Origins and education Al-Hasan al-Makzun was born in 1188 or 1193 and traced his descent to a certain
Arab emir of
Sinjar called Ra'iq ibn Khidr; the latter was a contemporary of the paramount Alawite scholar,
al-Khasibi (d. 969), and belonged to the tribes of Banu Tarkhan and Banu Fadl, both of which had
Yemeni origins. He was well-educated in
Arabic poetry Al-Makzun's father, Yusuf, followed his ancestor's footsteps as emir of Sinjar, and al-Makzun likewise succeeded Yusuf when the latter died in 1205. During Yusuf's days, a wave of Alawite migration from
Jabal Sinjar to the
coastal mountains surrounding
Latakia in
Syria took place. The migration was led by a local sheikh, Ahmad ibn Jabir ibn Abi'l-'Arid, founder of the Banu'l-'Arid clan, which later became patrons of the Alawites in the Latakia mountains. At the same time, there were Alawite migrations from
Baghdad,
Anah and
Aleppo to this same region.
Intervention in the Latakia mountains (
pictured) and made it his headquarters in Syria In 1218, the Alawites of the mountains near Latakia and
Baniyas appealed to al-Makzun to assist them in their struggles against the
Nizari Isma'ili Shias, who controlled an extensive network of fortresses in these mountains, and the
Kurdish military settlers brought to the region by the
Ayyubid sultan
Saladin. A massacre of Alawites in the
Sahyun fortress while they were celebrating
Nowruz prompted al-Makzun to lead a 25,000-strong expedition from Sinjar to relieve the Alawites. This first campaign reportedly ended with a defeat against the Kurdish and Ismaili forces. He later returned to Sinjar to gather more troops, swelling his forces to 50,000 warriors, and returned to the Latakia region in 1222. Al-Makzun captured the fortress of Abu Qubays, which became his base, while his son captured the village of
Baarin. He also seized the castles of
al-Marqab and
al-Ulayqa. Afterward, he celebrated his conquests with the Alawite peasants, married his cousin Fadda, and assigned
iqṭāʿāt (fiefs) to her brothers. Al-Makzun ultimately drove out most of the Kurds and Nizaris from the mountains, according to his biographers.
Religious activities His military victories were followed by an intra-Alawite theological debate he organized against the followers of the Alawite scholars Ishaq and Abu Duhayba. After the debate's conclusion, he had the followers of Ishaq and Abu Duhayba killed and their books burned. Prior to that, in 1223, he penned the . In 1232, he wrote a book of prayers called , which is not available to the public. Al-Makzun made significant innovations to the Alawite religious doctrine. These included an apparent rejection of the (dissimulation) concept, the institution of
jihad as a duty of all believers, and criticism of excessive
monist Sufi practices. According to Winter, these changes "suggested
[sic] that his overall contribution be seen as that of 'secularizing' Alawi[te] society and incorporating it more clearly as a sectarian community". ==Death and legacy==