Medieval Syrian Nusayris have been the focus of Islamicists since the nineteenth century, but even today, despite the sizable number of articles, critical editions, and at least two complete monographs on them, our knowledge about their community remains meager. On the one hand, this is because of the nature of the original Nusayri sources, which contain few direct references to actual historical characters and events, mostly focusing on theological ideas. On the other hand, most of the hitherto available studies focus almost exclusively on the theological-cosmological content of these texts, paying no attention to the historical contexts in which these texts were produced and circulated. Essentialization, finally, is another feature of scholarship, plaguing not just the study of the Nusayris but of other groups as well: thus, some scholars assume the existence of a unified Nusayri community, while having virtually no information about the actual people who presumably constituted it, and relying solely on the existence of a number of texts with a distinct content. I will try to remedy these shortcomings by offering a case study of a 13th century theological dispute between a certain al-Shaykh al-Nashshabi with the representatives of various communities in several Syrian villages. The text narrates the content of the arguments between al-Nashshabi and his interlocutors, while presenting rare glimpses of the contexts in which these disputes occurred. Ostensibly, all of the sides in these debates appear to be “Nusayri,” but the disagreements between them on various theological minutiae are presented in very emotional terms, suggesting the existence of factions and groups among them. In my paper I will avoid the notion that all of these characters are members of a single “Nusayri community,” focusing, instead, on the historical contexts in which the differences between the disputants may be understood. It is my assumption that when two or more sides staunchly disagree about even the most seemingly abstract theological question, there must be more at stake than just the personal convictions of the disputants. Rather, such disagreements often reflect actual political or social tensions, and to be properly understood, they must be situated in the social-historical contexts in which they occur.