Alawites, or Alawis are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism. A sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ghulat branch during the ninth century, Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence. From Wikipedia
