Women in Lebanon

Living with Christianity, Islam, and Multiculturalism

M. Thomas

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781137281982
• eBook ISBN: 9781137281999
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

Combining insider and outsider perspectives, Women in Lebanon looks at Christian and Muslim women living together in a multicultural society and facing modernity. While the Arab Spring has begun to draw attention to issues of change, modernity, and women's subjectivity, this manuscript takes a unique approach to examining and describing the Lebanese "alternative modernities" thesis and how it has shaped thinking about the meaning of terms like evolution, progress, development, history, and politics in contemporary Arab thought. The author draws on extensive ethnographic research, as well as her own personal experience.

PART I

Saghbine, a Christian Village: Women, Religion, and Society

CHAPTER 1

Geography and Religious Spaces

Many people agree that the villager is a creation of the land that he or she occupies. In general, there are very few distinctions between Christian villagers and Muslims villagers from a sociological standpoint. Yet geography is not the only factor in determining the characteristics of a village, and the exceptional Christian villages that differ from Muslim villages are far from rare. Saghbine is one of these striking exceptions. We will more closely examine how the human aspect of village life presents itself in its geographic framework.

The morphological study begins with what can be observed and perceived of the social reality. I begin with a geographical analysis of the region, which must be studied from the standpoint of the inhabitants who use it and give it life. Next, I turn to the human geographic characteristics of the region— how it is constructed, what buildings, including religious ones, are the most important, and which have a great influence in crafting the destiny of the people. Finally, I will describe the religious affiliations and languages of Saghbine. The goal of this morphological study is twofold: one part will analyze certain aspects of daily life; the other will examine the status of women, which will be the subject matter of chapters to follow. But first, to understand women we need to understand the physical space.

Geographic Location

Spanning 10,400 km², Lebanon occupies an honorable position in the eyes of the United Nations member states. As small as it is, it has never gone unnoticed or unappreciated. Although it is a small country on the geographic scale, its social complexity could characterize an entire world. Yes, it is a world on a miniature scale, but a complete world, where all stages of civilization exist, ranging from societies with low levels of development to their counterparts at the extreme limit of refinement.

Its shape, harmonious and proportionate, and the existence of a natural border (most notably in the east) deem Lebanon a geographic entity that is well-defined and unique. This small country makes up 200 km of the eastern shore on the Mediterranean Sea. It presents itself as a coastal band, a flat surface in between the sea and mountains that widens in nine places to form the planes occupied by the historically prosperous regions of Tyre, Sidon, Damour, Beirut, Jounieh, Byblos, Batroun, Tripoli, and Akkar.

The mountains are grounded in the coastline, with bases rooted just inland of the Mediterranean that transform into gently curving slopes, lacking in severity but carefully crafted and constantly reshaped by erosion. These mountains reach an altitude of 1,800 meters in the south and 3,000 meters in the north. The rivers caress the countryside with their torrential rhythms and high speeds from January to June. They cut through deep valleys, carving limestone as their winding waters make their descent and empty into the sea.¹ The limestone plateau, a karst in all of its youthfulness, is covered by snow for three or four months out of the year. It separates the Mediterranean coast from the Bekaa Valley. This majestic relief contributes to the asymmetrical structure of Lebanon. It divides the country into two distinct climates: one that is gentle and temperate on the shores of the Mediterranean, and the other that is dry and continental on the vast plains of the Bekaa Valley that span 145 kilometers. The last chain of mountains, the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, with their supple form, without contrast and without vegetation, collapse at the horizon of the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The division of the country is based upon five mouhafazat,² or principalities: Central, Northern, Southern, Eastern Lebanon, and Beirut. Eastern Lebanon is defined by the demarcation of the Bekaa Valley. From the north to the south across the continuous mountainous relief, important climate and sociological differences distinguish between four zones to which the administrative capitals of the region have given their names.

We begin with Hermel; this zone is formed by a triangle. It spans to the north of the Bekaa where it occupies the entire Qada’³ of Hermel and the northern part of the Qada’ of Baalbeck. The triangle is marked with a desertlike climate, formerly lending to a weak population density that was barely open to the outside world until 1979, when Musa el-Sadr politicized the Shi’i of Lebanon and the Iranian Revolution launched the Shi’i in this part of the Bekaa into the international arena.

Baalbeck is characterized by imposing temples that stand among monumental ruins that represent the legacy of the Roman Empire in the Levant. Known internationally for its vast and varied horizon, Baalbeck was a destination for thousands of tourists every year, although the stream of visitors was interrupted during the Civil War. In 1982, 1,500 Iranian revolutionary guards were sent to this city, specifically to encourage the political movement of the militant Shi’i of Lebanon who made Baalbeck their base. Although their headquarters has since moved to Beirut, Baalbeck remains a Hizbullah stronghold, boasting a museum that greets tourists as they enter the site of historic ruins.

