Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism

Abstract

There have been many new books on Salafism in general and in Lebanon in particular since the beginning of the “Arab Spring” in 2011. Nadine Elali, Genevieve Abdo, Alexandre Corbeil, Robert Fisk, and Daniel Harris are but a few of the names of those writing about Salafism and Salafists in Lebanon, and their work has offered deep insight into the Salafist phenomenon in Lebanon.1 Robert G. Rabil's contribution to this topic does not break new ground. However, as he states in his introduction, “despite some significant studies by Western and Arab scholars, research on Salafism has, more or less, remained shrouded with misconception and confusion … and little or random research has been undertaken on Salafism as a product and expression of its emergence and development in most countries” (1) In this respect, Robert G. Rabil claims that his work was a result of “insufficient knowledge about and thus prevailing lacuna of research on Salafism” and offers what he heralds as a “book [that] traces and examines the emergence and development of Salafism in Lebanon … within the context of confessional politics in the country” (1).First, a brief remark on the structure of the book: the introduction at twenty-one pages seemed long and together with the twelve-page conclusion constitutes almost 15 percent of the book. The introduction is a chapter-by-chapter synopsis rather than an introduction to Salafism in Lebanon, which felt unnecessary and redundant.After presenting the origins of Salafism in general and its genesis in Lebanon, its three main currents (quietest, activist, and jihadist), and an analysis of the ideological dimension of its thinkers, Rabil introduces his core thesis that “Hezbollah's ascendency in Lebanon, coupled with the Syrian rebellion, has generated new sociopolitical dynamics in both Lebanon and Syria, creating immediate and long-term political uncertainties and challenges to Salafists” (14). And as a reaction to this new reality, most Salafists have been forced to adopt an activist approach to politics or, in Rabil's words, “the rationale for Salafism's transformation is no less a product of the lethal interplay between the politics of discontent and communal-national-regional politics than an appeal to authentic Islam” (14). Indeed, the Sunnis in Lebanon have been exasperated by years of marginalization in Lebanon, dating back to the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri by Hizballah operatives on behalf of the Syrian regime on February 14, 2005. The Sunnis feel that Hizballah hijacked their 2005 victory during the “Cedar Revolution” (thawrat al-arz) that resulted in the withdrawal of the Syrian forces occupying Lebanon. Indeed, the Cedar Revolution and subsequent Syrian withdrawal was a direct result of Hariri's assassination. However, instead of gaining influence in Lebanese politics in the aftermath of the revolution, the Sunnis lost power to Hizballah, particularly following the war with Israel during the summer of 2006. Hizballah claimed victory against Israel and thus became the leading political force in Lebanon. Moreover, the Sunni community in Lebanon could not accept the humiliation of being pushed to the bottom of the Lebanese power pyramid in 2008 when Hizballah succeeded in toppling the government of Saad Hariri (son of the late Rafik Hariri) and installing a new government dependent on Hizballah parliamentary and political support. Finally, the Sunnis could not stand aside when Hizballah, at Tehran's direction, sent its forces to fight beside Bashar al-Asad's regime and Iran in 2011 in order to quell the Syrian rebellion whose participants were mainly Sunnis.2As a matter of fact, since the beginning of the rebellion against Bashar al-Asad, Lebanon has been absorbing the shockwaves resulting from the disintegration of the ʿAlawite regime in Syria. As the Syrian war has evolved into a Sunni–Shiʿi conflict, Lebanon finds sectarianism once again at its doorstep. The rebellion in Syria, and the direct involvement of the Lebanese Shiʿi Hizballah militia in support of the regime against the Sunni rebels, has created a sense of solidarity within the Sunni community in Lebanon that has translated into its active involvement in the fighting in Syria.3 As a result, the Sunni community in Lebanon, as Rabil points out in his book, is both openly and covertly assisting the rebels in Syria by sending weapons and fighters and by providing shelter and a safe haven in Lebanese territory. Tripoli in northern Lebanon has become the Peshawar of Syria, or, as Rabil puts it, “the fortress of Muslims” (245). The Sunnis in Lebanon have become the facilitators for the rebels by transforming their territory into a transit area through which fighters and weapons from Libya and other Arab and non-Arab countries are crossing before entering Syria. But perhaps more interesting is the fact that the events in Syria, and Hizballah's involvement in the fighting there, have created a serious crack in the Lebanese body-politic: the Sunnis are openly challenging the authority and power of Hizballah in Lebanon.4The absence of moderate political leadership to act as a counterweight to the Shiʿi movement in Lebanon, which is sponsored by both Syria and Iran, a phenomenon that Rabil comprehensibly analyzes, has provided an opening for Salafist leaders. Overall, Lebanon's Sunni community was