The 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent sectarian turmoil and violence in Iraq have unleashed a sectarian discourse, as to Shia and Sunnis, that emphasizes difference and conflict. As to Lebanon, a number of factors, key among them being the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri, have aggravated sectarian tensions and led to the rise of sectarian tensions and polarized rhetorical discourse. A man who has spoken frequently, openly, and controversially about Sunni-Shia tensions and issues is the Sunni Lebanese Imam of the Masjid Bilal Bin Rabah in Abra, Sidon, Lebanon, Shaykh Ahmad Al Assir. Who is Al Assir and what is his political program? What are his grievances? Why did almost a million viewers visit his two YouTube channels- Ahmad Assir and masjidbiulalbinrabah? Those trying to understand the phenomenon have limited published resources available. Since al Assir is a recent phenomenon, there is no scholarly work on him. There are a few news reports that do not provide an in- depth study of the phenomenon. Thanks to the Internet and YouTube the sermons and lectures of Al Assir are available and accessible. Unfortunately, the videos do not have English subtitles. In my paper I translate one key lecture on Shia-Sunni relations and analyze it to determine whether it fits the dominant Salafist discourse on the Shia or the Al Aseer is different enough to be classified as a “phenomenon.” To put the al Aseer grievances in a larger Lebanese context, an interview with a former Sunni Lebanese official is conducted regarding the state of Lebanese Sunnis and their grievances.

There has been a steady increase of protests and opposition against the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the past two years. Many of these protests have been sectarian and the government response to them has only further inflamed sectarianism. Most observers take Iraq’s sectarian politics as a given blaming political leaders or parties. This presentation alternatively explores whether Iraq’s legal framework and the emergence of its political institutions post 2005 fueled sectarian tensions in the country. Did the founding laws of the new Iraqi state leave fundamental divisions in national identity among the population unresolved? If so, did the state and the political process implemented by the laws become too inflexible to contain the political tensions that spilled into the streets in the form of sectarian violence? I answer these questions by borrowing from critical legal studies and literature on nationalism and national identity formation, to examine founding legal mandates in Iraq. Specifically the presentation looks at the Transitional Administrative Law (the Iraqi constitution put forward by the interim Coalition Provisional Authority), two drafts of the constitution (June and July of 2005) as well as the permanent Iraqi constitution eventually ratified in October 2005, and other supporting laws that govern issues of sovereignty and nationality in Iraq. I argue that the overlapping, contradictory conceptualizations of national identity and bureaucratic sovereignty reproduce sectarian tensions in Iraq. As the Iraqi state was being reconstructed during the U.S. occupation, there were contending visions for the emerging state. The writing of the constitution was hurried by the American administration for to its own domestic political demands. This prevented differences from being resolved in the drafting process. The 2005 permanent Iraqi constitution and supporting national laws called for both a nation-state (where Iraqis are seen as one nation), and a multi-national state (where many nations are governed by one Iraqi state). Diverse bureaucratic jurisdictions within Iraq– federal, regional, and provincial– are at times also based on competing national identities (e.g. Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, etc.). The drafting of these laws, hence only postponed differences that became increasingly sectarian and nationalistic. Political parties with different conception of the nation-state were forced by American administration to form governments but failed to govern together often-creating parallel governing institutions. Since the state was set up and the constitution already written, there was little room for flexibility within the political process, pushing these tensions into the streets.

This paper explains why some Sunni Muslim clerics adopt the ideology of militant Jihad while others do not. I argue that clerics adopt or reject Jihadi ideology because of career incentives generated by the structure of cleric educational networks. Future clerics with strong connections to prominent teachers in Islamic academic networks are able to leverage these connections to improve their prospects on the cleric job market. Clerics with the endorsement of influential teachers are more likely to gain access to academic positions at Islamic universities, appointments within government ministries, opportunities for “shariah consulting,” and other prestigious options. Clerics with few connections to teachers will be disadvantaged in the competition for elite cleric jobs. If these clerics fail to successfully enter the academic track, they search for other ways to build a career that uses their human capital investments in the Islamic sciences. There are many options available to these clerics, but with the traditional academic career closed, some clerics find a move toward radical Jihadi ideology attractive. Jihadism is a viable career option for several reasons, but one may be that it allows clerics to draw financial support from constituencies of lay Muslims who distrust the regime-sanctioned clerics. Jihadist clerics are better able to attract the support of these constituents because their Jihadist positions credibly differentiate them from regime-supported clerics. I argue that the divergence of these two pathways is one key to understanding cleric radicalization. I provide evidence of these dynamics by collecting and analyzing 27,124 fatwas, articles, and books written by 101 contemporary clerics. Using statistical natural language processing, I measure the extent to which each cleric adopts Jihadi ideology in their writing. I then show that the structure of academic networks and the subsequent career paths taken by clerics predict cleric ideology. Clerics that have the most teachers have only a three percent chance of becoming Jihadist, while clerics with no academic connections have an almost 50 percent chance. These results align with observations from the field. Interviews at al-Azhar University in Cairo confirm that students consider networks to be strongly predictive of future career options and that individuals without these options are more susceptible to extremist ideas. These results offer a provocative explanation for the adoption of Jihadism: that clerics' ideas are subtly but profoundly shaped by the interplay of educational, religious, and political institutions in the Middle East.