He Practice of Shi'i Jurisprudence in Contemporary Lebanon by Jean
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Te Practice of Shi‘i Jurisprudence in Contemporary Lebanon by Jean-Michel Landry A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Teory in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Saba Mahmood, Chair Professor Wendy L. Brown Professor Charles K. Hirschkind Professor Hussein Ali Agrama Fall 2016 Te Practice of Shi‘i Jurisprudence in Contemporary Lebanon Copyright 2016 by Jean-Michel Landry Abstract Te Practice of Shi‘i Jurisprudence in Contemporary Lebanon by Jean-Michel Landry Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Teory University of California, Berkeley Professor Saba Mahmood, Chair Drawing on ethnographic and archival research conducted in Lebanon and France between 2012 and 2014, this dissertation discusses Shi‘i methods of legal reasoning (ijtihad), and considers their incorporation into state juridical apparatuses. Since its colonial inception in 1926, the Lebanese state has harnessed the shari‘a tradition to regulate the family life of its Shi‘i citizenry. In order to properly grasp the ethical and epistemological transformations underlying the state’s appropriation of Shi‘i legal discourse, I suggest we frst examine the training judges, clerics, and jurists receive in traditional hawza seminaries. Tis dissertation’s frst three chapters show that learning to perform authoritative shari‘a reasoning requires not only developing a mastery of the sacred texts, but also submitting oneself to the discipline of the Shi‘i moral tradition. Te remaining chapters examine what Islamic legal reasoning becomes when it gets entangled with the judicial functions of a modern nation-state. To this end, I shift the ethnographic focus toward Beirut’s Shi‘i family courthouse, where hawza- trained judges are appointed by the Lebanese state to adjudicate familial disputes. I show that under the institutional and conceptual conditions of state legality, the Islamic legal tradition is divested of many of its interpretative possibilities and oriented toward the purpose of governing marital relationships uniformly. What accounts for this reorientation, I argue, is not so much the volition of individual judges, but the grammar of procedural norms and legal mechanisms through which these judges perform their work. While making this argument, I discuss the social and gender consequences of the Lebanese state’s appropriation of Shi‘i legal thinking. 1 À Fabienne i Content Abstract _____________________________________________________1 Acknowledgements ___________________________________________ iii Introduction _________________________________________________ 1 Map of the Dissertation ________________________________________________ 5 Invisible Authority and Uncertain Laws____________________________________ 8 Ethnography / History / Car Bombs _____________________________________ 12 Chapter 1: Territories of Learning _______________________________ 16 Shari‘a Academies: Shi‘i Hawzas and Sunni Madrassas ______________________ 19 Qom, Najaf, Beirut____________________________________________________25 A Little Pink House__________________________________________________ 30 Te Highs and Lows of a Lebanese Hawza _______________________________ 37 Concluding Remarks _________________________________________________ 43 Chapter 2: Chains of Emulation ________________________________ 45 Modes of Knowledge _________________________________________________ 47 Disciplines of Emulation ______________________________________________ 53 Nodes of Authority___________________________________________________ 58 Concluding Remarks _________________________________________________ 62 Chapter 3: Pious Doubts ______________________________________ 65 Elaborated Uncertainties: A Curriculum for Ijtihad _________________________ 68 Te Other Door of Ijtihad: Te Hawza Debates ____________________________ 81 Concluding Remarks _________________________________________________ 90 Chapter 4: An Incomplete Epistemic Shift ________________________ 93 Ottoman Legal Reforms ______________________________________________ 97 Shi‘i Legal Practice _________________________________________________ 101 Te Colonial Invention of Shi‘i Family Law______________________________ 104 Concluding Remarks________________________________________________ 111 Chapter 5: Islamic Legal Reasoning in State Apparatus _____________ 114 Judicial Encounters_________________________________________________ 118 Stabilizing Shi‘i Jurisprudence_________________________________________128 Concluding Remarks________________________________________________ 137 Epilogue: Te Dialectic of Ijtihad_______________________________ 140 Islamic Precedents__________________________________________________ 