Abstract
The Druze are an aggregate of communities in the Levant and Near East living almost exclusively in the mountains of Syria, Lebanon and Israel whose ~1000 year old religion formally opposes mixed marriages and conversions. Despite increasing interest in genetics of the population structure of the Druze, their population history remains unknown. We investigated the genetic relationships between Israeli Druze and both modern and ancient populations. We evaluated our findings in light of three hypotheses purporting to explain Druze history that posit Arabian, Persian or mixed Near Eastern-Levantine roots. The biogeographical analysis localised proto-Druze to the mountainous regions of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and southeast Syria and their descendants clustered along a trajectory between these two regions. The mixed Near Eastern–Middle Eastern localisation of the Druze, shown using both modern and ancient DNA data, is distinct from that of neighbouring Syrians, Palestinians and most of the Lebanese, who exhibit a high affinity to the Levant. Druze biogeographic affinity, migration patterns, time of emergence and genetic similarity to Near Eastern populations are highly suggestive of Armenian-Turkish ancestries for the proto-Druze.
Highlights
The Druze are an aggregate of communities in the Levant and Near East living almost exclusively in the mountains of Syria, Lebanon and Israel whose ~1000 year old religion formally opposes mixed marriages and conversions
The rationale of biogeographical analyses is that the population structure of the population of interest, and that of its parental populations, would exhibit high similarity allowing us to infer the biogeographical affinity of the population in question from the known geographical location of the parental populations[24]
All biogeographical inferences were carried out using the geographic population structure (GPS) tool[10]
Summary
The Druze are an aggregate of communities in the Levant and Near East living almost exclusively in the mountains of Syria, Lebanon and Israel whose ~1000 year old religion formally opposes mixed marriages and conversions. After its modest beginnings in the early 11th century A.D., Druzism garnered rapid support in the Levant[4]; and its adherents, albeit small in number, have played a disproportionately large role in the social, political and cultural shaping of the Levant (and Israel in particular5) making the question of their history even more intriguing This question is challenging given the Druze’s original nomadic lifestyle and the development, over time, of their esoteric religion that incorporates Isma’ilism Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrian, Hindu, Christian, Neo-Platonic and Persian influences[4]. Proselytisation efforts ceased, intermarriage between Druze and non-Druze was prohibited and the religion took on a new form, concealed from outsiders By this time, Druzism had taken root in north Palestine with the earliest Druze communities recorded around Mount Hermon[4]. These hypotheses espouse that Druze emerged from Arabian tribes such as the Tanukhs or Itureans, from Persian populations
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