Samuel Lyde

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Samuel Lyde (1825–1860) was an

Alawite sect. In 1856, he sparked months of anti-Christian rioting in Ottoman Palestine
when, during a visit there, he killed a beggar.

Life and missionary work

Samuel Lyde is located in Eastern Mediterranean
Bhamra
Bhamra
Nablus
Nablus
Alexandria
Alexandria
Beirut
Beirut
Cairo
Cairo
class=notpageimage|
Modern Syria and surrounding countries, showing locations visited by Lyde including the village of Bhamra where he established his mission.

Lyde was born in 1825.

M.A, took holy orders as a clergyman of the Church of England and became employed as a fellow of Jesus College.[2] Poor health, according to Lyde, prevented him from "exercising the duties of his profession in England, at least during the winter months" and, therefore, in the winter of 1850/1851 he made "the usual tour" of Egypt and Syria.[3] While on the "tour", he decided, because of his health, to settle permanently in Syria, then a part of the Ottoman Empire.[3] While visiting Beirut, the British consul suggested to him that he could occupy his time by working as a missionary to the Alawites,[3] also known as Nusayris, a secretive mountain sect who later provided two of modern Syria's leaders: Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad.[4]

Lyde was persuaded by the idea. From 1853 to 1859, he lived among the Alawite community of the

St Paul's description of the heathen: "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness".[4]

Nablus at the end of the 19th century

Lyde travelled to

Ottoman courts and he was acquitted of murder, although he was ordered to pay compensation to the man's family.[9] The violent rioting continued for several months and even spread to Gaza.[9]

Lyde developed a deranged mental state and had delusions that he was

Jesus Christ or God himself.[8][9] However, he subsequently recovered sufficiently to write a book on the Alawites, which he completed in Cairo shortly before his death. He died in Alexandria in Egypt in April 1860.[1][11] He was 35 years old.[4] He bequeathed his mission at Bhamra to two American missionaries, R. J. Dodds and J. Beattie[note 1] of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.[13]

Publications and influence

Alawites dancing the Dabke folk dance, 1880

Lyde wrote two books on the Alawites: The Anseyreeh and Ismaeleeh: A Visit to the Secret Sects of Northern Syria with a View to the Establishment of Schools (1853) and The Asian Mystery Illustrated in the History, Religion and Present State of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria (1860).[14] The latter is considered to be a pioneering work, and was the first monograph to be written on the Alawite-Nusayri religion.[15][16] It remained the only Western book on the subject until 1900, when René Dussaud published his Histoire et religion des Nosairîs.[16]

His description of Alawite doctrines was based on a document called Kitab al-mashyakha ("The Manual of the Shaykhs"),[17] which he said he had bought from a Christian merchant from Latakia.[16] This document appears to have differed in certain respects from other sources on Alawite doctrine.[17] For many years it was thought to have been lost and only available through the extracts quoted in translation by Lyde.[17] In 2013, it was announced that the document Lyde had used had been discovered in the archives of the Old Library of Jesus College, Cambridge.[18] Lyde had bequeathed it to his old college, and, apparently, had sent it to Cambridge shortly before his death.[18]

His writing reveals a negative view of the Alawites and, in particular, he was critical of what he saw as their brigandage, feuds, lying and divorce.[4] He went as far as saying that "the state of [Alawi] society was a perfect hell upon earth".[19] The Asian Mystery became a popular book and has been described as "colourful" but "unreliable" in some respects.[4] Nevertheless, Lyde's account remains an influential source on Alawites, and, for instance, is widely quoted on the internet.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ Robert James Dodds and Joseph Beattie had begun their missionary work in Syria in 1856 on behalf of a Reformed Presbyterian denomination known as the Reformed Presbyterian Church Old Light Synod.[12]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-3-8258-8920-3
    .
  2. S2CID 163066384
    .
  3. ^ a b c Lyde, Samuel (1853). The Anseyreeh and Ismaeleeh: A Visit to the Secret Sects of Northern Syria with a View to the Establishment of Schools. pp. i, iii–iv.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Secretive sect of the rulers of Syria". The Telegraph. 5 August 2011. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  5. ISBN 978-0-8156-2411-0
    .
  6. ISBN 978-88-218-0437-3
    . Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  7. ^ Joffe, Lawrence (18 October 2005). "Major-General Ghazi Kanaan". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
  8. ^
    OCLC 742343
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-0-14-101350-3
    .
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-1-56663-189-1
    .
  11. ^ Lyde, Samuel (1860). The Asian Mystery Illustrated in the History, Religion and Present State of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria. p. viii.
  12. ISBN 978-1-60178-019-5
    .
  13. S2CID 163066384
    .
  14. ISBN 978-0-7914-3119-1
    .
  15. ^ Bar-Asher, M. M. (2003). "The Iranian Component of the Nusayri Religion". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 41: 223.
  16. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3
    .
  17. ^
    ISBN 978-90-04-17892-2
    .
  18. ^
    S2CID 163066384
    .
  19. ISBN 978-0-19-506022-5
    .

External links

Full texts of Lyde's works via

Google books
:

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