Samuel Lyde (1825–1860) was an English writer and Church of England missionary who lived and worked in Syria in the 1850s and wrote a pioneering book on the Alawite sect. In 1856, he sparked months of anti-Christian rioting in Ottoman Palestine when, during a visit there, he killed a beggar.
Modern Syria and surrounding countries, showing locations visited by Lyde including the village of Bhamra where he established his mission.
Lyde was born in 1825.[1] He obtained a degree in 1848 after studying at Jesus College, Cambridge and in 1851 he was awarded an M.A, took holy orders as a clergyman of the Church of England and became employed as a fellow of Jesus College.[2] Poor health, according to Lyde, prevented him from "exercising the duties of his profession in England, at least during the winter months" and, therefore, in the winter of 1850/1851 he made "the usual tour" of Egypt and Syria.[3] While on the "tour", he decided, because of his health, to settle permanently in Syria, then a part of the Ottoman Empire.[3] While visiting Beirut, the British consul suggested to him that he could occupy his time by working as a missionary to the Alawites,[3] also known as Nusayris, a secretive mountain sect who later provided two of modern Syria's leaders: Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad.[4]
Lyde was persuaded by the idea. From 1853 to 1859, he lived among the Alawite community of the Kalbiyya district, and established a mission and school in Bhamra,[5][6] a village overlooking the Mediterranean port of Latakia.[7] However, he later wrote that living among them convinced him that the Alawites fulfilled St Paul's description of the heathen: "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness".[4]
Nablus at the end of the 19th century
Lyde travelled to Palestine in 1856, and as he rode on his horse into Nablus he shot and killed a beggar who was trying to steal his coat.[8][9][10] It was either an accidental discharge of the gun or Lyde had lost his nerve and fired.[8] An anti-Christian riot ensued during which Christian houses were burned and several Greeks and Prussians were killed.[9][10] Lyde took refuge in the town governor's house but was eventually put on trial for murder.[9] The only witnesses were three women who accused him of attacking and deliberately killing the beggar.[9] However, the testimony of women was inadmissible in Ottoman courts and he was acquitted of murder, although he was ordered to pay compensation to the man's family.[9] The violent rioting continued for several months and even spread to Gaza.[9]
Lyde developed a deranged mental state and had delusions that he was John the Baptist, Jesus Christ or God himself.[8][9] However, he subsequently recovered sufficiently to write a book on the Alawites, which he completed in Cairo shortly before his death. He died in Alexandria in Egypt in April 1860.[1][11] He was 35 years old.[4] He bequeathed his mission at Bhamra to two American missionaries, R. J. Dodds and J. Beattie[note 1] of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.[13]
Lyde wrote two books on the Alawites: The Anseyreeh and Ismaeleeh: A Visit to the Secret Sects of Northern Syria with a View to the Establishment of Schools (1853) and The Asian Mystery Illustrated in the History, Religion and Present State of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria (1860).[14] The latter is considered to be a pioneering work, and was the first monograph to be written on the Alawite-Nusayri religion.[15][16] It remained the only Western book on the subject until 1900, when René Dussaud published his Histoire et religion des Nosairîs.[16]
His description of Alawite doctrines was based on a document called Kitab al-mashyakha ("The Manual of the Shaykhs"),[17] which he said he had bought from a Christian merchant from Latakia.[16] This document appears to have differed in certain respects from other sources on Alawite doctrine.[17] For many years it was thought to have been lost and only available through the extracts quoted in translation by Lyde.[17] In 2013, it was announced that the document Lyde had used had been discovered in the archives of the Old Library of Jesus College, Cambridge.[18] Lyde had bequeathed it to his old college, and, apparently, had sent it to Cambridge shortly before his death.[18]
His writing reveals a negative view of the Alawites and, in particular, he was critical of what he saw as their brigandage, feuds, lying and divorce.[4] He went as far as saying that "the state of [Alawi] society was a perfect hell upon earth".[19]The Asian Mystery became a popular book and has been described as "colourful" but "unreliable" in some respects.[4] Nevertheless, Lyde's account remains an influential source on Alawites, and, for instance, is widely quoted on the internet.[4]
^Robert James Dodds and Joseph Beattie had begun their missionary work in Syria in 1856 on behalf of a Reformed Presbyterian denomination known as the Reformed Presbyterian Church Old Light Synod.[12]
^ abLindemann, Gerhard (2011). Für Frömmigkeit in Freiheit: Die Geschichte der Evangelischen Allianz im Zeitalter des Liberalismus (1846-1879). LIT Verlag Münster. p. 869. ISBN978-3-8258-8920-3.
^ abcLyde, Samuel (1853). The Anseyreeh and Ismaeleeh: A Visit to the Secret Sects of Northern Syria with a View to the Establishment of Schools. pp. i, iii–iv.
^Glasgow, William Melancthon (2007) [1888]. History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America. Reformation Heritage Books. pp. 484–487. ISBN978-1-60178-019-5.
^Denney, John Patrick (1996). Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian and Sex Magician. SUNY Press. p. 486. ISBN978-0-7914-3119-1.
^Bar-Asher, M. M. (2003). "The Iranian Component of the Nusayri Religion". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 41: 223.
^ abcFriedman, Yaron (2009). The Nusayri-Alawis: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria. BRILL. pp. 68, 220, 271. ISBN978-90-04-17892-2.
