It was a Saturday, market day. A cacophony of honking cars jostled for advantage in the congested streets of the Lebanese mountain town of Aley, on the Damascus highway. Men and women burdened with heavy parcels walked along the pavements and dodged between cars. Some men, dressed in baggy, black trousers and white shirts, wore round white caps on shaven heads; handlebar moustaches sprouted beneath sharp noses.
The women, rotund and fair with fat pink cheeks, wore long black skirts, loose blouses and flowing white headscarves. These distinctively dressed people belong to the small, secretive Druze community.
The Druze heartland begins here at Aley and extends southwards along the ridge of Mount Lebanon to Jezzine, east of the port of Sidon. Whether they dwell in Druze or mixed villages, they keep to themselves. Most Druze are serious and have a well-deserved reputation for honesty. Those who do not conform to the communal norm are determined individualists, like Kamal Jumblatt, the feudal lord who played a key role in the Lebanese independence movement, found ed the country's socialist party and followed the pan-Arab national hero and Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
After Kamal Bey's assassination in 1977, his son, Walid, inherited the Druze fiefdom and seat in parliament. Walid was a minister in the previous government - there is always a Druze in the cabinet.
The Druze are an 11th-century off-shoot of Islam which emerged when Egypt, Palestine and Syria were governed from Cairo by a blue-eyed Shia caliph called al-Hakim. He was a mystic who proclaimed himself the incarnation of God. His divinity was accepted by a newly formed sect which took its name from the caliph's missionary, al-Durazi. Al-Hakim's teachings merged with beliefs going back to antiquity. By the middle of the century, learned men had collected al-Hakim's writings into a sacred volume and closed entry to the sect.
The Druze believe their number has remained constant since then. It is said that today there are 600,000 Druze in Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Many more are part of the Druze diaspora.
Although considered a Muslim community, the Druze are not Muslims. They do not make the profession of faith, pray, fast, pay Muslim taxes or perform the pilgrimage, the five pillars of Islam. Druze do not go to mosques but have their own meeting houses.
Dr Sami Makarem, professor of Arabic at the American University of Beirut who is the world's leading expert on Druzism, says that the Druze belief in reincarnation is non-Islamic.
Until this century, Druze beliefs remained secret. The first man to write about the faith was murdered. The second was Dr Makarem, whose father was a senior scholar.
The Jumblatts long ago assumed the role of "protectors" of the community. Druze leaders in Israel and Syria have done likewise. The Druze who stayed in Israel after its establishment 51 years ago serve in the Knesset and the army, where at least one Druze officer has attained the rank of brigadier. Over the past 20 years, Syrian Druze have also achieved high rank in the army and aligned themselves with the equally heterodox Alawite sect, which rules the country.
Druze long for a settlement between the Arabs and Israel, enabling the 16,000 Druze who live in the occupied Golan to return to Syrian sovereignty. Israeli Druze could then reconcile with the others.
The Druze go to great lengths to maintain their tribal identity and communal cohesion. They, like Shia Muslims, were persecuted over the centuries. And so they practised deception, taqiya, by taking on the colouration of the majority, or most influential communities, wherever they live. The fact that Druze have adopted distinctive dress in Lebanon, Syria and Israel shows they feel safe.
Dr Makarem tells of a wedding 35 years ago in Detroit. The groom was a Protestant, the bride a Catholic from Baltimore. At that time such marriages were rare. When one guest remarked on the difference in religion, Dr Makarem replied with a chuckle: "But they're Druze."