The capital of the Bekaa is Zahle, found in the center and south of the Bekaa. The Bekaa used to be characterized by the influence of its Christian capital, which has since weakened due to the Islamic revival movements and growing strength of Hizbullah in the surrounding area. Zahle was formerly known for its economic and agricultural wealth and remains more densely populated than other parts of the Bekaa.

The tangible differences between the east and west of the Bekaa divide the region into Charki and Gharbi.⁴ The Charki comprises about 20 villages with mostly Muslim and Druze inhabitants, with Christians concentrated in only two of the villages. By contrast, in the Gharbi, the majority of inhabitants are Christian and the minority are Muslim. It is worth noting that these villages boast Christians living with a minority of Sunnis, or Christians living with a minority of Shi’i. In the Bekaa as well as in all of the villages of Lebanon, you will seldom find Sunnis and Shi’is occupying the same village.

We have now arrived at Saghbine, a Christian village in the Western Bekaa on the side of Mount Lebanon. It is economically self-sufficient and the most socially developed village of the region. Its most striking factor is the cultural evolution of its population and its openness to the outside. Here, the status of women is close to that of the most evolved districts of Lebanon.

Saghbine, vast and bountiful in its variety, is built 1,050 meters above sea level on a promontory resting on the foothills of the Marasty mountain chain. The seductive curves of the Litani River, which has now been transformed into a lake, capture the attention and wonder of the travelers who encounter it. As a modest country village, Saghbine would not evoke the curiosity of passing travelers if not for its aesthetic qualities. However, an ethnographer or academic researching the village would find a complex sociological structure that merits both interest and attention.

The transformation of the Litani River into a lake not only changed the aesthetics of the Bekaa and the area around Saghbine, but simultaneously altered the psyche of the residents of the surrounding villages. The majestic blue color and calmness of the water, so still and beautiful as if it were captured in a painting, softened the dryness of the climate and the roughness of Saghbine’s residents. Its inhabitants and visitors do not hesitate to call the river ferdaws (paradise) because of the warmth of its welcome.

The etymology of Saghbine remains ambiguous; according to A. Freiha and A. Morhej, Saghbine, or zu’pin, seems to be derived from the root found in Aramaic and Hebrew: za’f, which means anger and enthusiasm.⁵ The popular etymology deserves attention, because it represents the opinions held by people of their own village. Residents of Saghbine communally claim that “Saghbine” is a word with Arab roots; sagh bayn, as it is spelt in Arabic, means “wise men in between [unwise men].” Yet toponyms usually derive their names from the character of their location instead of the character of their inhabitants, especially since these inhabitants have established themselves in these places as recently as the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, the characterization of the inhabitants of Saghbine based on the town’s etymology seems to hold true: the villagers are known for their physical and mental strength.

Human Geographic Framework

The physical aspect of the village determined the system of communication (roads and transport) and the mode of living. Located 75 km from Beirut, it is connected to the city’s capital by a national route linking Beirut to Chtoura at the mouth of the Bekaa, followed by small country roads that link Chtoura to the inner cities of the Bekaa. Saghbine has been linked to the outside world with modern means of transportation since the 1950s. From the Middle Ages until the introduction of the automobile in Lebanon, only the national road from Beirut to Chtoura existed. To access the Western Bekaa, the Ottomans carved out small country roads that could be traversed by donkeys and horses in 1830. My grandfather was a notable resident of Saghbine, and in order to marry my grandmother at the turn of the twentieth century, he had to take his horse to the village of Zahle to bring his new wife to his village—a trip that in total took over 20 hours! Today, an average trip from Beirut to Saghbine takes an hour and a half by car along these same country roads that were enlarged and covered in asphalt about 50 years ago.

Saghbine’s access to the outside world is pertinent to the sociological development of the village because it meant a link to the modernity of Beirut and opened it up to the influence of the transformation of the role of women in Beirut’s urban setting. Saghbine thus gained an advantage over other villages of the Bekaa who lived in relative isolation.

