The Alawite State (Arabic: دولة جبل العلويين, Dawlat Ǧabal al-ʿAlawiyyīn), also known in French as Alaouites, after the locally dominant Alawite sect of Shi'a, was a French mandate territory in the coastal area of present-day Syria after World War I.
The French Mandate from the League of Nations lasted from 1920 until 1946.
Use of the term 'Alawite' instead of 'Nusayri' was advocated by the French early in the Mandate period, and referred to a member of the Alawi religious sect. It came to be the name of the region the French named the "Alawite Territory" in 1920, home to a large population of Alawi Muslims.
Read more about Alawite State: Geography, Population, French Governors
Famous quotes containing the word state:
“From this elevation, just on the skirts of the clouds, we could overlook the country, west and south, for a hundred miles. There it was, the State of Maine, which we had seen on the map, but not much like that,—immeasurable forest for the sun to shine on, the eastern stuff we hear of in Massachusetts. No clearing, no house. It did not look as if a solitary traveler had cut so much as a walking-stick there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)