paralyzed, not just due to their leader's absence, but also by events that preceded former prime minister Saad Hariri's self-exile to Paris between 2011 and 2016. As a result, unlike in the past, the Sunni community was led by a new breed of leaders who do not belong to the traditional political families that have provided Lebanese Sunnis with generations of politicians. They are leaders who identify with the Salafist movement in Lebanon. Since the Lebanese Sunni community finds no voice within the government or its traditional leadership, those who are now speaking on its behalf are Lebanon's emerging Salafist groups, which are more organized, more open to the media, and more assertive. In the absence of traditional Sunni leadership, they are becoming the voice of their community.5Rabil describes the Salafist movement in Lebanon as divided into multiple groups, led by a variety of sheikhs in both the south and the north. Salafists have maintained a presence in northern Lebanon, most notably in the city of Tripoli, and the surrounding areas of Akkar and Donniyeh, for at least fifty years. The movement, which is an extension of Saudi Arabian Salafism, went almost underground during the period of Syrian occupation in Lebanon and made a small comeback after Syrian troops left in 2005. It has enjoyed a major resurgence since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011.Salafists spread their influence in Tripoli by opposing the supporters of the Asad regime, many of whom are ʿAlawites living in the Jabal Mohsen area in the northern part of Tripoli, adjacent to the main entrance to the harbor. The detention of anti-Asad Islamist activist Shadi al-Mawlawi in May 2012, and the Lebanese security forces' killing of Sheikh Ahmed Abdel Wahed in Akkar later that month, further mobilized the Salafists in northern Lebanon. Sheikhs such as Salem al-Rafei, Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal, Zakariya al-Masri, and Raed Halayhel dominate the new Salafist scene. Their mosques continue to be the main mobilization centers, through their Friday sermons and weekly religious lessons.6As the Syrian war has spilled across the Lebanese border, the growing anti-Western, anti-Hizballah, anti-Iran Salafist movement is flourishing in northern Lebanon. Hizballah is a particular target for its continuing support of Asad. In Tripoli, now home to thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled the fighting, another Salafist imam, Selim al-Rafei, is a rising power who many say is more influential than Ahmad al-Assir. Yet there is no apparent connection between Assir and Rafei. And it is difficult to assess the size of their following and that of other Salafist imams. In fact, the division between Shiʿis and Sunnis in Lebanon is the widest since the country's civil war in the mid-1970s and is characterized by near-monthly armed clashes between Sunnis and ʿAlawis in Tripoli. Salafi leaders have become a prominent voice in the anti-Hizballah struggle and Salafi religious leaders have taken a hard-line stance against Hizballah.7Rabil has divided his work into four main topics: the emergence of Salafism and its different schools; the Sunni community in Lebanon and the Salafist networks in the Arab world; Lebanese Salafists in the confessional and intercommunal reality of Lebanon; and the final and most interesting chapters, which deal with the Syrian conflict and the Syrian-Sunni relations in Lebanon from the beginning of the Syrian military intervention in Lebanon in 1976.The question one asks while reading Rabil's work is, very simply, where is he taking us? What is the conclusion he draws from the book's subtitle, “From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism”? There is no doubt that the chapters dealing with the origins of Salafism, its influences, its emergence, and its ideology are serious and thorough and will definitely serve as a reference for all those studying contemporary Lebanese history. For those unfamiliar with this history, the book offers a condensed version of Lebanon's modern history from the perspective of the Sunni community. Those who are familiar with this material will very quickly appreciate the relevance of Rabil's ideological analysis and his mapping of the various schools of Salafism in Lebanon. Indeed, Rabil's primary contribution is in the research presented about the three main schools of Salafism in Lebanon, and most impressive is his analysis of the Salafist ideology, as expressed by its spiritual and political leaders such as sheikhs Saʿd al-Din Muhammad al-Kibbi and Zakariya ʿAbd al-Razaq al-Masri.Rabil deals at length (almost half of his book) with: the emergence of the Salafists as a political power in Lebanon, resulting in a head-on clash between Salafists and the traditional Sunni leadership, the relations between the Salafists and Hizballah, and the military implications of the Sunni Lebanese-Syrian alliance intervening in the Syrian conflict. Yet Rabil does not offer an assessment as to where the Salafists are heading: What future is there for Lebanon? Are the social structures and inner armatures of the confessional political order strong enough to withstand a shockwave generated by a Sunni uprising led by the Salafists?The reality on the ground suggests Rabil has been too conservative in his assessment of the threat of Salafism to the future of Lebanon. Events in Tripoli should have encouraged Rabil to be