Word: druse
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Druses to cease hostilities at once and participate with the French authorities in drawing up a constitution for the Druse state (now a loose federation of tribes held together chiefly by the bond of their ancient and peculiar Druse religion...
...Druse Mejliss (Parliament) to be convened for the purpose of adopting the constitution and deciding whether the Jebel Druse territory (literally the Mountain of the Druses) is to be constituted as an independent nation or attached to the Syrian Federation of which Damascus is the capital...
...France agrees to assist in the establishment of either of these alternative regimes at the discretion of the Druse Mejliss when it shall be formed. Further, "All that France asks of the Druses, Syrians, Libanians and Alaouites is to guarantee together a common exterior frontier, and for internal disputes to avoid fighting and seek the arbitration of France, whose aims are prosperity, peace and justice. The Druse chiefs now have only to lay down their arms...
...last extremity of resistance against the French by proclaiming a holy war. After issuing an order prohibiting the sowing of winter grain by men between 20 and 60 years of age, El Atrash called an assembly of the chiefs at which it was allegedly decided to excommunicate every Druse who should fail to devote himself to the long-standing struggle with the French (TIME, Dec. 14 et ante...
Travelers recalled that "Sultan" El Atrash dwells like a feudal lord in a tribal castle, "with walls more than a metre thick," which is perched upon a rocky crag of the Jebel Druz.** It has been alleged that he regards the whole Franco-Druse war as having sprung up because he killed a French officer "to avenge the arrest of a tribesman who was the Sultan's guest." Since that time (1921), El Atrash has employed against the French not only his temporal authority, but the influence of the religious cult which distinguishes his fellow tribesmen, a mixture...