The Revival of Shi‘ism in Lebanon
Question: Why doesn’t the Jabal ‘Amil push for unity [between Lebanon and Syria]? Why are its leaders in constant disagreement with one another and why are they not following a course that will benefit their community? And why don’t the ulama of the Jabal ‘Amil rise in action? Answer: It’s not up to the Jabal ‘Amil to decide whether to pursue unity or not. The matter is in the hands of the French; they do not want unification and use the disunity among the people as a pretext. The leaders of the Jabal ‘Amil are in disagreement because of their competition for office and influence and because of the envy that embitters their hearts. There is no unified community in the Jabal ‘Amil that could demand the return of its abrogated rights, but only those who make trivial demands from the leaders for their own personal interests. And the ulama don’t rise because most of them are asleep; they will take action, God willing, when they wake up from their sleep.1
In October 1918, French forces landed in Beirut and were greeted by Maronites and other Christians who cheered their arrival. Proud of their long historical connection with France, the Maronites did not hesitate to collaborate with this Western power, which they perceived as their savior. The French terminated the shortlived Arab government of King Feisal in Beirut and Damascus and created Greater Lebanon as a mandate (1920–1943) separate from Syria and dominated by the Maronites. In the census of 1932 the Maronites were the largest single sect, about 30 percent of the population in Lebanon, followed by Sunnis and Shi‘is, who constituted 22 and 20 percent, respectively. Sunni Muslims had difficulty in recognizing Lebanon as a state independent of Syria—an attitude that was most noticeable among Sunnis in the coastal cities. In contrast to Shi‘i leaders, who supported the idea of an independent Lebanon, Sunni leaders with few exceptions boycotted the Lebanese state until the mid-1930s, making it easier for the Maronites to secure most of the key government and administrative positions and ultimately the presidency of the republic.2
Did Lebanon constitute a final state (watan niha’i) for its people or did it lack national validity as long as it was separated from Syria? That question has stood at the heart of the political debate in modern Lebanon. The Maronites and many other Christians conceived of Lebanon as a final state, advocating a Lebanese national identity. But the Maronites did not frame Lebanese nationality within the broader context of Arabism, presenting it instead in terms of their own communal particularism. To them, the Lebanese were not Arabs but a distinct people whose heritage was a combination of ancient Phoenicia and the broader Mediterranean culture. This version of history and civilization had little attraction to those Muslims in Lebanon who questioned the national validity of the state. The Sunnis, much more than Shi‘is, articulated their identity in terms of Arab nationalism, regarding their incorporation into a Lebanese state under Christian domination as a separation from the Arab world. They held the Maronites accountable for pushing France to split Syria and Lebanon, refusing to forget the humiliation of the battle of Maysalun in July 1920 when Maronite volunteers joined the French force that defeated the Arab army of King Feisal and occupied Damascus. From the Sunni Muslim point of view, the Maronites were isolationists who had to be persuaded, and if necessary coerced, to rejoin the Arab national ranks. Thus in Lebanon, a force called Lebanonism has stood face-to-face with another force called Arabism. The state could prevail only so long as these two forces were kept in balance, so long as Christians and Muslims did not push their conflicting visions of Lebanon’s nationality too far and settled instead for pragmatism and compromise.3 Unlike the Sunnis, who viewed themselves as the heirs of the Ottoman Empire and had the support of their coreligionists in the larger Arab world in resisting an independent Lebanon dominated by Christians, the Shi‘is lacked a patron in the Arab world and were unsure about their political allegiance. The desire of Shi‘i notable leaders and ulama to protect their socioeconomic interests and gain official recognition as a distinct sect thus led them to recognize independent Lebanon ahead of their Sunni counterparts.4
The Road to Independence
The backing that Shi‘i leaders gave to the establishment of independent Lebanon became clear between 1918 and 1936. In the two years preceding the creation of the French mandate, Feisal attempted to shore up support among Shi‘is to his accession as king of a Syria united with Lebanon. His task was easier in the Bekaa, which had historically looked to Damascus. Shi‘i leaders from this region held positions in Feisal’s government, and they expressed a clearer opinion in favor of unity than did their counterparts in the Jabal ‘Amil, who sought rather an arrangement that would allow them to run their own affairs. Politics in the Jabal ‘Amil were dominated by the rivalry between Kamil al-As‘ad, the most powerful Shi‘i leader in the region, and Riyad al-Sulh of Sidon, an ardent Sunni supporter of unity between Syria and Lebanon who at-tempted to establish the city as the administrative center of the Jabal ‘Amil. Feisal, who recognized the importance of enlisting As‘ad’s support for his rule, promised him in 1919 the position of governor of the Jabal ‘Amil after independence. But As‘ad, who had also been courted by the French, was not reassured by this promise and remained ambivalent about the idea of unity. Fearful that he would lose power unless he secured a special status for the Jabal ‘Amil under his leadership, As‘ad exerted pressures on Shi‘i ulama to advocate administrative autonomy for the Jabal ‘Amil within Syria. Thus when the clerics ‘Abd al-Hussein Sharaf al-Din and Hussein Mughniyya met in the summer of 1919 with the King-Crane Commission (appointed by the mandate commission of the Varsaille peace conference to ascertain national sentiments among the people of Syria and Lebanon), they asked for a decentralized government in Syria and Lebanon. Shi‘i leaders made a similar demand in a conference held in the Hujayr Valley in April 1920, calling for autonomy for the Jabal ‘Amil within Syria under King Feisal. Yet the French move to terminate Feisal’s government during May–July 1920, and the breaking of the power of Shi‘i bands in the Jabal ‘Amil, persuaded Shi‘i leaders to accept Lebanon as an independent state under a French mandate. By the time the French high commissioner presented the Le´gion d’Honneur to As‘ad in April 1921, Shi‘is in the Jabal ‘Amil were already competing for positions in the French administration, seeking equality with Christians in taxation and educational opportunities.5
The contrasting attitude of Shi‘i and Sunni notable leaders toward the Lebanese state became apparent during the Druze revolt of 1925–27, when the French succeeded in enlisting Shi‘i support for the Lebanese constitution. In the summer of 1925 a revolt broke out in the Jabal Druze, southeast of Damascus. The revolt, which acquired a nationalist dimension after a group of Syrian nationalists joined the rebels, spread from Syria into Lebanon at a time when the French were attempting to have a constitution for Lebanon passed in the Lebanese Representative Council. In the Jabal ‘Amil, the revolt reignited the struggle for power between Riyad al-Sulh and the As‘ad family. While Sulh attempted to mobilize Shi‘is in support of unity between Syria and Lebanon and against the constitution, Mahmud al-As‘ad (who replaced his brother Kamil as head of the family after the latter’s death in 1924), together with other Shi‘i leaders, declared his support for the French mandate in Lebanon and persuaded the Shi‘is of the Jabal ‘Amil not to join the revolt. In the Bekaa, however, the majority of Shi‘is (led by the Haydar family) supported the Druze revolt and demanded annexation to Syria. The French therefore acted to reduce the power of the Haydars; they began relying on the Hamadeh family of Hirmil (previously known as the Himada), which competed with the Haydars for influence in the Bekaa, convincing their leaders to stop Shi‘i support of the rebels. Moreover, in a move intended to woo Shi‘is, and encourage their representatives in the Lebanese Council to support the constitution, the French in January 1926 recognized the Shi‘is as an independent sect separate from the Sunnis in matters relating to personal status. The French decision to authorize the opening of Shi‘i legal courts was a break with the Ottoman past, when Shi‘is had to settle issues relating to personal status either before Sunni judges or before Shi‘i judges who often had to follow the Sunni Hanafi law. This concession to the Shi‘i community produced the desired results. The constitution was approved on 23 May 1926, paving the way for the declaration of the Lebanese Republic. Most Shi‘i leaders supported the constitution, both in the Representative Council and in questionnaires sent by the drafting committee to dignitaries in various localities. By contrast, Sunni leaders refused to participate in drafting the constitution and nearly all Sunni dignitaries returned their questionnaires unanswered.6