bolder in his assessment. Since the summer of 2013, the Lebanese Salafists have rallied to the Jabhat al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) jihadists with the apparent goal of taking over the city of Tripoli. Understanding the imminent danger to the state, Lebanon's top army commander, General Jean Qahwadji, declared in an unprecedented press conference that the state was facing the danger of partition and that events compelled him to make crucial decisions to confront the jihadist danger. For the first time since the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990, the Lebanese army opened fire on Lebanese citizens. The army's reaction was swift and, using helicopter gunships, it succeeded in ousting the insurgents from the historical center of Tripoli and the intricate labyrinth of its souk after four days of heavy fighting.8 General Qahwadji was well aware that he could not overuse his forces in domestic clashes because the army is divided into sectarian battalions and brigades. Overreacting against Lebanon's Sunnis could have led to the breakup of the Sunni components of the army and provoke the disbanding of Lebanon's armed forces into sectarian militias. By one account, Sunnis comprise 35 percent of the army and Shiʿis 27 percent.9Indeed, one cannot overestimate the importance of the fate of Tripoli to the Sunni jihadists. If it had fallen into their control, it would have been the beginning of the disintegration of the Lebanese state as a nation-state and led to the awakening of the old sectarian fears that could provoke its implosion and partition into Christian-Maronite, Shiʿi, and Druze enclaves facing a Sunni entity related either to al-Qaʿida or to the Islamic State. Such a situation would undoubtedly represent the beginning of a new civil war that could end with closer ties between the Shiʿi Hizballah–dominated areas in Lebanon and the Asad regime and ultimately with the Christian and Druze territories, which would mean a redrawing of the regional map that has already been heavily transformed since August 2014 by the establishment of the Islamic State's caliphate in Iraq and Syria.10However, Rabil does not explore these issues in this book, which was published in 2014. Instead, Rabil states that “as a fundamentalist ideology separating the believers and the unbelievers, Salafism poses an ideological and practical threat to Lebanon's plural society and to the region” (244), while his most important statement lies in the sentence saying that “Salafism would emerge as the preeminent political bloc or the preeminent power in Lebanon capable of radical transformation of the system” Lebanon (244).Most of Rabil's work is based on Arabic sources, which demonstrates a command of the language and avoids the pitfall of relying on shoddy translations and secondhand sources. The chapters dealing with the political collision between the Salafist and the traditional Sunni leadership, as well as the chapters dealing with the conflict with Hizballah (chapters 6–8), the Syrian intervention in Lebanon (chapter 8), and the participation of Lebanese Salafists in the conflict in Syria (chapter 8) offer nothing new. Rabil's thesis that the emergence of political and transnational Salafism is the result of Hizballah's ascendency in the Lebanese political arena and the fruit of the Syrian sectarian conflict between Shiʿis and Sunnis is most certainly true. It represents the consensus of most analysts working on the Syrian conflict. However some of the facts related by Rabil appear to rely on questionable sources. For example, Rabil's statement that “President Assad established rules to govern the relationship between the state, the Lebanese political forces, and Hezbollah which the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon would oversee” (162–63) is based on information from members of the Phalange party, the Lebanese Forces, and Lebanese analysts throughout the 1990s.To sum up, the last five turbulent years in the Arab world have shown that where traditional Sunni secular leaders have failed to lead, Salafists and other Islamist groups have emerged across the region and stepped in to fill the vacuum. While not in power in most Arab countries that have experienced the Arab Spring, the Salafists are present and impossible to circumvent in the local political arena because they dictate part of the national agenda. This is particularly true for Lebanon and Rabil has reflected this reality in its complexity and entirety in his book.Finally, I read with great empathy Robert Rabil's account of his visits to Tripoli as a child: “I vividly remember the trips I used to take as a child with my family to Tripoli. My father loved the mouthwatering sweets of Tripoli and the city's historical landmarks and promenades that blended smoothly with its modernity. Alas, my vivid collection of Tripoli starkly collides with my present view of the city” (245). I could not help but identify with his longing for a country I knew myself as a child. Like Rabil, I loved to visit Tripoli and its old souks and bring home sweets (the famous “Ashta”—a sort of cheesecake bathed in honey) that were produced only in that city. Tripoli is part and parcel of our Lebanese cultural heritage. Its changing face, as a Salafist “bastion,” is but another expression of the earthquake the Middle East has been experiencing since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring!