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Before beginning, I should like to offer two caveats. The first is that most of my research on the Druze religion was done some thirty years ago and that it largely focused upon origins, that is, the Isma‘ili roots of the Druze faith.
Second, and more important, it is virtually impossible for someone who is not an adherent to present a complete picture of a religion, particularly when its inner truths are known only to a minority of community members—the initiates. When one has not been part of a religious oral tradition that interprets and reinterprets the original body of doctrine, one can only comment on the traces that are visible and cannot pretend to do more.
The writings peculiar to the Druze community may be conveniently classified according to seven headings. The first two types, which are the ones that I will look at here, are the collection of canonical scriptures which, taken together, form the Druze ‘bible’ 1 and the glosses explaining and expanding certain points in those scriptures and written at a later date in the manuscripts of the canon.
Beyond these are, third, the commentaries 2 on the scriptures
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