Shi'ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities

by Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr

Overview

By recasting the relationship between religion and nationalism in the Middle East, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr proposes a new framework for understanding Shi'ite politics in Lebanon. Her study draws on a variety of untapped sources, reconsidering not only the politics of the established leadership of Shi'ites but also institutional and popular activities of identity production. Shaery-Eisenlohr traces current Shi'ite politics of piety and authenticity to the coexistence formula in Lebanon and argues that engaging in the discourses of piety and coexistence is a precondition to cultural citizenship in Lebanon. As she demonstrates, debates over the nature of Christianity and Islam and Christian-Muslim dialogue are in fact intertwined with power struggles at the state level.

Since the 1970s, debates in the transnational Shi'ite world have gradually linked Shi'ite piety with the support of the Palestinian cause. Iran's religious elite has backed this piety project in multiple ways, but in doing so it has assisted in the creation of a variety of Lebanese Shi'ite nationalisms with competing claims to religious and national authenticity. Shaery-Eisenlohr argues that these ties to Iran have in fact strengthened the position of Lebanese Shi'ites by providing, as is recognized, economic, military, and ideological support for Hizbullah, as well as by compelling Lebanese Shi'ites to foreground the Lebanese components of their identity more forcefully than ever before.

Shaery-Eisenlohr challenges the belief that Shi'ite identity politics only serve to undermine the Lebanese national project. She also makes clear that the expression of Lebanese Shi'ite identity is a nationalist expression and an unintended result of Iranian efforts to influence the politics of Lebanon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231144261
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/03/2008
Series:	History and Society of the Modern Middle East
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Germany.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction: Claiming Cultural Citizenship in Lebanon from Margin to Center
Part 1 The Nation in the Making
1. Two Nations and One State: Shi'ite and Maronite Lebanon
2. Schooling and the Creation of Lebanese Shi'ite Public Identities
Part 2 Transnational Debates and Local Struggles
3. Shi'ite Piety and the Palestinian Cause: The History of a Discourse
4. The Politics of Shi'ite Authenticity Since 1982
5. Iranian Cultural Politics in Lebanon
Epilogue
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

[Shi'ite Lebanon] pursues the Iranian-Lebanese link in greater detail as a way of understanding Lebanese politics and society and the wider impact of Iran in the Middle East.

The Muslim World Book Review - Sajjad H. Rizvi

Smart, balanced, and wonderfully readable. Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr has written a timely book at once groundbreaking and authoritative on a subject of great interest and importance. This is a work of careful scholarship and incisive analysis that provides fresh perspective on how Shi'ite identity and politics have taken form in Lebanon and the role they will play in that country's future. Easily the best book on the subject, it is a must-read for all those interested in Lebanon and the role that religion and sectarian identities play in Middle East politics.

Vali Nasr

I would recommend it to any serious scholar of contemporary Lebanon or transnational Shi'a networks.

— Morgan Clarke

Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies

[ Shi'ite Lebanon] pursues the Iranian-Lebanese link in greater detail as a way of understanding Lebanese politics and society and the wider impact of Iran in the Middle East.

— Sajjad H. Rizvi

The Muslim World Book Review

I would recommend it to any serious scholar of contemporary Lebanon or transnational Shi'a networks.

Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies - Morgan Clarke