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A meticulous deconstruction of Maronite history writing and the ways in which Lebanese nationalist myths have been invented and perpetuated by historians
As a frequently contested territory, Mount Lebanon has an equally contested history, one that is produced, shaped, and revised by as many players as those who molded the Lebanese state since its inception in 1920. The Lebanese Maronite Church has had more at stake in the process of history writing than any other group or institution. It is arguably one of the most influential institutions in Lebanese history and definitely the most influential institution in the country at the moment of the state’s birth.
Writing the History of Mount Lebanon traces the genealogy of Maronite identity by examining the historical traditions that shaped its contemporary manifestation. It explores the presence of a tradition in Maronite Church historiography that was maintained by the historians of the Church, whose claims and hypotheses ultimately defined the communal identity of the Maronites in Mount Lebanon and deeply influenced subsequent Lebanese national identity. Rooted in a reexamination of the existing literature and bringing evidence to bear on this particular aspect of history-writing in Lebanon, it shows how early Maronite ecclesiastic historiography’s plea for inclusion as a part of Catholic orthodoxy was transformed and recast in subsequent centuries by lay and secular historians into a demand for exclusion and exclusivity, which in turn led to the rise of exclusivist political identities based on sectarian belonging in Mount Lebanon.
Ultimately, Mouannes Hojairi shows how history-writing is one of the main instruments in generating and perpetuating nationalist ideologies and how historians are central agents of nationality.
"This book traces the origins and development of Maronite identity in Mount Lebanon and its impact on the creation of modern Lebanese national identity. Mouannes Hojairi does so by investigating four critical authors . . . . By focusing on these four Maronite authors, his book adds to the historiography of the emergence of the contested Lebanese identity and of Lebanon as an independent state."—The Catholic Historical Review
"Mouannes Hojairi provides a most important history of how Maronite identity was conceived in Lebanon and how crucial church historians were to the creation of nationalist mythology. The details this book unravels are essential to understanding contemporary Lebanese nationalism and sectarian politics."—Joseph Massad, Columbia University
"In this careful deconstruction of Maronite history-writing from the sixteenth century to the present day, Mouannes Hojairi forcefully shows that Lebanese historians, and Maronite historians in particular, have continued to write tendentious, religiously tainted histories of their country. In doing so, they uncritically reproduce older narratives, including pure lore, that thus survive through the centuries, even though their original empirical evidence is flimsy at best. This book will serve as a salutary lesson for historians and history writers today."—Sune Haugbølle, Roskilde University, Denmark
“With a shrewd elegance and well-versed skill of sailing between myth and fact, which are, in the case of Lebanon, a woven tapestry of church and civil history, almost impossible to disentangle, Hojairi emerges as a miracle-maker capable of delivering a coherent narrative that defies the reality of Lebanon and somehow makes sense of its interconnected counterfactual religious histories, while laying bare their complexity for everyone to see and enjoy.”—George Saliba, American University of Beirut and Columbia University
"American University in Cairo historian Mouannes Hojairi dissects chronicles written by Maronite Church leaders to demonstrate how they created and perpetuated false narratives about Maronite identity in the Mount Lebanon region. Exploring works spanning the seventeenth through twentieth centuries, Hojairi argues that their authors actively developed myths about Maronites’ origins and connections to Christian Europe that do not stand up to scrutiny using modern historical research methods. The book asserts that, through this tradition of embellished historiography, Maronite clergy were able to shape exceptionalist sectarian narratives that continue to generate divisions in Lebanon today."—The Middle East Journal
Introduction
Turning Points in Historiographical Debates
Historiography and the Nationalist Discourse
Maronite Identity Past and Present
1. Lebanon, the Mountain Refuge
Maronite Church Historians: Origins and Development
of Clerical Historiography
Histories of Syria and Lebanon: Lay Historiography and
the Persistence of a Tradition
Revisionist Historiography: The Debate over the Mountain
Refuge Theory
From Idea to Hypothesis: The Mountain Refuge in the
Histories of Today
2. The Mardaites: The Church-Adopted Myth of Origin
The Mardaites in History and Historiography
Roots of the Mardaite Myth
The Debate among Clerical Historians
Clerical Resistance
3. Integration into Roman Catholicism: The Quest for Orthodoxy
The Birth of the Maronite Church
Contested Claims about the History of the Maronite Church
The Roots of Authority
Chain of Transmission
Redeployment and Regeneration of Authoritativeness
Facticity within a Self-Sufficient Tradition
Selectiveness and Interpretation
Conclusion
4. Moments of Change in History and Historiography
Rome Reaches Out
Political Order in the Time of the Imarah
The Maronite Church as a New Source of Leadership
Regional Politics and Foreign Intervention
The Tanzimat Reforms and Integration into the
World Economy
The Moment of Change: 1860
The Mutasarrifiya
The Emerging Historiography
5. The Phoenician Hypothesis: Secular Historiography and Greater Lebanon’s Pre-Christian Past
Ancient Phoenicia: The People, Geography, and History
Archaeology and the Discovery of Phoenicia
Historical Evolution and Variations on the Hypothesis
Golden Age and National Rebirth
The Emergence of the Modern Lebanese State
Phoenicia in Early Twentieth-Century Historiography
Relation between Lay and Clerical Historiographies
Phoenicia in Contemporary Historiography
Conclusion
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index