Practicing Sectarianism in Mandate Lebanon: Shici Cemeteries, Religious Patrimony, and the Everyday Politics of Difference

Abstract

Shic i sectarianism in Lebanon first became institutionalized during the period of French Mandate rule, exemplified by the newly created Jacfari sharica court. Initially empowered to adjudicate matters of personal status law, the court also played an influential role beyond its walls. This article examines practical expressions of Shici sectarianism that manifested in a number of disputes over the ownership, administration, and protection of Shici cemeteries and other kinds of waqf (charitable endowment) property in Beirut and South Lebanon. Even as French Mandate colonialism and local elite interests encouraged the development of certain sectarian norms, the politics of cemetery protection illustrates the extent to which ordinary people, religious authorities, and rural leaderships could appropriate the language of sectarianism as their own. Even as the cemetery became one site where struggles over space, communal autonomy, and sectarian rights were waged, sectarian difference would increasingly come to represent a unique hallmark of national inclusion.