Islamic Groups

Background of the Main Islamist Groups in Lebanon

The Beirut daily Al Mustaqbal, mouthpiece of the Future Movement founded by slain prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, published  a three-part series of articles presenting what it described as a map of Islamic groups on the Lebanese scene and how they may be affected by the Feb. 14 assassination of Hariri. The Lebanese leader was a devout Muslim Sunni, who advocated moderation and denounced fanaticism. The following is for the record a brief profile of the main active Islamic groups in Lebanon starting with the Shiite Hizbullah group as reported by Al Mustaqbal on May 10, 2005:

Hizbullah

Hizbullah (Party of God) is a political and military organization in Lebanon, founded in 1982 to fight Israel in southern Lebanon. It is regarded by the Arab and Muslim world, and by some EU countries, as a legitimate, militant, Shiite political party in Lebanon, and by the Israeli government and several Western governments as an Islamic fundamentalist, or Islamist, terrorist organization. The group was formed as a guerrilla organization and financed by Iran, to oppose Israel's 1982 invasion and subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon. Some critics argue that the real reason it was set up by Iran was to spread the Iranian Islamic revolution into Lebanon and throughout the Arab world.

It maintains an active fighting force, or militia, known as the Islamic Resistance. Since the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, Hizbullah has continued fighting the Israeli Army around the disputed, Israeli-occupied Shabaa Farms area. Although the United Nations regards Shabaa Farms as Syrian territory, Hizbullah considers the area a part of Lebanon. Syrian officials have declared that Shabaa Farms are part of Lebanon. The Shabaa farms were captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war. Syria was asked to notify the United Nations that it considered the Shabaa farms to be part of Lebanon but no official statement was ever sent. This has led some specialists to think that Hizbullah's attempt to recapture the area was a Syrian-backed pretext to keep Israel under military pressure.

In addition to its military wing, Hizbullah maintains a civilian arm, which runs hospitals, schools, orphanages, a television station and a radio station. Hizbullah currently holds eight seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament and is primarily active in the Bekaa Valley, the southern suburbs of Beirut and southern Lebanon. The group is headed by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and is financed largely by Iran and Syria, though it also raises funds itself through charities and commercial activities.

UN Security Council Resolution 1559, passed last September, calls for disarming Hizbullah and the Palestinian refugee camps, in addition to calling for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. Syria, under pressure by the international community after the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri, completed its withdrawal in April 2005.

"Since Hariri's assassination, Nasrallah has been keen to announce a series of stances, stressing the party's adherence to the principle of keeping resistance actions within Lebanon's borders, avoiding interference in the affairs of other countries and denying that the group has any branches abroad," Beirut's conservative Al Mustaqbal daily newspaper commented on May 10, referring to Hizbullah's denial of US and Israeli accusations of meddling in Palestinian affairs.

The Islamic Group

The Islamic Group (al-Jamaa al-Islamiya) is an Islamist group whose origins go back to the height of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser's push for Arab unity in 1964, when Sunni Muslim activists established the movement in Tripoli. Following the Arab defeat in 1967 and the decline of Nasserism, the Islamic Group and other Islamist groups throughout the Arab world gained strength. During the civil war, its militia called the Mujahideen, fought with the leftist Lebanese National Movement against Christian Maronite forces. In 1982-83 it fought the Israelis.

The Islamic Group follows the doctrines of militants like the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and Syria. Fathi Yakan, a follower of a radical brand of Islamist thought of Sayyed Qutob, an Egyptian Islamist theorist who was executed by Nasser, is its main ideologue. Yakan joined Said Hawwa of Syria's Muslim Brothers in the wake of the 1967 Middle East war to advocate a holy war (jihad) against Western and Israeli "crusaders."

Later, the Islamic Group tacitly rejected Hizbullah's model of an Islamic state. It believes in achieving an Islamic order based on the Sharia (Islamic religious law) through jihad of the heart (spiritual struggle), jihad by word (education and propaganda), and jihad by hand (economic, political and military action). The Islamic Group engages in internecine struggles with the Ahbash (see below), as well as with the traditional Sunni religious establishment as represented by the Jurisprudence Office (Dar al-Fatwa) and traditional leaders (the Karamis of Tripoli, the Salams of Beirut, and the newly-emerged Hariris of Sidon), whom it regards as the instruments of foreign interests.

Its members tend to live in Lebanon's urban centers with large Sunni concentrations: Tripoli, Beirut, and Sidon. It recruits the young via the Muslim Students Group (Rabitat al-Tullab al-Muslimin). The Islamic Group offers social welfare services, though less sophisticated ones than Hizbullah provides. It has not succeeded in attracting many Sunni votes; it won three seats in the 1992 parliamentary elections, just one seat in 1996 and none in 2000.

