Note on Transliteration

French spelling of names of people and places was used for the most part in
order to remain close to their common usages in Lebanon during the Mandate.
Otherwise, English transliteration of Arabic follows the rules of the
International Journal of Middle East Studies, but without diacritical marks.
 Acknowledgements

The seeds of this book were planted during my military service as an Israeli
soldier in Lebanon. In June 1983 my unit was sent to take over a strategically
located villa in the predominantly Christian village of Kfar Falous, a beautiful
and picturesque area, 15 km east of Sidon. It was a year after the Israeli invasion
into Lebanon and the new political order Ariel Sharon was crafting for Lebanon
was already blowing up in his soldiers’ faces and in the faces of tens of
thousands of Lebanese civilians and militiamen. This operation was targeted
against the Christian Phalanges in the region, who, for a reason that was not all
clear to me — I was only a peon, straight after basic training — acted too
independently. We were told in the briefing that the operation was meant to
demonstrate to the Phalanges who was calling the shots. We were not allowed to
use our weapons since we operated within a friendly environment and it was no
more than a disagreement between allies. Within a few moments after the
beginning of the operation we were surrounded by hundreds of these friendly
civilians who showed up from all corners and would not let us assume control of
the villa. We played cat and mouse with them for the entire day until an
agreement was reached between senior Israeli and Phalanges officers. The
civilians eventually left and we spent a full week in this villa, the most peaceful
week I had spent in Lebanon throughout my entire service. During this week I
had the chance to get to know some of these Phalanges. With my then-broken
Arabic and their broken English (unfortunately, I did not know a word in
French, a language they seemed to have mastered), I learned from some of them
that they were not Arabs, that they were Phoenicians. Some told me they hated
Muslims and Arabs, others took pride in massacres of Palestinians in which they
participated. I was stunned and dismayed. They looked perfectly Arab to me,
but what did I know back then? I was barely nineteen years old with very little
understanding of Middle East issues, let alone identities. The conversations
with them remained imprinted in my mind because it was the only time during
my entire service in which I had the chance to actually speak to Lebanese.
Ten years later, I was an MA student at the Department of Islamic and
Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, looking for a
topic for my thesis. By then I had started to be intrigued by the region’s
multiple layers of identities. The Canaanite movement in Israel fascinated me
and I was looking for similar phenomena in Arab society. The Phoenicians
from Kfar Falous suddenly resurfaced from the back drawers of my memory.
These “Phoenician” Phalanges ended up being the inspiration of my MA, and
later PhD theses, and finally this book. I am not sure that if they ever read this
book they would like my conclusions but, nevertheless, I suppose that in the
very long list of acknowledgements I should begin with them.
The majority of this study is based on my Ph.D. dissertation written at
Brandeis University. Words would not be enough to thank my advisor
x REVIVING PHOENICIA

Avigdor Levy for his assistance and encouragement. I am also indebted to the
other members of the committee, Yitzhak Nakash, Kanan Makiya and Sadik
al-Azm. I only wish that this remarkable Arab-Israeli cooperation could be
manifested in other fields of life as well. The final polish of the study was
completed during my post-doctorate at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute
for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I am
particularly thankful for its director, Amnon Cohen, for his support upon my
arrival at the Institute and during the entire duration of my work on this study.
The Truman Institute also provided me with financial assistance for the editing
of the text for which I am most grateful. I am also very appreciative to the Elie
Kedourie Memorial Fund of the British Academy for financing the last
necessary stretch of the research. I have infinite gratitude to Lisa Perlman for
the editorial work and for her personal touch; and also to Ann Nichols for
crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. I am also very indebted to Reuven Amitai,
who was the head of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
when I returned home to Israel. I will always remember and cherish his
personal involvement in my professional advancement. Other members of the
Hebrew University community deserve my gratitude. Moshe Ma’oz who
accompanied my progress since I was his MA student; Elie Podeh who helped
with advice about publishing and editing; Miri Hoexter who wisely advised
me to change some of the headings; and Yusri Khaizaran who enriched this
study through material he freely shared with me from his own research. I am
also particularly grateful to Nadim Shehadi, the director of the Centre for
Lebanese Studies in Oxford, who was always there when I needed a key to
decipher the complex nature of the Lebanese society. The staff of many
archives and libraries, “the unknown soldiers” of scholarly works, made this
project possible. Among them are the Archives of the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Nantes and Paris, the Archives of the Jesuit Order in
Vanves, the Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, the National Libraries in France
and Israel and the library of the University of Arizona in Tucson, where I sat
and wrote the majority of the text, having access to the abundant wealth of
American libraries through the free use of the interlibrary loan system. Such
research was indeed made possible in part by support from the Institute for
Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of
Notre Dame. Personal friends were always helpful, some with information and
advice, others with moral support. Many thanks to Ginan Rauf, Franck
Salameh, Nien-Hê Hsieh, Amy Karpinski, Kay Ellett, Ron Spark, Alan Paris,
Kushi Gavrieli, Meira Stern-Glick, the Nichols family — my other home, and
the Carlet family.
And finally those who made me who I am. My parents Aviva and Shimon,
and my beloved sister and brother Rama and Amir. And finally, my son El’ad
who was born a few months before the first edition of the book came out and
brought a whole new perspective to my life. Last in order, first in importance,
the woman of my life, Cathy, may there be forever spring for you at no less
than 28 degrees Celsius.
Preface to the New Paperback Edition*

On 14 February, 2005, exactly one year after the publication of the first
edition of this book, Lebanon’s former prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, was
assassinated in central Beirut in a massive explosion that many, including
the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, attributed to Hizballah’s operatives.
Al-Hariri is mentioned twice in this book—on the first page and in the
concluding chapter—in the context of illustrations of the dissemination of
the Phoenician narrative in Lebanon throughout wide sectors of the society
that, while fully and unapologetically viewing Lebanon as an Arab state,
still endorse specific national traits identified with Phoenicianism: Lebanon
as the cradle of Mediterranean civilizations, as a republic of merchants, as a
bridge between East and West, and as a business and leisure hub for its Arab
neighbors thanks to its relative openness and permissiveness.
The assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri was more than the killing of a
political figure by his adversaries. It reflected the struggle between two
different approaches to Lebanon as a national and political community. The
late Lebanese journalist Gebran Tueni, who shared the same tragic fate as
al-Hariri, described this as a struggle between Hong Kong, epitomized by
al-Hariri, and Hanoi, epitomized by Hizballah.1 Nadim Shehadi, another
Lebanese intellectual, also used metaphors to describe the two “projects”
that have dominated Lebanon since the end of the civil war in 1990. “For the
past two decades,” Shehadi wrote, “two competing projects have been
running in parallel in Lebanon. One aims at building a Riviera, a Monaco of
the eastern Mediterranean; the other a Citadel or bunker, at the frontline of
confrontation with Israel and the United States.”2 According to Shehadi, the
Riviera camp, whose prime architect was al-Hariri, would like to resurrect
the pre-civil war cosmopolitan and prosperous Lebanon, in which Beirut
functioned as a financial and business centre. Conversely, the Citadel
project, led by Hizballah, envisions Lebanon as a strong and militarized
state that serves as the spearhead of Arab and Islamic resistance to Israel, or
the “usurping entity,” and the United States.
In many respects, the Riviera project was modelled after the ideas and
vision of Michel Chiha, one of the most important politicians and thinkers
who shaped Lebanon’s political system during the mandate years (1920-
1943) and in their aftermath. Chiha envisioned Lebanon as a “Riviera,”
where Beirut, the Levantine cosmopolitan city par excellence, would
operate as an economic, cultural and intellectual hub of the Middle East. As
demonstrated in this book, Chiha linked this vision of the country to a
particular historical model that emphasized the age-old experience of
Lebanon as the historical bedrock of the “Riviera” along the Mediterranean
xii REVIVING PHOENICIA

