Islam as a Source of Law in the Druze Religious Courts

Abstract

The Druzes have never been recognised as a religious community under Muslim rule. During the Ottoman period such recognition was only granted to the members of the tolerated religions — Christians and Jews — within the institutionalised framework of the millet system. The Druze religion, though originating from the Ismā'īliyya, an extreme branch of the Shī'a, seceded completely from Islam and has, therefore, experienced periods of persecution by the latter. The Druzes were theoretically amenable to the sharī'a courts in matters of personal status and succession, yet not as Muslims (as is usually assumed owing to the custom of taqiyya, simulation, prevailing among them) but as persons not belonging to a recognised religion. At the same time, they seem in practice to have enjoyed a certain autonomy in these matters under their own religious and customary law. There is documentary evidence of this for the Lebanese Druzes, of the late 19th and early 20th century, but this autonomy should not be construed as the status of a recognised religious community.All attempts of the Druzes to achieve such a status in the era of British rule in Palestine were unsuccessful. They were not included in the list of recognised communities in the Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922–1947, nor the Succession Ordinance, 1923, probably due to a desire of the British Mandate to maintain the status quo in religious matters with only such modifications as the new political situation required. At the same time, the Government recognised Druze autonomy in matters of marriage, while other matters of personal status, and those of succession, were referred to district courts, since the Order-in-Council restricted the personal jurisdiction of the sharī'a courts to Muslim litigants.