Jihad in the City
Militant Islam and Contentious Politics in Tripoli

An examination of militant Islamists in Tripoli, Lebanon during the 1980s, showing how they were shaped by both grand ideologies and local contexts.

Raphaël Lefèvre (Author)

9781108426268, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 May 2021

288 pages
15 x 23 x 3.5 cm, 0.87 kg

'… a meticulously researched and lyrical account of wartime politics in Lebanon's second city.' Christiana Parreira, Mobilization

Tawhid was a militant Islamist group which implemented Islamic law at gunpoint in the Lebanese city of Tripoli during the 1980s. In retrospect, some have called it 'the first ISIS-style Emirate'. Drawing on two hundred interviews with Islamist fighters and their mortal enemies, as well as on a trove of new archival material, Raphaël Lefèvre provides a comprehensive account of this Islamist group. He shows how they featured religious ideologues determined to turn Lebanon into an Islamic Republic, yet also included Tripolitan rebels of all stripes, neighbourhood strongmen with scores to settle, local subalterns seeking social revenge as well as profit-driven gangsters, who each tried to steer Tawhid's exercise of violence to their advantage. Providing a detailed understanding of the multi-faceted processes through which Tawhid emerged in 1982, implemented its 'Emirate' and suddenly collapsed in 1985, this is a story that shows how militant Islamist groups are impacted by their grand ideology as much as by local contexts – with crucial lessons for understanding social movements, rebel groups and terrorist organizations elsewhere too.

Introduction
1. Tales of a rebel city
2. Neighbourhood Islamism
3. The emergence of Tawhid
4. A vernacular Islamist ideology
5. Social jihad
6. The illusion of religious violence
7. The geopolitics of Islamism
8. The downfall of Tawhid
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Terrorism, armed struggle [JPWL], Islam [HRH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]