Nawaf Nasr, a 78-year-old member of Syria’s Druze neighborhood, holds a creased black-and-white photograph that he says exhibits him on horseback in a earlier life earlier than he died. The Druze faith holds that reincarnation is a path to religious purification.
Emily Garthwaite for NPR
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SWEIDA, Syria — Nawaf Nasr, 78, holds a creased black-and-white photograph displaying what he believes is himself in a earlier life.
The picture, from the Nineteen Forties, exhibits a serious-looking younger man carrying an Arab headdress and a go well with jacket astride a white horse. The backdrop is a black stone home in Sweida province, the homeland of southern Syria’s Druze non secular minority.
Sweida, constructed round a volcanic mountain, has been inhabited for 1000’s of years and has served as a refuge of the often-persecuted Druze for hundreds of years.
One of many pillars of the esoteric religion — often known as al-Muwahhidun, from the Arabic phrase for “union” relating to oneness with God — is reincarnation. The assumption that the soul migrates to a distinct physique or being is shared by a number of religions. (In Syria, Alawites — one other non secular minority that, just like the Druze, started as a splinter group of Shia Islam — have their very own perception within the transmigration of souls.)
The Druze maintain that members of their religion who die abruptly — together with these murdered or killed accidentally — are instantly reincarnated as new child infants.
Nawaf Nasr, 78, sits at house in Syria’s Sweida district and recollects particulars of what he says was his previous life earlier than he died and was later reincarnated.
Emily Garthwaite for NPR
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A earlier life remembered
Nasr says in his earlier life, he was a college scholar, the son of a landowner, when he was thrown from a horse and died on the age of 25 within the Nineteen Forties.
Identified by the honorific “sheikh” due to his standing as a religious elder, Nasr spent his life as a development employee and by no means attended college. Regardless of that, he says he carried over data from his earlier life.
The cabinets in his house within the metropolis of Sweida comprise books on historical past and civilization. He says when he was within the Syrian Military he was typically requested by highschool graduates to write down letters in classical Arabic for them, the mark of a better Arabic language schooling. (He says he inexplicably is aware of the right way to learn and write at a complicated degree regardless of by no means having gone to highschool.) Over tea, he quotes Plato’s perception within the immortality of souls.
Within the Druze faith, reincarnation is seen as a path to religious purification, a possibility for souls whose lives have been reduce brief to realize enlightenment, a state reached by data and good deeds that opens the gates of paradise.
“We are saying that with the intention to obtain divine justice, the soul should undergo a number of levels with the intention to right errors and comply with the best path,” says Sheikh Yasser Abu Fakhr, a Druze religious chief in Sweida.
He notes that the Arabic phrase for reincarnation, taqammus, comes from a phrase for an outer garment — qamis for shirt.
“We don’t imagine the soul dissolves in previous age however in new beginning,” he says.
A room inside the house of Nawaf Nasr within the Sweida district, the homeland of Syria’s Druze non secular minority.
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The grandson of Nawaf Nasr sits within the household’s house.
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Nasr says when he was 5, he acknowledged a girl he had by no means met earlier than as one in all his former neighbors from a village miles away that he had by no means been to — and recognized her by identify.
“She was ingesting tea with my mom and I mentioned, ‘That is Um Ismaeen — what’s she doing right here?’ “
He says he then informed her his father’s identify in his earlier life and finally met his former brothers, who accepted the younger little one as their reincarnated sibling.
The merging of earlier lives typically makes for sophisticated household dynamics. Not all Druze imagine in reincarnation, however many households embrace these they imagine are their earlier family members.
The creased previous photograph, he says, was from his daughter in his previous life, who gave it to him 25 years in the past on this life. He says she died 4 years in the past — an aged lady on the time.
“This was my horse,” he says, of the white mare with tassels round its neck within the photograph. “My daughter used to return using with me.”
There isn’t a one else from what he believes was his earlier household left to confirm the data. However members of his family vouch for what Nasr is saying, together with his shut relationship with the girl he believes was his former daughter.