Sea. Chiha was not a separatist Christian Lebanese, as were some of the
supporters of the Phoenician narrative whose stories are recounted in this
book. Although he belonged to the Francophone, haute-bourgeoisie circles
of Beirut, who at times felt more comfortable in Paris than in any Arab city
in the Middle East (other than their own city, Beirut), he was fully cognizant
that for Lebanon to survive in the region, it could not turn its back on its
Arab neighbors. Consequently, he opposed the establishment of a Jewish
state in Palestine and reached out to Sunni politicians, haute-bourgeoisie
like himself, in a bid to enable Lebanon to exist as a viable political
community. Al-Hariri, a conservative nouveau riche Sunni Muslim with an
Arab-Islamic education from an impoverished family, hailed from an
entirely different socio-economic, religious and educational background,
yet he came to embody many (though by no means all) of the ideas about the
identity of Lebanon that had first been espoused by Chiha some 50-60 years
earlier. Accordingly, the assassins of al-Hariri were attempting to kill not
only the politician but also the idea of Lebanon that he personified.
Chiha’s version of Lebanon’s national identity, some aspects of which
were shared by al-Hariri, remained dominant at least until the eruption of
the civil war in 1975. This national identity left little to no place for the
country’s Shi‘i community. The Shi‘a, the most impoverished, disenfran-
chised and geographically and socio-economically marginalized commu-
nity in Lebanon, have developed their own form of Lebanese nationalism,
which places them at the centre of the Lebanese “nation” as a subaltern
community that emphasizes its Arab and Islamic identities.3 To achieve
this objective, they had to challenge at least two versions of Lebanese
nationalism, both of which can be traced to the 1943 National Pact that
shaped the country’s political system until 1990. The first was developed
mainly by Christians (largely, but not only Maronites, as Chiha exemplifies)
during the country’s first forty years (1920s-1960s). It emphasized the
section in the 1943 National Pact that stated that Lebanon “assimilates all
that is beneficial and useful in Western civilization.”4 The second was
espoused by urban Sunnis such as Riad al-Sulh, one of the drafters of the
Pact, and al-Hariri (both from Sidon and, incidentally, both assassinated by
Syrian sympathizers), and it emphasized the section in the Pact defining
Lebanon as a country with an “Arab face.” Although al-Sulh was a member
of the “old money” Sunni elite and was educated in French missionary
schools whereas al-Hariri only joined this class during the civil war, they
shared a vision of Lebanon’s Arab identity. Their Arabism was Sunni-
centred but they saw Lebanon as a secular polity with close ties to the West
and in particular to France.
It was expected that the Shi‘a—and by extension their main political
parties, Hizballah and Amal—would reject these two interconnected
visions of Lebanon’s national identity and come up with their own version
 PREFACE TO THE NEW PAPERBACK EDITION xiii

of Lebanese nationalism. Because of Lebanon’s multi-religious compo-

sition and the inherent sectarianism that shaped its political life, Lebanese
society has always faced the challenge of finding a shared national identity
and historical narrative that most if not all of its citizens can endorse. The
political ascendancy of Hizballah (and the Shi‘i community in general),
has only exacerbated this challenge, as the Shi‘i organization has rejected
the old national narratives, seeking to replace them with its own, and has
even linked its version of Lebanese nationalism to an eternal struggle
against Israel, thus placing Lebanon, at the very frontline in the conflict
against the Jewish state. After Israel withdrew from South Lebanon in
2000, the tension between Hizballah’s “Lebanon project” and that of
al-Hariri only intensified. Hizballah’s insistence on maintaining its special
status as an armed militia has exposed the fact that its “resistance” was not
only against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, but was part of a
strategic plan to use the struggle against Israel as a means of placing
(Shi‘i) Islam and Arabism at the centre of the country’s identity, thereby
jettisoning the Riviera project. Such a Lebanon would have no room for
any hallucinations about age-old, pre-Arab and pre-Islamic cultures, nor
would it accept softer versions of these Riviera-like fantasies as espoused
by al-Hariri.
An examination of two diametrically opposed projects reveals the
difference between Hizballah’s and al-Hariri’s visions of Lebanon. Both
projects—the reconstruction of Beirut Central District (BCD) by Rafiq al-
Hariri’s firm, Solidere, and the construction of Hizballah’s resistance
memorial site in Mleeta—were intended to evoke specific memories and a
sense of heritage. Since 1994, Solidere has been in charge of rebuilding
downtown Beirut, an area that was largely destroyed during the civil war,
with the aim of restoring its previous glory as a tourist and financial centre
(tourism and finance being the two largest profit-making sectors in
Lebanon) of Lebanon and even the entire Middle East. In this project, which
was endorsed by the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism, not only was the impact
of the civil war almost entirely obliterated from the reconstructed landscape
(paradoxically, it was the devastation caused by the war that enabled the
reconstruction project), but amid the reconstructed buildings, archae-
ological sites have been excavated and preserved as open-space exhibits.
These sites expose the ancient Phoenician, Hellenic and Roman eras of
Beirut (while ignoring other eras), presenting them as Lebanon’s national
and historical heritage. Just south of BCD, Lebanon’s national museum,
also part of the post-civil war reconstruction project, conveys a similar
message about Lebanon’s national heritage through exhibits that emphasize
these ancient eras and downplay other historical eras. Thus, the urban
landscape of BCD presents an image of Lebanon as a modern, Western-
inspired society whose historical legacy goes back to these ancient
xiv REVIVING PHOENICIA

Mediterranean civilizations. This image of Lebanon, which for decades had

been associated with exclusively Lebanist, Maronite-inspired nationalism,
has been promoted by Solidere, a company controlled by Sunni urbanites
who embraced the broader historical and cosmopolitan narrative because it
serves their financial and political interests.5 Needless to say, the post-civil
war reconstruction project of Beirut completely ignores the predominantly
Shi‘i neighborhoods in southern Beirut.
Conversely, Hizballah’s Resistance Tourist Landmark in Mleeta, which
like BCD has been sanctioned by the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism,
focuses on entirely different memories and heritage. Constructed in a
predominantly Shi‘i region south east of Sidon in South Lebanon, where
major hostilities took place between Hizballah and Israel during 1982-
2000, the site serves as a museum commemorating the armed resistance
against the Jewish state.6 As Mona Harb and Lara Deeb argue, Mleeta’s
resistance memorial is part of Hizballah’s effort to establish a Shi‘i Islamic
milieu (al-hala al-Islamiyya) in Lebanon, which they define as “the
physical and symbolic spaces within which pious Shi‘a live out a
particular ‘state of being,’ the public sphere where its norms and values are
debated and shaped, and the ‘state of being’ itself with its continually
shifting moral norms.”7 This site (like other cultural projects of Hizballah
such as the museum of Al-Khiam prison, which Harb and Deeb also
analyze) aims to educate Lebanese and foreigners about a different history
and evoke utterly different memories from the ones Solidere promotes. As
the homepage of Mleeta’s website states,

Being the first of its kind, this place carves the memory of a continual stage
in the history of Lebanon. This is a natural museum, surrounded by the
captivating nature and mountains. Its aim is to preserve the places where the
Mujahideen lived, giving people the chance to be acquainted with the style of
the unique experience of the Islamic resistance against the Israeli enemy, since
its occupation of Beirut in 1982.8

The hundreds of thousands of tourists who have visited the Mleeta

resistance memorial since its inauguration on 25 May 2010, the tenth
anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon, are not only
exposed to the history of the Islamic resistance, but are also encouraged to
continue their support for the unremitting struggle, which will only end with
the destruction of Israel.
In the struggle between the “Hanoi” and the “Hong Kong” camps,
Phoenicianism as a non-Arab national identity for Lebanon has fallen out of
grace. The rising influence of Shi‘i and Sunni Islamism in the country has
reinforced the drift away from any narrative that negates Arabism and Islam
as essential elements in Lebanon’s national identity.9 Nonetheless, there are
Lebanese who still toy with the Phoenician project in a bid to challenge the
 PREFACE TO THE NEW PAPERBACK EDITION xv

political and cultural trajectory toward which these Islamist movements

aspire to take Lebanon. In recent years modern science was recruited for this
cause. Like other national movements that have resorted to DNA and
genetics research to demonstrate their age-old existence as viable national
communities,10 some Lebanese have invoked the science of genetics,
arguing that the ties between modern Lebanese and the ancient inhabitants
of their land, the Phoenicians, are not only historical or cultural, but also
biological. Lebanese scientists from the Lebanese American University
joined the much-publicized global project conducted by National
Geographic to study genetic imprints of indigenous populations around
the world.11 They collected blood samples from men in Lebanon, Syria,
Malta, Tunisia and other areas where the ancient Phoenicians once dwelled,
and they concluded that Phoenician DNA imprints could still be found
among residents of these locales. Such DNA studies in Lebanon or
elsewhere may have a scientific aura,12 yet they also reflect a strong political
agenda as they are never carried out innocently for the sake of pure science,
but rather in order to justify specific arguments with regard to the nation’s
ancient pedigree. The Lebanese DNA study has gained significant attention
in Lebanese, Arab and international media,13 bringing back to the fore the
endless “are we Arabs or Phoenicians?” debates, which are always more
politically driven than historiographically or scientifically based. To be sure,
neither Hizballah’s “Islamic milieu” nor the Sunni Islamist circles in Tripoli
and elsewhere in the country take part in these debates. For the latter, the
question of Lebanon’s identity has been sealed; it is clear and undisputed.
Since the start of the Arab uprisings in December 2010, the Middle East
has entered a new era that will undoubtedly transform the political, social
and cultural makeup of the region. Islamist parties throughout the Middle
East are gaining ground, some through democratic procedures, others
through violence. At the time of writing, Syria is torn in a vicious civil war
whose end and outcome are not yet clear and Lebanon is gradually drifting
into the chaos of its neighbour. The Islamist elements of the Syrian
opposition are growing stronger by the day and Lebanese Shi‘i and Sunni
Islamists are being drawn into the conflict as well, supporting the two
opposing sides of the war in Syria. Lebanon’s viability as a nation-state has
long been disputed, and similar questions now surround Syria, with the
possibility that in the post-Asad era it will not be able to sustain itself as a
united polity. Should Syria disintegrate, it is likely that Lebanon would be
drawn even further into the fray. In such an atmosphere and political state of
affairs, reflections about the ancient history of Lebanon (or Syria) and its
relevance for the country’s current national identity become not only a
luxury but practically irrelevant. What might remain is nostalgia for a
Middle East that existed not too long ago, when religious extremism and
xenophobic nationalism were the exception rather than the rule. In fact, this
xvi REVIVING PHOENICIA

