Emergence and Ottoman period There are no known references to the Kalbiyya in medieval sources. They are not, for instance, mentioned among the tribes led by the 13th century Alawite paramount leader
Makzun al-Sinjari. It is only after the
Ottoman conquest of Syria in the early 16th century that the Kalbiyya are mentioned in historical records.
Stefan Winter, an historian specialising in
Ottoman Syria, notes that, despite this, they may have existed as a grouping before the 16th century (but without any "special role" among the Alawites). He also speculates that their name "may originally have invoked a link" with the medieval
Banu Kalb bedouin tribal confederation. There is evidence that, following the conquest, the Kalbiyya were among the tribes favoured by the
Ottomans in order to use them as part of their local administrative control and tax collection structure. The Kalbiyya's emergence as a recognised group may therefore be linked to this Ottoman policy. Nevertheless, there were a number of Kalbiyya rebellions during the 16th century, and by the beginning of the 19th century, the Kalbiyya had a reputation for lawlessness and were in constant and open conflict with the Ottoman authorities. In the 1850s,
Samuel Lyde, an English missionary, lived among the Kalbiyya and built a mission and school in the Kalbiyya village of
Bhamra. He subsequently published a negative but influential account of his time there, in which he wrote that he was convinced that they were like
St Paul's description of the heathen: "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness". He criticized their brigandage, feuds, lying and divorce and claimed that "the state of [their] society was a perfect hell upon earth". Lyde's account has been described as "colourful" but "unreliable" in certain respects. During the mid-19th century, there were rising tensions in the mountains due to the pressure on resources from a growing population and attempts by the central government to enforce direct rule. In 1854, the governor of
Latakia Sanjak was killed in a battle by the Kalbiyya of Qardaha. Buoyed by their victory, the Kalbiyya raided the gardens of Latakia and
Jableh. Raids by the tribesmen and counterattacks by the Ottomans continued for some time. Alawites were prohibited from entering Latakia and Jableh without a certificate of safe conduct by the
sanjak governor and trade between the largely Sunni Muslim townspeople and the Alawite mountaineers was conducted in a
souk on the outskirts of Latakia for security purposes. By the end of the 19th century, relations had improved between the rural Alawites and urban Sunnis. This was partly due to Ottoman efforts to bring the Alawites into the Muslim fold and void pretexts for European
interventionism (as had occurred with the
Maronites of
Mount Lebanon in 1861) and partly because of the burgeoning ties between Latakia's merchants and Alawite tribal chiefs to secure the mountaineers' supply of tobacco for export.
During the French mandate Following the end of Ottoman rule after World War I, Syria became part of the
French mandate, which was subdivided into separate territories including an
Alawite State. By 1930, Syria as a whole had an Alawite population of 213,870, of which 50,700 were Kalbiyya. The Alawite community was divided between "separatists" who supported the maintenance of a separate Alawite state and "nationalists" or "unionists", who advocated integration into a wider Syrian or even
pan-Arab state. The Kalbiyya leadership was similarly divided and through the 1920s and 1930s individual chiefs shifted between separatism and the nationalist/unionist position depending on prevailing opinions within the tribe. Nevertheless, in the negotiations leading to the Alawite State joining the
Mandatory Syrian Republic in 1936, even nationalist Kalbiyya chiefs signed letters asking for separation from Syria to be maintained for fear of
Sunni domination. One of the Kalbiyya leaders whose signature appears on one of the letters was
Ali Sulayman, father of
Hafez al-Assad, later president of Syria. It should, however, be noted that historian Stefan Winter has questioned the authenticity of these letters.
Post-Syrian independence Syria became independent in 1946 but suffered from political instability in its first years and, in 1963, the
Ba'athist coup overthrew the then government. The coup was led by three Alawites:
Salah Jadid,
Muhammad Umran and Hafez al-Assad. Assad was from the Kalbiyya tribe, Umran from the Khayyatin, and Jadid from the Haddadin. Following
Assad's seizure of sole power in 1970, part of his strategy was to concentrate control in the hands of members of his own Kalbiyya tribe. The Kalbiyya's rise under came at the detriment of the historically more dominant and prestigious Alawite confederations, the Haddadin and Khayyatin. In 1970, the Kalbiyya numbered 108,800 compared to a total Syrian population of 6,305,000. Although Alawites in general dominated the government, as historian
Jordi Tejel points out, in practice "active participation" in the Assad regime was limited to the Kalbiyya. There is evidence that the Kalbiyya areas received much greater infrastructure investment and other economic benefits compared to other Alawite areas. According to anthropologist
Fabrice Balanche, the Kalbiyya's dominance of power in Syria was not the primary objective of Hafez al-Assad but rather a result of his placement of relatives in key military and bureaucratic positions. While their kinship ties to the president gave them an advantage over the rest the population, Hafez al-Assad could not rely solely on the Kalbiyya and forged alliances and relations with other Syrian tribes and communities to broaden his base in the country. Assad, following his death in 2000, was succeeded as president by his son,
Bashar. The latter continued to rule through the same power structures as his father, with the Kalbiyya playing a central role. With the advent of the
2011 uprising and subsequent civil war, there was even greater focus on this policy. In 20122013, some 90% of regime army generals, according to sources close to the government, were not only Alawite but from the Kalbiyya tribe. ==Notable Kalbiyya==