The proposed paper is a critical examination of the intellectual history of Jabal Amel (South Lebanon) during over half a century, from the late 1920s through the early 1980s. I seek to explore the subject by exploring the role played by Hussein Muruwwa in the interaction between the Islamic heritage and secular and progressive ideas and concepts. Through this paper, I will show the intellectual and discursive processes of shaping a Lebanese Shiite political discourse by Muruwwa. First, I will elicit how the principles of Islamic turath, Socialism, liberalism, citizenship (muwatna), nationalism (wataniyya), democracy (dimuqratiyya), and feminism interacted through his ideas. Second, I will explore the modes through which Muruwwa understood these ideas and practices and how he helped in assimilating them into the local culture. Finally, I will answer why he assumed that these ideas/practices were critical to bringing about progress and modernity for the Shiites in Jabal Amel in particular, as well as for the entire Arab world.