Asian Studies
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Spirituality in Education

The Druze in the Middle East
Their Faith, Leadership, Identity and Status

Nissim Dana
Nissim Dana is Lecturer in Academic Religions and Cultures of Peoples in the Middle East at Bar-Ilan University, and the Academic College of Judea and Samaria. He has many years’ experience in governmental and public positions, in the context of which he remains in close contact with the heads of religious communities in Israel and abroad.

With a Foreword by Elyakim Rubinstein, Attorney-General, State of Israel

This is an especially accessible guide to Druze belief, ritual practice, ethnography, and history… The author has collected excellent demographic material on the Israel community and provides a clear and concise analysis of its social structure and struggle with change… This important little volume is arguably the best introduction currently available in English… Essential.” Social & Behavioral Sciences

“Nissim Dana’s account of the Druze’s life cycle, community organization, and faith … provides an insightful commentary and overview of a particularist faith’s orthodoxy and orthopraxy.” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences

This book discusses the Druze in the Middle East in general, with a particular focus of the Druze relationship with the State of Israel.

Part I – Faiths, Commandments, and the Life-Cycle – deals with practical religious commandments, religious rights and ceremonies, and the life-cycle of the individual.

Part II – Spiritual Leadership and Community Organization – treats the spiritual leadership in various countries of the Middle East throughout their history.

Part III – Population, Society, and Identity in Israel – discusses the role of family, society, and religious identity, and the changes in attitudes that have taken place in recent generations.

Part IV – Laws of Personal Status – is an analysis of the laws of personal status of individuals, and of the implementation of these laws in practice in the Druze religious courts.

	List of Contents to follow

Publication Details