Not incorrect, pretty close anyway. The Alawites are a break off branch of the shia, their sect descends from the "Sevener" branch of Shiaism, the "Ismailis". Mainstream Shia are "Twelvers". The differences are vast and seveners have never been considered Muslim by the majority of Sunnis and shia and have always tended to form a sort of revolutionary drive within the Islamic world.
The various Alawite sects evolved out of the Ismailis along with the Druze sects, indirectly from the Nizari Hashasheen, or "Assassins", who split from the larger body of Fatimid Ismailis around the time of the crusades.
Shia political history is fascinating. The Ismailis and the older "Khumriyya" (Red) movement from which Ismailism evolved were highly politicised and revolutionary, some of their tenents included the abolition of private property and Caliphal state authority, open marriage and wife swapping, and a general antinomian flouting of law.. They were particularly active in forming Workers guilds in Iraq and Khorasan - I kid you not. Everything old is new again it seems.
On Wed, 28 Jul 2004, John Lacny wrote:
> Doug quotes Michael Pollak in the FT:
>
> > Note to Prof Avineri: Syria, Israel's next door
> > neighbour, has been ruled by a Shia minority
> > for almost 50 years.
>
> Not quite. The Asad family are Alawites. Like the
> Shi'a, they revere Ali, but at least until the '70s --
> when the elder Asad changed some tings in Syria
> -- they were not even considered Muslims by
> either Sunnis or Shi'ites.
>
> Correct?
>
>
>
> - - - - -
> John Lacny
> http://www.johnlacny.com
>
> People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!
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