Constructing Lebanese Shi'ite nationalism: Transnationalism, Shi'ism, and the Lebanese state (Iran)

This dissertation analyzes the link between transnationalism, nationalism, and religion against the background of intensifying Shi'ite ties between Lebanon and Iran since the 1960s. Focusing on activities of Lebanese Shi'ite religious leaders and Shi'ite political parties and their institutions, I argue that these Lebanese Shi'ites have successfully broken a Maronite Christian hegemony over Lebanese national narratives and have instead placed Shi'ites in the center of Lebanese national politics and self-imagining. The resulting alternative visions of nationhood portray Shi'ite as ideal Lebanese in a competition for political influence and representation in Lebanon. In this context maintaining transnational Shi'ite ties, which are often described as contributing to the production of disloyal citizens, has in fact empowered Lebanese Shi'ites in positioning themselves at the center of this nation with recourse to religious imagery. By focusing on ideologies of Lebanese religious leaders as well as on activities of Shi'ite-run schools in Beirut I argue that instances of Lebanese Shi'ite activism are aimed at producing religious nationalism.; Furthermore, studies on Shi'ism in the Middle East have either emphasized the importance of nationalism to a very large extent in explaining the differences between Shi'ites in different Middle Eastern states, or have largely downplayed the importance of national ideologies in emphasizing transnational solidarity among Shi'ites. Analyzing Iranian cultural politics in Lebanon I suggest that activities of members of transnational Shi'ite networks often construct and reproduce national ideologies and that these transnational religious networks function partly as mediators of these national interests and politics. In this context I demonstrate how religious identities are often constructed and imagined through national ideologies, and also highlight the extent of ideological work needed to both naturalize such Shi'ite ties across borders as well as to construct differences between Shi'ites separated by national borders. By examining linguistic and religious performances among Amal members, and through an analysis of Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah's uses of a discourse of modernity I show how such boundaries are constructed, and how depending on a series of political and socio-economic circumstances, these imagined boundaries can shift within a short period of time.