Our village was first populated by small groups of immigrants who entered intermittently at a less than spectacular rate. These groups were drawn by the natural resources of the terrain, and most particularly its proximity to a large water source. The exact date of these migrations is unknown, but it is approximated to have occurred in the second half of the seventeenth century. The first immigrants were Christians; however, the Superior of the Saint-Savior Monastery of Saghbine affirms that the Druze were the first to inhabit this area. The most notable inhabitants were the Jumblatt family, from whom the Christians bought the piece of land that would become their village. A document dated in 1862 affirms this purchase and can be found at the Melkite archdiocese in Zahle. The oldest part of Saghbine is referred to as Saidat et kherbene, or “Our Lady, the Abandoned,” denoting its founding for Christians by Christians. According to the Superior, this part of town was burned down three times by the Druze before 1860. The deir or monastery, of Saghbine, Saint Savior, was built in two stages; the first floor was built in 1780 and the second floor in 1880. That same year, the Chapel dedicated to Saint Theresa was also built.⁶

The year 1824 was declared the year of penitence; residents asked Father Gabriel El-Khoury, who is my ancestor, to distribute communion in the form of thin hosts instead of pieces of bread, which was used prior to that occasion. Father El-Khoury distributed communion for three days. The Superior confirmed the existence of Saghbine as a Christian village in 1836; the evidence comes from the Bishop of Zahle who, in that year, identified a litigation between two families contending for the administration of the church. The bishop resolved the question by delegating the responsibility to the waqf or church endowmen, Christians who, at that time, constituted the majority of the Lebanese population owned all the lands surrounding the Litani River until the town of Baaloul. However, as of 1982 at the heart of the Lebanese Civil War, the same statistics indicated that the same districts of the Bekaa now comprised 40 percent Christians and 60 percent Muslims.⁷

Outside the village, whose center consists of two square kilometers, we find other lands belonging to the territory, which occupy 114,000 dennum,⁸ or 114,000,000 square meters. According to Henri Mendras, “Le finage désigne l’espace occupé et ‘juridiquement’ possédé par une collectivité, quel qu’en soit le mode d’appropriation.”⁹ The social structure of this town can be read on the terrain. We can read the history of the groupings of people who established their lives on this plateau that is limited by the territory of neighboring villages.

The land of Saghbine is fragmented into parcels that belong to different landlords; each family owns one of these parcels in every district, forming a closed collectivity. The indivisibility of the patrimony was the rigor for the continuity of the family unit and accentuated the supremacy of the head of the family unit and his ability to rule by his whim. This principle at present seems to be disappearing, giving way to Roman principles of law that stipulates individual and total property ownership with the ability to divide lands between family members. This rule of equally dividing land has transformed the social and economic makeup of the village.

Saghbine is the administrative center of the Western Bekaa for the summertime, boasting a serail, or administrative palace that manages these affairs. The serail consists of an Office of Family Status, an Office of Finance, and the local police force and post office.

Religious Spaces

Lebanon is known as an asylum to the different religiously oppressed communities of the region—whether Shi’i or Maronites. Most Christians established themselves in the northern part of the country and in the mountains early in Lebanon’s history, and the Shi’i settled in the south around 1840. The Sunni came to the prosperous coastal cities and settled there.

Villages in Lebanon were established and grew around monasteries. This phenomenon instilled the religious nature of the Lebanese people—from priests and brotherhoods to the sisterhoods and the women and men who never missed any morning or evening daily prayers, or constantly participated in all holy sacraments of the Church.

In the past, religious spaces determined social spaces. Saghbine consisted of two districts: the first began at the current Notre Dame Church and spanned the abandoned¹⁰ Notre Dame chapel, at the south of the village. The region is open to the surrounding plains and the center of the Melkites. The second began at the Church of Saint George, situated on a hill overlooking the village and continuing up the mountain—the center for the Maronite¹¹ community. It seems that these communities dedicated their churches to these saints in order to associate the courage and strength with the Virgin Mary, the symbol of maternity and love. The destiny of the people of Saghbine was to be representative of Christianity in the Bekaa. Collectively, the people of the village seem to cohabitate in an intense community, represented by the closeness of homes built one on top of the other, and expressed by a collective individualism and a focus on themselves and their community.

Today, the toponym of the region reveals the presence of 24 family groups, since regions are mainly named after families. Places are also named after natural resources, most often water, marking its significance. Public names, such as saha, meaning “public square,” are becoming more common, indicating the evolution and modernization of society.

Religious spaces in the villages consist of churches, the qontoche, or rectory, cemeteries, and chapels. In Saghbine, two churches belong to the Maronites: Saint George, the older of the two churches, is three centuries old. Its antiquity is marked by its two entrance doors: one for men and one for women, who, until the latter half of the twentieth century, were required to sit at the back of the church. As villagers pass the church, they often stop to kiss the blessed stones on the side of the church—a ritual that often leaves red lipstick marks on the church’s walls. As a little girl, on the way from the house located at the top of the hill to the public square, I never missed the chance to accomplish this religious duty. The cornerstone marked with the date of the church’s construction was removed by some inhabitants following a dispute between two families over the management of the church; this behavior and the dominance of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Saghbine, a Christian Village: Women, Religion, and Society
• Part II: Muslim Lebanese Women and an Islamic Modernity
• Part III: Transformation within a Multicultural Lebanon
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index