"The Islamic Group seems today torn between calls for closer ties with the Future Movement (of Hariri, now being led by his second son, Saad) and calls for adhering to its basic (Islamic) beliefs," Al Mustaqbal said.

The Islamic Unity Movement

The Islamic Unity Movement (Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami) originated in Tripoli during 1982. It was the creation of Sheikh Said Shaaban, previously a leader of the Islamic Group. Islamic Unity serves as an institutional extension of Shaaban, one of Lebanon's Islamist movements' few charismatic leaders who died a few years ago and was succeeded by his son Bilal.

Its fighters consolidated their control over Tripoli in 1983-1984 by defeating a number of rivals and then, at the height of its power in 1985, splintered, as Khalil Akkawi and Kanaan Naji left to organize their own associations. In the fall of 1985, the Syrian army entered Tripoli and crushed the Islamic Unity's militia, though it permitted the senior Shaaban to maintain leadership of his now-unarmed movement. This defeat did not prevent the militia's subsequent reemergence in Beirut, Sidon, and south Lebanon. In 1988, the Tawhid forces joined the Islamic Resistance to fight Israel's proxy South Lebanese Army militia and the Israeli forces in Israel's "security zone."

The group's ideology springs from the radical wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Shaaban forged close political ties to Iran during visits to Tehran and through Hizbullah, which considers Shaaban doctrinally a follower of Ayatollah Khomeini. While accepting the validity of the Iranian Revolution and emphasizing that the path started by Khomeini should be followed by all Muslims, Shaaban did not call for an Iranian-style order in Lebanon, knowing that this would alienate his Sunni followers.

He sought ways to unite Sunnis and Shiites, for example by suggesting that the Koran and the prophet's biography provide foundations on which all Muslim groups and sects can unite. Instead of arguing about sectarian representation in the parliament, he suggested that Muslims call for Islamic rule based on the Sharia, without which no government can be legitimate.

"After Hariri's assassination and the Syrian withdrawal, it was reported that Bilal Shaaban and Islamic Unity leaders broke away from the group, including Akkawi, Naji and Sheikh (Hashem) Minqara, (a close aide of Said Shaaban who spent years in Syrian prisons), to form some sort of a unified front, if not reunify the movement," Al Mustaqbal reported.

Hizbul-Tahrir

Hizbul-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) is an independent political party whose ideology is based on the teachings of Islam. The organization was founded by Taqieddin al-Nabhani, a religious judge in Jerusalem in 1953. Hizbul-Tahrir claims to be dedicated to the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate, and the removal of what the organization considers to be imperialistic non-Islamic control of Islamic societies. According to Hizbul-Tahrir, these influences include non-Muslim military capacities, such as the US armed forces presence in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; non-Islamic laws and legal concepts; and Muslim trust in non-Islamic thoughts, like secularism and philosophy.

These goals are to be accomplished by uniting all Muslims in a single Islamic state - the caliphate, whose society, laws, norms and social mores are determined by Islam exclusively and whose government is headed by a caliph. A three stage plan of action to fulfill these goals has been set forth:

Establish a community of Hizbul-Tahrir members. Members that accept the goals, and methods of the organization as their own and are ready to work to fulfill these goals; Widen the influence and membership of Hizbul-Tahrir among as large a number of Muslims as possible; and, overthrow the government and replace it with one that implements Islam "generally and comprehensively", carrying Islam to people throughout the world.

The organization claims that these steps are in accordance with the method of Prophet Muhammad, whose method for change is obligatory for Muslims. Despite the claims of several Muslim governments, the group has always publicly maintained a policy of political rather than violent change. Indeed, its public position is that it adheres to the Islamic Sharia in all aspects of its work and considers violence or armed struggle against the regime, as a method to re-establish the Islamic State, to be forbidden by the Islamic Sharia.

The party's stated mission in the Western world is "to explain Islamic ideology to Muslims, to create a dialogue with Western thinkers about capitalism and its ills and to present Islam as an ideological alternative." Hizbul-Tahrir is considered a criminal organization in several countries, and in February 2003, the Russian Supreme Court banned Hizbul-Tahrir deeming it a terrorist organization. A month before, Hizbul-Tahrir was also outlawed in Germany on charges of anti-Jewish propaganda.

"The group seems to have come out of the underground in recent weeks, as Syrian authorities used to arrest any declared member, whether in Syria or in Lebanon," Al Mustaqbal said, listing recent sit-ins held in Sunni suburban areas, mainly in Tripoli by the group's activists.

