Alawites in the context of "Ba'athist Syria"

Islam is by far the most practiced religion in Turkey. Most Turkish people are Sunni Muslims, and most of them belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. Smaller numbers belonging to the Alevi, Ja'fari and Alawite minorities. The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the later half of the 11th century, when the Seljuks started expanding into eastern Anatolia.

While official records indicate the population of Turkey to be 99.8% Muslim, most surveys estimate the percentage to be around 85 to 95%. The Hanafi school of fiqh (maddhab) of Sunni Islam makes up about 90% of the Muslim population, with the remaining Muslim sects consisting of Alevis (close to 10%), Ja'faris (representing 1%) and Alawites (with an estimated population of around 500,000 to 1 million, or about 1%). With a sizeable part of population being Cultural Muslims, there is also a minority of Sufi and non-denominational Muslims.

The 1963 Syrian coup d'état, labelled in Ba'athist historiography as the March 8 Revolution (Arabic: ثورة الثامن من آذار), was the seizure of power in Syria by the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The planning and the unfolding conspiracy of the Syrian Ba'athist operatives were prompted by the Ba'ath party's seizure of power in Iraq in February 1963.

The coup was planned by the military committee, rather than the Ba'ath Party's civilian leadership, but Michel Aflaq, the leader of the party, consented to the conspiracy. The leading members of the military committee throughout the planning process and in the immediate aftermath of taking power were Muhammad Umran, Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, who belonged to the minority Alawite community. The committee enlisted the support of two Nasserists, Rashid al-Qutayni and Muhammad al-Sufi, and the independent Ziad al-Hariri. The coup was originally planned for 7 March, but was postponed one day after the government discovered where the conspirators were planning to assemble. After the coup, the Ba'athist Military committee initiated a series of purges that altered the structure of the Syrian armed forces by replacing 90% of its officer corps with Alawites.

Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Sunnī Islam, there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, different schools of theology (Atharī, Ashʿarī, Māturīdī) and jurisprudence (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī). Groups in Islam may be numerous (Sunnīs make up 87-90% of all Muslims), or relatively small in size (Ibadis, Ismāʿīlīs, Zaydīs).

Differences between the groups may not be well known to Muslims outside of scholarly circles, or may have induced enough passion to have resulted in political and religious violence (Barelvism, Deobandism, Salafism, Wahhabism). There are informal movements driven by ideas (such as Islamic modernism and Islamism), as well as organized groups with governing bodies (such as Nation of Islam). Some of the Islamic sects and groups regard certain others as deviant or not being truly Muslim (for example, Sunnīs frequently discriminate against Ahmadiyya, Alawites, Quranists, and sometimes Shīʿas). Some Islamic sects and groups date back to the early history of Islam between the 7th and 9th centuries CE (Kharijites, Mu'tazila, Sunnīs, Shīʿas), whereas others have arisen much more recently (Islamic neo-traditionalism, liberalism and progressivism, Islamic modernism, Salafism and Wahhabism), or even in the 20th century (Nation of Islam). Still others were influential historically, but are no longer in existence (non-Ibadi Kharijites and Murji'ah).

Alawism (Arabic: علوية, romanized: ʿAlawiyya), also known as Nusayrism (Arabic: نصيرية, romanized: Nuṣayriyya), is an offshoot of early Shia Islam with influences from ancient Iranian, Christian, and Gnostic traditions. Its adherents, called the Alawites, are estimated to number around 4 million and are primarily concentrated in the Levant. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence.

Alawite beliefs are centered in a divine Trinity, comprising three aspects of the one God, the ma'na (meaning), the ism (name), and the bab (door). These emanations are understood to have undergone reincarnation cyclically seven times in human form throughout history, the last seventh incarnation being that of Ali, Muhammad and Salman the Persian. Alawite practices include consecration of wine in the form of Mass, entombing the deceased in sarcophagi, observing cultural holidays such as Akitu, Christmas, Nowruz, Mawlid and Gazwela.

The ghulāt (Arabic: غُلَاة, lit. 'exaggerators, extremists') were a branch of early Shi'a Islam. The term mainly refers to a wide variety of extinct Shi'i sects active in 8th- and 9th-century Kufa in Lower Mesopotamia, and who, despite their sometimes significant differences, shared several common ideas. These common ideas included the attribution of a divine nature to the Imams, metempsychosis (the belief that souls can migrate between different human and non-human bodies), a particular gnostic creation myth involving pre-existent 'shadows' (azilla) whose fall from grace produced the material world, and an emphasis on secrecy and dissociation from outsiders. They were named ghulat by other Shi'i and Sunni Muslims for their purportedly "exaggerated" veneration of Muhammad (c. 570–632) and his family, most notably Ali (c. 600–661) and his descendants, the Imams.

The ideas of the ghulat have at times been compared to those of the late antique gnostics, but the extent of this similarity has also been questioned. Some ghulat ideas, such as the notion of the occultation (ghayba) and return (raj'a) of the Imam, have been influential in the development of Twelver Shi'ism. Later Isma'ili Shi'i authors such as Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (died c. 957) and Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani (died after 971) also adapted ghulat ideas to reformulate their own doctrines. The only ghulat sect still in existence today are the Alawites, historically known as Nusayris after their founder Ibn Nusayr (died after 868).