wave of nostalgia had already begun even before the outbreak of the Arab
uprisings. The Levant as a geographical and cultural unit of analysis has
been central to this wave of nostalgia for the old Middle East. Books were
written,14 journals were launched,15 conferences were held and centres were
established,16 all focusing on the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean that
roughly includes contemporary Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Syria,
Turkey and Greece. These scholarly and popular initiatives focus on the
cosmopolitan lifestyle that dominated this region until the 1950s and in
which Beirut, Alexandria, Haifa, Aleppo, Istanbul, Smyrna and other cities
were linked in a web of multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual
communities whose boundaries were more flexible and permeable than they
are today. The ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea are a salient
aspect of this Levantine awakening, which seeks to challenge contemporary
national historiographies that present the region as homogenous and
unitary (Arab nationalism), or that are exclusive and militant (Zionism).
Although they over-romanticize the Levant and Levantinism, they still offer
an alternative to the contemporary Middle East that has been ravaged by
multiple predicaments such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Sunni-Shi‘i
divide, religious-secular tensions, gender biases and socio-economic
stagnation. Looking ahead to an era of shifting sands, which gives rise to
hopes as well as major concerns for the region, romanticism may be seen as
escapism, but may also be a reminder that the violent trajectory toward
which the Middle East appears headed is not inevitable. Reviving Phoenicia
tells a story about this cosmopolitan Middle East, and while trying not to
overly romanticize that time period, and recognizing its shortcomings, the
book does remind us that not too long ago things in the Middle East in
general and Lebanon in particular were different. Phoenicia, obviously,
cannot be revived, but we should hope that at least some elements of the
cosmopolitanism that is depicted in this book could.

Notes

* The printing of this edition was made possible in part by support from the Institute for
Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame.
1. Yossi Baidatz, “Lebanon: Between Hong Kong and Hanoi,” The Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, Policy Watch No. 523, March 9, 2001, http://www.washingtoninstitute.
org/policy-analysis/view/lebanon-between-hong-kong-and-hanoi (accessed December 28,
2012).
2. Nadim Shehadi, “Riviera vs. Citadel: the Battle for Lebanon,” Open democracy, July 2007,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-middle_east_politics/riviera_citadel_3841.jsp
(accessed December 28, 2012).
3. Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi‘ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of
National Identities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 36-37, 71.
4. Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (London: Pluto Press, 2007), pp. 110.
 PREFACE TO THE NEW PAPERBACK EDITION xvii

5. Ghada Masri, “Resurrecting Phoenicia: Tourist Landscape and National Identity in

the Heart of the Lebanese Capital,” in Robert Maitland and Brent W. Ritchie, eds., City
Tourism National Capital Perspectives (Cambridge, MA: CABI Publishing, 2010),
pp. 225-238.
6. See the website of the museum, http://www.mleeta.com/mleeta/index.html (accessed
December 26, 2012).
7. Mona Harb and Lara Deeb, “Culture as History and Landscape: Hizballah’s Efforts to
Shape an Islamic Milieu in Lebanon,” Arab Studies Journal (Spring 2011).
8. See the Mleeta website http://mleeta.com/mleeta/eng/definition1.html (accessed May 21,
2014).
9. Robert G. Rabil, Religion, National Identity, and Confessional Politics in Lebanon; The
Challenge of Islamism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
10. John Entine, Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People
(New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2007).
11. https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/ (accessed December 21, 2012).
12. Pierre A. Zalloua et al., “Identifying Genetic Traces of Historical Expansions: Phoenician
Footprints in the Mediterranean,” The American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 83, No. 5
(October 2008), pp. 633-642.
13. See, for example, Amitabh Avasthi, “Phoenician Blood Endures 3,000 Years, DNA Study
Shows,” National Geographic News, October 30, 2008, http://news.nationalgeographic.
com/news/2008/10/081030-phoenician-dna-genographic-missions.html; LBC program
reporting on the research and discussing the question of Lebanese as Phoenicians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoPGLFY1Lxs; DNA legacy of ancient seafarers, BBC
News, October 31, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/7700356.stm; “Phoenician or
Arab? Lebanon non-ending debate,” al-Arabia News, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/
2010/06/07/110694.html (all links accessed December 29, 2012).
14. Philipp Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (New
Hampshire: Yale University Press, 2011); William Harris, The Levant: A Fractured Mosaic
(Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2003 and 2005); Franck Salameh, Language, Memory and
Identity in the Middle East: The Case for Lebanon (Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2010);
Amiel Alkalay, After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1993); Yaakov Shavit, Mediterranean Anthology (Tel Aviv: Miskal,
2004) [Hebrew].
15. Journal of Levantine Studies http://www.levantine-journal.org/; The Levantine Review
http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/levantine (links accessed December 29, 2012).
16. Levantine Cultural Center, http://www.levantinecenter.org; Levantine Heritage,
http://www.levantineheritage.com/; Conference at Georgetown University, November
2012, “After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture 20 Years Later,”
http://ccas.georgetown.edu/story/1242690102139.html (links accessed December 29,
2012).
 Introduction

There is much more to the concept of the “nation” than myths and
memories. But they constitute a sine qua non: there can be no identity
without memory (albeit selective), no collective purpose without myth,
and identity and purpose or destiny are necessary elements of the very
concept of a nation.
Anthony Smith1

The historical narrative of Lebanon almost invariably begins with the ancient
Phoenician seafarers. History textbooks, government publications and full
genres of literature and research resolutely follow this path. Lebanon has a
history of 6,000 years, they affirm. It begins with the Phoenicians in pre-
Biblical times, then proceeds into other eras — Persian, Greek, Roman,
Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Turkish, French — concluding in modern times
when Lebanon regains its independence. One of the official websites of Prime
Minister Rafiq al-Hariri well reflects this conviction: “We are heirs to a history
which spans thousands of years and whose beginnings are lost in the mists of
time itself,” Hariri writes in his address to his fellow Lebanese, “The alphabet
was born in our land. It was from the shores of Sidon and Tyre that sailors
ventured to establish the first Mediterranean empire.”2 The assertion that
Lebanon’s history, even as an Arab country, begins with the ancient
Phoenicians has almost become conventional wisdom. Even historians who
oppose this narrative fall into its description. As‘ad AbuKhalil, for example,
in his Historical Dictionary of Lebanon, writes in the introduction: “Lebanese
ultra-nationalists, who have dominated the official historiography of the
country, claim that Lebanon has been in continued existence for over 5000
years and that the present-day country is no more than an extension of the
ancient Phoenician kingdom(s). In reality Lebanon is a modern phenomenon;
[...].”3 The book, however, unfolds with a chronological list, beginning with
the Canaanite occupation of Sidon and Tyre in 2800 BC and continuing to the
Egyptian occupation of the Phoenician coast, the Phoenician expansion
towards the sea, the founding of Carthage, the most famous Phoenician colony,
and so forth, demonstrating the power of the Phoenician narrative that
infiltrated even studies that defy it as a figment of the Lebanese ultra-nationalist
imagination.
The present study is an attempt to uncover the social, political and
intellectual origins and the development of the phenomenon of Phoenicianism
2 REVIVING PHOENICIA

in Lebanon. As in the case of other communities, Lebanese nationalists

scrutinized the past to create a narrative that would justify the existence of
Lebanon as a viable national community based on age-old historical memories
and a proud pedigree. The Phoenician identity was born out of this need, but
it soon became one of the major points of contention between and within the
different communities, which, since Lebanon’s creation in 1920, have been
competing with each other to define their country’s national identity.
Although this study has nothing to do with the ancient Phoenicians it seems
essential to provide a short summary as to who these ancient inhabitants of
Lebanon were and why they were so appealing to their modern counterparts.
A survey of national movements in the Middle East followed by two brief
discussions on selective theories of nationalism and French colonialism
provide a general overview and a backdrop for the understanding of
Phoenicianism in a broader context. The Introduction concludes with an outline
of the study’s structure.

Who Were the Phoenicians?

