From Nuṣayrīs to ʿAlawīs: The Religiography of Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī

A disproportionate emphasis on the work of Western European and North American scholars has been a feature investigations into development academic study religion. This article seeks to examine how non-European intellectual, Syrian Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī (1876–1953), produced transmitted knowledge about religions in his encyclopedic historical topography ‘Greater Syria’—the Khiṭaṭ al-Shām (1925–1928). was leading figure Nahḍa, an intellectual movement that sought revivify Arab (and for some, Islamic) culture through rediscovery its classical heritage proponent reformist tendency within Sunnī Islam known as Salafism—often associated with thought Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī ʿAbduh. ʿAlī’s religiography Khiṭaṭ, though grounded traditional Islamic discourse religious other, moves beyond privilege experiences accounts insiders. move from heresiography is best seen close reading writing ʿAlawīs (formerly Nuṣayrīs). also important witness vital phase group’s articulation own identity environment had at indifferent worst hostile existence.