Faith, Identity, and Survival: A Comparative Study of the Bahá’í, Druze, and Yazidi Communities in the Middle East

Abstract

This article examines comparatively how the religious beliefs, communal structures, and political environments of the Bahai, Druze, and Yazidi communities have shaped their distinctive strategies of survival in the Middle East. The study is important because existing scholarship has largely treated religious identity, persecution, and minority adaptation as separate issues, without adequately explaining how these dimensions interact in producing different survival trajectories. This research employs a qualitative comparative design with a document-based method, relying on secondary sources such as scholarly books, journal articles, and historical analyses. The data were analysed through qualitative content analysis and cross-case comparison. The findings show that the three communities developed different configurations of belief and communal organisation that shaped distinct forms of survival strategy. Takiyya functioned as a limited form of concealment, the Druze developed positive neutrality grounded in territorial concentration and self-help defense, the Yazidis embodied a more vulnerable form of negative neutrality shaped by mixed settlement and limited defensive capacity, and the Bahais developed a more adaptive form of negative neutrality expressed through political quietism, migration, and transnational relocation. These findings imply that the survival of tiny religious minorities should not be understood through theology alone, but through the interaction between religious worldview, communal capacity, and political vulnerability. The originality of this study lies in its comparative framework, which integrates faith, communal structure, and political context into a single analytical model for explaining minority survival in the Middle East.