It was known intermittently as the "Alawite State" after its majority of inhabitants, who happen to be Alawites.
Alawites |
In 1222 the Shia Yemeni lord of Sinjar, Abu Muhammad al-Makhzun al-Sinjari, led a force of roughly 50,000 fighters to support the Alawites of the coastal region against their Kurdish rivals after the latter had killed several Alawites celebrating Nowruz in the Sahyun Fortress.
The Adra massacre was the killing of at least 32 Alawite, Christians, Druze and Ismailite civilians in the industrial town of Adra, Syria in December 2013 during the Syrian Civil War.
On 11 December 2013, al-Nusra Front and Jaysh al-Islam fighters entered the industrial town of Adra and targeted minority civilians, killing at least 32 Alawites, Christians, Druze and Ismailites.
One of the common characteristic of these three distinct group of people is that they frequently call themselves as "Kurdish Alawites" and distance themselves from Twelver-Shia-Muslim-Tariqat of the Anatolian Turkish-Qizilbash-Alevi-Bektashis in such a way that the prophecy of Muhammad as it was revealed by the verses of the Quran does not constitute a part of their fundamental religious faith.