Shi‘i recognition of Lebanon as a state independent of Syria became even more pronounced in the decade between the approval of the constitution in 1926 and the signing of the French-Lebanese treaty of 1936. In 1928 Shi‘i notables and religious figures in Baalbek gave a welcoming reception to President Charles Dabbas on his visit to the Bekaa region, proclaiming their allegiance to the Lebanese state and thus following the lead of their coreligionists in the Jabal ‘Amil. Shi‘is in both regions subsequently began competing for government funds, with those of the Jabal ‘Amil on occasion complaining of the preference given to the Bekaa. The backing given by Shi‘i leaders to the Lebanese state manifested itself again in the negotiations leading to the signing of the French-Lebanese treaty on 23 November 1936. In July, Sunni leaders in Sidon attempted to rally support in the Jabal ‘Amil for unity between Syria and Lebanon. Although at a meeting attended by both Sunnis and Shi‘is the organizers succeeded in passing a resolution in favor of unity, Shi‘i notable leaders in a countermove staged demonstrations and circulated petitions in support of the Lebanese state. Sunni leaders again tried to organize opposition to the proposed treaty in a meeting in Beirut in late October, but they failed to attract many Shi‘is. In response, Shi‘i notables and religious leaders held a large rally in Nabatiyya in early November, backing the Lebanese state. Shi‘is also sent delegates and petitions to the French high commissioner and the Lebanese president Emile Edde´, affirming their community’s support of the treaty. As in 1926, when they broke ranks with their Sunni counterparts and participated in drafting the Lebanese constitution, in 1936 Shi‘i leaders backed the French-Lebanese treaty, helping clear Lebanon’s road to independence.7
The vital support extended by Shi‘i leaders to independent Lebanon has been acknowledged by various writers, including the Maronite journalist Iskandar al-Riyashi, who noted that by the mid-1930s Shi‘i deputies in parliament had formed a political block independent of the Sunnis and in favor of Emile Edde´. It was the Shi‘i block, wrote Riyashi, “which played the most important role in firmly establishing Lebanon as a state after the French had left.”8 Nevertheless, the Shi‘i community did not receive a share of resources from the state commensurate with its size, and Shi‘i religious and cultural life continued to decline in the first half of the twentieth century.
On the Margin of Lebanese Politics
The demarcation of borders in the Middle East undermined the position of the Shi‘i community in Lebanon. The French and the British agreement on the border between Lebanon and mandatory Palestine in the early 1920s reduced the size of the Jabal ‘Amil. Among Shi‘is, the Jabal ‘Amil was historically known as the area extending from the Awali River in the north down to Acre, Tar-shiha, and Safad in the south, and from the Mediterranean in the west to the Hula Lake and up to the Taym and the Bekaa Valley in the east. In 1924 an area of about 250,000 dunams, including several villages and the Hula Lake, was detached from the Jabal ‘Amil and added to mandatory Palestine—an act that disrupted socioeconomic life, particularly around Marja‘yun. Shi‘i anger over the loss of land was reinforced by the fact that in modern Lebanon the Jabal ‘Amil became known simply as “the South,” which Shi‘is took as an insult to their historical heritage.9 Government neglect of their regions further alienated Shi‘is from the state.
In twentieth-century Lebanon, Shi‘is were the most economically disadvantaged group among the country’s seventeen sects. Shi‘is often complained that residents in the Jabal ‘Amil and the Bekaa paid more taxes but received fewer government resources than people elsewhere in the country. The two regions lagged behind other parts of Lebanon in economic development as well as in education and income levels. There was not a single hospital in the Jabal ‘Amil as late as 1943 and only health offices in Sidon, Tyre, and Nabatiyya. The Jabal ‘Amil had very few paved roads. Most of its three hundred predominantly Shi‘i villages had no electricity, and there was a chronic shortage of freshwater. In the absence of sufficient government funds, Shi‘is in the Jabal ‘Amil relied on contributions from Shi‘i e´migre´s, particularly those in West Africa, who sponsored the building of schools and mosques as well as social services and cultural projects, including the publication of the famous journal al-‘Irfan. Until the 1960s, the Shi‘is in Lebanon were mainly peasants, the community lacking a sizable urban middle class. Shi‘i politics were dominated by notable leaders. While the As‘ad, the Zein, the ‘Usayran, the ‘Abdallah, the Bazzi, the Baydun, the Fadil, and the Khalil constituted the prominent families in the Jabal ‘Amil, the Haydar, the Hamadeh, and the Husseini families played a leading role in the Bekaa. Members of these families were elected to parliament and dispensed favors; they acted as brokers between individuals and the state, arranging jobs, loans, and businesses for their clients. Nevertheless, none of the Shi‘i notables could claim to represent the community as a whole.10
Shi‘i religious institutions declined in the first half of the twentieth century—part of a pattern of contracting religious activities in most of the Middle East, as both governing elites and individual families gave preference to secular education and modern professions. It is estimated that between the late 1930s and early 1940s there were only forty-two Shi‘i ulama in Lebanon for the roughly 155,000 Shi‘is spread over 450 to 500 villages. Many of these ulama were not qualified to hold their positions as religious teachers and judges. Of the forty-two, only fifteen had received their training in Najaf, the center for advanced Shi‘i religious training at the time. The decreasing number of Shi‘i clerics reflected changes in attitudes toward religious occupations among families that traditionally generated ulama in Lebanon. Young members of famous families like the Amin, Sharaf al-Din, Sadr al-Din, Muruwwa, and Sharara did not complete their religious studies or opted to study medicine, engineering, law, and literature. Many young Shi‘is, influenced by socialism and Arab nationalism, espoused secular politics, joining the Ba‘th Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, or the Progressive Socialist Party. Others, like Hashim al-Amin, Muhammad Sharara, and Hussein Muruwwa, joined the Communist Party. Until the establishment of the Higher Islamic Shi‘i Council in 1969, there was no institution that oversaw Shi‘i national affairs. The ulama lacked esteem among the people and were overshadowed by notable leaders. ‘Abd al-Hussein Sharaf al-Din (d. 1958) and Muhammad Jawad Mughniyya (d. 1979) were the exceptions, but they lacked the seniority of the prominent mujtahids of Najaf and Qum. It was the absence of a suitable figure in the country that led Sharaf al-Din shortly before his death to invite the Iranian-born Musa Sadr to lead the Shi‘i community in Lebanon.11
