Alawites

Alawites are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, an offshoot of Shia Islam as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. At the core of Alawism is the belief in the transfer of souls, rejected by orthodox Islamic scholars of both the Twelver Shia and Sunni conviction, leading to the Alawites being considered heretics by classical theologians of Sunni and Shia Islam. A lone 1932 fatwa by Hajj Amin al-Husseini recognising them as Muslims has been seen as based on immediate political, anticolonial considerations. Many categorise Alawism as a heterodox version of Shi'ism, with a doctrine combining principles from all great monotheistic religions, of which Islam is one, and from Zoroastrianism. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence. It is the only ghulat sect still in existence today. The group was founded during the ninth century by Ibn Nusayr, who was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi, and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris.