History Compass - 2009 - Weiss - The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon

History Compass 7/1 (2009): 141– 154, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00570.
The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon

Max Weiss*
Harvard Society of Fellows
Abstract
Lebanese history has been more or less defined by its engagement with the
problem of sectarianism. Surprisingly rare have been the attempts to systematically
trace this trajectory of historical engagement with the problem of sectarianism,
though. This article argues that historians, legal scholars, and other writers have
employed numerous conceptual and methodological approaches to examine,
diagnose, and propose treatments for the problem of sectarianism, and that these
approaches, moreover, have changed over time. Ranging from defenses of sectar-
ianism as cultural specificity to condemnations of it as a foreign plot to divide
and rule, the historiography of sectarianism in Lebanon has relied on such diverse
fields as social science, constitutional law, political theory, and various kinds of
historicism. Unfortunately, despite this empirical density, intellectual, legal, and
historical discourses on sectarianism have failed to mitigate the material, political,
and, most importantly, human costs incurred by the phenomenon of sectarianism
in practice.
Introduction
It should come as no surprise that as much ink has been spilled on
the problem of sectarianism in Lebanon as any other theme in modern
Lebanese history. However, this article is not primarily concerned with
tracing the specific forms that sectarianism has taken at various points in
Lebanese history, nor analyzing the specific texts – constitutional, political,
or otherwise – that have bolstered or validated sectarian political arrange-
ments in Lebanon. Rather, this article will provide something of a panoramic
overview of the variety of writings on the problem of sectarianism in
Lebanon throughout the twentieth century. A closer look at the trajectory
of both polemical and analytical writing on the subject demonstrates that
there has been constant intellectual engagement with Lebanese sectarianism
throughout this period. However, it would be too simplistic to presume
some sort of linear development in the historiography of sectarianism in
Lebanon. Conceptual approaches to the problem have proved quite capable
of enduring radically transformed political, social, and intellectual circum-
stances. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, scholarly and popular writing
on the problem of sectarianism – and all of the works discussed in this
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142 The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon
essay view sectarianism as a problem in the sense that it is an issue that

must be defended or argued against – has failed to have any significant impact
on the politics and practices of sectarianism in twentieth-century Lebanon.
From the establishment of the Mutasarrifiyya government under Ottoman
auspices in 1861, Lebanon has been administered by various incarnations
of a political system structured along the lines of proportional confessional
representation, that is, a system in which political power is apportioned
according to sectarian metrics. If one considers the promise that studying
the Lebanese experiment with official sectarianism holds in order to better
understand, say, the contemporary situation in Iraq, but also to better
explain the origins and outcomes of sectarian politics more generally, it is
unfortunate that such a dearth of attention has been placed on analyzing,
diagnosing, and attempting to remedy Lebanese sectarianism. Part of the
problem might stem from the fact that many observers of the Middle East
region perceive the problem of sectarianism to be so deeply ingrained in
Lebanese society and culture as to be of little analytic purchase. In fact,
sectarianism is as malleable and adaptive as any other political, social, or
cultural phenomenon. Just as the phenomenon of sectarianism itself has a
history, there has been a variegated tradition of historical-writing on
sectarianism as well.
If sectarianism is one of the most commonly discussed tropes in the
history of Lebanon, it has been viewed through a number of different
lenses. Historical-writing on the problem of sectarianism in Lebanon might
be provisionally separated into four trends. One school of thought confirms
the organicity of Lebanese sects, which were then later incorporated into
the Lebanese constitutional system of proportional confessional representation.
Another body of literature portrays political sectarianism in Lebanon as an
invented tradition imposed by external forces and agents. Approaches to
the problem that fall into these first two trends have relied on historical
interpretation, constitutional analysis as well as various social scientific
methods drawn from sociology, political theory, and other fields. These
studies, which ranged from some inspired by modernization theory and
world-systems to others that were Marxist in political orientation all
recognized the material bases and social power of sectarianism in society.
But neither of these traditions of historical-writing was bound to a particular
era, as narratives of both sectarian primordialism and of sectarianism as a
foreign invention continue to circulate.
Third, from about the 1980s, at the peak of the Lebanese civil war, a
number of historians and social scientists began to rethink the nature of
Lebanese sectarianism, aiming to show the negative impact that sectarianism
was having and had had on Lebanese society. In this conception, sectari-
anism was a failure of the diverse cultures and communities in Lebanon
to coexist, to coalesce, and to be tolerant of one another. Finally, from
the late 1990s, with the nominal end to the Lebanese civil war nearing a
decade in the past, scholars, and writers undertook a more thoroughgoing
© 2008 The Author History Compass 7/1 (2009): 141– 154, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00570.x
The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon 143
critical analysis of the cultural, social, and institutional underpinnings of

Lebanese sectarianism, and a fourth school of historical-writing on sec-
tarianism emerged, which relied on an even broader array of historical
methods and social scientific methodologies.
In Defense of Sectarianism
Some have perceived sectarianism as a phenomenon intrinsic to Lebanon,
as the natural expression of organic essences somehow innate in the hearts,
minds, and souls of the various communities that lived in and around
Mount Lebanon as well as in the regions that were eventually incorporated
into the state of Greater Lebanon. Jamal R. Nassar assumed that indigenous
sectarian identities were later accommodated by Lebanon’s constitutional
structure, writing, ‘as Lebanon was united into a modern state, its sectarian
culture was incorporated into is modern political system. Consequently,
the country remained compartmentalized into sectarian divisions’.1 This
statement exposes one of the most deeply ingrained assumptions regarding
the primacy of sectarian identity in the formation of Lebanese political
institutions.
Rather than rebutting that such assumptions were imposed foreign
inventions, a number of Lebanese writers and intellectuals explicitly endorsed
Lebanese sectarianism in defense of cultural specificity. For example, writing
in 1961, Kamal Yusuf Hajj claimed that sectarian difference and its enshrine-
ment in the country’s political system were necessary goods. Hajj believed
that foreign agents were dead-set on dismantling the sectarian system, and
that the primary regional beneficiary of any such moves would be world
Zionism and the state of Israel.2 Although they did so in a more refined
language, mainstream Lebanese nationalists such as Michel Chiha, one of
the founding fathers of Lebanese sectarian democracy, also argued in defense
of Lebanese sectarianism as the ideal way to both recognize and accom-
modate sectarian difference.3
Throughout the Mandate period and long after, legal scholars and
students of constitutionalism identified the Lebanese sectarian model of
apportioning political power – proportional confessional representation –
as a practical means of defusing sectarian discord while recognizing the
inherent rights of Lebanon’s various communities. Under such a system,
positions of political power and authority – at the parliamentary and
ministerial levels as well as vis-à-vis state hiring practices – were to be
distributed along strictly sectarian lines. As the contours of the state of
Greater Lebanon were being debated, the constitutionally defined forms
of sectarianism in Lebanese government were widely discussed throughout
the Lebanese press and broader public sphere.4 Works written during the
Mandate and up through the early independence periods by such diverse
figures as Edmond Rabbath, Pierre Rondot, and others, were proced-
ural or juridical in nature, that is, they were mainly concerned with
understanding as well as affecting the reception of the constitutional sys-

tem of consociational democracy.5
Most studies of Lebanese constitutionalism have taken Lebanese sec-
tarianism for granted, either seeking to explain how primordial sectarian
difference has been managed by the state or trying to provide suggestions
on how best to manage such differences.6 Constitutional scholars identify
one of two moments as being foundational in the development of Lebanese
political sectarianism. First of all, some have argued that the administrative
council set up by the Ottomans during the period of the Mutasarrifiyya
government (1861–1920) was the first instance of specifically Lebanese
proportional confessional representation.7 Others argue, by contrast, that
the ratification of the 1926 constitution marked the introduction of political
sectarianism into the Lebanese system. Article 95 explicitly required public
sector employment and cabinet-level positions to be apportioned according
to the logic of proportional confessional representation.8
Sectarianism as a Foreign Plot

As opposed to studying sectarianism as endemic among or the natural
condition of the Lebanese people, others viewed sectarianism through an
opposing lens, namely, as being foisted upon the people of Lebanon and
the peoples of the Levant more generally by foreign elements seeking to
stir up dissension, discord, and conflict. Some writers, intellectuals, and
political activists have argued that sectarianism has no basis whatsoever in
historical reality. Arab and Lebanese nationalists will argue that Lebanon’s
diverse communities have lived in perpetual harmony, except when dis-
located by foreign intervention and stirred up to the point that unusual
outbursts of violence and enmity take place. This position is exemplified
in a polemic treatise published in 1964 by Michel Ghurayyib.9 Arab nationalist
historians writing about specific Lebanese regions have made similar
arguments about how certain regions in the country were underdeveloped
and how foreign intervention stirred up internal divisions.10
Another conceptual wrinkle in the debate over the nature of Lebanese
sectarianism came from the Marxist camp. One of the most influential
Lebanese Marxist intellectuals, Mahdi ‘Amil wrote voluminously on the
problems of sectarianism. In one of his most succinct Marxist-inspired
critiques of Lebanese sectarianism, ‘Amil wonders whether it might be
more appropriate to consider the sect, ‘not a thing, but rather a defined
political relationship in a historical form limited by the movement of class
struggle, with the restrictions of the colonial Lebanese social formation’.
Challenging the mainstream nationalist narrative of sectarianism as a
naturalized phenomenon, ‘Amil criticizes
the role of the state in safeguarding the existence of sects in institutions, or as

institutions, in particular, state institutions, that is, ideological apparatuses (in
the words of Althusser), that do not stand except on their dependent relation-
ship with the state, such that they, with the rise of the state, also rise.11
Despite the apparent incommensurability of these two types of arguments,
writers on both sides of this divide have much more in common than
might initially meet the eye. Defenders and critics of sectarianism in
Lebanon alike view the phenomenon – whether it is defined in political,
cultural, or religious terms – as normative. In other words, these writers
all stand on the same epistemological ground, viewing sectarianism as real,
embedded, and unavoidable. Whatever the conclusions or value judgments
of these works, they all recognize – or, even, fetishize – the natural
emergence of Lebanese sectarianism. Perhaps in response to this polarized
argument, a number of more evenhanded approaches emerged at various
points during the twentieth century.
The Sociology of Sectarianism

During the mid-twentieth century, the problem of sectarianism was often
taken up by studies of the foundations and underpinnings of Lebanese
sectarianism informed by culturalist assumptions about the nature of
Lebanese society, or occasionally more narrowly defined studies of
sectarianism as it came to be embedded in the framework of Lebanese
constitutionalism. From as early as the 1940s, scholars, intellectuals, and
policymakers started studying sectarianism as a social phenomenon.
Informed by emerging concepts of society as a category of analysis,
the professional study of Lebanese history, society, and politics took up
the problem of sectarianism in a variety of ways over the course of the
twentieth century.12
Beginning with the 1950s and 1960s onwards, a new style of writing
about sectarianism appeared, which was informed by both sociological
theories of deeply divided societies, Marxist-inspired writings about of
class, and scholarship influenced by modernization theory. Modernization
theory posited that sectarian loyalties – the glue holding together ‘traditional
communities’, which also included clan-based, religious, and any other
type of affiliation that could be opposed to so-called modern communities
– were an impediment to national unity and progress and would ultimately
have to be left behind along with other traditional mores. Writing in this
vein, for example, Michael Hudson asserted,
The reason that communal identities remain so strong, reinforced rather than
obliterated by the communications explosion, is the result of historic doctrinal
differences and memories of oppression, both antique and recent.13
Although social science discourse produced by foreign commentators
on the Lebanese predicament, writers inside Lebanon were also engaged
with the problematic of sectarianism from a plurality of perspectives. One
noticeable methodological shift in the discourse on sectarianism was from
a more legalistic analysis of the administration of sectarianism to viewing

sectarianism in relation to Lebanese society and culture. Among the earliest
writers to tackle the problem in such a fashion was Fayez Sayigh. Echoing
the historical amnesia often remarked upon in contemporary Lebanon,
Sayigh argued there was no need to recount historical events contributing
to the present context of Lebanese sectarianism. In his words, ‘The
important thing is for us to attend the reality of [sectarianism], to be aware
of its manifestations’. Recognizing that political and social reality might
be separable from the essential qualities constituting sectarianism – what
might be called sectarian effects – Sayigh was more concerned with the
fact that sectarianism resides in ‘popular life’ and in the ‘popular
consciousness’ (al-nafsiyya al-sha‘biyya); the latter is both its ‘principal
headquarters’ and its ‘greatest danger’. If not for such a popular dimension,
moreover, ‘the institutions focused on [sectarianism] wouldn’t have developed
in the first place’. Nevertheless, according to Sayigh, sectarianism resides
in institutions, which ‘are a mirror of society, expressing the desires of its
constituencies (fi’ât) and embodying the different interests that play a role
in its life’.14
Rather than identifying sectarianism as the life-blood of the Lebanese
state, however, Sayigh proposes understanding the phenomenon of Lebanese
sectarianism as anathema to the ideal-type modern state. Such a position
places him on similar ground to his contemporaries in the discourse of
what I have referred to as social science sectarianism. Sayigh argues that
it is through the interference of religious leaders in affairs of state that
‘sectarianism strikes its final blow against the structure of the state: here
sectarianism strikes with a harsh hammer the skull of the civilized state
(al-dawla al-madaniyya) without mercy, here the state is subjected to powers
and interests, not aiming at the highest level towards the good of society’.
Such religious intervention in state affairs is dangerous because it threatens
the ‘interest of the state’ and threatens the very notion of ‘specialization
in affairs of the state’.15 Perhaps the most novel quality introduced by
Sayigh, which was consistently repeated and emulated in later writings on
the problem of sectarianism in Lebanon, was the social aspect of the
phenonmenon. As he put it, by the 1940s already, ‘sectarianism has become
the first subject for social research’.16 To be sure, part and parcel of this
social research agenda was a professional diagnosis capable of proposing
sociological solutions. Indeed, Part Three of his volume is entirely dedicated
to the ‘treatment’ of the problem; Sayigh goes so far as to put forward a
veritable ‘Program for Combating Sectarianism’ as part of his conclusion.17
As opposed to this less than historical approach, there has certainly been
no shortage of writing on the problem of sectarianism that demands a
historical understanding of the phenomenon. Anis Sayigh, Fayez’s brother,
weighed in on the problem in his Sectarian Lebanon (Lubnan al-‘â’ifï), in
which he argued that sectarianism in Lebanon was a ‘social problem’
specific to Lebanon.18 Like Fayez, Anis asserted that sectarianism needed
treatment in order to be remedied, comparing sectarianism to a sickness

(dâ’, mara… ) that required medical attention.19 Using a slightly different
methodological approach, one that blended elements of Marxist and Arab
nationalist critique while still highlighting various social elements, Fu’ad
Shahin argued,
sectarianism in Lebanon is a historical phenomenon and not a psychological
symptom or conflict. It developed in specific historical circumstances in which
Lebanese history was marked by the conjunction of social and economic
interactions of Lebanon with the Arab environment, on the one hand, and its
connection, in one way or another, with the West that was shaken by social
and political movements, economic transformations such as the industrial
revolution and liberal development, and nationalist struggles, on the other hand.
In this sense, Shahin demands that Lebanese sectarianism be understood
in the context of local, regional, and global historical factors.20
By the 1960s, Lebanese writers and intellectuals had developed a
sophisticated sociological and theoretical language for describing and diag-
nosing sectarian ills. In an accusatory mode, Waddah Shararah argued that
the contemporary phenomenon of radical sectarianism could be traced
back to the populism of the Maronite Christian right, specifically locating
this with the Phalange party (hizb al-katâ ’ib), founded by Sheikh Pierre
Gemayel in 1936.21 More ecumenical, Nassif Nassar explicitly called for
sectarianism to be analyzed as a ‘total social phenomenon’.22 Despite
the advances made by the mutanawwirûn, the men of the Arabic enlight-
enment (nah…a), the generation that followed those early reformers and
luminaries entirely dropped the ball. The Lebanese state, Lebanese society,
and so-called enlightened intellectuals have been ‘unable to move in the
direction of creating a new human being and a new society’.23 Tracing
the evolution of arguments about the phenomenon, Nassar compares and
contrasts, for example, Butrus al-Bustani and Shibli al-Shumayyil, commenting
on the relative strengths and weaknesses of their positions vis-à-vis the
problem of sectarianism. In his scathing critique of the position taken by
Kamal Yusuf Hajj (see above), Nassar dedicated an entire chapter to what
he perceived as Hajj’s retrograde thinking, entitled, ‘Return to the Middle
Ages’.
In this cogent analysis, Nassar wrote that sectarianism was ‘both a
means and an ends at the same time’, meaning that sectarianism could
function as ‘a means used by feudalists and Ottomans and Westerners to
stir up discord (fitna) and to deepen the division between the Lebanese’.
Despite the unclear status of Lebanese-ness throughout the mid-nineteenth
century, concludes that sectarianism was also an end in itself in that
its transformation from the narrow domain of every sect to that of a unified
administration of the entire country wasn’t inevitable, and wouldn’t have been
possible to a certain extent, if not for the agreement of the imperialist countries
and the exploitative elements within the country.24
In other words, a collusion of internal and external forces saw the

enshrinement of sectarian forms of politics and associational life as a
guarantee for the perpetuation of their own power and influence in the
country.
At a conceptual level, Nassar suggests that one might distinguish between
‘religious sectarianism’ and ‘administrative political sectarianism’.25 However
one wishes to analytically carve up the problem, Nassar insists that it is a
methodological mistake to view Lebanese sectarianism as a ‘surface’
phenomenon that masks economic factors or deep-seated primordialism.
A ‘third position’ identifies sectarianism as a ‘total social phenomenon’
constituting a regime with foundations, pillars, and supports.26 This
metaphorical and institutional scaffolding is the very ‘frame through which’
the Lebanese ‘experiences his political existence’.27 Rather than mythol-
ogizing sectarianism, this practical analysis leads to an itemized guide to
solving the problem, through concrete legal, political, and constitutional
reforms. As Nassar puts it in his pithy conclusion: ‘None of this requires
a miracle’.28
Sectarianism and Nationalism

Those who have defended, those who have condemned sectarianism,
Arab nationalists, Marxists, and social scientists – all have exhibited a
remarkable tendency to posit sectarianism in opposition to nationalism.
Axel Havemann illustrated this conventional approach to the study of
sectarianism29 in modern Lebanon, writing, ‘In Lebanon, confessionalism
and nationalism (‘â’ifiyya and qawmiyya) are the two determinants or opposite
poles for viewing, writing and approaching history’.30 By the same token,
in his highly influential revisionist history of modern Lebanon, Kamal
Salibi also reinforced such a binary logic, arguing, ‘the religious commu-
nities in Lebanon were essentially tribes, or in any case behaved as tribes,
and the game that came to be played between them was a tribal game’.31
It now seems commonsensical to note that there is no need to view, write
about, or approach Lebanese history and historiography as if sectarianism,
tribalism, confessionalism, or communalism were by definition restricted to
the premodern. By the same token, it is not necessarily so that sectarianism
and nationalism have been and were always locked in mortal combat
with one another; rather, sectarianism and nationalism in Lebanon have
often worked hand-in-glove to produce particular forms of Lebanese
nationhood and more or less stable states of belonging. This is not all
that different from other world-historical contexts concerning divided
societies.
Furthermore, some assumptions regarding the condition of sectarianism
and nationalism as antithetical might be oversimplifications or downright
unfounded in the case of Lebanon. If sectarianism represents the ideological
or political expression of (cultural, religious, or ritualized) difference, and
if nationalism represents the ideological or political expression of (social,

linguistic, or cultural) sameness, it is reasonable to wonder how the two
could ever conceivably not be perceived as antagonistic. On the other
hand, if one recognizes the dynamic nature of nationalism as both a set
of political principles and as one manifestation of a given social formation,
then the link between the two might be figured somewhat differently. As
early as 1947, Fayez Sayigh recognized that nationalist discourse understood
sectarianism as an ‘obstacle’ to the ‘progress and advancement of the
nation, and as a shameful stain on the forehead of its history’.32 Ussama
Makdisi convincingly argues that the ‘nationalist approach to sectarianism,
which poses a tolerant and secular modernity against a resurgent religious
fundamentalism, has itself to be historicized’.33 According to Makdisi,
sectarianism is not opposed to nationalism, but to discourses of modern-
ization more broadly. In this same vein, through a compelling historical
ethnography of Shi‘ism in contemporary Lebanon, Roshanack
Shaery-Eisenlohr effectively shows, ‘in Lebanon the practice of what is
labeled sectarianism and nationalism cannot be viewed as entirely separate
from each other’.34 But recognizing that sectarianism and nationalism are
somehow connected to one another does not necessarily lead to the
conclusion that they are indissolubly linked. Rather, it is the task of the
historian to identify the ways in which this relationship has been forged,
transformed, and dissolved over time, not to search for the origins of this
relationship, but to trace its genealogy. Here is one potentially fruitful
avenue for future research into the historical, political, and intellectual
stakes of Lebanese sectarianism.
Critique of Sectarianism
During the most violent phases of both intra- and inter-sectarian fighting
in the Lebanese civil war (1975–89), writers, historians, and intellectuals
continued to engage conceptually with the problem of sectarianism, which
had painfully acquired more than pure academic significance. Some historians
sought to situate the theory and practice of Lebanese sectarianism within
a longer historical framework, perhaps in hopes of offering a relatively more
dispassionate take on hot-button political and personal issues.35 Some,
including the venerable historian Kamal Salibi, tackled the problematic of
sectarianism head-on, consciously aspiring to defuse the passion and rancor
then perpetuating hostilities throughout the country and attempting to
synthesize the many Lebanese sectarianisms and multiple sectarian histories
into a single nationalist narrative.36 About a decade earlier, Ahmad Beydoun
produced a tremendous work of historical synthesis that took seriously the
gamut of competing sectarian historical narratives, a volume that remains
unparalleled in terms of both its intellectual breadth and historical depth.37
Even as a certain degree of collective historical amnesia set in following
the nominal cessation of hostilities, the ‘problem of sectarianism’ was
subjected to further scrutiny, criticism, and critique. Ranging beyond

the narrowly defined conceptual apparatus of constitutional or political
sectarianism, scholars, critics, and political activists began to engage in a
more thoroughgoing analysis and exposition of the terms, concepts, and
parameters of sectarian politics, discourse, and identities in the Lebanese
context. As opposed to conventional social science sectarianism, more
recent studies of the phenomenon have integrated critical analysis of the
origins, genealogies, and effects of Lebanese sectarianism, considering the
cultural, discursive, and institutional ways in which sectarianism has been
and continues to be reproduced over time. Critical scholarship – what
might be called the Critique of Sectarianism – has sought to find a middle
ground amidst the historiographical landscape traversed thus far in this
article, by identifying both the material and cultural factors that have
contributed to the perpetuation of sectarian systems and sectarian society.
In his sweeping study of Jewish and Christian minority communities in
the Ottoman Empire from the fifteenth until the nineteenth century,
Bruce Masters strikes a nice balance between viewing communal difference
in the Ottoman Arab lands as irreducibly primordial and instrumentally
constructed by distinguishing the historical reality of communal difference
– which can be transmuted into a variety of sectarian idioms when mobi-
lized and deployed by the state and social actors – from ideological or political
claims of unvarnished sectarian difference and dis-integration.38 Ussama
Makdisi effectively shows how sectarianism in Lebanon was an ensemble
of fundamentally modern discourses and practices through a pathbreaking
study of the sectarian disturbances that wracked the Maronite and Druze
communities in Mount Lebanon during the mid-nineteenth century.39
Attributing the birth of sectarian politics in Mount Lebanon to European
imperial interests in the region and Ottoman imperial modernizing reform,
Makdisi also insists that modern sectarianism concerns the reconfiguration
of both religion and power in Lebanese society. In his words, during the
nineteenth century, ‘Mount Lebanon was communally reinvented in the
sense that a public and political sectarian identity replaced a nonsectarian
politics of notability that had been the hallmark of prereform society’.40
This process of reinvention had political, legal, and institutional effects
throughout the twentieth century. As Hanna Ziadeh argues,
Communities of rites and faiths acquired a semi-national status by appropriat-
ing an exclusive right of representation. However, this was more the result of
a political tradition and conscious social choices made in particular by the
political elites, than an inevitable manifestation of the true nature of the
‘tribal’, ‘parochial’ and/or ‘sectarian’ Lebanese.41
Furthermore, the institutionalization of sectarianism during the twentieth

century also had a tremendous impact on its production, maintenance and
endurance. A greater focus on institutions and practices can help to more
adequately trace the convoluted transformations of Lebanese sectarianism
over time. If it is true, as I have argued elsewhere, that Lebanese history

‘can be best understood as a history of political sectarianism and intersec-
tarian accommodation but also a constellation of multiple histories of
sectarianization’, then historians of modern Lebanon ought to recognize
how ‘sectarianism has proven to be a protean component of Lebanese life
and must be conceived of in the plural’.42
Conclusions
Sectarianism in the Lebanese case has been produced, maintained, and
reinforced by an array of complex forces that have proved dynamic and
historically contingent. Amidst the shifting currents of sectarian politics
and associational life, political, legal, and social scientific writing on the
topic throughout the twentieth century has played a normative function,
demonstrating how the malady of intercommunal strife and division was
both treatable and resolvable through recourse to particular models of
political or social engineering. As it becomes less and less commonplace
to simply catalog, describe, and pathologize the ills of sectarianism, it is
becoming increasingly common to situate the historically contingent and
malleable social conditions that have given rise to sectarian political society,
to multiple cultures of sectarianism. Even as one awaits further analysis of
the historical, cultural, and ideological forms of sectarianism, there remains
a dire need for practical, historically grounded perspectives on how scholars,
activists, and policymakers might constructively criticize the status quo of
Lebanese sectarian state and society.
Short Biography
Max Weiss studies the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the
modern Middle East. His first book project, Sectarian Modernity: Law and
Shi’ism in Early Twentieth-Century Lebanon, traces the emergence and insti-
tutionalization of new forms of Shi’i sectarian identity in French Mandate
Lebanon by focusing on the realms of personal status law and religious
practice; he has also published articles in International Journal of Middle East
Studies, Studies of Ethnicity and Nationalism, and Islamic Law and Society, and
has published English-language translations of Arabic fiction by Iman
Humaydan Younes, Abbas Beydoun, and Khaled Khalifa. Weiss received
his B.A. from UC Berkeley and earned both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Middle
Eastern History from Stanford University. His research has been supported
by fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays Commission, the Social Science
Research Council, and the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton
University. Currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows,
Weiss is interested in the cultural politics of morality in the twentieth-
century Middle East, the history of state-led development in Lebanon,
and continuing to translate contemporary Arabic literature into English.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Harvard Society of Fellows, 78 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge,
MA 02138, USA. Email: maxweiss@fas.harvard.edu.
1
Jamal R. Nassar, ‘Sectarian Political Cultures: the Case of Lebanon’. The Muslim World, 85/
3–4 (1995): 248.
2
Kamal Yusuf Hajj, Al-‘â ’ifiyya al-bannâ ’a aw falsafat al-mïthâq al-wa‘ani (Creative Sectarianism, or
The Philosophy of the National Pact) (Beirut: Ma—ba‘at al-RahbAniyya, 1961).
3
Michel Chiha, Politique Intérieure (Beirut: Éditions du Trident, 1964); Chiha, Visage et présence
du Liban (Beirut: Cénacle Libanais, 1964).
4
See Kais Firro, Inventing Lebanon: Nation and State Under the Mandate (London: I. B. Tauris,
2003); Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1988).
5
Pierre Rondot, Les Institutions Politiques du Liban: Des Communautés Traditionelles à L’état Moderne
(Paris: Institut d’Études de L’Orient Contemporain, 1947); Edmond Rabbath, La formation
historique du Liban politique et constitutionnel: Essai de synthèse (Beirut: Université Libanaise,
1973).
6
Hasib Nimr, Usus al-kiyân al-‘â’ifi al-lubnâni: Baƒth dustûri ƒuqûqi ijtimâ ‘i (Foundations of the
Lebanese Sectarian Entity: A Constitutional, Legal, and Social Study) (Beirut: Dar al-Katib, 1978).
7
The most important work on this era is Engin Akarli, The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon,
1861–1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993).
8
The operative clause stipulated that the first Lebanese Chamber of Deputies to be ‘elected on
the basis of equality between Muslims and Christians’ would also be required to ‘take the
appropriate measures to realize the abolition of political confessionalism according to a transi-
tional plan’. Throughout this transitional phase, which the Ta’if Agreement that ended the
Lebanese civil war (1975–89) did not legally bring to a close, all ‘confessional groups are to be
represented in a just and equitable fashion in the formation of the Cabinet’ and until that
intervening period ends, the elected government is responsible for respecting ‘The principle of
confessional representation in public service jobs, in the judiciary, in the military and security
institutions, and in public and mixed agencies are to be cancelled in accordance with the
requirements of national reconciliation; they shall be replaced by the principle of expertise and
competence’. 1926 Constitution available at: http://www.nowlebanon.com/Library/Files/
EnglishDocumentation/Official%20Documents/Lebanese%20Constitution.pdf, accessed July
28, 2007.
9
Mishal Ghurayyib, Al-‘â’ifiyya wa’l-iq‘â ‘iyya fi Lubnan (Sectarianism and Feudalism in Lebanon)
(Beirut: Ma—Abi‘ SamyA, 1964).
10
Mas‘ud Daher. ‘Jabal ‘Amil fi i—Ar al-tajaz’a al-ist‘amariyya li’l-mashriq al-‘Arabi (Jabal ‘Amil
in the Framework of the Colonial Division of the Arab East)’, in Ibrahim Beydoun (ed.),
Safahat min tarikh Jabal ‘Amil (Pages from the History of Jabal ‘Amil) (Beirut: al-Majlis al-thaqAfi
li-Lubnan al-janUbi, 1979), 107–30. Wajih Kawtharani, ‘Jabal ‘Amil wa’l-tAr}kh al-—A’ifi al-Lubnani
(Jabal ‘Amil and Lebanese Sectarian History)’, al-‘Irfan, 74/7–8 (1986): 65–83.
11
Mahdi Amil, Fi al-dawla al-‘â’ifiyya (On the Sectarian State) (Beirut: Dar al-Farabi, 1989), 17.
12
Ralph E. Crow, ‘Religious Sectarianism in the Lebanese Political System’, The Journal of
Politics, 24/3 (1962): 489–520.
13
Michael Hudson, The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon (New York, NY:
Random House, 1968), 25. Another modernization-inspired work on Lebanon was the influential
Leonard Binder (ed.), Politics in Lebanon (New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1966).
14
Fayez A. Sayigh, Al-‘â’ifiyya: Bath fi asbâbihâ wa-akh‘ârihâ wa-‘ilâjihâ (Sectarianism: A Study into
its Causes, Dangers, and Treatment) (Beirut: Manshurat Maktabat al-WAjib, 1947), 7–9.
15
Ibid., 11–12.
16
Ibid., 21.
17
Ibid., 82–5.
18
Anis Sayigh, Lubnan al-‘â’ifi (Sectarian Lebanon) (Beirut: Dar al-Sira‘ al-Fikri, 1955), 22.
19
Ibid., 6.
20
Fu’ad Shahin, Al-‘â’ifiyya fi Lubnan: ¶â…iruhâ al-târikhiyya wa’l-ijtimâ‘iyya (Sectarianism in Leb-
anon: Its Historical and Social Present) (Beirut: Dar al-Hadatha, 1980), 11.
21
Waddah Shararah, Fi uŠûl Lubnan al-‘â’ifi: Kha‘‘ al-yamïn al-jamâhïrï (On the Origins of Sectarian
Lebanon: The Line of the Populist Right) (Beirut: Dar al-Tali‘a, 1975). On the Phalange, see
Hazim Saghieh, Ta‘rïb hizb al-katâ’ib: Al-sula, al-hizb, al-khawf (The Arabization of the Phalange
Party: Power, Party, Fear) (Beirut: Dar al-Jadid, 1991).
22
Nassif NassAr, Naƒwa mujtama‘ jadïd: Muqaddamât asâsiyya fi naqd al-mujtama‘ al-‘â’ifi
(Towards a New Society: Fundamental Introductions in the Critique of Sectarian Society) (Beirut: Dar
al-Nahar, 1970), 11.
23
Ibid., 15.
24
Ibid., 106.
25
Ibid., 104.
26
Ibid., 103.
27
Ibid., 109.
28
Ibid., 128.
29
In this article, I make no distinction between ‘confessionalism’ and ‘sectarianism’ when
discussing ‘‘â’ifiyya’ for the simple reason that Arabic contains no such distinction. Perhaps the
closest approximation to confessionalism – in the more religious sense of doctrinal confession
– is madhhabiyya, but even that term, with its connotations to religious legal schools, conveys
only a loose approximation.
30
Axel Havemann. ‘Historiography in 20th-Century Lebanon: Between Confessional Identity
and National Coalescence’. Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, 4/2 (2002): 50.
31
K. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1988), 55.
32
Sayigh, Al-‘â’ifiyya, 18.
33
Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-
Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 6.
34
Roshanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, ‘Constructing Lebanese Shi’ite Nationalism: Transnationalism,
Shi’ism, and the Lebanese State’. Ph.D. Diss. (University of Chicago, 2005), 36.
35
One good example of this encyclopedic approach to the problem of sectarianism can be
found in Sulayman Taqi al-Din, Al-mas’ala al-‘â’ifiyya fi Lubnân: Al-judhûr wa-l-ta‘awwur al-tarïkhi
(The Sectarian Issue in Lebanon: Roots and Historical Development) (Beirut: Dar Ibn Khaldun,
1985).
36
Salibi, House of Many Mansions.
37
Ahmad Beydoun, Identité Confessionnelle et Temps Social Chez les Historiens Libanaises Contem-
porains (Beirut: L’Universite Libanaise, 1984).
38
Bruce Alan Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
39
Makdisi, Culture of Sectarianism.
40
Ibid., 68.
41
Hanna Ziadeh, Sectarianism and Intercommunal Nation-Building in Lebanon (London: Hurst &
Company, 2006), 166.
42
Max David Weiss, ‘Institutionalizing Sectarianism: Law, Religious Culture, and the Remaking
of Shi‘i Lebanon, 1920–1947’, Ph.D. Diss. (Stanford University, 2007), 4, 6.
Bibliography
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(Beirut: L’Université Libanaise, 1984).
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Daher, M., ‘Jabal ‘Amil fi i—Ar al-tajaz’a al-ist‘amariyya li’l-mashriq al-‘Arabi’, in Ibrahim Bey-
doun (ed.), Safahat min tarikh Jabal ‘Amil (Beirut: al-Majlis al-thaqAfi li-Lubnan al-janUbi,
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Kawtharani, W., ‘Jabal ‘Amil wa’l-tArikh al-—A’ifi al-Lubnani (Jabal ‘Amil and Lebanese Sectarian
History)’, al-‘Irfan, 74/7–8 (1986): 65–83.
Makdisi, U., The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century
Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000.)
Makdisi, U., ‘Revisiting Sectarianism’, in T. Scheffler (ed.), Religion between Violence and Recon-
ciliation (Beirut: Orient-Institut, 2002), 179–91.
Masters, B., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Nassar, J. R., ‘Sectarian Political Cultures: the Case of Lebanon’, The Muslim World, 85/3–4
(1995): 246–65.
NassAr, N., Nahwa mujtama‘ jadïd: Muqaddamât asâsiyya fi naqd al-mujtama‘ al-‘â’ifi (Towards a New
Society: Fundamental Introductions in the Critique of Sectarian Society) (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar,
1970).
Nimr, Hasib, Usus al-kiyân al-‘â’ifi al-lubnâni: baƒth dustûri ƒuqûqi ijtimâ‘i (Foundations of the
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Université Libanaise, 1973).
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(Paris: Institut d’Études de L’Orient Contemporain, 1947).
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University of California Press, 1988).
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Issue in Lebanon: Roots and Historical Development) (Beirut: Dar Ibn Khaldun, 1985).
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2006).

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History Compass 7/1 (2009): 141– 154, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00570.

The Historiography of Sectarianism in Lebanon

essay view sectarianism as a problem in the sense that it is an issue that

critical analysis of the cultural, social, and institutional underpinnings of

understanding as well as affecting the reception of the constitutional sys-

Sectarianism as a Foreign Plot

the role of the state in safeguarding the existence of sects in institutions, or as

The Sociology of Sectarianism

a more legalistic analysis of the administration of sectarianism to viewing

treatment in order to be remedied, comparing sectarianism to a sickness

In other words, a collusion of internal and external forces saw the

Sectarianism and Nationalism

if nationalism represents the ideological or political expression of (social,

subjected to further scrutiny, criticism, and critique. Ranging beyond

Furthermore, the institutionalization of sectarianism during the twentieth

over time. If it is true, as I have argued elsewhere, that Lebanese history

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