This paper examines the history of the Shi‘i community in what is known today as “South Lebanon” through the lens of their self-understanding as the Shi‘is of Jabal ‘Amil. I argue that acceptance of the Lebanese state by the Shi‘i elite was as much the product of class conflict within the Shi‘i community of Jabal ‘Amil as it was a result of the ineluctable will of the Great Powers. Before incorporation into Lebanon was accepted by the Shi‘i elite, it was Jabal ‘Amil that was understood as the geographic basis for the community’s inclusion in an independent Arab polity governing Greater Syria. First, I analyze a set of texts from and about Jabal ‘Amil to show that the notion of the region as a Shi‘i milieu inclusive of all members of the community is a recent historical development. Before the twentieth century, Jabal ‘Amil existed, primarily, as a construct of the Shi‘i ulama, especially those living abroad in Iraq and Persia. A transformation occurred during the early twentieth century in which the Shi‘i laity – of all social classes – came to be included within this region’s history. Before this, the non-ulama Shi‘is of Greater Syria as a whole, bore the laqab Mutawali and never the nisba ‘Amili. Including all strata of the community under the rubric of Jabal ‘Amil created a framework for a sect-based, though not sectarian, form of communal solidarity connected to an Arab-led Greater Syria that still maintained the traditional elite’s position therein. After outlining the class dimension of Shi‘i appellations, I examine the material and political transformations that occurred before and during the Mandate period that made this terminological evolution possible and necessary. The notion of Jabal ‘Amil served as an alternative to the French Mandate’s model for Lebanon while also providing a means of guaranteeing and reproducing the Shi‘i elite’s privileged position within the community in the face of an increasingly politically active Shi‘i peasantry. The idea of Jabal ‘Amil came to threaten the Shi‘i elite themselves, however, by empowering the Shi‘i laity to challenge not only the French authorities but to act without sanction from the community’s traditional leaders and to make demands upon that very leadership. Abandoning the political possibility of Jabal ‘Amil, starting in the 1930’s, was thus part of the Shi‘i elite’s attempt to contain unruly lower classes by accepting the leadership roles afforded them by the Lebanese political system.

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.

This paper examines and compares the writings of prominent religious clerics and members of the Shi‘i community, each of whom participated in the rise of the Shi‘i Islamic movement since the late 1970s. Through an examination of intellectual writings, sermons, and speeches by both religious clerics and their followers, I show that the ideological views of a leader did not always determine the religious practices and orientations of his pious followers. I argue that political contexts, clerical positions within the religious milieu, communal interests, as well as the pragmatism of certain clerical authorities, more than any clear ideological project affected the intellectual differentiation and internal boundaries within the community of Islamic activists in the 1980s. In tackling the subject of research, I explore how religious scholars and activists dealt with key religious developments on the local and regional levels. I thereby analyze how the religious field in Lebanon dealt with the introduction of controversial topics like wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurist) in the public sphere, from the viewpoint of both clerics and followers. In the first section, I focus on the works and positions of prominent clerics like Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din, and other lower ranking clerics. They shared similar ideological projects, cultural discourses, and religious training in Najaf, Iraq, where they also witnessed an Islamic revival. These clerics returned to Lebanon and played a vital role in Islamic activism. I show why and how their views regarding wilayat al-faqih, and other revolutionary topics, evolved under the influence of the position that they occupied in the religious milieu, and due to pressures coming from the local context where they performed their religious roles. In the second section, I demonstrate that the followers of a local religious authority, like Fadlallah, did not always espouse his political views, especially when he changed them. Similarly, I show that activists who espoused the revolutionary views and ordinances of an eminent scholar, like Khomeini, did not necessarily adopt his political theories. To illustrate, evidence reveals that many activists still considered themselves part of the “Khomeinid awakening” until 1985, despite their disregard for wilayat al-faqih and its doctrinal output as a system of governance.

This paper explores the dynamics of clerical-lay relationship within the daily rhythm of a particular universe: a Lebanese Shi‘a Islamic legal school — a “hawza” — where a pious student body learns to engage Islamic law by questioning, debating and creating its constitutive norms. A hawza is an intellectual device through which the tradition of Shi‘a Islam is passed down from one generation to another. It is a school whose goal is to provide the students with the necessary tools to apply, but also to produce, Shi‘a Islamic law. It is a space where Shi‘a thought is transmitted and transformed; where muqallidum become mujtahidun. I concentrate on the hawza established by the late Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, currently located in the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. For a period of 10 months, I conducted ethnographic research by attending classes on a daily basis. Drawing on participant observation and interviews conducted on-site, I first describe the students’ pedagogical experience, their interactions with clerics as well as the pious atmosphere that encompasses their daily efforts. I argue that this hawza constitutes, for the students enrolled in it, both a space of religious education and a site of ethical remaking. Second, and more importantly, I show that the slow and strenuous process by which one becomes a mujtahid (i.e. one capable of exercising independent legal reasoning) requires from the students that they simultaneously memorize and challenge the established Islamic norms. Hawza students begin their journey by studying a stable statement of the norms defining the correct performance of a variety of practices (e.g. prayer, pilgrimage, marriage, purchase, etc.). But they are soon confronted with difficult conflicts and alternatives as they navigate the vast ocean of Shi‘a jurisprudence. While studying the classical treatises of the ulema, they are asked to challenge them so as to develop their own legal thinking. This is how, they say, one becomes a mujtahid.

The invention of the Internet has infiltrated the networks of mujtahids. The rise in computer and Internet usage in the Arab world has allowed Lebanese mujtahids to expand their authority and challenge Iranian Shi’i hegemony. When ayatollahs use the Internet a paradox results. Lebanon-based authority is strengthened relative to Iranian authority, however, Internet websites allow self-styled ayatollahs to proliferate and diverse centers of authority to form that are based exclusively on the Internet. At the same time these websites adhere to common conventions in content and presentation, such as images of the shrine of Imam ‘Ali, and downloadable treatises on Shi‘i legal topics. Every ayatollah today has a website run by his followers. This paper shows how the structures of authority in Shi‘i communities reflect the paradoxical outcomes of conformity and decentralization as a result of the Internet. Drawing from the theories of Arjun Appadurai, my research positions Shi‘i authority structures in a “disjunctive global economy of culture” and elucidates the creative ways in which these uniquely situated religious authorities articulate the relationship between the local and the global. The Internet has eased traditional boundaries of communication between disparate Shi‘i communities worldwide and encouraged the rise and development of an Arab Shi‘i transnational community. Mujtahids continue to represent continuity and innovation as an authoritative symbolic religious institutional reference point for the Shi‘a, providing a source of communal cohesiveness and at the same time the potential for intra-sectarian fragmentation. Arab ayatollahs have engaged with modernity by manipulating the disjunctive cultural, political and economic forces of globalization. Their involvement in these processes, and the outcomes that derive from their actions challenge previous understandings of the boundaries of Shi‘i authority. Since a mujtahid bases his authority in part on his role as the keeper and producer of knowledge, the use of websites and Internet technology provides greater opportunities for constituency-building and at the same time the potential loss of control over the production and dissemination of knowledge. Taking the online presence of the late Muhammed Husayn Fadlallah as a starting point, this paper will clarify the shifting boundaries of authority and interconnectedness that characterizes the complex relationship between Fadlallah, his closest confidants, children, students and passive observers. I argue that each of these constituencies play a crucial role in the formation of a Lebanese Shi‘i actor-network that continues to reshape Fadlallah’s legacy while transforming the virtual landscape of religious authority in Lebanon.