Kalbiyya

The Kalbiyya, or Qalbiyya, are a tribe, or tribal confederation, of the Alawite community of Syria.

Alawite background

The Kalbiyya are a tribe, or tribal confederation, of the Alawite community in Syria. The Alawites, also known as Nusayris, are a prominent mystical religious group who follow a branch of the Twelver school of Shia Islam. They are divided into four tribes, sometimes described as tribal confederations: the Matawira, Haddadin, Khayyatin and Kalbiyya.

History

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Kalbiyya had a reputation for lawlessness and were in open conflict with the Ottoman authorities. In the 1850s, an English missionary, Samuel Lyde lived among them and built a mission and school.He subsequently published a negative but popular account of his time there, in which he wrote that he was convinced that they were like St Paul's description of the heathen: "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness". He criticized their brigandage, feuds, lying and divorce and claimed that "the state of [their] society was a perfect hell upon earth".