The Association of Islamic Charitable Projects

The Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (Jamiyat al-Masharih al- Khayriya al-Islamiya), are also known as Al-Ahbash ("the Ethiopians"). This group is one of the most controversial and interesting of contemporary Islamic groups, due to its origins, its eclectic theological roots and its teachings, which do not fit the conventional Islamist mold. The Ahbash is a Sufi (or spiritualist) movement that devoutly follows the teachings of Sheikh Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Hirari ash-Shihbi al-Abdari, also known as al-Habashi, a religious thinker of Ethiopian origins. It is spiritually Islamist but not politically. By the late 1980s, the Ahbash had become one of Lebanon's largest Islamic movements, having grown during the civil war from a few hundred members to its present size. The Ahbash did not create a militia of its own, nor did it engage in sectarian violence or the fight against Israel. Proselytizing and recruitment are its main aims, along with a commitment to moderation and political passivity.

The Ahbash became a key player in Lebanese politics by offering a moderate alternative to Islamism, attracting a wide following among the Sunni urban middle class by advocating pluralism and tolerance. Its ideology makes the Ahbash politically significant, including sharp controversies with Islamist movements. While Habashi pays allegiance to the pious ancestors (salaf) and the Sharia, his emphasis on "the science of hadith" means he is often suspected of being a follower of the Kalamiya (literalist) tradition of the Muhtazila who stressed the superiority of reason over revelation under the Abbasid dynasty.

The Ahbash rejects such Islamist authorities as Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Abdel-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia), and Sayyed Qutb. In contrast to Hizbullah and the Islamic Group, the Ahbash opposes the establishment of an Islamic state on the grounds that this divides Muslims. Instead, it accepts Lebanon's confessional system (which used to give Christians six slots for every five Muslim slots in parliament and main government office, and now gives them parity).

Its foreign policy orientation is equally mild, making no reference to jihad and directing no anger toward the West. To achieve a civilized Islamic society, it recommends that members study Western learning. Also, the Ahbash has established branches in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Sweden, Switzerland, the Ukraine, and the United States (with its headquarters in Philadelphia). It enjoys excellent relations with most Arab states, particularly Syria. In direct competition with the Islamic Group for dominance of the Sunni community, it entered the parliamentary elections of 1992 and won one seat in Beirut, though it lost it in 1996 and won none in 2000.

"Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon will definitely have negative effects on the group," Al Mustaqbal commented, recalling Syria's support of the group. "Yet its large number of educational and informational organizations and charities will give it enough momentum to keep going, even if not with the same force."

The Salafites

The word Salafites is derived from the term salafi (traditional). They represent a 19th century system of thought that preaches the revival of Islam by a return to the essential spirit of its source, the Koran. Not too different from the Wahhabites, Salafites are not organized into one main group. For example, last year, a group calling itself Jund al-Sham, (Soldiers of Damascus), made its debut in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh near Sidon by establishing strongholds in four residential districts. Describing itself as Salafite, it proclaimed Christians and Shiites "infidels."

The group is lead by a Palestinian from Tripoli's Nahr al-Bared refugee camp who goes by the name of Abu Yusuf Sharqieh, a former activist of the late Palestinian terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal's Fatah-Revolutionary Council. Jund al-Sham's stance is so hard line that it makes the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad look moderate. It also detests Yasser Arafat's Fatah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization and denounces Hizbullah for its ties with Iran.

Jund al-Sham's military wing is headed by Imad Yassin, a dropout from Ahmad al-Saadi (Abu Mehjan)'s Esbat al-Ansar which has long been blacklisted by the United States as a terrorist faction linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. The new group is said to be receiving financial assistance from prominent Muslim clerics in the Gulf. Its leaders install the most sophisticated security devices in their homes and have set up mortar guns in the neighborhoods under their control.

Yet the slogan of Salafism is also raised by leaders who restrict themselves to educational and religious activities. These leaders are mainly in Tripoli, Sidon, Beirut and the Western Bekaa and include people like Hassan Shahhal and Sheikh Zakaria Masri. "Shahhal has headed several meetings for Salafite leaders to discuss means to reinvigorate their activities, now that the Syrians are gone," Al Mustaqbal said, adding that the Salafites receive financial aide from Islamic organizations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Sources: "A roundup of Islamic groups in Lebanon in the aftermath of Hariri's assassination, run by Beirut's conservative Al Mustaqbal daily newspaper on May 10, 2005, online archives of other Lebanese daily newspapers, including the influential AN NAHAR, the pro-Syrian As Safir and the popular Al Balad, and Middle East Reporter archives. This report was originally published by the Middle East Reporter on June 4, 2005.