A broad overview of the various Shia sects was discussed in an earlier article (see here), and the following diagram was presented for a birdseye view of what exists from them today:

In that article we mentioned the following brief words about the Nusayrees:

They are an extreme splinter group from the Imaamiyyah, Ithna Ashariyyah sect of the Shia and they appeared in the third-century hijrah, named after Muhammad bin Nusayr al-Numayree. They claim Allaah indwelled in Ali (radiallaahu anhu), they also believe in the transmigration of souls (tanaasukh al-arwaah) and also believe in secret esoteric interpretations of the Qur'an. The entire set of beliefs they hold are an amalgamation of idol-worship, Magian paganism, and Jewish and Christian doctrines. They conceal their doctrines from those outside of their circles, and historically have killed those who dared to leak their secrets.

In this article we want to provide a brief survey of their beliefs as documented about them in a letter written in the 8th century soliciting a fatwa from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah about them, and they were present in that time around Shaam and the people were familiar with their beliefs and ways and their Baatinee approaches to the Shariah texts, but wanted to know the Shariah rulings pertaining to dealings with them. And what follows is quite revealing because this type of detailed information about their beliefs is not readily available due to the complete secrecy these people operate upon, and they are very effective at it too, as itt is known from them that they do seek out and kill those who break silence.

This is the text of the question:

What do the leading scholars, the Imaams of the religion - may Allaah be pleased with them all and aid them in manifesting the clear truth and supressing the controversies of the falsifiers - about the Nusayriyyah who:

• Speak of the lawfulness of al-khamr (alcohol, intoxicants).
• The transmigration of souls (tanaasukh al-arwaah).
• The eternity of the universe.
• Rejection of the resurrection (al-ba'th, al-nushoor).
• [Rejection of] Paradise and Hellfire besides what is in the life of this world.
• That the five prayers are simply an expression of five names which are Ali, Hasan, Husayn, Muhsin and Faatimah and the mere mention of these five names - in their view - comprises the fulfilment of ghusl from ritual impurity and likewise wudhoo and likewise the rest of the conditions and obligations of the prayers
• That al-siyaam (fasting) is merely an expression of the names of thirty men and thirty women which are enumerated in their books...
• That their deity who created the heavens and earth is Ali bin Abi Taalib (radiallaahu anhu), for he is the Imaam in the heaven and the Imaam on the earth, and thus it was from wisdom that what is divine (laahoot) unite with what is human (naasoot) [divinity manifests in humanity] so that he can be familiar and cordial with his creation and his servants, to teach them how they should know him and worship him.
• That a Nusayree does not become a Nusayree until they sit with him, make him drink alcohol, reveal their secrets to him and grant him free license to their women, until the stage where his designated teacher (from amongst them) addresses him. And the reality of this welcoming address is they make him swear to conceal his religion, his Shaykhs and the seniors of his madhhab, and that he should not give advice to any Muslim or other than him, unless he is from his own (Nusayree) doctrine.
• That he should know his lord (i.e. Ali) through the manifestion of his lights and his various roles (in humanity), and thus he knows the the name (al-ism) (that which is outer) and the meaning (al-ma'naa) (that which is the real and true essence, power) in every era and time and what it changes to.
• The name at the very beginning of mankind was Adam and the meaning was Abel. The Nuh was the name and Seth was the meaning. And then the name was Ya'qub and the meaning was Yusuf. And they produce evidence for this from what they find in the Qur'an. And then the name was Moosaa and the meaning was Yooshua, and they claim the sun obeyed Yooshua when he commanded it, indicating he is lord. Then Sulayman was the name and Aasaf (a Jinn) was the meaning, and they say Sulayman was unable to bring the throne of Bilqees but Aasaf was able to, and this is because Sulayman was only the form (soorah) but Aasaf was the meaning, the able and powerful. In this manner they treat each of the Prophets one by one up until the time of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wasallam).
• And so they say Muhammad was the name and Ali was the meaning and this is how they arrange this matter in all times up until this day of ours.
• And the reality of the speech about the religion to them is htat Ali is the Lord (Rabb), Muhammad is the Veil (Hijaab) and Salmaan (al-Farsee) is the Door (Baab), and of their heads and noble ones said in poetic verse in the year 700H: I testify that there is no deity save Haydarah al-Anza' al-Bateen (meaning Alee). And no hijaab (veil) save Muhammad al-Saadiq al-Ameen. And no path except (through) Salmaan, Dhul-Quwwat al-Mateen.
• [After these three] they have the five "unmatched" ones and then the twelve "principles" and the names of all of these are well known to them and are in the vile books, and they never cease to manifest (themselves) alongside this lord (Ali), this veil (Muhammad alayhis salaam) and this door (Salman al-Farsee).
• That the Iblees of all Ibleeses is Abu Bakr (radiallaahu anhu) and then after him in rank of Ibleesiyyah is Umar (radiallaahu anhu), then Uthmaan (radiallaahu anhu) - may Allaah ennoble them and raise their ranks far above the sayings of the heretics. So according to them them, they (the Ibleeses) never cease to exist according to the order that has been mentioned.

