The medieval history of the 'Alawis of Syria, like that of other heterodox minorities, is often treated within a "persecution paradigm", whereby its relations with mainstream society are seen to be defined entirely by religious dissent, discrimination and state oppression. This image is largely determined, however, by the narrative quality of the available contemporary sources, which were for the most part composed by the urban literate (and thus essentially Sunni) scholarly class and/or focus exclusively on salient events such as instances of brigandage or forceful tax collection which are then covered with a religious-moral interpretation. As Kamal Salibi has argued with respect to the Druze and Maronite minorities of Lebanon, however, there were in fact very few historically documented instances of actual religious persecution, the notion of their retreat into a "mountain refuge" to escape persecution being deployed only in modern times to serve the construction of a common historical identity. This paper seeks to deconstruct the analogous myth that the 'Alawi or Nusayri Shi'i sect found refuge and constituted itself as a discrete confessional community in what is now western Syria and adjoining regions in reaction to systematic persecution by the Sunni Muslim state. It will briefly discuss the handful of references to the 'Alawis in medieval (essentially Ayyubid and Mamluk) chronicles and Damascene biographical dictionaries to show that even the inherently rare cases of violence against the community were motivated by fiscal or police considerations rather than religious intolerance. More important, it will draw on an unpublished and still little-known 'Alawi biographical dictionary from the early twentieth century, the Kitab Khayr al-Sani'a fi Mukhtasar Tarikh Ghulat al-Shi'a, and argue that the 'Alawi community's day-to-day concerns were very different than what outside chronicle sources suggest: On the one hand, 'Alawi individuals maintained regular, occasionally even cordial relations with the state authorities; on the other, their domestic relations were marked by scholarly disputes and tribal conflicts far more important and determinant of their social organisation than their dealings with non-'Alawi society. Away from the spotlight of histoire événementielle, a look at the more mundane social and intellectual history of the community, we will argue in conclusion, not only provides a better framework for understanding its internal history but also calls into question the supposed policies of restoring or imposing religious orthodoxy as are often imputed to the Ayyubid and Mamluk regimes.