The Shi‘ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism and Hizbullah’s Islamists by Rula Jurdi Abisaab, Malek Abisaab (review)

The authors of The Shi‘ites of Lebanon argue that the advent of the Islamists into Lebanese politics has “contributed to the pluralistic nature of civil society” (p. xxxiii) and, therefore, they aim to demonstrate “the importance of communal and revolutionary ideology to the reshaping of the political sphere in Lebanon” (p. xxxiii). One would expect such an interaction either to de-revolutionize Shi‘i activism, or deconstruct Lebanese sectarianism. Instead, Hizbullah’s powerful intrusion into the country’s fragile political environment has disabled it and created stubborn political crises, such as the difficulty in forming cabinets or the timely election of presidents. The authors do not seem to appreciate the difference between pluralistic politics that characterize liberal democracies, and Lebanese confessionalism that seeks accommodative solutions to stagnant politics.

The authors commit a serious methodological error by failing to present a clear thesis statement about the transformation of the Lebanese political system, as they find it sufficient to explain it in terms of Shi‘a interaction with a sectarian state. They make it extremely difficult for the reader to distinguish between pluralism and sectarianism — concepts that negate each other. The book’s inherent weaknesses render it rudderless and analytically deficient. Its eight chapters are rich in description but poor in analysis, and leave it to the reader to draw his or her own analytical conclusions. The book is based on faulty premises that misinform the unknowledgeable reader and frustrate the expert.

The first two chapters deal with Shi‘i historical suffering and marginalization — be it at the hands of Ottoman governors, local feudal leaders, or French Mandatory administrators — and set the stage for the surge of Communists in southern Lebanon in the 1950s. In chapter three the authors spuriously link Communist utopianism with Shi‘a religious redemption through the lens of the death of Husayn ibn ‘Ali at the Battle of Karbala in 680. Based on unsubstantiated claims, they readily and uncritically accuse the then-rival Amal movement of assassinating Shi‘i Communist ideologue Husayn Muruwwa in 1987. Chapter four on the Iraqi Communist Party and the Najaf jurists’ reaction to it seems odd and a non sequitur. There is no question that the infelicitous encounter between Najaf’s jurists and the Iraqi Communist Party during the 1950s and 1960s had a tremendous impact on the relationship between the Lebanese Communist Party and southern Lebanese seminary students expelled by Saddam Husayn in the early 1970s. This does not justify, however, dedicating a full chapter to the clash between Communism and Shi‘a revivalism in Iraq. They could have reviewed the linkage succinctly in the prologue. The book is mostly fluff and provides no meaningful insights about the political transformation of Lebanese Shi‘a from feudal tyranny, state neglect, and ideological tinkering with Communism into the doctrine of clerical rule, wilayat al-faqih.

Chapter five rehashes what we know about Musa al-Sadr and how he galvanized the Shi‘a community. It takes at face value Sadr’s arrival to Lebanon in 1959 at the invitation of a religious dignitary from Tyre. The authors fail to link Sadr’s relocation to Lebanon and the Shah of Iran’s overall policy of containing the spread of Communism among Shi‘a, not only in Iran but also in Iraq and Lebanon. Curiously, the decision of Lebanese president Fouad Chehab, who aspired to undermine Shi‘i feudal leaders, to grant Sadr Lebanese citizenship by presidential decree goes unnoticed by the authors. This is significant because Lebanon jealously guards its citizenship and does not grant it to foreigners. The great revelation of the chapter is that Sadr had accepted the Lebanese confessional arrangement and wanted to integrate Shi‘a within it. This is hardly news worth reiteration.

Chapter six traces the evolution of Hizbullah from a revolutionary cadre during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 into a mass, albeit exclusively Shi‘a...