And this cursed sect gained authority over a fair share of a part of Shaam and they are well-known and they manifest their madhhab, and many of those who have mixed with them from the intelligent Muslims and their scholars know this from them, and likewise even from the common-folk in this time. This is because their condition used to be hidden at the time the Europeans conquered the coastal lands (of Shaam), but when the days of Islaam came, they were uncovered and their misguidance became plain and tribulation by them was very much...

Source: Refer to the published fatwa, "al-Nusayriyyah Taa'ifah Sooriyyah" (Dar al-Iftaa, Riyaadh).

Notes

First: What they mean by "the name" and "the meaning" is that Allah appears in threes (a trinity) in every age and era, and Ali bin Abi Talib (who is given divine status), Muhammad (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) and Salman al-Farsee are the manifestation of this in the latter ages, and they represent the meaning (the hidden), the name (the manifest) and the gate (the route, doorway) respectively. For all previous six cycles (Adam, Noah, Jacob, Moses, Solomon Jesus) the name and the meaning is known but not the doorway. Also when they drink wine, they believe they are drinking of the divine which subsists in the wine. They have seven pillars, the normal five pillars, which are only treated as outward symbols that represent names which upon mere repetition constitute fulfilment of the pillars. The other two pillars are Jihaad, and Walaayah, this latter one means allegiance to Ali and a struggle against all of his enemies. In addition to this, they believe in re-incarnation and have something of the astrology of the Zoroastrians. They also have their own scripture called Kitab al-Majmu' which is kept secret, never published and only available through initiation and ascent through the heirarchy. Whilst the Nusayrees are an offshoot of the Twelver Imaamiyyah Shia, many of the Shia sects consider them disbelievers. Although they are a minority in Syria (around 10%), they are found in most areas (towns, cities), and they are the ruling party.

Second: In 1982, following years of attempts by al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen in plotting a revolution against the government including an assassination attempt on Hafiz al-Assad, the Nusayree Baatinees - after they sent around 500 or so soldiers to the town of Hama to fight members of al-Ikhwaan, being unable to get their tanks through the narrow streets - decided to bomb the entire town from the air and raze it to the ground after the Ikhwani leaders ordered a general uprising of all the people in the town when they realized they had been ambushed and had no escape. By inciting the civilians of Hama against the state in this manner between 20,000 to 40,000 were killed according to various estimates and the overwhelming majority were civilians. Putting aside the kufr of these Nusayrees to one side (and it goes without saying that we side with those oppressed and wronged by this heinous crime), this is just one of the many tribulations that al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen brought into the Muslim lands with their doctrines and methodologies which are far far removed from the methodologies of the Prophets in da'wah and rectification, and which are based upon a particular outlook - [regarding the rise, honour, and fall, dishonour of nations and socities and the true reasons and causes for presence and absence of security, providence, fear and poverty, at the economic and political levels] - an outlook which clashes with the one necessitated by the Islamic aqidah and an outlook which stinks of Qadari I'tizaali poison. They do not recourse to the true Scholars who are upon the sound aqidah and methodology, rather they revile them and belittle them and raise ignorant "thinkers" and "literary writers" above and beyond the true and real scholars and this is why their actions are misguided and they find no barakah and fruition in their actions. They thought that rectification can be effected through what was distilled for them in the books of their figureheads and ideologues of the methodologies of secularist atheist Jews, Lenin and Marx, (of revolution of the masses or the military coup staged by the elite) to remove the tyrants at the top and impose the Haakimiyyah "top down" to bring economic, political and social justice. They tried this in Egypt (and failed), Syria (and failed) and in Algeria (and failed), and they put the same in motion within Saudi Arabia planning it before the Gulf War and executing it straight after the Gulf War, and they never achieved anything in the end because it is a rule in Allaah's law that the Kharijites will be cut off every time they appear and will never gain ascendancy as per the authentic ahaadeeth of the Messenger (alayhis salaam) in this regard.

