“No author has brought to light the central themes of the origins and the multiple points of departure as well as the transitions and transformations of the idea of Lebanon in one study. It is one of the most significant monographs on Lebanon in a decade, and the best study of the formation of nationalism in the Levant since James Gelvin’s Divided Loyalties.” –Jens Hanssen, author of Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital

“Carol Hakim’s work is a deeply textured, thoroughly researched history that contests the view that ‘Lebanism’ was the singular and inevitable expression of Lebanese national identity. The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea will interest not only scholars and students of the Middle East, but is sure to provoke much-needed soul searching and controversy among Lebanese citizens and émigrés who wish to understand their history and the roots of the contemporary Lebanese predicament.” –James L. Gelvin, author of The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know

“Engaging and original, Hakim provides the most persuasive explanation to date of the genesis of a Christian state in Lebanon — and the great power patronage needed to privilege that vision over rival national ideas. A major contribution both to the study of nationalism and to the emergence of the modern Middle East.”–Eugene Rogan, University of Oxford and author of The Arabs: a history

“A subtle and original study of the way in which the idea of an independent Lebanon began to take hold in the late 19th century. A model of careful research which pays proper attention to the texts involved and the context in which they were written. A pleasure to read.”–Roger Owen, author of The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life

Carol Hakim is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.

The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea

1840–1920

By Carol Hakim

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Copyright © 2013 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-27341-2

Contents

Acknowledgments, ix,
Note on Transliteration, xi,
Introduction, 1,
1 The Emergence of Lebanism: The Lebanese Setting, 13,
2 The Emergence of Lebanism: The French Connection, 36,
3 The 1860 Massacres and Their Aftermath: A Map for Lebanon, 65,
4 The Church and the Mutasarrifiyya, 99,
5 The Mutasarrifiyya Framework: An Equivocal Legacy, 137,
6 The Secular Elite and the Mutasarrifiyya, 157,
7 The 1908 Revolution and Its Aftermath, 195,
8 Toward a Greater Lebanon, 213,
Conclusion, 261,
Notes, 267,
Bibliography, 319,
Index, 353,

CHAPTER 1

The Emergence of Lebanism

The Lebanese Setting

Periods of crisis are often associated with turmoil and disarray; at the same time, they represent fertile ground for reformation and innovation. It was during such a troubled period, stretching from 1840 to 1860 and marked by social, political, and communal strife in Mount Lebanon, that projects advocating the establishment in Mount Lebanon of a semi-independent entity, ruled by a indigenous Maronite governor, made their first appearance.

These projects, which marked the earliest signs of the emergence of Lebanism, came about as the result of a specific and intricate conjuncture when internal factors intersected with foreign influence and interference. Locally, they corresponded with deep social and political changes and dislocations that prompted the Maronite Church to engage in a bid to assert the dominance of its community in Mount Lebanon and to secure for it a certain political autonomy within its boundaries. At the same time, the aspirations of the Maronite clergy converged with the romantic fantasies of some French Catholic and liberal circles who envisioned the establishment of an independent Christian entity in the Levant under the aegis of France, with a view to regenerating the declining Orient, emancipating the Christians of the east from Muslim domination, and upholding French interests in Syria. The political aspirations of the Maronite clergy and those of these French circles became closely intertwined as both sides drew support and inspiration from each other.

This chapter and the next one reconstruct the intricate circumstances that spawned the first appearance of elementary nationalist ideas and schemes among some clerical Maronite circles. The present chapter focuses on the local setting, examining the various factors that underlay the emergence of the idea of establishing a Christian entity, the clerical forces that upheld it, and the confused reaction of the local population to this new ideal. Chapter 2 deals with the convergence and interaction of these local ideas with those of some official and unofficial French circles and the impact these foreign inferences had on the views of local groups and personalities.

SOCIETY AND POLITICS IN MOUNT LEBANON AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The social and political structure of Mount Lebanon in the nineteenth century has been depicted in detail and thoroughly analyzed by many historians. While not all of its characteristics are relevant to this study, some need to be mentioned.