The ancient inhabitants of Lebanon did not call themselves Phoenicians.4

This term is of Greek origin, appearing for the first time in Greek texts in the
9th century BC; its meaning is still not fully clear. The most accepted
explanation, although by no means the only one, is that the Greek word phoinix,
meaning “red,” alludes to the purple textile industry for which the ancient
inhabitants of Lebanon were made famous. The Phoenicians actually called
themselves Canaanites and their land Canaan, at least until the 1st century
AD as documented in the New Testament where it is written that Jesus reached
the borders of Tyre and Sidon and cured there a Canaanite woman.5 The term
Cna‘ani in Biblical Hebrew implies a merchant, which suggests that, as with
the Greek word phoinix, the name of the country may have derived from the
most popular profession of the ancient Lebanese — commerce. These
Canaanite-Phoenicians were also often identified according to the city to which
they belonged: Sidonites, Tyrians, Giblites and so forth, reflecting the fact
that their cities never gained political unity but rather remained independent
city-states.
Historians and archeologists tend to mark the beginning of the Phoenician
era in the late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age, around
1200 BC. The Phoenician cities were in existence more than a millennium
earlier, but around the 12th century, the Near East went through a major socio-
political upheaval that reshaped the entire region and forced the Phoenician
cities to orient towards the Mediterranean Sea. In just one century, the land of
Canaan experienced the arrival of three peoples: the Israelites from the south,
who settled in the heartland; the Philistines (or the Peoples of the Sea) from
the Greek Islands, who settled along the southern shores of Canaan; and the
 INTRODUCTION 3
Arameans who came from Mesopotamia and settled in the north. These three
invasions left no space for the Phoenicians but the coastal range in the northern
part of Canaan. Thus, Phoenicia was defined as the small strip of land stretching
from the island of Arvad (the ancient Aradus) in the north to Akko (Acre) and
Mount Carmel in the south. The eastern border of Phoenicia was Mount
Lebanon that runs roughly parallel to the coast, creating a very narrow and
clearly-circumscribed territory between the Mediterranean and the Mountain.
From the 12th century BC until the Greek occupation of Phoenicia in 334
AD, the Mediterranean trade routes were practically all controlled by
Phoenician seafarers. They established colonies on the major islands in the
Mediterranean basin and in today’s Greece, Italy, France, Spain and North
Africa. The most notable of these was, of course, Carthage (Keret Hadata,
New Polis), located in today’s Tunisia. Their network of colonies throughout
the Mediterranean put the entire basin under one socio-economic system and
for the first time in human history it was possible to speak about a
“Mediterranean civilization.” They perfected the art of sailing and navigating,
the use of glass, fabric and many other crafts, which they borrowed from
different civilizations in their trade along the Mediterranean. Despite what is
commonly believed, the Phoenicians did not invent the alphabet, but they
were the last in a line of Semitic peoples to refine it in form and in number of
letters and then to export it to Greece. This was undoubtedly their most
important achievement and contribution to the intellectual development of
humankind.
One of the most intriguing questions about the Phoenicians that preoccupied
the modern Lebanese concerned their origin. The Phoenicians were a Semitic
people who spoke a Semitic language that belonged to the Western-Semitic
family, very similar to ancient Hebrew.6 Herodotus, who visited Tyre in 450
BC, recounts that the people of the city informed him that they arrived in the
region twenty-five centuries earlier from the Red Sea. His account substantiates
the popular and polemical thesis that the entire Semitic population of the
Near East emigrated from the Arabian Peninsula in endless waves of migration,
the last of which was the Arab-Islamic wave in the 7th century AD.7 This
thesis caused some Arab nationalists and demographers to assert that all the
ancient peoples of the Middle East were actually Arabs and that the terms
“Arab” and “Semite” are, therefore, synonymous. It enabled them to claim
that the Arab-Islamic conquest brought a new faith to a land that ethnically
was already their own. It is not difficult to imagine what the reaction to this
claim was by Lebanese nationalists and other centrifugal forces within the
Arab world.
Another interesting scholarly — yet often politically motivated — debate
about the ancient Phoenicians (whose history is as lengthy as the tomes of
modern research on them and had a tremendous impact on the modern
Phoenician-Lebanese view of the past) centers on the question of their
influence on ancient Greek civilization. From the 18th century, European
4 REVIVING PHOENICIA

intellectuals exhibited a growing interest in ancient Greece, depicting it as

the cradle of Western-European civilization and portraying its population as
Aryan, the first link in the noble European racial chain. There were, however,
a few French scholars who, although they regarded themselves as the legitimate
heirs of Plato and Aristotle, still viewed Greek civilization as more than simply
the product of a European endeavor. The scholar and journalist Victor Bérard
was among the most influential classicists to write about the role of the
Phoenicians in the formation of Greek civilization. In his works he
demonstrated that, to a large extent, Hellenic religion and mythology were of
Semitic origin, more precisely of Phoenician-Egyptian seed.8 In 1902, Bérard
published Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée, in which he described the Odyssey as
a travelogue written by a seafarer sitting on the deck of a Phoenician trireme
and noting the different events he witnessed along the way. By and large,
Bérard’s theories were rejected by the Hellenic scholarly establishment, but,
as we shall see, they were welcomed with open arms by Lebanese nationalists
who viewed them as proof of the fact that they were the ones who should be
credited as the cradle of Western civilization. A little more than a decade ago
a new and controversial study, Black Athena, brought Bérard’s ideas back to
life arguing that the glory days of the Hellenic world were a direct product of
Phoenician and Egyptian — i.e., Semitic — civilizations and that scholars
have deliberately ignored this fact because it undermines the very foundations
of Western civilization.9 Whether Bernal, the author of Black Athena, was
accurate or not, it should be remembered that all scholars agree that the ancient
Phoenicians had some impact on Greek civilization, by the sheer fact that for
1,000 years they controlled most of the trade in the Mediterranean, which
means that even a lofty civilization such as the Greeks could not have ignored
their presence and preeminence.
In the millennium that marked Phoenician domination in the Mediterranean
basin, the Phoenicians developed and attained a clear sense of being a “people,”
despite the fact that they never lived in one unified political system.10 They
spoke and wrote in the same language, they worshiped similar gods, conducted
similar rituals related to birth, death and burial, and collaborated with each
other in their commercial enterprises. Following the Macedonian-Greek
occupation in 334 BC, the Phoenician civilization slowly declined and cleared
the way for Greek and Roman domination. The Phoenician-Canaanite language
was replaced by Greek and Aramaic and, similarly, the Phoenician religion
was superceded by Greek and later Roman pantheons. The Phoenicians
disappeared as a people not because of a major trauma such as expulsion or
plague, but rather by a slow process of adaptation to the new political reality.
In Greek and Roman eras, the land of Phoenicia continued to flourish. Beirut-
Berytus became one of the world’s most important intellectual centers through
the Roman School of Law, while Tyre and Sidon continued to prosper in
trade, with the entire Roman Empire open to their commercial skills. An
indication of the rich Greek and Roman civilizations in Phoenicia can be
 INTRODUCTION 5
seen in the archeological sites of that era that are scattered throughout Lebanon,
most notably the Temple of Balbeck. Despite the fact that the Phoenician era
is clearly circumscribed between the 12th century BC and the Greek occupation
in the 3rd century BC, the neo-Phoenicians, who are the focus of this study,
held a broader interpretation of the time span of this era. Thus, for example,
the city of Ugarit, which prospered in the 16th-15th centuries BC and declined
by the 14th century BC, was incorporated into the Phoenician civilization;
and the Greek and Roman eras were “Phoenicianized” as well. It was a
tendency to view the entire ancient time as one historical unit, separated by
different foreign conquests but united through the one gifted people that dwelt
in the land of Phoenicia. Some of the modern ultra-Phoenicians claimed that
the Phoenician era never ceased to exist and today’s Lebanese are as Phoenician
as their ancient ancestors.

