The Murshidiyya is a Syrian religious community whose members are mainly distributed between Western Syria and Damascus. This new religious movement emerged in the 1920s around the figure of Salman al-Murshid, a political leader, member of the parliament and religious preacher whose career ended in 1946 when he was executed in Damascus. The Murshidis started as a split-off group from the Alawi sect before eventually developing into an independent religious community.