The Kalbiyya, ( ar, القلبية) Qalbiyya are one of four tribes, or tribal confederations, of the Alawite community in Syria. Syrian Presidents Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad are from the Kalbiyya.

Alawite background

The Kalbiyya are a tribe, or tribal confederation, of the Alawite community in Syria. The Alawites, also known as Nusayris, are a prominent

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

religious group who follow a branch of the

Twelver Twelver Shīʿīsm ( ar, ٱثْنَا عَشَرِيَّة; '), also known as Imāmīyyah ( ar, إِمَامِيَّة), is the largest branch of Shīʿa Islam, comprising about 85 percent of all Shīʿa Muslims. The term ''Twelver'' refers t ...

school of

Shia Islam Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, m ...

. They are divided into four tribes, sometimes described as tribal confederations: the Matawira, Haddadin, Khayyatin and Kalbiyya.

History

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Kalbiyya had a reputation for lawlessness and were in open conflict with the Ottoman authorities. In the 1850s, an English missionary,

Samuel Lyde Samuel Lyde (1825–1860) was an English writer and Church of England missionary who worked in Syria in the 1850s and wrote a pioneering book on the Alawite sect. In 1856, he sparked months of anti-Christian rioting in Ottoman Palestine when, ...

lived among them and built a mission and school. He subsequently published a negative but popular account of his time there, in which he wrote that he was convinced that they were like St Paul's description of the heathen: "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness". He criticized their brigandage, feuds, lying and divorce and claimed that "the state of heirsociety was a perfect hell upon earth". The Kalbiyya consisted of five branches: Rashawneh, Junaydi, al-Nawasireh, al-Jurud, and al-Qarahilah. The Junayd family typically provided the confederation's leadership and was based at

Tell Salhab Tal Salhab ( ar, تل سلحب, also spelled Tal Selhab) is a town in the western center of Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located northwest of Hama. It is situated on the southern edge of the Ghab plain and by the weste ...

, near

Masyaf Masyaf ( ar, مصياف ') is a city in northwestern Syria. It is the center of the Masyaf District in the Hama Governorate. As of 2004, Masyaf had a religiously diverse population of approximately 22,000 Ismailis, Alawites and Christians. The c ...

Role in Assad government

The

1963 Syrian coup d'état The 1963 Syrian coup d'état, referred to by the Syrian government as the 8 March Revolution ( ar, ثورة الثامن من آذار), was the successful seizure of power in Syria by the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of ...

was led by three Alawites:

Salah Jadid Salah Jadid (1926 – 19 August 1993, ar, صلاح جديد, Ṣalāḥ Jadīd) was a Syrian general, a leader of the left-wing of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Syria, and the country's ''de facto'' leader from 1966 until 1970, when h ...

Muhammad Umran Major General Muhammad Umran ( ar, محمد عمران; 1922 – 4 March 1972) was a founding member of the Military Committee of the unitary Ba'ath Party, and a leading personality in Syrian politics from the 8th of March Revolution until the 1 ...

and Hafez Al-Assad. Assad was from the Kalbiyya tribe, Umran from the Khayyatin, and Jadid from the Haddadin. Following Assad's seizure of sole power in 1970 (the Corrective Movement), part of his strategy was to concentrate control in the hands of members of the Kalbiyya tribe. In practice, active participation in the Assad government has, since then, been limited to members of the Kalbiyya tribe.

References

{{reflist, 33em Alawites Arab groups Shia communities Shia Islamic branches Politics of Syria