Alawite Community (Lebanon)
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1,160,000 - 1,600,000 | |
| Languages | |
| Vernacular: Lebanese Arabic |
|
| Religion | |
| Islam (Shia Islam) |
Lebanese Shia Muslims refers to Lebanese people who are adherents of the Shia branch of Islam in Lebanon, which is the largest Muslim denomination in the country. Shia Islam in Lebanon has a history of more than a millennium. According to CIA study, Lebanese Shia Muslims constitute 27% of Lebanon's population of approximately 4.3 million, which means they amount to 1,160,000. According to other sources the Lebanese Shia Muslims constitute approximately 50% of the entire population (or 2.0 million out of a total population of 4 million).
Most of its adherents live in the northern and western area of the Beqaa Valley, Southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs. The great majority of Shia Muslims in Lebanon are Twelvers, with an Alawite minority numbering in the tens of thousands in north Lebanon. Few Ismailis remain in Lebanon today, though the quasi-Muslim Druze sect, which split from Ismailism around a millennium ago, has hundreds of thousands of adherents.
Under the terms of an unwritten agreement known as the National Pact between the various political and religious leaders of Lebanon, Shias are the only sect eligible for the post of Speaker of Parliament.
The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Lebanese people is a blend of both indigenous Phoenician elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years. In a 2013 interview the lead investigator, Pierre Zalloua, pointed out that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions: "Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top. There is no distinct pattern that shows that one community carries significantly more Phoenician than another."
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