In the course of the twentieth century, several Shi‘i writers accused the notable leaders of neglecting their duty to support religious institutions and fight for the socioeconomic and political rights of the community. The criticism, which was muted during the mandatory period, became more pronounced after independence as a new generation of Shi‘is sought an alternative to the politics of notables and joined the political parties of the Left. It intensified during and after the civil war of 1975–90 when Shi‘is began rewriting their national history. One of the early critics was Muhammad Jawad Mughniyya, who complained that the notables had become distant from Islam, channeling very little money into the upkeep of religion. The notables’ pursuit of personal wealth and power, lamented Mughniyya, weakened the Shi‘i community and corrupted its values. Mughniyya accused the notables of complacency with regard to the Maronite elite, pointing out that unlike the Druze deputies in parliament, who were united in fighting for the rights of their community, the Shi‘i deputies put their personal interests ahead of those of their community.12 In fact, it is evident from the proceedings of parliamentary sessions between 1923 and 1989 that Shi‘i deputies repeatedly complained about discrimination against the Shi‘i community, demanding socioeconomic justice, better education, and more appointments of Shi‘is to state positions.13 Most Shi‘i writers interpreted these complaints as the notables’ way of placating their voters and avoiding a real struggle for the rights of the community. Yet the cleric Hani Fahs has argued persuasively that the first generation of Shi‘i leaders achieved as much as they could given their limited political power.14
Indeed, there was little the Shi‘i notable leaders could do to improve the position of their community, mainly because of the decision of Sunni leaders in the mid-1930s to enter the political game. As Lebanon moved toward independence, the Maronites increasingly needed the goodwill of Sunni leaders because of their links with the wider Arab world. And once they shared power with Sunni leaders, the Maronites lost the incentive to form alliances with Shi‘i notable leaders and invest resources in the Shi‘i areas. The Sunni entry into Lebanese politics thus diminished the political clout of Shi‘i leaders and set the Shi‘i community back; between the mid-1940s and the late 1960s it was pushed to the side and viewed as part of the larger Muslim community represented by the Sunni mufti of the republic.
Maronite and Sunni leaders concluded a deal in 1943 with the termination of the French mandate. While the former agreed to pay homage to Arabism, the latter were persuaded to view Lebanon as a link between the Arab world and the West. This understanding, known as the National Pact, represented an unwritten agreement between the Maronite president Bishara al-Khuri and his Sunni prime minister Riyad al-Sulh. The brain behind the pact was Michel Chiha, a Chaldean Christian banker, who envisaged Lebanon as the natural bridge between Islamic and Western civilizations and as the financial center of the Arab world. Under this pact, Lebanon was declared an independent and sovereign state within the Arab world. Its guiding principles built on article 95 of the 1926 constitution, which stipulated that for a transition period all sects should be represented proportionally in government and administrative positions. In 1943 it was agreed that the Maronites would keep the presidency of the republic, while the office of prime minister would become the preserve of the Sunnis. After 1947 the speakership of the parliament came to be reserved for the Shi‘is. Other government and public positions were distributed proportionally among the various Lebanese communities. The representation of Christians and Muslims in parliament was fixed at a ratio of six to five. The architects of the National Pact left no record of the manner in which they negotiated their deal. What amounted to a gentlemen’s agreement became the formula under which power was shared in modern Lebanon.15
The National Pact both acknowledged and fostered a Lebanese political system based on confessionalism (ta’ifiyya). We encountered the term ta’ifiyya in the previous chapter in dealing with Iraq. Yet this term has assumed different meanings in Lebanon and Iraq. When used by Iraqis, at least until 2003, the term had strong derogatory connotations, with the government often labeling its opponents as ta’ifis, in other words, people who promoted sectarian divisions in the country. In Lebanon, by contrast, the Maronite elite and the leaders of other communities recognized confessionalism as a fact of life, arguing that political representation along communal lines served the interests of all Lebanese and fostered stability in the country. The difference in attitude toward ta’ifiyya in the two countries has accounted for the rise in Lebanon of parties overtly organized along sectarian lines, like the Kata’ib of the Maronites, the Sunni Najjada Party, the predominantly Druze Progressive Socialist Party, the Shi‘i Nahda and Talai‘ Parties of Ahmad al-As‘ad and Rashid Baydun, respectively, as well as Amal and Hizballah— an idea inconceivable in Iraq before the U.S. invasion.16
Until the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88, Iraqis by and large did not publicly acknowledge the existence of a sectarian problem in their country. The Lebanese, by contrast, have debated the advantages and drawbacks of confessionalism ever since the establishment of Mount Lebanon as an autonomous district in 1861. Some Lebanese writers have regarded confessionalism as a disease, and as the basic problem of Lebanon, arguing that the National Pact of 1943 and the preservation of the laws of personal status governing each sect exacerbated religious, political, and class tensions in the country. Others, however, have viewed the pact favorably, as the unwritten constitution of Lebanon, contending that confessionalism was the essence of Lebanese society and therefore could not be abolished by law.17 The Maronite writer Kamal Yusuf al-Hajj was a most enthusiastic advocate of “positive confessionalism.” Hajj argued that confessionalism was both a condition stemming from the lack of a clear concept of Lebanese nationalism and a mechanism acting to reduce sectarian tension within society. Confessionalism, according to Hajj, has historical roots in Lebanon and a legal basis in the constitution and the National Pact. He explained that the importance of the pact lay in its turning Lebanon into a national state that demands recognition and loyalty from all segments of society. The balance of confessional representation stipulated in the pact amounted to a set of national values that were as important as religion in holding people together, and without which the Lebanese state would collapse. Therefore, concluded Hajj, anyone who attempted to abolish the system of confessional representation was conspiring against the notion of Lebanon as a final state.18
During the 1950s and 1960s, confessionalism gained ground in Lebanese public life. At the same time, the Maronites succeeded in creating some sense of a common Lebanese history while bolstering their political hegemony in the country. Maronite and other Christian writers argued that for many centuries Lebanon had preserved the true heritage of Syria. Building on the work of Henri Lammens (a Jesuit priest and professor of Oriental studies at the Saint-Joseph University who died in 1937), they depicted Mount Lebanon as the historical place of refuge for all the persecuted communities of Syria, who valued their freedom and escaped there after the Arab Islamic conquest in the seventh century. Yet the Maronites, who generally viewed themselves as a non-Arab Christian minority living in a tiny corner of the vast Arab and Islamic sphere, also used the refuge idea to justify their political dominance in Lebanon. Arguing that the Muslims in Lebanon could not be trusted, the Maronites claimed the key security and military positions, and instituted Sunday as the official day of rest in Lebanon. All this was necessary to allay the Maronite fear of what might happen to Lebanon if the Muslims took over.19 The logic used by the Maronites to justify their political dominance in Lebanon bears resemblance to the arguments used by the Sunni minorities in Iraq (until 2003) and in Bahrain to support their monopoly on power. While the Christian Maronites cited the close relations between Lebanese Muslims and their coreligionists in the Arab world as proof that the Muslim majority was not truly loyal to Lebanon, the Sunni ruling elites in Iraq and Bahrain disputed the national credentials of Iraqi and Bahraini Shi‘is by pointing to their links with Iran. Yet unlike the Sunni rulers of Iraq and Bahrain, who had the backing of other Sunni states in dealing with the Shi‘is, the Maronites were a Christian minority within the Muslim Arab world and therefore had to concede some power to Sunnis in Lebanon.
