Religion, National Identity, and Confessional Politics in Lebanon The Challenge of Islamism

by Rabil, Robert G.

• ISBN13: 9780230116542
• ISBN10: 023011654X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Tracing the rise of Islamism in Lebanon and its attempt to Islamize society and state by the reverse integration of society and state into the project of Islamism, this book looks at Lebanon against a background of weak and contested national identity and capricious interaction between religious affiliation and confessional politics and attempts to illustrate in detailed analysis this "comprehensive" project of Islamism according to its ideological and practical evolutionary change. The author demonstrates that, despite ideological, political and confessional incongruities and concerns, Islamism, in both its Sunni and Shi'a variants, has maintained a unity of purpose in pursuing its project: Jihadagainst Israel and abolishment of political sectarianism.

Author Biography

Robert G. Rabil is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel and Lebanon (2003) and Syria, the United States, and the War on Terror in the Middle East (2006). 

Table of Contents

Greater Lebanon and the National Pact: The Elusiveness of National Identity * The Confessional System Between Lebanonism and Pan-Arabism * Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyah and Fathi Yakan: The Pioneer of Sunni Islamic Activism in Lebanon * The Reassertion of Sectarianism and the Rise of Islamism * The Islamists and the Political System: Al-Infitah and Lebanonization * The Praxis of Islamism and Syrian Suzerainty * The Takeover of Beirut: The Struggle for the State * The Future of Islamism in Lebanon