National Identities in the Arab Middle East

Studies on Lebanon and the Lebanese national movement demonstrated for

years continuity between four hundred years of political autonomy in Mount
Lebanon and the establishment of Greater Lebanon in 1920.11 These studies
asserted that a certain collective identity was formed in the Mountain since
the time of Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni (1590-1635), an identity that radiated to
the coastal strip and the Biqa‘ region. By interpreting the history of Lebanon
in this way, these works actually claimed that the idea of a Lebanese state in
its current borders was, in fact, historically viable. Modern Lebanon was not
formed in a vacuum. Its national movement has had its roots deep in the
socio-political history of Mount Lebanon. Many of the advocates of this
narrative were Lebanese historians who wrote their country’s history justifying
Lebanon’s existence as a national community.12 This kind of historiography
was also a result of genuine belief in the Lebanese political system before the
eruption of the civil war in 1975. Even more recent studies, written during
and after the civil war, still supported the view that modern Lebanon was
founded on a lengthy historical experience of Maronite ethnic cohesiveness
in Mount Lebanon which functioned as the basis for the foundation of the
Lebanese state.13
A recent study by Carol Hakim-Dowek, The Origins of the Lebanese
National Idea, 1840-1914,14 persuasively demonstrates that in fact the Lebanist
idea was relatively novel and its formation was by no means linear. Hakim-
Dowek shows in her work that Lebanism — the idea of an independent political
framework with Mount Lebanon as its core — appeared for the first time in
1840. It was raised by Maronite clergy but faded away soon thereafter as a
result of the political settlements of the double Qai’maqamiyya in 1842 and
the Mutasarrifiyya, the autonomous region, in 1861.15 Having been articulated
by the Church, Lebanism was envisioned as a Christian conservative political
6 REVIVING PHOENICIA

framework, controlled by the Maronite clergy. According to her research,

Lebanism reappeared in a laical form only at the beginning of the 20th century
as a result of primarily internal social problems within the Mutasarrifiyya.
Christian Lebanese of the new secular and educated elite, residing either in
Lebanon or in various Syro-Lebanese immigrant communities in Egypt and
in the Americas, were promoting the idea of an extended autonomous region
of Lebanon in a larger Syrian political framework. Their point of departure
was a general dislike of the social and political situation in the Mutasarrifiyya,
which they attributed to the deficiency of the religious establishments. The
autonomous region was controlled by the Maronite clergy and the traditional
notable families; the new, emerging stratum challenged their authority while
at the same time aimed to expand the autonomous territory. At first, Lebanism
was not expressed as an alternative to Ottomanism. Its advocates were asking
for administrative reforms and border revisions within the context of the
Ottoman Empire. It took almost an additional twenty years before these
demands turned into an appeal for the formation of an independent Lebanese
state, and before the Maronite Church made this Lebanism its official platform
and led the movement for the formation of an independent Lebanese state.
Thus, Hakim-Dowek depicts a non-linear development of the Lebanist idea
demonstrating that Christian Lebanese, in and out of Mount Lebanon and
Beirut, held different views about the political solution of the “Lebanese
question” until early 1919. Only then did most political forces join together
in their demand for the establishment of an independent state.
Lebanism, and Lebanese national sentiments, were born and developed
alongside other collective identities in the Arab Middle East, most notably
Ottomanism, Syrianism, Arabism and Islamism. For many years, historians
of the Middle East gave much weight to the Arab identity as a powerful political
force in the Arab provinces of the declining Ottoman Empire.16 They saw
Arabism as a secular movement led by Syro-Lebanese who, equipped with
Western education, reacted to the encroaching measures of the Ottomans,
first to the oppressing policies of Sultan Abdülhamid and later the “turkifying”
attempts of the Young Turks. This interpretation also viewed most of the
political developments in the Middle East at that time as reactions and
responses to the increase in Arab sentiments. Thus, the rise of non-Arab
sentiments among some Christian Lebanese was also seen as a reaction to the
growing strength of Arabism rather than as an independent desire emanating
from a socio-political reality within Lebanon.
However, it has been long understood that this kind of interpretation
overemphasized the strength of Arabism, under-emphasized the power of
loyalty to the Ottoman Empire and almost entirely disregarded local territorial
sentiments in geographical Syria. The established narrative today is that
Ottomanism remained the strongest focus of allegiance until the end of World
War I among the majority of the Syrian population. Arab national sentiments,
founded on the writings of Islamic reformists, existed before 1914, but by no
 INTRODUCTION 7
means did they win the overwhelming support of the local elite. This elite
turned Arabist only with the fall of the Empire, after 1918. Their Arabism
was not based on secular ideology, but was actually embedded on Islamic
terminology as appeared in the writings of Muslim reformists such as
Muhammad ‘Abduh, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Rashid Rida.17
Syrian sentiments before 1920 can be divided into three categories: secular
Arab Syrianism, Muslim-Arab Syrianism and secular non-Arab Syrianism.
Secular Arab Syrianism existed as a geo-political and cultural identity since
the 1860s, interwoven with Ottoman and Arab sentiments. Butrus al-Bustani,
who advocated Ottomanism and loyalty to the Sublime Porte, was the one
who also set the foundation of this identity.18 A leading member of the Arabic
Nahda, or renaissance, movement, al-Bustani generated Arabism through
Arabic literature as a cultural identity while at the same time he regarded
Syria as his watan, or homeland. He defined the inhabitants of Syria (stretching
in the north from the Tauros mountains to the Sinai desert in the south, and
from the Mediterranean in the west to the Euphrates in the east) as members
of one nation who culturally held strong Arab characteristics and who
politically belonged to the larger Ottoman Empire.19 He viewed this identity
as secular, and shared by Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. During WWI
and after, this kind of Syrianism continued to be expressed especially by
Christians from Beirut and Mount Lebanon. The 1916 book of the Greek
Catholic Nadra Moutran, La Syrie de Demain, to be discussed in Chapter II,
arguably encapsulates well this kind of Arab-Syrian secular thought. There
were also some Maronites, such as Iskandar ‘Amoun and Ibrahim al-Najjar,
who cooperated with Faysal in Damascus in 1918-1920. Similar to al-Bustani
sixty years earlier they saw themselves as Arab Syrians and they believed
that Lebanon should be given a leading role in a Syrian-Arab federation.
The second stream, Muslim Arab Syrianism, added the religious Islamic
component to the Syrian identity and viewed Islam and Arabism as its two
prime pillars. This stream was best expressed by Rashid Rida, a Syrian-Arab
Islamist and a disciple of Muhammad ‘Abduh, who called for the establishment
of an Arab Syrian nation based on Islam as its prime pillar of identity (more
about him in Chapter V). The Arab government of Faysal in 1918-1920
Damascus was in fact the political manifestation of the ideas of Rashid Rida,
who envisioned a larger Arab-Muslim state, but viewed geographical Syria
as the first step in attaining this greater plan. Hence, he took an active role in
Faysal’s government and in the Syro-Palestinian Congress of Shekib Arslan
in Geneva in 1921.
The third stream, secular non-Arab Syrianism, existed from the beginning
of the 20th century, but emerged as a political force during WWI. Chékri
Ganem and Georges Samné, with the ever-present encouragement of the
French, advocated for the establishment of a Syrian, non-Arab, federation
based on principles of democracy, laicism and decentralization. In their vision,
Lebanon would be given an eminent leading role in this federation. This type
8 REVIVING PHOENICIA

of Syrianism relied heavily on works of French scholars who wrote about the
existence of a Syrian nation based on a unity of geography and race. The
most notable example of this kind of writing was Elisée Reclus, the French
geographer, whose impact on the crystallization of Syrian nationalism was
great. In his gigantic work, Nouvelle Géographie Universelle, Reclus wrote
about the existence of a Syrian race circumscribed within the limits of
geographical Syria and utterly distinct from the Arab race. He depicted the
civilization of the ancient world as an axle whose two edges were India on
the far east, and France and Britain on the far west. Since antiquity, Reclus
maintained, Syria, as a well-defined geographic and racial unit, was located
exactly at the center of this axle.20 We shall see in the following chapters that
Reclus’ theories were used extensively by supporters of the Syrian identity
and especially by the Jesuit teacher Henri Lammens who had many disciples
among Lebanese nationalists before and after 1920.
It was within this political reality that the Lebanese national idea was formed
and articulated. Loyalty to the Ottoman Empire was the strongest force of
political identity, whereas regionally most intellectual Lebanese, although
conscious of their special political and social status, still perceived themselves
part of a larger Syrian framework. Arabism as a national movement was in its
seminal stage and, before 1908, the designation “Arab” was still associated
with Bedouins and the desert, despite the “awakening” of the Arab literary
movement.
Until WWI, most Lebanese intellectuals did not call for the establishment
of an independent state and if such claims were made, they were mainly in
the context of a Syrian federation. Belonging to a geo-political Syrian
framework was the dominant view even among Christian Lebanese who, by
April 1919, would become the strongest advocates for the formation of an
independent Christian, Western-oriented Lebanon. As we shall see in this
study, the preoccupation with the Phoenician past in Lebanon and the
identification of intellectuals from Beirut as “Phoenicians” commenced
decades before “anti-Arab” sentiments were even a possibility, simply because
Arabism was not yet a dominant identity that had to be reckoned with.

Theorizing Lebanese Nationalism?

