Islamic Ecumenism in the Early Political Thought of Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallāh

Abstract

AbstractBetween the late 1960s and early 1970s, political-economic turmoil led not only to the exodus of religious scholars and students from Iraq to Lebanon but also to the transnationalization of their activism. As they settled in Lebanon, these activists circulated key Islamist concepts that transcended religious factionalism. This article examines the early 1970s’ political thought of the Lebanese intellectual Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallāh (d. 2010), a prominent returning cleric from Iraq, intervening in discussions on the formative ideas of the Shiʿi Islamic movement in Lebanon. Furthermore, an analysis of concepts in Faḍlallāh’s works highlights a climate of intellectual openness and Islamic ecumenism. Linking the development of Faḍlallāh’s ecumenical thinking to the formation of overlapping spaces of activism in a context of secular-religious encounters in Iraq from the 1950s, this article also contributes to the scholarship that argues against the assumption that sectarianism, involving Sunni and Shiʿi Muslims, has existed since the onset of political discord in early Islam.