The ideas upon which pre–civil war Lebanon was based left little room for the Shi‘is. Neither the Sunni conviction that Lebanon was a fragment of the larger Arab world nor the Maronite concept of Lebanon’s Christian identity appealed to the Shi‘is. Before the revival of Shi‘ism in the second half of the twentieth century, Sunnis often took the Shi‘is for granted. Cultural, class, and doctrinal gaps separated the Sunni merchants of the coastal cities from the rural Shi‘i population of the Jabal ‘Amil and the Bekaa, as well as from the Shi‘i migrants, who began arriving in Beirut in great numbers starting in the 1950s. While Sunnis agreed to share power with the Maronites, they did not accept the Shi‘is as a community in their own right and objected to the establishment of an independent Shi‘i religious institution separate from the Supreme Islamic Legislative Council led by the Sunni mufti. Shi‘i restiveness in the Jabal ‘Amil between 1918 and 1936 was given an Arab nationalist interpretation by the Sunnis, but this was accepted by only some Shi‘is. Indeed, Arab nationalism primarily attracted Sunnis in modern Lebanon because the majority of Shi‘is, like Christians, did not wish to be dominated by Sunnis in the name of Arabism.20
Shi‘is and Maronites did not have easy relations either. As we saw in chapter 1, the Maronite migration from northern to southern Lebanon between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries reduced the size of the Shi‘i communities. The struggle over territory created tensions between Shi‘is and Maronites that intensified when the latter gained autonomy in Mount Lebanon between 1861 and 1915. Although the Maronites constituted a majority in Mount Lebanon, they lost this status after the inclusion of the Shi‘i areas and the predominantly Sunni coastal cities in modern Lebanon. Subsequently, the Maronite share of Lebanon’s population has decreased while the number of Shi‘is has grown steadily, mainly because of their higher birthrates. Whereas in 1932 the Maronites constituted the largest sect in Lebanon, they later lost this position to the Shi‘is, who by the turn of the twenty-first century constituted 40 percent of the population. Demography had caught up with the Maronites and continues to work to the benefit of the Shi‘is.21
Aware of the declining proportion of their community among the population, Maronite leaders explored various ways to reestablish Christians as a majority in Lebanon, beginning in the mandatory period. One solution proposed in August 1932 by Emile Edde´ (who would serve as Lebanon’s president between 1936 and 1941) was to detach the area of Tripoli and the Jabal ‘Amil from the country, a move that would have left the Christians 80 percent of the population. Edde´ sought to persuade the French authorities to turn the Jabal ‘Amil, with its large Shi‘i population, into an autonomous unit under French control along the model of Alexandretta, which the French had established in 1920 as an autonomous ‘Alawi-populated district within the province of Aleppo in Syria.22 Having failed to persuade the French to accept the idea, Edde´ and other Maronite leaders turned to Jewish leaders for help. In August 1941 Eliahu Sasson, director of the Arab section in the Jewish Agency, met in Beirut with Bishara al-Khuri, Lebanon’s first president after independence. Khuri had his own idea of how to increase the share of Christians in the population of Lebanon. He drew Sas-son’s attention to the Jabal ‘Amil, which stood as a dangerous Shi‘i barrier between the Christians in Lebanon and the Jews in mandatory Palestine. Khuri proposed to empty the area of its Shi‘is and settle it with members of the Maronite diaspora who had emigrated to the United States, suggesting that the Jews advance a loan to the Maronite patriarch for that purpose. This move, said Khuri, would bring Maronites and Jews together as close neighbors who could stand against the Arab Islamic tide in the region. Sasson did not mention where Khuri sought to resettle the Shi‘is, but he cited a conversation with a Muslim businessman who assured Sasson that it would be possible in the course of ten years to purchase all the lands of the Jabal ‘Amil and resettle its Shi‘is in Iraq.23
The schemes of Maronite leaders for turning Lebanon into a state with a Christian majority did not materialize, and so they turned again to the Shi‘is to counterbalance the Sunnis. Noting the increase in the influence of Nasserism among Muslims in Lebanon during the 1960s, Maronite leaders and intellectuals argued that the Shi‘is should be embraced more closely by the country’s political system. The Maronites took a special interest in Musa Sadr, who at the time was emerging as the leader of the Shi‘i community in Lebanon. As will be seen below, however, the Maronites did not foresee either the Shi‘i bid for power or the setback to their own political hegemony in the wake of the Lebanese civil war.24
The Revolt of the Oppressed
Conditions became ripe for Shi‘i mass politics in Lebanon only in the second half of the twentieth century. At the core of this development was the great increase in the number of Shi‘is in Beirut, a result of a migration from the Jabal ‘Amil and the Bekaa beginning in the 1950s. The Shi‘is in Beirut, whose number in 1920 was about 1,500, and who did not have their own mosque until the 1940s, had established themselves by 1975 as the single largest community in the capital. Shi‘is were driven from their native regions because of changes in land ownership and the decline of agriculture, and because of security problems resulting from the war between Israelis and Palestinians in southern Lebanon in the 1970s and early 1980s. Unlike Christians and Sunni Muslims who lived mainly in the affluent eastern and western sections of Beirut, the Shi‘i immigrants, estimated at 800,000 in the mid-1990s, were crammed into an area of twenty-eight square kilometers in the southern suburbs known as “the belt of misery.” The depressed living conditions of these Shi‘is have resembled those of their coreligionists in Sadr City in Iraq today. In Lebanon, Shi‘is constituted some 80 to 90 percent of the workforce in Beirut’s factories, and 50 to 60 percent of the service workers in the predominantly Christian eastern section. The Shi‘i migration to Beirut not only established the capital as the largest place of concentration of Shi‘is in Lebanon, but also enabled Shi‘is from the Jabal ‘Amil and the Bekaa to interact on a large scale, at first in political parties of the secular Left that championed socioeconomic reform. The influx of Shi‘is from rural areas to the capital coincided with the rise of a Shi‘i intelligentsia and the return to Lebanon of Shi‘i e´migre´s with money earned overseas. These two groups established themselves in the 1960s and 1970s as a new Shi‘i middle class. Their members felt entitled to play a role in Lebanese politics, but they were shunted aside by a Lebanese establishment dominated by Maronites and Sunnis, as well as by Shi‘i notable leaders who feared the new challenge to their authority. It was Musa Sadr who tapped the various grievances of the Shi‘i urban poor and the middle class and who succeeded in mobilizing Lebanese Shi‘is as a national group.25
