They use given signs and questions, by which they salute each other, and ascertain whether a stranger is one of them or not.  In their books they employ the double interlacing triangle or seal of Solomon.  They call each other brethren, and enjoin love and truthfulness, but only to the brethren.  In this they are like the Druzes.  So little do they regard all outside their own sect, that they pray to God to take out of the hearts of all others than themselves, what little light of knowledge and certainty they may possess!  The effect of this secret, exclusive, and selfish system is shown in the conduct of the Nusairiyeh in robbing and murdering Moslems and Christians without compunction.

As it has been said, the Nusairiyeh women are entirely excluded from all participation in religious ceremonies and prayers, and from all religious teaching.  The reason given, is two-fold; the first being that women cannot be trusted to keep a secret, and the second because they are considered by the Nusairiyeh as something unclean.  They believe that the soul of a wicked man may pass at death into a brute, or he may be punished for his sins in this life by being born in a woman’s form in the next generation.  And so, if a woman live in virtue and obedience, there is hope of her again being born into the world as a man, and becoming one of the illuminati and possessors of the secret.  It is a long time for the poor things to wait, but it is a convenient reward for their husbands to hold out before them.

Yet the women are so religiously inclined by nature that they will have some object of worship, and while their husbands, fathers and sons are talking and praying about the celestial hierarchies, and the unfathomable mysteries, the wives, mothers and daughters will throng the “zeyarehs,” or holy visiting shrines, on the hill tops, and among the groves of green trees, to propitiate the favor of the reputed saints of ancient days.  These shrines are supposed to have miraculous powers, but Friday is the day when the prophets are more especially “at home,” to receive visitors.  On other days they may be “on a journey,” or asleep.  Whenever a Nuisairiyeh woman is in sorrow or trouble or fear, she goes to the zeyareh and cries in a piteous tone, “zeyareh, hear me!”

Their women do not veil themselves, and consequently there is more of freedom among them than among Moslems and Druzes, and in their great festivals, men and women all dance together.

When a young man sees a girl who pleases him, he bargains with her father, agreeing to pay from twenty dollars to two hundred, according to the dignity of her family; of which sum she receives but four dollars, unless her father should choose to give her a red bridal box and bedding for her outfit.  She rides in great state to the bridegroom’s house amid the firing of guns and shouts of the women, and on dismounting, the bridegroom gives her a present of from one to three dollars, called the “dismounting money.”