The geographical entity known as Mount Lebanon, that is, the western range of mountains running parallel to the Mediterranean coast between the towns of Tripoli and Sayda, has not historically constituted a separate political entity with a lasting formal political system evolving within unchanging boundaries. Since the Ottoman conquest of Syria in 1516, Mount Lebanon enjoyed a limited de facto autonomy under the rule of local notables, a system referred to by Lebanese historians as the “Lebanese Emirate.” The Emirate originated in the southern districts of Mount Lebanon—roughly to the south of the Beirut-Damascus road—known as Jabal al-Shuf or Jabal al-Duruz, where local Druze chiefs, who acted as tax farmers for the Ottoman government, first established a de facto autonomous social and political organization headed by a local leader, known as “Emir.” By the end of the seventeenth century, the central districts of the Mountain, extending north of Jabal al-Shuf up to the Ma’maltayn River, near Juniya, and known as Jabal Kisrawan, were included in the region farmed by the Druze Emirs. The governorship of the uppermost northern districts, called Jabal Lubnan or Bilad Jbayl, was secured on a lasting basis by the governors of Lebanon around the middle of the eighteenth century. Only then was the whole Lebanese mountain range brought under the rule of one governor and began to be called in its entirety Jabal Lubnan, or Mount Lebanon.

The unification of Mount Lebanon under the rule of one Emir did not entail any change in the administrative status of the Lebanese province within the framework of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout this period, Mount Lebanon remained formally part of the Empire, and its administration conformed with that of some surrounding provinces, where the responsibility of tax collection was often attributed to local leaders who had managed to acquire some authority. Mount Lebanon was part of the administrative districts of the walis of Sayda and Tripoli, who allocated the tax farming, or iltizam, of this region to the local Emir on an annual basis. The farming of the southern and central districts, that is, Jabal al-Shuf and Jabal Kisrawan, had to be obtained from the wali of Sayda, whereas that of the northern districts was leased from the wali of Tripoli.

The Emir was thus assigned the task of collecting a lump sum, known as miri, and was granted some administrative and judicial rights. In turn, the Emir reallocated some of his prerogatives to local chiefs, known as muqata’jis—rulers of a fiscal district or muqata’a. Traditionally, the governors of the Mountain were selected from one family, the Ma’ans until 1697 and the Shihabs from 1697 to 1841. The formal investiture of the Emir by the Ottoman walis had to be renewed on an annual basis, and his tenure was never secure. He had to contend with the continual schemes of rival emirs and shifting coalitions of muqata’jis who sought to curb his authority. If skilful, he could circumscribe the powers and ambitions of rival emirs and muqata’jis by playing off one coalition against another or by himself leading one of the major coalitions.

The Emir was hence not an absolute leader in his domains. He had to secure the collaboration of the muqata’jis who were the effective rulers of land and people. It was they who directly controlled the people in their district and who generally held most of the land. They were responsible for levying the taxes on their muqata’as and generally took advantage of this prerogative to skim off part of the levy and to exempt themselves from their share of the land tax, which consequently had to be borne by the peasant. They leased their domains to tenants on a share-cropping basis, often leaving their tenants with barely enough to sustain themselves and their families. They also enjoyed some judicial prerogatives over their subjects, as well as customary privileges, including traditional gifts offered by the peasant to his lord on feast days and other special occasions. Each muqata’a was held conjointly and generally on a hereditary basis by one family, which then subdivided the various areas of its district, or ‘uhdas, among its members.

The Lebanese political system broadly sketched here thus combined specific local social customs and an internal political organization with the broader practices and regulations of the Ottoman Empire. Within the general framework of iltizam, which mainly entailed tax-collecting duties, the Lebanese chiefs developed a locally organized and recognized authority. However, contrary to the idealized picture of the Emirate presented retrospectively by local historians by the mid-nineteenth century, the local system developed by the notables in the Mountain did not evolve into an orderly and stable formal dynastic principality. Furthermore, the semi-autonomous local organization of Mount Lebanon was not specific to the Mountain, since other regions of the Ottoman Empire equally developed peculiar social and political structures with parallels to the Lebanese system.

