Introduction

Abstract

This is the story of a narrative. The narrative I write about was in many ways so hidden, so obscure, so denied that even its own participants have frequently not accepted or acknowledged its existence. Searching for it has been an adventure and this adventure itself—the challenges of self-denial and disenfranchisement associated with the ‘Amilis of South Lebanon—has been probably the most illuminating feature of this book, which is about the formation of the Shi’i Lebanese identity throughout the turbulent 1918–1943 period.