Al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi

Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥusayn b. Ḥamdān al-Khaṣībī (d. 358/969), was the principal founder of the Nuṣayrī sect, known from the twentieth century as the ʿAlawī minority in Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. Al-Khaṣībī was born in Junbulāʾ, Iraq, in the second half of the third/ninth century, and brought up in a Shīʿī family. He was nicknamed after his grandfather al-Khaṣīb. His father Ḥamdān and his uncle Aḥmad were Shīʿī scholars. He was taken to Mecca in 282/895, while still a child, to perform the ḥajj. His education gave him a command of Arabic and religious sciences, especially Qurʾānic exegesis and ḥadīth. He was a talented poet and knew jāhilī (pre-Islamic) and Islamic poetry.