The social development strategy of the Shiites in Lebanon

This study examines what many scholars have neglected to investigate when addressing post Civil War issues in Lebanon. Most studies have addressed political issues surrounding activities of Shiite movements, such as Harakat Amal or Hizb Allah, while socioeconomic issues have been neglected.^ Imam Musa Sadr challenged the power of traditional Shiite leaders by creating official Shiites institutions and movements like Amal. The Iranian Revolution and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 sparked the creation of Hizb Allah which, not only struggled against its foes, but also provided social services to the Shiites. This development program has been central in creating political legitimacy for Hizb Allah, regardless of its military situation, which suggests that socioeconomic development can transform a militia into a legitimate actor on the Lebanese political scene. The survivability of Shiite parties is therefore tantamount to not only their military might, but also to their social involvement. ^

The social development strategy of the shiites in Lebanon

This study examines what many scholars have neglected to investigate when addressing post Civil War issues in Lebanon. Most studies have addressed political issues surrounding activities of Shiite movements, such as Harakat Amal or Hizb Allah, while socioeconomic issues have been neglected. Imam Musa Sadr challenged the power of traditional Shiite leaders by creating official Shiites institutions and movements like Amal. The Iranian Revolution and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 sparked the creation of Hizb Allah which, not only struggled against its foes, but also provided social services to the Shiites. This development program has been central in creating political legitimacy for Hizb Allah, regardless of its military situation, which suggests that socioeconomic development can transform a militia into a legitimate actor on the Lebanese political scene. The survivability of Shiite parties is therefore tantamount to not only their military might, but also to their social involvement.

Irak: un escenario de competencia por el liderazgo regional entre Arabia Saudí e Irán (2005-2012)

La región de Medio Oriente se ha caracterizado por su importancia estratégica. Cruce de caminos de la primera y más antigua ruta internacional del comercio entre Oriente y Occidente, la región ha sido un escenario de competencia entre diversos actores domésticos y foráneos. Esto ha condicionado la estabilidad regional, durante buena parte de su historia, a la influencia recíproca de fuerzas contendientes, tanto internas como externas a la región. No obstante, un cambio del equilibrio entre esas influencias, en los últimos 10 años, ha llevado a que en detrimento de los actores externos a la región, sean los actores locales quienes van adquiriendo poder y capacidad de imponer sus propios liderazgos. En este contexto, la actual competencia por el liderazgo regional entre Arabia Saudí e Irán, puede analizarse a partir de sus respectivas participaciones en la confrontación sectaria entre suníes y chiíes en Irak, en el periodo comprendido entre 2005 – 2012.

The Making of a Shiite Bourgeoisie in Lebanon Political Mobilisation, Economic Resources and Formation of a Social Group

The thesis analyses the making of the Shiite middle- and upper/entrepreneurial-class in Lebanon from the 1960s till the present day. The trajectory explores the historical, political and social (internal and external) factors that brought a sub-proletariat to mobilise and become an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie in the span of less than three generations. This work proposes the main theoretical hypothesis to unpack and reveal the trajectory of a very recent social class that through education, diaspora, political and social mobilisation evolved in a few years into a very peculiar bourgeoisie: whereas Christian-Maronite middle class practically produced political formations and benefited from them and from Maronite’s state supremacy (National Pact, 1943) reinforcing the community’s status quo, Shiites built their own bourgeoisie from within, and mobilised their “cadres” (Boltanski) not just to benefit from their renovated presence at the state level, but to oppose to it. The general Social Movement Theory (SMT), as well as a vast amount of the literature on (middle) class formation are therefore largely contradicted, opening up new territories for discussion on how to build a bourgeoisie without the state’s support (Social Mobilisation Theory, Resource Mobilisation Theory) and if, eventually, the middle class always produces democratic movements (the emergence of a social group out of backwardness and isolation into near dominance of a political order). The middle/upper class described here is at once an economic class related to the control of multiple forms of capital, and produced by local, national, and transnational networks related to flows of services, money, and education, and a culturally constructed social location and identity structured by economic as well as other forms of capital in relation to other groups in Lebanon.

Mashāriq al-uṣūl al-mutaʻalliqah bi-al-qawānīn wa-baʻḍ al-uṣūl

[Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad].

Hadhā kitāb ʻAqāyid al-Shīʻah

bi-ihtimām-i Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khvānsārī.

Hādhā kitāb Madāʼin al-ʻulūm

taʼlīf Jaʻfar al-Astarābādī.

Hādhā kitāb Qiṣaṣ al-ʻulamāʼ

min taʼlīfāt al-ʻālim al-fāḍil al-kāmil nukhbat al-ʻulamāʼ wa-al-mujtahidīn al-Mīrzā Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Tunukābunī.

Hādhā Arbaʻūn ḥadīthan : manuscript, 1824 or 5

According to the colophon (f. 117v), copy completed in the hand of ʻAbd al-Razzāq ibn Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Yazdī in 1240 AH [December 1824-5 AD].

Kitāb Ghāyat al-maʼmūl fī sharḥ Zubdat al-uṣūl / al-matn li-Mawlānā al-Aqdas al-Shaykh Bahāʼ al-Dīn Khātimat al-mujtahidīn wa-al-sharḥ li-Sayyidinā al-Shaykh Muḥammad Jawād al-Kāẓimī : manuscript, 1651

Written in one column, 21 lines per pages, in black ink.

Ḥāshiyah-ʼi Nawwāb-i marḥūm-i maghfūr Khalīfah Sulṭān bar Maʻālim al-uṣūl : manuscript

1853 or 4.

Kitāb Nihāyat al-marām : manuscript, 1600

According to colophon (f. 143r), copy completed in the hand of al-Shaykh Muḥammad al-Khurāsānī towards the end of Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1008 AH [July 1600 AD].

Hādhihi talʻīqāt musammāh bi-Muhadhdhab al-Qawānīn

min muṣannafāt Aqā Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ al-maʻrūf bi-Dāmād.

Bughyat al-ṭālib fī maʻrifat al-mafrūḍ wa-al-wājib : manuscript, 1831

Written in one column, 18 lines per page, in black rubricated in red.

Kitāb al-Istibṣār fī-mā ikhtalafa min al-akhbār [microform] /

Includes bibliographical references.