The rise of Musa Sadr as the charismatic leader of Lebanese Shi‘is was part of a larger trend within Shi‘ism in the Middle East beginning in the 1960s toward activism among the clergy. While in Iran Shi‘i clerics led by Ruhollah Khomeini succeeded in establishing an Islamic government in 1978–79, in the Arab world the gains had been much more modest largely because of the lack of the sociopolitical preconditions for a Shi‘i theocracy. Yet Lebanon was different from other Arab countries with Shi‘i communities for two important reasons. First, Lebanon’s system of confessional politics and the relative freedom of publication in the country enabled Sadr to openly push for a Shi‘i sociopolitical agenda. Second, unlike Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, where the ruling Sunni elites did not hesitate to use force to check the tide of Shi‘i upheaval, the Lebanese state led by its Christian Maronite elite was far weaker, and its eventual collapse with the outbreak of civil war in 1975 facilitated the upsurge of the Shi‘is during the war and in its wake.
Sadr set out in the 1960s and 1970s to create a new and self-confident Lebanese Shi‘i individual and to redefine relations between Shi‘is and the state. The Shi‘is of Lebanon, he noted, had a handicap in dealing with the state that stemmed from the weakness of the community. Its inability to display its full energies and shield its people, Sadr argued, undermined its morale as well as people’s trust in their religious and political leaders. Consequently, Shi‘is were unable to act in unison and to assume full responsibilities in the state. Sadr attempted to reconcile the sectarian and national identity of Lebanese Shi‘is. He urged Shi‘is to love Lebanon, declaring that it was their ultimate state. While advocating that Shi‘is should place their national loyalty above their sectarian interests, he demanded that the state should care for its Shi‘i citizens and treat them with respect. In his speeches Sadr talked about the historical bonds connecting Shi‘is with the state. He reminded his audience that for more than a thousand years the Shi‘i seminaries had preserved the Lebanese heritage, and that Shi‘is had always taken a lead in defending Lebanon against foreign invaders, starting with the Crusaders. The Shi‘is, he said, did not demand government money and political favors immediately after Lebanon gained independence; instead, they accepted discrimination in the allocation of funds and in political appointments, viewing it as a necessary sacrifice during the state’s formative period and anticipating better times once the state stood firmly on its feet. Yet, Sadr lamented, Shi‘i hopes of gaining a fair share of power and spoils were not fulfilled. During the 1950s and 1960s, the government continued to discriminate against Shi‘is and tarnished their honor, forcing them to flaunt their sectarian identity and fall back on their community, convinced that it could do more for them than the state could.26
In establishing the Higher Islamic Shi‘i Council in 1969, Sadr sought to turn this institution into the focal point of a Shi‘i community independent of its Sunni counterpart. Unlike the Sunnis, who had formed the Supreme Islamic Legislative Council in 1955, and the Druze, who since 1962 had their own council, the Shi‘is lacked a corporate body that could oversee their interests. Until 1969 the Sunni Council ran Shi‘i religious affairs and endowment property, and appointed Shi‘i religious functionaries. Although in the mid-1950s Shi‘is attempted to establish forums for voicing their social concerns, these either lacked strong leadership or were undermined by the state. The idea of a Higher Shi‘i Council generated opposition both from Shi‘i clerics, who feared that their incorporation into the council would render them financially dependent on the state, and from members of the Sunni establishment, who claimed that a Shi‘i council would divide the Islamic front in Lebanon. In making his case, Sadr argued that the Shi‘i community needed an institution to oversee its religious affairs and endowment property, and to unite the community and save it from its crisis. Sadr enjoyed the support of Maronite leaders, as well as the backing of middle-class Shi‘i professionals and a few notable leaders, including Sabri Hamadeh, the speaker of parliament. Money came mainly from those Shi‘i e´migre´s who had returned home and sought ways to influence Lebanese politics. In turning the council into an independent body, Sadr enabled the Shi‘i community to break free from Sunni control. It was a move intended to increase the clout of the community in a state in which resources were distributed according to sectarian affiliation and the relative political weight of the various sects. In May 1969, Sadr was elected the first chairman of the council, establishing himself as the head of the Shi‘a of Lebanon.27 Sadr transformed the Shi‘is of Lebanon from a sect characterized by an attitude of political defeatism into a community that challenged the entire system of government. A religious reformer, Sadr gave the Shi‘is a new identity. He reinterpreted Shi‘i history and used religious occasions as vehicles for building political consciousness among Lebanese Shi‘is. Thus, for example, he presented imam Hussein’s bid for the caliphate at the battle of Karbala in 680, in confrontation with the army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid, as a revolt against injustice. Sadr bridged the gap between the seventh and the twentieth centuries, enabling Shi‘is to label their enemy in daily life a Yazid. Moreover, Sadr recognized the enormous task of community building, working to bring people in the Jabal ‘Amil and the Bekaa closer together. Seeking to infuse the role of clerics within the Shi‘i community with new meaning, he worked to tear down the age-old perception of clerical parochialism, arguing that the ulama had a duty to lead the people. At the same time, he took advantage of the failure of Arab socialism to improve the economic conditions of Shi‘is and acted to break the monopoly of the secular Left as the champion of social justice in Lebanon. His language of Shi‘i disinheritance proved more appealing to the poor and the returning e´migre´s than the language of class conflict used by the Left. By 1975 the influence of the secular Left among Shi‘is had diminished significantly, as is evident from the fact that several of the Higher Shi‘i Council executive committee members had formerly belonged to or identified with parties of the Left. As Lebanon neared civil war, Sadr’s strategies of mobilization grew even bolder, building on agitation and assertion. After the breakdown in negotiations with the government of Suleiman Frangie´ for more senior Shi‘i appointments in the administration, the foreign service, and the army, and for more government investments in Shi‘i areas and better security arrangements in the south, Sadr began organizing mass rallies. In a speech in the Bekaa in February 1975 he proclaimed a new beginning for the Shi‘i community, urging its members to shed the term matawila (followers of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib), by which the Shi‘is in Lebanon had been known since the seventeenth century, and adopt the term rafidun, in the sense of men of refusal and vengeance who revolt against oppression and tyranny. In another rally in March, he launched the “movement of the oppressed,” vowing to struggle until the government addressed Shi‘i grievances. Several months later, Sadr revealed the existence of a Shi‘i militia called Amal (literally, hope), an adjunct to the movement of the oppressed. With these moves, the Shi‘is of Lebanon were prepared to participate in their country’s militia politics.28
The fragile partnership that the National Pact had created between Christians and Muslims collapsed with the outbreak of civil war in 1975. Among the Sunnis, a new generation of Arab nation-alists had emerged in the 1950s, strongly influenced by Nasserism and Ba‘thism. That generation did not accept the pact as reasonable, as many of the older generation had. Meanwhile, within the Maronite community a new force emerged, the Phalanges (also known as the Kata’ib Party), originally founded as a paramilitary organization in 1936 under the leadership of Pierre Jumayyil. Renamed the Social Democratic Party in 1949, it did not enjoy wide following in the 1950s and 1960s and was dismissed by most Christians as an authoritarian organization. The rise of the Phalanges as the dominant voice of the Maronite community in the 1970s, however, signaled the passing of power from leaders who had made their peace with Arabism to those who sought a full break with the Arab world. Party officials and ideologues portrayed modern Lebanon as the incarnation of ancient Phoenicia. They positioned Phoenicianism as a counter to Arab nationalism, which they regarded as a force undermining the freedom of Christians and threatening to absorb Lebanon into the Arab world. The Maronites under Pierre and his son Bashir Jumayyil opted for the unthinkable: an alliance with Israel and a full commitment to partition Lebanon.29
The events surrounding the civil war of 1975–90 radicalized Lebanese Shi‘is. In the mid-1970s the Higher Islamic Shi‘i Council collapsed along with other institutions of the Lebanese state. In 1978 Musa Sadr disappeared during a trip to Libya. His disappearance left the Shi‘is without their preeminent national figure—a man who combined political and religious leadership, who advocated power sharing between Lebanon’s main sects, and who acted during the first years of the war as an important intermediary between Syria’s president, Hafiz Assad, and the Maronite and Sunni establishment in Lebanon. The interference of both Syria and Israel in Lebanon brought large Shi‘i areas under occupation and, in turn, increased Shi‘i militancy. In 1976 Syrian forces invaded the Bekaa. Two years later, Israel launched its first major operation against Palestinian strongholds in southern Lebanon; this was followed by a larger excursion in 1982, which brought Israeli forces to the outskirts of Beirut. Both operations were intended to destroy what amounted to a PLO mini-state in Lebanon, and the second also sought to restore Maronite hegemony in the country. The departure of the PLO from Lebanon in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion helped Shi‘is overcome their inferiority complex vis-a`-vis Palestinian fighters and push their cause. Yet at the same time, the Shi‘is in the Jabal ‘Amil had become the main victims of the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, neither of whom offered an apology to the Shi‘is for the disruption of their lives.30 Moreover, eighteen years of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon gave rise to a powerful myth among Lebanese Shi‘is, who depicted themselves as the vanguard of a resistance movement fighting to rescue Lebanon from a foreign invader. The myth shaped both the political development of Lebanese Shi‘is and the struggle for leadership that erupted within the community following Sadr’s disappearance.
In the early 1980s Amal emerged as the main Shi‘i movement. But it soon faced a bold challenge from Hizballah, the Party of God. Amal and Hizballah differed in their social composition and organizational form, and offered different visions of society and state in Lebanon. Amal, as we noted earlier, was created by Musa Sadr as the militia of the Shi‘i community. Some of its members were young professionals. Others were newly urbanized and less-educated youth. Still others were former activists in Palestinian and leftist groups who became disillusioned with both the Palestinians and the Left and wanted to belong to a movement of their own sect. Under Nabih Berri, who led the movement from April 1980, Amal evolved from a militia into a political party articulating Shi‘i middle-class politics in Lebanon. A lawyer and graduate of the Lebanese University who spent several of his adult years in West Africa, Berri became a model for members of the Shi‘i middle class who sought a political place in the state. Nevertheless, Amal’s largely secular program and the willingness of its leadership to cooperate with Christians and join the national salvation committee, formed by President Ilyas Sarkis in 1982, were rejected by a new generation of Shi‘i Islamists. These Islamists were influenced by the Islamic Revolution in Iran and questioned Amal’s authenticity as a Shi‘i movement. The main challenge to Amal came from Hizballah, which emerged in 1982 as a conglomeration of several Islamic groups. Some of Hizballah’s affiliates were Shi‘is who returned to Lebanon after studying in Najaf, including the Iraqi-born cleric Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, who for a short period acted as a mentor to the movement, although he denied any formal ties to it. Others were former members of the Lebanese branch of the Iraqi Da‘wa Party and the association of Muslim students in Lebanon. Still others had splintered from Amal, most notably Hussein al-Musawi, who established Islamic Amal after his expulsion from Amal in 1982, and Hasan Nasrallah, who would become Hizballah’s secretary-general in 1992. Unlike Amal, which did not have a foreign patron and relied mainly on contributions from Shi‘i individuals, Hizballah was founded with Iran’s backing; its fighters were better paid than those of Amal, and they received training from a contingent of Iranian revolutionary guards based in the Bekaa under Syrian supervision.31
Hizballah is only one aspect of the revival of Shi‘ism in Leba-non—a complex process that began in the second half of the twentieth century and still continues vigorously today. The rise of Hizballah coincided with the increase in the number of Shi‘i clerics in Lebanon during the 1970s and 1980s, which stood in contrast to the decrease in their numbers in the first half of the twentieth century. The new generation of Lebanese clerics, who numbered about 420 early in the 1980s, was drawn from about 220 families, many of whom did not historically produce ulama in Lebanon. While some of these clerics originated in the Bekaa, an area not previously known for a tradition of religious scholarship, others were born in the Shi‘i slums of Beirut. These ulama became part of a new Shi‘i religious elite whose members controlled resources and thereby gained power and respect. Some received part of their training at the Islamic Law Institute established by Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah after his move from Najaf to Beirut in 1966. Fadlallah did not join the Higher Islamic Shi‘i Council formed by Musa Sadr, seeking rather to establish himself as a senior cleric independent of the council, which he perceived as a state institution. Fadlallah’s institute emphasized the role of clerics as community leaders who should be in tune with the needs of their society—a goal that Hizballah leaders set out to accomplish. Hizballah’s top leadership consisted of a group of ulama guided by the principle of mutual consultation (shura). In the early and mid-1980s the movement advocated the establishment of an Islamic government in the country. Its ideology was strongly influenced by Iran’s attempt to shape Lebanese Shi‘ism, as evident in Hizballah’s adoption of the flag of the Iranian Islamic Republic. Over time, Hizballah has emerged as a powerful socioreligious movement, controlling a large budget, an independent court system, a network of mosques and welfare institutions, and sophisticated media that include magazines and a television channel. The organization, in the words of its head of social services, has grown into “something larger than a party, yet smaller than a state.”32
