl. 850) and was chiefly established by Ḥusayn ibn Ḥamdān al-Khaṣībī (d. 957/958). Its basic doctrine includes a deification of Alī and an interpretation of the five Pillars of Islam as symbolic. Some of the group's religious practices are secret; it celebrates some Islamic and some Christian holidays.