Ebook: Religion, National Identity, and Confessional Politics in Lebanon: The Challenge of Islamism (The Middle East in Focus)

Tracing the rise of Islamism in Lebanon and its attempt to Islamize society and state by the reverse integration of society and state into the project of Islamism, this book looks at Lebanon against a background of weak and contested national identity and capricious interaction between religious affiliation and confessional politics, and attempts to illustrate in detailed analysis this "comprehensive" project of Islamism according to its ideological and practical evolutionary change. The author demonstrates that, despite ideological, political and confessional incongruities and concerns, Islamism, in both its Sunni and Shi'a variants, has maintained a unity of purpose in pursuing its project: jihad against Israel and abolishment of political sectarianism.