Hizballah’s drive to create a society of members guided by strict Islamic values clashed with Amal’s attempt to establish itself as the sole sociopolitical movement of Lebanese Shi‘is. Their rivalry divided the Shi‘i community between supporters and opponents of the two movements, creating splits even among members of the same family. During 1982–83 Hizballah spread from the Bekaa into the southern suburbs of Beirut and later also to southern Lebanon, the stronghold of Amal until the mid-1980s. Hizballah took advantage of the departure of Palestinian fighters from southern Lebanon and the Israeli withdrawal to a narrow strip in the south, capitalizing on Amal’s restrained policy in confronting the Israeli presence in Lebanon. Hizballah’s success in mobilizing Shi‘is undermined Amal’s stature and led to fighting between the two movements in southern Lebanon and in Beirut during 1987–89. The fighting took place as Lebanon was nearing the end of its civil war—a period when Amal and Hizballah paid growing attention to national politics and vied for control of the Shi‘i Council, which began resuming its activities. Attempting to portray itself as the movement of mainstream Shi‘ism in Lebanon, Amal depicted Hizballah’s followers as dissidents (khawarij), thereby invoking the memory of this small group of uncompromising purists who had been defeated by the caliph ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. In likening Hizballah to the khawarij, Amal implied that Hizballah had broken with the consensus of the Shi‘i community and with the decision to reach political accommodation with other sects in Lebanon.33 Hizballah countered by blaming Amal for downplaying the heroic role of the Shi‘i resistance to the presence of Israel and Western powers in Lebanon. Hizballah contended that the Shi‘i Council had failed to achieve the purpose for which it had been established, and had neglected its duty to fight for the rights of the oppressed—a duty now assumed by Hizballah. Its objection to the council as a state institution also reflected Hizballah’s fear that the council would reinforce separation between religion and politics and undermine the position of Shi‘i clerics in Lebanon.34 The fighting between Amal and Hizballah, which pitted Shi‘i against Shi‘i and left a thousand dead, was described by Lebanese Shi‘is as communal strife. It ended in 1990 after Syria and Iran negotiated a truce between the two movements and as the various sects of Lebanon sought national reconciliation.35
The Lebanese fought a lengthy and costly civil war, which lasted fifteen years and claimed some 100,000 lives, only to return to a confessional system and witness the emergence of Syria as the power broker in Lebanon, at least until April 2005. In August 1990 the Lebanese parliament endorsed the Ta’if accord as the basis for rebuilding Lebanon. Unlike the National Pact of 1943, which recognized Lebanon as a link between the Arab world and the West, the Ta’if accord emphasized Lebanon’s Arab identity. It envisaged the abolition of confessionalism in stages, but it set no timetable for achieving that goal. The Lebanese preserved article 95 of the 1926 constitution, which called for a transition period when all sects would be represented proportionally in government. More important, however, the accord changed the balance of power in Lebanon. In contrast to the arrangement of 1943 whereby Christians and Muslims were represented in parliament at a ratio of six to five, after 1990 parliamentary seats were split evenly. The rearrangement of the constituencies has worked to the disadvantage of the Maronite deputies, many of whom became dependent on Muslim votes. Under the new accord the Maronites lost their former privileged political status. While the powers of the Maronite presidency were reduced, those of the Sunni prime minister and the Shi‘i speaker of parliament were increased.
The Ta’if accord thus created a triumvirate regime in which the president, the prime minister, and the speaker of parliament each have a veto power over the other two. This newly calibrated system has turned the business of government into an endless game of rivalries and negotiations in which the likely winner in any impasse is the person commanding the most powerful skills and enjoying the best access to Syria—the final arbiter of Lebanese politics. The accord sanctioned the presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon and placed restrictions on the country’s sovereignty. Syria’s dominant position in Lebanon received confirmation in a treaty of brotherhood and a defense pact signed between the two countries in 1991, and following Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000. Its hegemony in the country manifested itself in September 2004, when Syria forced the Lebanese parliament to pass an amendment to the constitution, extending the six-year term of President Émile Lahoud for three more years, to the displeasure of large segments of Lebanese society. Syria retained the upper hand in Lebanon at least until April 2005, when under pressure from the U.S. and French governments it withdrew its troops from the country and increased its reliance on proxies to retain its leverage on Lebanese politics.36
The history of the Lebanese Shi‘is in the period following the Ta’if accord demonstrates the fierce competition inside the community for loyalties and resources. In the wake of the civil war, the Higher Islamic Shi‘i Council reemerged as the main institution overseeing Shi‘i religious and cultural affairs in Lebanon, and in March 1994 Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din was elected its head. Unlike Musa Sadr, who had embodied religious and political leadership, Shams al-Din was a cleric who recognized Amal under Nabih Berri as the principal political movement of Lebanese Shi‘is. Despite some competition between Shams al-Din and Berri in the early 1990s, when the relationship between the council and Amal was still not defined, the former’s main rival was not Nabih Berri but Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, an innovative cleric who commanded a considerable following both inside and outside of Lebanon. The rivalry between Shams al-Din and Fadlallah over religious leadership manifested itself in their competition for Shi‘i funds as well as in the controversy over who should lead the Friday prayer in Beirut. Shams al-Din’s effort to attract Shi‘is inside Lebanon was apparent in the distinction he made (not unlike that articulated by Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr in Iraq before him) between two types of religious leadership: a universal leadership held by the most learned jurist (al-marja‘iyya al-fiqhiyya) and a political leadership (al-marja‘iyya al-siyasiyya) held by the local figure most qualified to lead his community—namely, Shams al-Din in his capacity as head of the Shi‘i Council.37 The rivalry between the two lasted until Shams al-Din’s death in 2001, which enabled Fadlallah to establish himself firmly as the undisputed senior cleric in Lebanon. Meanwhile, ‘Abd al-Amir Qabalan, a staunch ally of Nabih Berri, replaced Shams al-Din as acting head of the Shi‘i Council, bringing this institution and Amal closer together.