The local political system in Mount Lebanon was closely interwoven with a social structure organized according to kinship ties that supported it. Its basic element was a cluster of families grouped together into one family lineage, or jubb, claiming descent from “a more-or-less legendary ancestor … thus allowing its members to feel a ‘familial’ solidarity with each other.” The solidarity of the jubb was further strengthened by a tradition of living together and an endogamous tendency that reinforced its feeling of distinctiveness. The social structure of Mount Lebanon has often been described as resting on a tribal ‘asabiyya, or group solidarity, kinship, and alleged blood ties constituting then—and, to a certain extent, still doing so today—a basic and fundamental element of the social and political structure. While definitions of “tribe” and criteria for tribeness have varied to the point of rendering the use of such a term almost meaningless, it is within a broad definition of the term, as a group distinguishing itself from the Other by reference to an alleged, more-or-less legendary, common ancestor, that a useful category of analysis may be found for Mount Lebanon in the nineteenth century. Kinship ties, real or imagined, in this case underpinned the solidarity of the group and the loyalty of its members. At any rate, we can safely profess that a “tribal ethos,” or a conception of the tribe viewed as “a state of mind, a construction of reality,” and the pervasiveness of kinship and descent as principles of social and political organization prevailed in the Mountain, so much so that a contemporary author depicted Lebanon as “the greatest of the tribal lands.”

The underlying organization of society in Mount Lebanon at the beginning of the nineteenth century, characterized by a strong emphasis on principles of kinship and descent, pervaded and molded the whole political system. Family lineages represented basic units of social, economic, and political organization. Ownership and exploitation of land, repartition of water rights, divisions of labor, and allocation of taxes due were apportioned among family lineages, which thus operated as homogeneous production units upholding the rights and responsibilities of their members. They also imprinted on each individual the primary elements of his identity, of his inherited culture and traditions, and represented his main sphere of socialization and support. Lebanese society by the turn of the nineteenth century can thus be represented as an association of family lineages rather than a conglomeration of individuals. Indeed, the latter could hardly defend and support their rights, as such, outside the scope of their own kinship groups, since it was the family lineage that claimed and defended the common rights of its members.

Family lineages also acted as political units. One family lineage would usually form one compact group inside the village vis-à-vis other such formations, living in a separate quarter or hara. Local politics and conflicts evolved around authority prerogatives, division of land and water rights, frequently leading to a marked division of the village into two distinct factions. Such divisions cut across a single family lineage, if the village contained no other, or, where more variety obtained, divided the village into two principal factions, each faction headed by one leading family. These village leading families formed the first level of a hierarchy of families covering the whole Mountain, based on the extent of land controlled and the number of their followers. Hence, above the village leading families were found the notable families, manasib or a’yan, who controlled larger territorial units, including several villages at the time, or who could alternatively rally the support of followers from different villages. Notable families were not necessarily bound to their followers by kinship ties but were commonly linked to their followers in the regions under their control by economic and political ties. Finally, the notable chiefs themselves rallied to one of the major confederations of the Mountain, which acted as political factions supporting or opposing the governing Emir according to circumstances or engaged in other kinds of power struggles. Hence, family lineages, village coalitions, notables’ client networks of peasants and followers, and confederations of notables formed the building blocks and dividing lines of political coalitions. The fluidity of family lineages and of political alliances among the notables tempered the apparent rigidity of the system, allowing for the appearance of new groupings within and among family lineages and for some changes in the hierarchy of local families.