Third: What one should gather and note from this article and also from those on the Hizbollah proxies in the lands of Lebanon (here), Bahrain (here), Saudi (here), Yemen (here) and Kuwait is that we have a land in which there is established the Tawhid of Allaah, and the pure aqidah of Ahl al-Sunnah, the Righteous Salaf, and the people of the land enjoy amn (safety, security), and surrounding them are the Raafidah, the Communists (Ba'thists), the Nusayree Baatiniyyah, the Ibaadiyyah Khaarijiyyah, and likewise there exist within the land the proxies of these groups, just as there are found the Sufis (Tablighis and others) who are all operating upon their calculated and devised agendas, and likewise, there are the Khawaarij whose origins were from Egypt who left their land of the awthaan (idols) of Sinjar, Dusuqi, Zaynab and al-Badawi al-Baatinee and came to that land of Tawhid considering it (as they did with all other Muslim lands) as a land of kufr, and there have emerged the Modernists and Liberalists - and the activities of all these factions (some of them with cooperation and understanding with each other) take place in concert to undermine the Scholars and rulers and the general stability of that land because each of these factions are seeking their own agendas with some of them having commonalities with others. So we ask Allaah to protect that land, its scholars, rulers and the general-folk from every daall, mubtadi' and from every munaaafiq aleem al-lisaan, and from every Kharijite who feigns knowledge of al-waaqi', and from every grave-worshipper, because these are the people who contribute to the kufr of the ni'mah (rejection of the blessing, favour) as a result of which al-amn and al-rizq (safety, providence) turns to al-khawf and al-joo' (fear, poverty). And one should also put into context the actions of those Khawaarij who came out under the slogan and banner of al-Haakimiyyah, Muhammad Qutb, the dangerous Ash'ari as the Muhaddith of Madinah, Hammaad al-Ansari - may Allaah have mercy upon him- called him - see here), and Abd al-Rahmaan Abd al-Khaaliq and their proxies with respect to their doctrines of "ta'addud al-jamaa'aat" (multiplicity of groups) and likewise Salman al-Awdah's distinction between al-Taa'ifah al-Mansoorah and al-Firqat al-Naajiyah to enable the entrance of the various ahzaab and jamaa'aat into the Firqah al-Naajiyah for their own evil designs - and what they meant here was that the Ikhwaan, Tahrir (Muhammad al-Mis'ari), and Tabligh are from the Firqah Naajiyah, from within whom these Kharijites desired recruits to bolster their own movements and gain wider support for the revolution they had been planning before they were caught and exposed by the Mashayikh of Madinah first and foremost after the Gulf War (when they timed their launch) and then by the end of the decade, by the Major Scholars, from them Imaam Ibn Baaz, Imaam al-Albaani, Imaam Ibn Uthaymeen (who in the earlier period was unclear regarding them), Shaykh Muqbil, Shaykh al-Fawzaan, Shaykh al-Abbaad, Shaykh Rabee', Shaykh Muhammad bin Haadee, Shaykh Zayd all-Madkhali and many others. And as for their followers, when they stirred the youth against the rulers and scholars, those youth in turn (from their new-found orientation of takfir and revolution) came into contact with the writings of others such as Abu Baseer al-Turtushi and Abu Qatada and Usamah Bin Laden and they lost these youth to those ones, many of which started to leave the country and go elsewhere, and then they realized that the matter had escaped from their hands, and there is much more to the saga which continues to this day of ours, the long and short of which is that they ended up as nothing but ignorant (and dishonest) Kharijites who feigned knowledge of the waaqi', stirred up unnecessary turmoil, reviled, belittled and attacked the Scholars, proved themselves to be the most ignorant of the waaqi', lost the bulk of their followers to others who were more extreme than them, and were eventually given the same treatment (declared as kafirs and sell-outs) by the very youth they nurtured upon takfir and revolution in the first place - al-jazaa' min jins al-'amal (the reward for a deed is with its like), so just as they promoted takfir against the rulers and bughd (hatred) and ihaanah (belittlement) towards the scholars, they received the very same from their followers, and then they divided into two orientations. The first of which opened up arms to the Shia and Sufis, calling for "understanding and dialogue" (al-Qarnee, al-Awdah), and the other one who did not go to the level of his former partners, but chose to play mediator for the takfiri Kharijites with whom he held a position of trust. He exposed himself as a dishonest conniving liar in live broadcasts walhamdulillah and the discussion of this matter is for another place. The intent here then is the waaqi' is more broader, wider and complex than the tunnel vision of a few dumb Kharijites who came on to the scene not far behind the Raafidah who preceded them in these types of activities, and whilst we do not claim that the rulers of certain Muslim lands are the peak of piety, or like the rulers of the past, we are not deceived by any of these people, their slogans, their banners and their calls, for none of the Scholars were with them in their falsehood, even if the affair was unclear to some of them prior to 1995, and certainly by 1997, their game was over and the Scholars were agreed upon their misguidance and falsehood, and since that time, what they were concealing of misguidance, academic fraud, dishonesty, love of Ahl al-Bid'ah and what is more, continues to be exposed (through their own tongues and actions) indicating and showing that their association with the aqidah of the Salaf is representive of an extreme type of Irjaa' which admits the possibility of tasdeeq without the actions of the heart being necessitated by it, or to put it another way, one can make tasdeeq of the Salafi aqidah and write academically about it but not be required to make al-walaa wal-baraa on the basis of it and make one's positions towards individuals, groups and parties and their works and methodologies to be determined and necessitated by it.