Gucci and the waqf: Inalienability in Beirut's postwar reconstruction

Abstract

AbstractOn August 4, 2020, one of the largest nonnuclear explosions in history rocked the city of Beirut, leaving over 200 people dead, 6,500 injured, and 300,000 homeless. As Beirutis debated strategies for rebuilding, another reconstruction project haunted their discussions: the postwar reconstruction of Beirut's city center, overseen by the private company Solidere. For many, Solidere stands for a neoliberal reconstruction project that placed profits over people, expropriating rights‐holders for company shares. While most organizing against Solidere in the 1990s failed, this article turns to a little‐known but more‐successful mobilization involving Solidere's expropriation of parcels and buildings that had been endowed as inalienable Islamic trusts. Many Beiruti Muslims rallied against these expropriations, citing endowment inalienability and resulting in publicized recuperations. Yet, archival and ethnographic research shows that this mobilization led to the recuperation of only some of these endowed properties. Many others were taken to market in order to allow for the perpetuation of the few. This chapter in the reconstruction of Beirut's city center complicates our understanding of capitalism, alienability, and inalienability, illustrating both the constant work needed to create free markets and the continued effectiveness of discourses of inalienability that perpetuate other forms of value and property under capitalism.