Despite the obsessive preoccupation in academia with the attempt to theorize

the rise of nationalism in the past two hundred years, there has not been —
because there cannot be — one homogenous explanation for this phenomenon,
which makes “men and women willing to die for their countries.”21 The rise
of nationalism, like all political forces with cultural manifestations, is shaped
by specific and local social, economic and political conditions. Even the
separation between “classical” or “modular” forms of nationalism that
appeared in the West and “special” or “deviant” expressions of nationalism
 INTRODUCTION 9
that emerged in the East and the South do not provide us with two single
explanations for the rise of nationalism. Some theories can help us understand
some aspects of different national behaviors, but no one theory (or two) can
provide a single explanation for the rise and impact of the most powerful and
destructive ideology of the 20th century, continuing consistently into the 21st
century.
It is beyond the point of this study, not to say redundant, to provide an
overview of the existing theories of nationalism.22 Likewise, I do not wish to
posit this study within these theories in an attempt to find the “proper” matrix
for the rise of Lebanese nationalism and its historical narrative. Rather, I
selectively chose certain theories and position them alongside Lebanese
nationalism in order to clarify some of its notions. I shall start with Anthony
Smith who has been labeled, exaggeratedly I believe, as the theoretician closest
to the primordialist approach of nationalism.23 Nationalism, for Smith, cannot
be explained as a purely modern phenomenon but neither can it be seen and
understood as a primordial “natural” occurrence, existing since the beginning
of time and expressed in various cultural and political forms. Modernization,
according to him, utterly transformed societies and shaped their identities
into the modern concept of “nation” as political unit. Yet, at the same time,
some modern nations do rest on foundations of a certain collective identity
— the ethnie — which he defines as “a named human population possessing
a myth of common descent, common historical memories, elements of shared
culture, an association with a particular territory and a sense of solidarity.”24
At the core of some national movements one can find an ethnic identity that
was in existence centuries before the process of modernization began and
that has been used by the local intelligentsia to mobilize the ethnic community
into a self-aware national community. In states in which an ethnie did not
exist it had to be invented for the modern nation to emerge and survive.25
Smith finds the Maronite community a good example for the concept of
ethnie,26 and to a large extent he is right. This community is circumscribed
within a well-defined territory — Mount Lebanon. Its historical memories,
cultivated by its clergy, are traced back to the 5th century, to Saint Marun,
claimed as the father of the Church, and its religious affiliation enhanced its
sense of uniqueness not only vis-à-vis its Muslim neighbors, but also vis-à-
vis the other Eastern churches. Although the ethnie of Smith seems the most
suitable to describe the Maronite sense of identity it also fails in ignoring its
complexity. It should be remembered that the Maronites, before the 19th
century and after, have never been one unified group with one collective will.
Often their sense of common identity was weaker than, say, the sense of identity
which the Maronite Khazin feudal family shared with other Druze and Sunni
feudal families. In addition, as we shall see in this study, the political aspirations
of the Maronite church as advocated by its high clergy since the 1840s were
not the same as those of lay Maronites who resided in Beirut during the same
time. For example, when the brothers Philippe and Farid al-Khazin advocated
10 REVIVING PHOENICIA

in Beirut in 1910 the establishment of an autonomous greater Lebanon, they

based their claim on a laical historical narrative, beginning with the Druze
leader, Fakhr al-Din, and not with a traditional Maronite claim (see more in
Chapter II). Moreover, as will be discussed, until 1919, most Maronite
intellectuals did not call for the establishment of Greater Lebanon but rather
viewed Greater Syria as the solution for the “Question of Lebanon.” There
has never been one Maronite will. Maronites, just like other sects in Lebanon,
operate in the context of intra-sectarian dynamics sometimes even more than
inter-sectarian. Thus, despite the fact that the concept of ethnie is helpful in
understanding the development of the Lebanist idea, it needs to be remembered
that the Maronite ethnies have always been dynamic, multifaceted and
sometimes even invented.
Nationalism is a modern phenomenon in the sense that it created a sentiment
of human allegiance that did not exist before it was formed. It is modern also
because in order to spread its message widely and effectively it employs
modern means of communication, such as radio, museums, printed material,
maps and so forth. However, there are more nations and national movements
throughout the world that did not go through a modernizing, industrial
revolution than ones that did. In this respect, Ernest Gellner, the arch-modernist
theoretician, does not help us to understand nationalism in non-industrialized
societies. Focusing on material conditions, Gellner holds that the industrial
revolution separates between pre-modernity and modernity and that only
following a process of modernization, i.e., the rise of capitalism, bureaucracy
and secularism, can a nation emerge. “Nationalism,” according to his much
quoted claim, “is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents
nations where they do not exist.”27 Nationalism, as Gellner states, invented
nations in the Middle East. Or more accurately, to use Sami Zubaida’s words,
it is the state that created the nation in the Middle East.28 Yet, these “nations,”
Lebanon included, were not born in the watershed between pre-modernity
and modernity. Societies in the Middle East still await, to this day, their
industrial revolution and yet they hold their “nationalism” dearly to the point
that they are “prepared to sacrifice their lives for the recognition of their
national identities.”29 Moreover, Gellner argues that the nation-state replaces
kinship with national identity. However, in Lebanon, as in other Middle Eastern
societies, nationalism did not replace kinship, but rather learned to live with
it, sometimes in conflict and at other times in agreement.
Modernism and secularism were important pillars in Gellner’s theory of
nationalism. They were also the prime foundations of Benedict Anderson’s
book, Imagined Communities, which has been the touchstone of most studies
on nationalism in the last decade, to the point that the word “imagine” and its
derivatives are probably by now the most used terms in studies on national
movements. Anderson views nationalism as a modern phenomenon, born out
of the rise of capitalism. Yet he also provides an innovative angle for
understanding it by defining the nation as an “imagined political community.”30
 INTRODUCTION 11
It is imagined, Anderson explains, in the sense that its members will never be
able to meet, hear or know the vast majority of the other members of the
community, and yet they share a strong sense of belonging to this imagined
non-tangible community. Such an analysis enabled Anderson to examine
national communities not within the context of their authenticity or lack
thereof, but rather in the way they imagine themselves. The concept of
“imagining” enables us to do the same. Although, as it will become clear in
the study, I view the claims for Phoenician descent in Lebanon as nebulous, I
still consider the validity of Phoenicianism, or lack thereof, irrelevant to this
study. The main thrust here is to analyze how a community imagined itself
and not whether this imagining was historically conceivable. In other words,
I am concerned with one aspect of the emergence of national consciousness
— the national historical narrative — rather than with the rise of nationalism
as a social formation in Lebanon.
Anderson’s point of departure in his analysis of the rise of nationalism is
twofold: the decline of religion (and in this respect he follows Gellner) and
the rise of vernacular languages.31 According to him, religion provided a sense
of continuity and enabled people to come to grips with death. The “ebbing of
religious belief,” a product of the 18th century Enlightenment, did not reduce
the need for continuity among humans which had previously been provided
by religion. This is where nationalism came in and provided the secular sense
of continuity and belonging. As for vernacular languages, Anderson writes
that thanks to the new medium of “print capitalism” it was possible for national
communities to abandon their written lingua franca (Latin, in the case of
Europe) and to use a unified form of their own vernaculars that, through mass
production of printed matter, also helped in shaping the national consciousness
of the community.
As interesting as these two observations are, they still pose some major
problems when applied to the Middle East. It is clear today that the Arab
national movement was not born as a secular reaction to the exposure to the
West, but actually as a religious Muslim response to the challenges posed by
Europe. Similarly, the Lebanese national movement cannot be detached from
its Christian religious context. It was the Maronite Patriarch who, in his trip
to the Peace Congress in Versailles in 1919, exerted the last necessary pressure
on France in favor of the establishment of Greater Lebanon. It was also he
who preached in his weekly sermons that “patriotism is a religious
practice”(see Chapter I). Moreover, even liberal lay Syro-Lebanese who were
in charge of the introduction of Western thought to the region and who
cooperated with the Church in 1919 envisioned Lebanon as a Christian
dominated entity. Religion was and still is a prime component of all national
movements in the Middle East and any attempt to understand nationalism in
this region cannot be complete without taking this factor into account.
As for language, it seems that the Middle East actually experienced a
different process from that in Europe. The rise of the Arab national movement
12 REVIVING PHOENICIA