Candles are lit at Ayn Zaman shrine in Sweida, southern Syria.
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Proof of previous lives?
Dr. Jim Tucker, former director of perceptual studies on the College of Virginia’s college of drugs, has studied 1000’s of instances in several nations of children reporting memories of past lives.
“They’re best to search out in cultures with a perception in reincarnation however they’re discovered throughout,” together with in the US, says Tucker, who has written books on the topic. Within the U.S., researchers are conscious of about 100 households per 12 months reporting kids with reminiscences of what they are saying are previous lives.
He says throughout cultures, kids who imagine they’ve lived earlier than, start talking at an early age and point out very particular reminiscences. In lots of instances, he says, after the ages of 6 or 7, the reminiscences fade or — significantly in cultures that don’t imagine in reincarnation — the kids cease speaking about them.
Two ladies sit on the Druze’s Ayn Zaman shrine. The Druze maintain that members of their religion who die abruptly — together with being murdered or killed accidentally — are instantly reincarnated as new child infants.
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A Druze lady holds her child daughter on the shrine.
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The analysis entails evaluating particular particulars given by kids reporting previous lives with the lifetime of the individual they imagine they have been, for which there is no such thing as a clarification for them figuring out.
Tucker says analysis doesn’t show that reincarnation exists. However he says, “In case you take a look at the strongest instances, I believe they do present respectable proof that some kids do have details about a life from the previous.”
Individuals who imagine they’re reincarnated are extensively accepted in their very own tight-knit Druze communities. However the perception is a part of the rationale that the Druze have been branded by Islamic militants as infidels. ISIS and al-Qaida-related teams have killed Druze, together with believers from different faiths, due to their non secular beliefs.
Candles are lit at Ayn Zaman shrine in Sweida, southern Syria.
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Unlocking traumatic reminiscences
Like Nasr, Druze who imagine they’re reincarnated usually come to that consciousness as babies.
In a trendy villa in Sweida, a 60-year-old lady describes studying to talk earlier than she was 1 12 months previous. She says her earliest phrases included saying that she needed to go house.
“I did not say mommy or daddy. I simply stored saying I needed to return to my household,” she says. “Generally I might attempt to throw myself underneath vehicles, saying, ‘You are not my household.’ They did not know what to do with me.”
The lady, a tutorial, didn’t need her identify or different figuring out particulars used as a result of she feared ridicule from those that don’t share her beliefs and embarrassment to her household. A few of her persona traits, she says — rebelliousness and intense independence — come from her earlier life.
A 60-year-old Druze lady says, in a previous life, this was the home she believes she grew up in earlier than being killed.
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She says her dad and mom believed she was reincarnated however have been dwelling overseas and couldn’t assist her discover the village she believes she got here from. As a small little one, she says, she used to explain the black stone home the place she lived — volcanic rock extensively utilized in Sweida however unseen within the nation the place she was born and raised.
Ten years in the past, she says, she handed by a village in Sweida and acknowledged an deserted home because the one the place she believed she had beforehand lived. She says she was capable of later confirm the household names she remembered and the story of her demise.
She says her previous life was brief and got here to a violent finish.
“I used to be 16 years previous and a bride and I ran away from my wedding ceremony as a result of I beloved another person,” she says.
The younger man she says she beloved was a cousin who waited behind a stone wall close to her house throughout the wedding ceremony celebrations. Making an excuse to depart the home, she says, they rode his horse to his mom’s home for security. There, she says, her elder brother discovered her and stabbed her to demise as a result of he believed she had dishonored the household.
“This was the custom then — my father selected my husband and they didn’t enable love.”
She says her aunt, whose identify and face she nonetheless remembers, held her in her arms as she died.
In lots of areas of the Center East, killings a long time in the past claiming to avenge a household’s honor went unreported to the police. They generally nonetheless do.
The location of what a Druze lady believes was the place she was killed in a previous life.
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