Taqīya or Civil Religion? Druze Religious Specialists in the Framework of the Lebanese Confessional State

Ever since European intellectuals came into contact with the secretive Druze religion in the 17th century, its very secretiveness has had a strong attraction on scholars. Most of its secret teachings were, however, relatively quickly discovered as the Druze religious writings became available in major European libraries. Even if corrected on a number of points by later scholarship, Silvestre de Sacy’s monumental exposition of the Druze religion from 1838 still stands as a clear and detailed analysis of the cosmology and dogma of the early Druze religious canon which operates with a series of divine manifestations on earth, terminating in the intriguing figure of the Fatimid caliph alHakim bi Amr Allah.