Jabal ‛Amil is an ill-defined part of what is now Lebanon, roughly equivalent to the country’s South. It is the historical Shi‘i homeland of the Levant, the remnant of a much larger Shi‘i community within Greater Syria (al-Sham). Authors who built the idea of the ‛Amili nation in the early Twentieth Century (e.g. Muhammad Jabir Al-Safa and Sayyid Muhsin al-Amin) made its defining Shi‘i identity synonymous with its (proudly) Arab bellicose tribesmen and its tradition of Shi‘i learning, with its madaris and their mujtahids. Today, the ‛Amili project is spearheaded by Ja‛far al-Muhajir (b. 1944), a trained historian and a Najaf-trained ‛ālim. Al-Muhajir plays down the Arabism which was the basis of earlier renditions of ‛Amili history in favour of emphasis on its Shi‘i roots. He lists as the heroes of the ‛Āmilite nation its ‛ulama’; one of whom, the First Martyr (d. 1384 A.D.), a key Twelver ‛alim, al-Muhajir boldly describes as the first walī faqīh who led a revolt against the (Sunni) Mamluk rule that (allegedly) cost him his life. The fathers of the ‛Amil idea wrote to the beat of the drums of Arab nationalism and Revolt. As for al-Muhajir’s narrative, he wrote it against a background of Iranian, wilayat al-faqih-ruled, dominance of Lebanese Shi‘i politics. Al-Muhajir effectively subverted the idea of wilayat al-faqih to sever ‛Amili nationalism from its Arabist context, claiming for Jabal ‛Amil the center stage in much of Twelver Shi‘i history. I will critically examine both, the historical material al-Muhajir uses and explore the ways he builds his argument through them. My paper will discuss this “neo-‛Amili” nationalist project and its relation to the Lebanese Shi‘i political scene.