You actually know somebody who's Druze?!? Dude. I studied them in college, but I thought they were a bit like dervishes; the subject of History Channel shows but no one you'd actually run into.

How very cool!

Apparently they pretend to be Muslim when dealing with Muslims (and possibly Christian while dealing with Christians?), but, yeah, our boss and his son are actually Druze.

(wrt Dervishes - there's a fabulous Sufi performance near the Khan twice a week, when Cairo's 'whirling dervishes' do their thing. I've been five or six times, and it still blows my mind every time. Worship and transcendence through music and dance - now THAT'S something I can understand. So actually dervishes are probably easier than Druze, really, should you find yourself in Cairo...)

So weird; I am reading "Desert Queen" about Gertrude Bell, and she goes and visits the Druze, who are a very secretive sect. She became quite friendly with them, and a Druze man accompanied her on many of her trips.

It's an interesting book, even if the biographer takes some leaps and is a wee bit florid with the descriptiveness on occasion.

Cool.

When I was in Israel last summer, we went to see a Druze village, and had lunch at a house there. (I'm not sure I'd quite call it a restaurant -- it seemed too small and informal for that. Maybe more of a Bed and Breakfast, only without the Bed part. Anyway, place that looked like a private home, and had no sign outside indicating otherwise, but they serve food to tour groups.) It was a neat lunch -- all vegetarian, and lots of different dishes, with bread to dip in them. Afterwards, someone there gave us a little talk about the history of the Druze, and their relationship with Israel and all the other countries around there. Pretty interesting. (They're the only religious group other than Jews that serve in the Israeli army, which I thought was sort of neat. And I think they said that men and women can both had the high religious positions, but I may be misremembering.)

t edit: just read the link. Sorry for being all repetitive there, then. Also, I just remembered, that in the Druze village, most of the people mostly looked Arab, except that they had bluish-green eyes. The guy telling us about their history said that that was because Druze women had been raped by the Crusaders.

And I think they said that men and women can both had the high religious positions, but I may be misremembering.)

That's what the wikipedia entry said.

Apparently he's secretly Druze - a religion I'd never even heard of, which is a sort of gnostic/Muslim/Christian secret society thing!!!

I just learned about the Druze in the past year. I didn't realize they passed as Muslim, etc., though. So interesting.

Well, I'm not claiming that other Druze do that. But the guy running our school is, very wisely, not trying to alienate his client base, so letting people assume/implying/outright claiming to be Muslim (I don't know which he's doing) is pretty sensible.

AAAUUUUUGH!!!

Sorry, billytea.