L’arbitrage et la médiation des cheikhs religieux chez les Druzes du Gharb au ixe/xve siècle

Abstract

In 9th/15th-century Syria, the Gharb region was not entirely Druze, as some have written. The region hosted a group of Unitarians who had been initiated into the Druze tawḥīd, and who were organized at the margins of State institutions, and had developed their own law. This article analyses the social role of arbitrators and mediators, drawing from local chronicles and normative sources. Arbitration (taḥkīm) as documented during the archaic period of the Emir al-Sayyid (d. 884/1479), disappeared from later legal treaties, replaced by conciliation (ṣulḥ) carried on by a “College of mediators” and the “sāyis”, both a judge and a mediator. Among the Druze, the ṣulḥ soon emerged as the preferred mode for settlement of litigation, by solving conflicts outside the bounds of State justice.

Keywords

• Syria
• Druzes
• mediation
• ṣulḥ
• arbitration
• Gharb