The struggle for the leadership of the community was reinforced by the competition between Amal and Hizballah after the latter announced in 1992 its openness toward all political currents and religious sects and its decision to participate in the elections for parliament. Hizballah thereby made its peace with the Lebanese state. In return, the movement won recognition as the vanguard of Lebanese resistance to Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon and was allowed to keep its arms. The increasing “Lebanonization” of Hizballah coincided with the decision of Iranian leaders to cut back their aid to the organization and the growing leverage of Syria over the movement. Initially, Hizballah had been opposed to the Ta’if accord, but its leaders soon realized that unless they adapted themselves to the changing political scene, they risked isolation and perhaps even a fate similar to that of General ‘Awn, the Maronite army officer whose opposition to the accord was crushed by the Syrian army in October 1990. A struggle erupted between Subhi Tufayli (a founder of Hizballah and one of its most influential members), who was not fully supportive of the movement’s decision to participate in elections for parliament, and Hasan Nasrallah, Hizballah’s secretary-general, who supported the move. The struggle exposed internal debates between radical and pragmatic strands within the movement, as well as persistent regional divisions among Lebanese Shi‘is. Tufayli had a large following in the Bekaa, and in mid-1977 he attempted to use his “Movement of the Hungry” to foment civil resistance and thus challenge both Hizballah’s pragmatic leadership and the Lebanese government. Acting with the agreement of Hizballah leaders, the Lebanese army put an end to the civil disobedience in the Bekaa. Tufayli was subsequently isolated, and in 1998 he was expelled from Hizballah. This development coincided with the increase in the importance of midlevel leadership members supportive of Syria (most notably, ex-members of the Iraqi Da‘wa Party’s Lebanese branch) at the expense of those who supported Iran. Under Nasrallah, Hizballah emphasized its Lebanese iden-tity—a turnaround backed by Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. In 1996 Hizballah engaged in a dialogue with Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din on the role of the Shi‘i Council and the relations between Shi‘is and the state in Lebanon. Hizballah even began raising the Lebanese flag and playing the national anthem on official occasions, thus signaling its willingness to reach accommodation with the state.38
Over the course of a decade, Hizballah evolved from a revolutionary movement into a political party that vied not only for the votes of Shi‘is, but also for those of Sunnis and Christians in mixed areas. Hizballah’s decision to participate in the 1992 parliamentary elections was intended to ensure its political survival. The party has come to view parliament as the state institution to which it can address socioeconomic and political demands on behalf of its constituency. In 1992 Hizballah won 8 of the 128 parliamentary seats, and together with 4 additional seats won by non-Shi‘is affiliated with its electoral list, the party had the largest bloc in parliament. In the 1996 elections Hizballah won 10 seats, 3 of which were occupied by its affiliates. In the 2000 elections, it won 12 seats including 3 held by affiliates. In the 2005 elections that followed the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, Hizballah increased its share to 14 parliamentary seats—a result that underscored its position as a formidable force in Lebanese politics. Between 1992 and 2005 Hizballah shrewdly exploited its resistance record and its welfare services, using them as vital components of its campaign strategy. The organization reached out to Christian and other non-Shi‘i groups. It relied on democratic procedures to counter challenges from its rivals and used the election machine in ways that could not be matched by any other party or any coalition of rivals. Until 2005 Hizballah ruled out participation in the government, preferring to influence Lebanese politics as a mainstream opposition party. Yet in 2005 Hizballah joined Amal in negotiating with the prime minister over the composition of the government and the number of Shi‘i ministers in it. The government formed in July 2005 had 5 Shi‘i ministers, including the foreign minister. What is more, Muhammad Funaysh, a founding member of Hizballah, was appointed minister of energy—a development that signaled the organization’s desire to become increasingly involved in national politics.39
The armed conflict of the late 1980s between Amal and Hizballah gave way to political battles and, occasionally, even to cooperation between the two movements. In their election campaigns Amal and Hizballah debated socioeconomic issues, as well as the meaning of Shi‘i resistance, distinguishing between armed resistance to Israel and social resistance to the neglect of Shi‘i areas by the Lebanese state. Since the 1990s, Hizballah has capitalized on the salience of these issues in Lebanese politics to expand its constituency, steadily chipping away at Amal’s electoral base. Hizballah’s success in attracting Amal supporters, including members of the middle class, reflects the sense of some Lebanese Shi‘is that Amal has lost its original values. Amal evolved from a dynamic populist movement to a full-blown patronage system characterized by inefficiency and corruption. Those former supporters of Amal who have shifted their political loyalty to Hizballah because of its perceived integrity have exerted a moderating influence on the movement and forced it to respond to their particular needs. The success of Hizballah in becoming the largest political player on the Shi‘i scene manifested itself in the municipal elections of 1998 and the gains of 2004, when its candidates won overwhelmingly in the Bekaa and in the Shi‘i districts of southern Beirut. While in 1998 Hizballah’s candidates won fewer than half the municipal council seats in southern Lebanon, in 2004 they won a majority of them, dealing a blow to Amal’s candidates. Still, under pressure from Syria, which did not allow Hizballah to eclipse Amal, the two movements ran consensual lists during the parliamentary elections of 1992, 1996, and 2000. The two ran a consensual list in the 2005 elections as well; this policy reduced competition between Hizballah and Amal and assured the movements an almost equal number of deputies. Hizballah and Amal candidates won most of the votes in the Bekaa and in southern Lebanon—a sign of the declining influence of notable families and the transformation of power relations within the Shi‘i community.40
Over the course of half a century a profound change has taken place in the fortunes of the Shi‘is of Lebanon, who have emerged as the country’s principal sect. The Shi‘is have shed their political quietism, revolting against Maronite and Sunni ascendancy and demanding their share of the spoils. Their bid for power has been restrained, however, by Lebanon’s system of proportional representation and by Syria’s military presence in the country until April 2005, which ensured that Shi‘is could not sweep to a national victory. Nevertheless, the Shi‘is are likely to remain a major player in Lebanese politics that no other sect would be able to ignore, especially in the wake of the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.
The Lebanese Shi‘i experience has direct relevance to post-Ba‘th Iraq, where members of the Shi‘i majority will need to adjust their political expectations to the social realities of the country and redefine their relations with the U.S. occupying power. The connection between the Lebanese and the Iraqi cases will become clearer in the next chapter, which takes up the attempts of Iraqi Shi‘is to articulate the meaning of just governance.