142 Shi‘i Attempts_____________________________________________________ 146 Ijtihad and Change__________________________________________________150 Bibliography _______________________________________________ 155 ii Acknowledgements Te following text weaves together years of conversation with friends, colleagues, and mentors. I am most grateful to the members of my PhD committee. Saba Mahmood, my primary adviser, has supported my research project from the start; the attentive reader will easily notice her infuence on every chapter of this dissertation. Troughout our long walks in Tilden Park, our invigorating trip to Lyon, and our other joint projects, Saba has taught me more than one can possibly imagine. My acknowledgement here is a meager compensation for the enormous effort she has put into my scholarly training. Wendy Brown, my critical theory mentor, has remained a source of inspiration since my very frst years at Berkeley. Her classes, advice, and the energy she has devoted to this research project (as well as my other side projects) have shaped the way I think today. I am also indebted to Charles Hirschkind for having pushed me to delve deeper into aspects of my feld study that I had initially neglected. Te perspicacious questions Charles asked me and the insights he shared with me helped me sharpen my arguments. My wish is that we will keep pursuing the conversations we started in Berkeley. I am equally grateful to Hussein Agrama for his engagement with my Ph.D. research. Despite the distance between Berkeley and Chicago, Hussein has been a highly supportive and inspirational adviser. I want to thank him for constantly challenging me to think more broadly, and I look forward to working more closely with him. Tis dissertation is based on twenty-two months of feldwork conducted in Lebanon between 2011 and 2014, with complementary archival research in France. My stay in Beirut would have been just a shadow of what it was if not for my encounter with Samer Ghamroun, in whom I found a sharp interlocutor and a lifelong friend. Te time I spent with Samer (in Qnat, Badaro, and Bourj Hamoud, most memorably) and our continuous efforts to think collaboratively have been truly wonderful gifts. Samer introduced me to Nada Moumtaz, whose work and personal recommendations have guided my ethnographic explorations. In Beirut, I was fortunate to live under the roof of May and Najla Hazzaz, who welcomed me as part of their family. Sharing my daily life with May, Najla, Hayet, Ghazal and al-Maz has been an absolute pleasure. I also want to express my deepest gratitude to Georges Sader, our neighbor, who helped me speak and understand the Lebanese dialect by watching the worse possible soap operas. Te Institut Français du Proche-Orient (ifpo) has been my scholarly anchor in Beirut. François Burgat, Elizabeth Longuenesse and Myriam Catusse have made everything run smoothly. Vincent Geisser, Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, and Sara Scata have been invaluable interlocutors. I am grateful to Nicolas for introducing me to Nahla Chahal. Nahla facilitated my contact with the institutions founded by Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah—including the Ma‘had seminary. Te names of the teachers, scholars, and seminarians of the Ma‘had whom I interviewed throughout my feldwork are pseudonyms. Tough I cannot thank them by name, I wish to express my deepest gratitude for their openness, curiosity, and patience. Te names of the judges, court personnel and litigants have also been kept anonymous. I iii want to thank them collectively for the generous hours they spent with me in court, in their offices and sometimes in their homes. I am also grateful to Youmna Makhlouf and Nayla Geagea for sharing with me the research they conducted in family law courts, and to Rachelle Assaad for helping me transcribe the judges’ handwriting. In France, I benefted from the guidance and intellectual rigor of Sabrina Mervin, who always received me with kindness and pushed me to explore a number of questions I had not initially considered. I am also grateful to the staff of the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques for having made my research stay in Nantes (France) a real pleasure. Tis project began at the University of California, Berkeley—a place like no other, where I had the immense fortune of being surrounded by generous and rigorous colleagues. Chief among them is Alex Beliaev, who has watched over me since my frst year in the PhD program and who meticulously read several of this dissertation’s chapters. Alex’s friendship has been a constant source of support and inspiration since we frst met. Despite his constant traveling, Mike Allan has become a close friend during my years at