The Ottomans traditionally acknowledged this hierarchy of families in Mount Lebanon and the authority of the notables over the local population that it entailed. They relied on such families for the collection of taxes and the maintenance of order and security. The relative isolation of the Mountain and its difficulty of access favored such an arrangement instead of more direct Ottoman control, which was deemed too costly or irrelevant. The Ottoman authorities could always intervene militarily if need be or use internal rivalries in order to constrain local power.

Until the turn of the nineteenth century, the segmentation of society and politics and sporadic communications between the various regions fostered a parochial and fragmented political identity among the commoners who identified primarily with their kinship groups and local and regional communities. The unity and cohesion of the political system lay at higher level, at that of muqata’jis, manasib, and Emir, who, by forming regionwide coalitions established the basis of local politics. They thus became more aware of the existence of a local order and, to varying degrees, of a wider regional and Ottoman world.

The political organization of the Mountain also rested on cultural and social norms and customs, vindicated and condoned by dint of repeated practice, which gave added legitimacy to the system. Religion was part of this worldview, giving solace from a hostile and distressing external world and providing some meaning to and protection from the vagaries of life. Several religious communities—including most notably Druzes, Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Greek Orthodox, and Greek Catholics who had settled at different times in the Mountain—maintained a presence in the province by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Among these predominated the Druzes, by virtue of their historical political supremacy, and the Maronites, by virtue of their growing numbers and assertiveness. While it is difficult to ascertain with precision and certainty the meaning and prevalence of communal identities among the various religious groups in the Mountain by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the differing religious communities appeared to carry some sense of communal distinctiveness tempered by shared worldviews, customs, and interests that cut across sectarian divides. Hence, public and collective religious rituals and practices, as well as particular communal social and moral norms, contributed to impart some sense of communal identity to the members of the various communities. Communal identities and cohesion were furthermore fostered by a distinct historical evolution, a legacy of separateness, and common myths reinforced by kinship and group solidarity. At the same time, communal identities intertwined with shared social and political worldviews, customs, and interests among the local population, blurring the boundaries between the various communities of the Mountain. Such common outlook and interests underpinned the coexistence of the diverse communities in the Mountain, if not in total harmony, at least without apparent inconsistency, and accounted for the establishment of political alliances among notables and for regular relations among commoners, which cut across communal divides.

Several social and political changes accounted for the crystallization and politicization of communal identities and loyalties by the beginning of the nineteenth century. These included social dislocations and transformations following the integration of the Ottoman Empire in the world economy, which intensified tensions between notables and commoners and disrupted the political balance between the various communities. At the same time, the reformation of the Ottoman Empire according to principles mixing old and new concepts of governance, and the emergence of foreign Western powers as new and influential protagonists on the local scene, exacerbated local tensions and contributed to the outbreak of local conflicts that hardened communal divisions.

Before moving on to these developments, one last actor, namely the Maronite Church, which played a central role in mid-century events, needs to be introduced. Until the eighteenth century, the Maronite Church had remained dependent on, and subordinate to, Maronite notables for protection and the means of subsistence. Its parochial organizational structure, scarce resources, and dependence on Maronite secular authority limited its influence and its ability to meet the spiritual needs of its community. These constraints had become all the more apparent after the Maronites, who had formed a small and secluded community in the northern sectors of the Bsharri, started to spread out throughout the Mountain after the sixteenth century. Eventually, the influence of the Roman See, as well as changing circumstances within the Church and the wider community, converged in the eighteenth century to generate momentum in favor of the reformation of the Maronite Church. Hence, after the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, the Vatican sought to strengthen its authority over the Oriental Christian communities and to amend dogmatic and ritual divergences, initiating a policy of gradual rapprochement with and tighter oversight of the Maronite Church. At the same time, certain factions within the clergy, including disaffected bishops and members of the new and dynamic Lebanese Order of monks, led a movement within the Church for a more effective structure to serve the needs of a more diversified and dispersed community. As a result, the Maronite Church held a series of councils, starting with the Council of Luwayza (1736), and it adopted several measures to rationalize the internal structure of the Church and improve its performance while shielding this institution from interference by the local notables.

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