actually suppressed the vernacular Arab dialects and, instead, revived and
glorified literary Arabic as the lingua franca of all Arabs. Even local national
movements in the Arab world did not make an attempt, except in marginal
cases, to turn the regional dialects into their national language. This reflects
the dichotomy in which national movements in the Arab Middle East operate.
On the one hand, Arab states share a strong cultural affiliation with each
other and an unfulfilled dream of political unity; on the other, local-territorial
identities have only strengthened since the formation of the Arab states after
WWI, yet not to the point of turning one of their vernaculars into the official
national language. Literary Arabic, because of its deep theological weight,
has always carried immense power in the Middle East, far more than Latin in
Europe. We shall see that this strength caused many Lebanese nationalists to
practice exceptional verbal acrobatics in their attempts to reconcile between
their assertion that they were not Arabs and the fact that they used Arabic as
their national language.
Western-centric theories on the rise of nationalism can sometimes confuse
more than elucidate our attempt to explain the rise of nationalism in the Middle
East or the Southern Hemisphere. There have been several attempts to provide
a theoretical explanation of the rise of nationalism in non-Western societies.
I refer here mainly to the works of Partha Chatterjee who added another
component to the study of nationalism by claiming that its character changes
in colonial settings.32 Chatterjee holds that national identity in colonized
societies can be divided into spiritual and material realms. Anti-colonial
movements are deeply affected by the material advantages of their colonizer.
Acknowledging its technological superiority, they study its economy,
statecraft, science and so forth. However, adopting the “material domain”
leads them to cling tighter, even when it requires invention, to the “spiritual
domain,” i.e.; to a cultural identity that preserves their spiritual culture. In
other words, while the state adopts the material Western domain, the emerging
nation embraces a national culture that keeps the colonizer out. By presenting
this view, Chatterjee actually criticized Anderson who asserted that non-
Western societies imagine a Western model of the nation.33 According to
Chatterjee, non-Western nationalists may strive to emulate the material domain
of Western nationalism, but they imagine and create a spiritual domain
independent of their colonizer.
Lebanon poses an interesting case when trying to juxtapose its colonial
experience with Chatterjee’s analysis. As we shall see in this study, the national
movement that advocated the establishment of Greater Lebanon was a mélange
of modern (Beirut’s emerging Christian bourgeoisie) and traditional (the
Maronite Church) social forces. In a unique historical moment they cooperated
and asked to be occupied by France so as to realize their political aspirations
and establish an independent state. They based their demand on the assertion
that they were part of Western civilization, that they were in fact the French
of the Levant and that there were no cultural and political ties between them
 INTRODUCTION 13
and their Arab neighbors. After 1920, a large number of Lebanese nationalists
continued to look to France as their source of emulation, not only in the material
domain, but also in the spiritual. Moreover, French colonial practice was far
more intrusive than the British. Thus, France aggressively intervened in an
attempt to set the content of the spiritual domain of the society of the fledgling
state. In addition, even after most Lebanese nationalists were disillusioned
by France’s conduct and understood that independence was not underway,
they still shared with France their most basic demand: to be a separate entity,
not related politically or culturally to the Syrian and/or Arab national
movements. This dichotomy prevailed until 1943, the year of independence.
The compromise between “Arabs” and “non-Arabs,” as manifested in the
1943 National Pact, was less related to the national character of Lebanon and
more to the agreement of the Maronite and Sunni political elites to find a
modus vivendi in a country that became a fact but that lacked a unifying
“spiritual domain.”

The French Colonial Idea

Before 1870, French colonialism was guided by the notion of “assimilation,”

which meant that a “colony was to become an integral if not a contiguous
part of France with its society and population made over in her image.”34 Yet,
the attempts to gallicize the colonized peoples utterly failed and by the time
Tunisia was taken in 1882 a new theory of “association” stood behind French
colonial conduct. This theory reflected the desire of the colonial circles to
have a more realistic and flexible doctrine that would win the cooperation of
the natives by means of co-opting the elite with as little direct French
involvement as possible. By 1905, the theory of association had become the
leitmotif of all colonial bodies in France. It was best practiced by Louis-
Hubert Lyautey, a French officer who was in charge of the pacification of
indigenous unrest in Tonkin (Indochina), Madagascar, Algeria and who, in
1912, became the first Resident General of Morocco. Lyautey believed that a
protectorate, governed firmly but indirectly by France, rather than outright
colonial expansion and direct colonial rule, was the best way to establish
quick, effective and inexpensive colonial control. This could be done, he
believed, through collaboration with the indigenous elites, enlisting the ruling
classes into the service of the French Empire.
An important facet of Lyautey’s theory was the politique de races, which
implied emphasizing the ethnic, cultural and racial differences between the
various communities in the colonized area. When Lyautey became the Resident
General of Morocco he had the opportunity to practice his theory in full scale,
in what he called a “moral conquest;” to leave the ruling elite intact and exploit
the existence of a large Berber population in order to highlight ethnic and
cultural differences between the Berbers and the Arab communities, forging
14 REVIVING PHOENICIA

the Berbers into a large collaborative group with French rule. Guided by the
theory of Lyautey, French military men and civil administrators worked
ardently to separate the Arab and Berber populations. They founded schools
in Berber regions with the prime purpose of teaching French instead of Arabic
and European and local Berber history instead of Arab-Islamic history, all
aimed at encouraging tribal sentiments among the Berber tribes.35 They created
centers for the study of the Berber society and published journals focusing on
various aspects of Berber life, proliferating information and data on the Berber
population in Morocco.36 The French constructed a complete myth of origin
and ancestry for the Berbers. They were regarded as the indigenous population
of North Africa whose racial origins went back to the Indo-Europeans races;
some even said that their origin could be specifically traced to the Nordic
races of northern Europe.37 The Berbers were depicted as a powerful but
peaceful people with a strong sense of democracy and love for personal
freedom. As opposed to their Arab-Muslim neighbors, they did not accept
Islam as an authority of the State. In order to maintain these qualities they
made the mountains their place of refuge, thus keeping their particular features
despite the foreign Arab-Muslim occupiers. With the right guidance, the French
believed, it would be possible to strengthen their distinct identity and to stop
the process of their assimilation into the Arab-Muslim society.38
Morocco, of course, was not the first place where the French met Berber
tribes. Already in Algeria the colonizers encountered Berbers and began
developing a strong romantic view towards them, considering them perfect
candidates for gallicization.39 Yet in Morocco the Berber policy developed
into a coherent program supported by the entire colonial party and executed
by the military officers of the new protectorate who became Lyautey’s
disciples. By the time French forces arrived in Beirut in October 1918, French
colonial circles had already gained experience in governing an Arab-Muslim
population and attempting to seclude an ethnic group out of the majority
population to shape it as a collaborative group of their colonial enterprise.
Molding the Berbers into a collaborative group was not an easy task, for
there was a need to instruct them about their self-perception (as seen by the
French), to teach them French and to stop the existing process of their
integration into the larger Moroccan population. As we shall see below, the
same task was much easier to accomplish in Lebanon among the Maronites,
whose elite had already mastered French and whose self-perception was very
distinct even without the assistance of the French. Three decades ago, R.
Robinson called for a new evaluation in our understanding of the process of
colonialism by shifting the focus away from Europe towards the colonized
societies.40 He believed that, to a large extent, European colonialism was
determined by the collaborative groups, sometimes even more so than by the
socio-political forces in the colonizing power itself. Considering this view
may help illustrate why it was so important for France, through the medium
of its missionaries, geographers, scholars and politicians, to emphasize the
 INTRODUCTION 15
distinct features of the Christians in Lebanon and why in the end France
succumbed to the demands of Lebanese nationalists and allowed the formation
of Greater Lebanon. Collaboration was a key element in French colonial
doctrine for their conduct towards the Berbers and towards the Maronites in
Lebanon even though it utterly failed with the former and ran into difficulties
with the latter.

In conclusion, there were different internal and external forces that set the
stage for the appearance of the Phoenician identity at the end of the 19th
century: the introduction of nationalism as a new form of identity in the Middle
East and the local struggle over the variety of this identity; the increasing
power of colonialism in the region; the gradual shift in the social structure of
the local societies; and the improvement of education that catered to increasing
interest in the ancient civilizations of the Near East among Westerners and
local elites alike. The dynamic between these forces in the mid-19th century
is the source from which this study begins.

***

Before commencing, a quick survey of the study’s structure and main premises
is in order. The book is divided into three sections. The first section, “Origins,”
comprising Chapters I and II, covers the roots of Phoenicianism from the
mid-19th century to the formation of Greater Lebanon. The second section,
“The Mandate Years,” Chapters III, IV and V, discusses the mandate years,
the formative period of the Phoenician national narrative. The third section,
“After Independence and Beyond,” including Chapter VI and the Conclusion,
addresses the evolution of Phoenicianism after independence from 1943 to
the 1990s and offers some concluding remarks and observations about the
Lebanese national identity.
Chapter I addresses the origins of Phoenicianism in the 19th century by
analyzing the writings of French travelers, colonialists and the Jesuits, on the
one hand, and lay Syro-Lebanese and Maronite clergy, on the other. The chapter
explores Western interest in the ancient history of Lebanon and its impact on
the local population. It also surveys the arrival of the French Jesuit order in
Lebanon and its gradual growing domination over local education. The
writings of Maronite clergy in the 19th century demonstrate that the Maronite
Church did not advocate the Phoenician identity of its flock. It was rather the
new stratum of lay Christians, and not necessarily Maronites, who began
writing about their “ancestors” the ancient Phoenicians. The chapter illustrates
that this was done not in the context of anti-Arab sentiments but rather the
contrary, simply because Arab nationalism was not yet an ideology with which
Syro-Lebanese had to come to terms.
Chapter II looks at four different locales — Egypt, France, America and
Lebanon — that functioned as centers of Phoenician expressions before and
16 REVIVING PHOENICIA

