Exporting the Iranian Revolution: Ecumenical Clerics in Lebanon

Abstract

From the dawn of the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution until the consolidation of Hizbullah in the late 1980s, a network of Iranian, Lebanese, and Palestinian clerics played a crucial role in spreading the revolution to Lebanon and laying the groundwork for Hizbullah. Whereas the historiography of the post-1979 Iran-Lebanon relationship is overwhelmingly focused on Hizbullah, the present study, by drawing on oral history interviews with these clerics and archival materials, contends that the Iranian Revolution came to Lebanon primarily through these Shi'i and Sunni clerics, who joined ranks and established the Association of Muslim 'Ulama' in Lebanon in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion. This study argues that these clerics modeled their struggle on the 'ulama'-led and mosque-based example of the 1978-79 revolution, which this paper describes as the Khomeinist script, to transcend sect to seed a revolution in Lebanon and mass mobilize against the invasion. This article concludes that the ecumenical script was highly appealing to non-Shi'i Islamists, a key factor in the success of exporting the revolution and the rise of Hizbullah in Lebanon.