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DRUZES. A heretical mystic sect of Muḥammadans, which arose about the beginning of the eleventh century in the mountains of Syria. They are now chiefly found in the districts of Lebanon, and in the neighbourhood of Damascus. They were founded by al-Ḥakīm, the fanatical K͟halīfah of the Fāt̤imite race, who reigned at Cairo, assisted by two Persians named Hamzah and al-Darāzī, from the latter of whom the sect derives its name.

De Sacy, in his Exposé de la Religion des Druzes, gives the following summary of their belief:—

“To acknowledge only one God, without seeking to penetrate the nature of His being and of His attributes; to confess that He can neither be comprehended by the senses nor defined by words; to believe that the Divinity has shown itself to men at different epochs, under a human form, without participating in any of the weaknesses and imperfections of humanity; that it has shown itself at last, at the commencement of the fifth age of the Hejira, under the figure of Hakim Amr Allah; that that was the last of His manifestations, after which there is none other to be expected; that Hakim disappeared in the year 411 of the Hejira, to try the faith of His servants, to give room for the apostasy of hypocrites, and of those who had only embraced the true religion from the hope of worldly rewards; that in a short time he would appear again, full of glory and of majesty, to triumph over all his enemies, to extend His empire over all the earth, and to make His faithful worshippers happy for ever; to believe that Universal Intelligence is the first of God’s creatures, the only direct production of His omnipotence; that it has appeared upon the earth at the epoch of each of the manifestations of the Divinity, and has finally appeared since the time of Hakim under the figure of Hamza, son of Ahmad; that it is by His ministry that all the other creatures have been produced; that Hamza only possesses the knowledge of all truth, that he is the prime minister of the true religion, and that he communicates, directly or indirectly, with the other ministers and with the faithful, but in different proportions, the knowledge and the grace which he receives directly from the Divinity, and of which he is the sole channel; that he only has immediate access to God, and acts as a mediator to the other worshippers of the Supreme Being; acknowledging that Hamza is he to whom Hakim will confide his sword, to make his religion triumph, to conquer all his rivals, and to distribute rewards and punishments according to the merits of each one; to know the other ministers of religion, and the rank which belongs to each of them; to give to each the obedience and submission which is their due; to confess that every soul has been created by the Universal Intelligence; that the number of men is always the same; and that souls pass successively into different bodies; that they are raised by their attachment to truth to a superior degree of excellence, or are degraded by neglecting or giving up religious meditation; to practise the seven commandments which the religion of Hamza imposes upon its followers, and which principally exacts from them the observance of truth, charity towards their brethren, the renunciation of their former religion, the most entire resignation and submission to the will of God; to confess that all preceding religions have only been types more or less perfect of true religion, that all their ceremonial observances are only allegories, and that the manifestation of true religion requires the abrogation of every other creed. Such is the abridgment of the religious system taught in the books of the Druzes, of which Hamza is the author, and whose followers are called Unitarians.”