Wedding Crashers (Druze Edition)

A few weeks ago we got to do something that every awkward American in Lebanon wishes they could do -- we attended a Druze wedding in the Chouf Mountains!

Who are the Druze, you might ask?

The Druze are one of the most unique and fascinating sectarian groups, not just in Lebanon, but in all the Middle East. The history and theology of their faith are known only to the elders, or sheiks, pictured above (disclaimer - we didn't actually take this picture, although we wish we had). Scholars think the Druze originated in Egypt in the 11th century as an off-shoot of Shi'a Islam, but even that is unclear. The more you learn about the Druze, the less Islamic they sound. Apparently, they derive a lot of their theology from Greek philosophy and gnosticism. They also seem to believe in reincarnation and at times the Druze faith sounds more like Buddhism than Islam.

Keeping the tenets of the faith secret must have therefore been a defensive mechanism against their largely suspicious neighbors. In the 16th century, many Druze fled Egypt for the safety of the Chouf Mountains in modern day Lebanon. They now make up 4% of the Lebanese population.

How would we ever get to go to a Druze wedding?

It turns out that the Druze are all over the place. It's impolite to ask someone what sect they belong to, but we probably have dozens of students and colleagues who are Druze. One of them is Wafa, pictured with Megan above.

Wafa, a Middle School Arabic teacher, is one of the friendliest teachers at ACS. When Wade bumped into Wafa and her cousin walking on the Corniche, Wafa ended a quick conversation with an invitation to her cousin's wedding (everybody is everybody's cousin in Lebanon, kind of like South Carolina). Wade, assuming that Wafa was being sarcastic, sarcastically accepted the invitation. But the Lebanese never joke about hospitality. The next thing we knew, we were driving up into the Chouf Mountains on a Sunday morning.

The view of Beirut going up into the Mountains.

Over here, when you accept an invitation to spend time with someone, you spend time with their entire family. Here is Megan and Wafa with Wafa's mother, now in her 80's. Wafa's mother wanted to become an elder of the Druze faith, which would have given her access to the sacred Druze texts. But the elders denied her admittance because a few of her seven children married outside the Druze faith.

She said that she likes us because we married young; now she's pushing for us to have kids.

Here is Wafa's father who served in the French Army during World War II.

Megan and Wassim, one of Wafa's many brothers. This is a typical view of the Chouf Mountains, just an hour outside of Beirut.

The festivities began around 1 pm in the groom's village. The location was like a cross between the local YMCA and a town hall, basically a community building. Appropriate attire was anything from 1980's prom dresses to blue jeans and t-shirts.

Here are the groom's buddies rocking out with the traditional Lebanese dance, the Dabke. It looks so cool but it's so damn hard to do. Kind of like a synchronized form of what John Belushi did in Blues Brothers.

After an hour or so the entire village loaded into their cars and caravaned 45 minutes away to the bride's village. Here is a shot of the groom approaching the building that housed the bride.

Back in the States we typically have Motown cover bands providing the entertainment. In Lebanon, they have these guys dressed up in traditional Arabic outfits with drums and tambourines. Both groups know how to rock, however.

We were surprised to find that the Druze don't really have a religious ceremony in any sense that we are familiar with. Instead, their weddings are much more informal gatherings of two communities. Here is the bride, sitting at the end of a long hall, awaiting the groom to be carried in on the shoulders of his male companions. Several hundred people sit along the sides of this open space watching. To build tension, they draw out the joining of the bride and groom for as long as possible.

Wade sprinting off the dance floor after trying, and failing, to perform the Dabke.

Megan, enjoying her juice box. While the audience waited for the groom to make his official entrance, family members came around handing out chocolate and juice. If you passed up on either one, you could expect the mother of the groom or bride to come up and ask you if something was wrong.

There was no alcohol at this stage. The serious partying came at the final stage of the wedding once everyone drove back to the groom's village. One of the groom's buddies came up to us after this picture and asked if we wanted to drink Arak (basically, Arabic moonshine) and shoot machine guns in the air. We passed up on the opportunity, perhaps wisely.