ABSTRACT
Imam Musa al-Sadr’s success in fomenting the politicization of Lebanon’s Shi’a masses must be viewed in the context of the politico-religious symbiosis within Shi’a Islam. The nexus of religion and politics in Shi’ism must be seen in the dialectic between Shi’a doctrine and discourse. Musa al-Sadr seized upon the Shi’a mythos as an appropriate vehicle for praxis. Traditional Shi’a structures and institutions took on added dimensions. However, the modern understanding of Husayn, and consequently of Shi’ism as a religion as well as a political identity, received its fullest and most widespread articulation in Iran. The Lebanese Shi’a, he often reiterated, had too often been the foot-soldiers for every cause on the political spectrum, except their own. As in every other patriarchal society, Lebanese Shi’a politics was a man’s world. The woman merely represented an additional vote which the male head of the household had at his disposal to support his candidate of choice.
