The al-Atrash, also known as Bani al-Atrash, is a Druze clan based in Jabal Hauran in southwestern Syria. The family's name al-atrash is Arabic for "the deaf" and derives from one the family's deaf patriarchs. The al-Atrash clan migrated to Jabal Hauran in the early 19th century, and under the leadership of their sheikh (chieftain) Ismail al-Atrash became the paramount ruling Druze family of Jabal Hauran in the mid-19th century, taking over from Al Hamdan. Through his battlefield reputation and his political intrigues with other Druze clans, Bedouin tribes, Ottoman authorities and European consuls, Ismail consolidated al-Atrash power. By the early 1880s, the family controlled eighteen villages, chief among which were as-Suwayda, Salkhad, al-Qurayya, 'Ira and Urman.
Shibli al-Atrash in Ira, Syria, October 1895
The Druze, who call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn, are an Arab and Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion whose main tenets assert the unity of God, reincarnation, and the eternity of the soul.
The Shrine of Shu'ayb near Hittin in the Galilee, Israel
Sixth Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Druze woman wearing a tantour during the 1870s in Chouf, Ottoman Lebanon
Meeting of Druze and Ottoman leaders in Damascus, about the control of Jebel Druze