during World War I, explaining the reasons why Phoenicianism was used by
Syro-Lebanese in these places and in what capacity. The chapter explores the
existing political orientations held by Lebanese and their use of the Phoenician
past. The chapter also analyzes the way Phoenicianism began carrying its
non-Arab stance, to the point that in 1919 the entire movement for the
formation of Greater Lebanon was labeled “Phoenician.”
Chapter III discusses the development of the Phoenician identity in
mandatory Lebanon. It looks at the role the Jesuits and the French High
Commission played in the dissemination of Phoenician sentiments, through
the education system and other state agents such as archeology and museums.
The chapter also illustrates how Lebanese graduates of the Jesuit educational
establishment helped in the dissemination of the Phoenician identity in
Lebanon. Finally, the chapter analyzes local developments within Lebanese
society that led to the entrance of the Phoenician past into the Lebanese national
narrative.
Chapter IV discusses major Phoenician streams through the writing of
three different advocates, Charles Corm, Michel Chiha and Sa‘id ‘Aql. Corm
and Chiha represent francophone national Lebanese writing in the mandate
years. Corm was the prime “preacher” of Phoenicianism until his death in
1963 and any discussion on this identity would not be complete without a
thorough evaluation of his work. Chiha has been regarded as the architect of
the Lebanese confessional system, and his impact on the political fate of
Lebanon was immense. From WWI he was closely associated with the literary
circles that advocated the Phoenician identity. He often wrote about Lebanon’s
Phoenician past and promoted the idea that the Mediterranean basin was the
prime source of its identity. Although there has been a tendency to separate
his writing from the Phoenician group by asserting that Mediterraneanism
was somewhat different, it is my contention that his views of Lebanese identity
were one variant of Phoenicianism and therefore should be evaluated in the
context of this study. Sa‘id ‘Aql also became a prime Phoenician advocate in
the mid-1930s and remains so to this day. Unlike Corm and Chiha he wrote
the majority of his works in Arabic. In addition, whereas Corm and Chiha
were born, raised and educated in Beirut, ‘Aql’s background is from Mount
Lebanon. The section on ‘Aql focuses on his different social origins and on
arabophone Phoenicians in general. Analyzing the writing of these three not
only reveals their understanding of Phoenicianism, but also sheds new light
on the way this identity was disseminated in mandatory Lebanon.
Chapter V examines four different political groups that opposed the
Phoenician narrative of Lebanon: Arab-Muslim, secular pan-Arabs, Muslim
Lebanese and Antun Sa‘adeh, who headed the Syrian Social Nationalist party.
The chapter discloses not only the views of the adversaries of Phoenicianism
but it also reveals more about the content and weight of the Phoenician identity
in mandatory Lebanon. Furthermore, through this discussion, the chapter also
 INTRODUCTION 17
juxtaposes Phoenicianism in a wider regional context of other forces of identity
that existed in Lebanon during the first half of the 20th century.
Chapter VI provides an overview of the development of Phoenicianism
from 1945 until the end of the civil war in 1990. Unlike the preceding chapters,
it does not follow its evolution systematically. Phoenicianism as an alternative
to the Arab identity of Lebanon was marginalized in the 1940s with the political
integration of Lebanon into the Arab world. Yet, despite this integration, the
Lebanese territorial national identity persisted and with it also remained aspects
of the Phoenician idea. Thus, Phoenicianism continued to be expressed in
two different ways. On the one hand, Christian Lebanese nationalists continued
to express their vision of Lebanon as neo-Phoenicia, on the other, after decades
of preoccupation with the Phoenician past of the country, a Phoenician
“language” was formed that was used by all sects and parties in Lebanon,
even by those that defied Phoenicianism as a figment of Christian imagination.

References

1 The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1986), p. 2.

2 http://www.rafikhariri.net/v1/
3 As‘ad AbuKhalil, Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (Maryland: The Scarecrow
Press, inc., 1998), p. 1. AbuKhalil reiterates four times in the first five pages of
the introduction his view that the Phoenician ideal is false. Such a preoccupation
with Phoenicianism only reflects, in my view, the strength of this myth of origin.
4 For general information on the ancient Phoenicians and their civilization, see
Maria Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993); M. Gras, R. Rouillard and J. Teixidor, L’Univers
Phénicien (Paris: Hachette, 1989); Sabatino Moscati, The Phoenicians (New York:
Rizoli, 1999). For the interested reader, these works contain lengthy bibliographical
lists.
5 New Testament, Matthew, 15: 21-28; Mark, 7: 24-30.
6 The genealogy in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 10, actually refers to the
Canaanites-Phoenicians as Hamites by stating that Ham, Noah’s son, begat Canaan
who begat Sidon. This, however, was an attempt of the Hebrew author of Genesis
to separate the Hebrews from the Canaanites, due to the animosity between the
two peoples.
7 This thesis was first articulated by the Italian scholar Leone Caetani in his
monumental Annali dell’Islam (Milan: Hoepli, 1905-l907). Philip Hitti was one
of the most distinguished scholars who wrote on and advocated this theory. See
his History of the Arabs, fifth edition (London: Macmillan, 1953), pp. 3-13; The
Near East in History (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961), pp. 29-33.
8 Bérard’s first work that argued this thesis was De l’Origine des Cultes Arcadiens;
Essai de Méthode en Mythologie Grecque (Paris: Thorin, 1894).
9 Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. 2
volumes (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1987, 1991). Bernal’s thesis
agitated the whole scholarly world of the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean
18 REVIVING PHOENICIA

basin and brought numerous critical responses. One of the more recent ones is
Jacques Berlinerblau, Heresy in the University (New Jersey: Rutgers University
Press, 1999). See especially pp. 96-101 for Bérard’s thesis and its use by Bernal.
10 See Smith’s discussion on the Phoenicians as an “ethnie” in The Ethnic Origins
of Nations (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1986), pp. 83-84, and 99-100.
11 The most notable examples are the works of Kamal Salibi and Philip Hitti, The
Modern History of Lebanon (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964) and
Lebanon in History (London: Macmillan, 1957). A similar tendency can be seen
in the following works: William R. Polk, The Opening of South Lebanon, 1788-
1840 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963); Ilya Harik, Politics and
Change in a Traditional Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968).
12 On two of these Lebanese historians, Asad Rustum and Fouad Afram al-Bustani,
see Chapter III.
13 Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon (London: Croom Helm, 1985);
Engin Deniz Akarli, The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon 1861-1920 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993).
14 Carol Hakim-Dowek, The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840-1914
(Ph.D. Thesis, St. Antony’s College, 1997).
15 These were the official names of the administrative province on Mount Lebanon
created as a result of foreign and Ottoman intervention that put an end to heavy
civil clashes among the local population. The 1861 settlement established for the
first time a Lebanese political entity dominated by the Maronite community.
16 On the “old narrative,” see Israel Gershoni, “Rethinking the Formation of Arab
Nationalism in the Middle East, 1920-1945,” in James Jankowski and Israel
Gershoni, Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1997), pp. 5-11.
17 Ernest Dawn, “The Origins of Arab Nationalism,” in R. Khalidi, L. Anderson,
M. Muslih and R. S. Simon (eds.), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 3-30.
18 Butrus Abu-Manneh, “The Christians between Ottomanism and Syrian
Nationalism: The ideas of Butrus al-Bustani,” International Journal of Middle
East Studies, 11 (1980), pp. 287-304.
19 Itamar Rabinovich, “Syria and the Syrian Land: the 19th Century Roots of 20th
Century Developments,” in Thomas Philipp (ed.), The Syrian Land in the 18th
and 19th century (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1992), pp. 43-54.
20 Elisée Reclus, Nouvelle Géographie Universelle, Vol. XI, l’Asie Antérieure, (Paris:
Hachette et Cie., 1884), pp. 5-6. See especially the map of ethnographic division
that separates Syria from the rest of the Arab lands. Reclus was also preoccupied
with the ancient Phoenicians themselves and the geographical setting of the Syrian
coast which enabled them to construct their impressive civilization. See in Reclus,
“La Phénicie et les Phéniciens,” Bulletin de la Société Neuchâteloise de
Géographie, XII (1900).
21 Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nationalism, p. 6.
22 See surveys on existing theories in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, “From
the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Representation,” in Eley
and Suny (eds.), Becoming National (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996),
pp. 3-37; Yael Tamir, “The Enigma of Nationalism,” World Politics 47 (April
1995), pp. 418-440.
 INTRODUCTION 19
23 Juan R. I. Cole and Deniz Kandiyoti, “Nationalism and the Colonial Legacy in
the Middle East and Central Asia: Introduction,” International Journal of Middle
East Studies 34(2002), pp. 191-192. For a discussion on the primordialist and the
modernist schools see Smith himself in The Ethnic Origins of Nationalism, pp.
7-13.
24 Anthony D. Smith, “The Myth of the ‘Modern Nation’ and the Myths of Nations,”
Ethnic and Racial Studies II, no. I (January, 1988), p. 9. See also The Ethnic
Origins of Nations, pp. 21-46.
25 Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, pp. 147, 212.
26 Ibid, pp. 36, 86, 168.
27 Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1964), p. 169; see also Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1983),
pp. 48-49.
28 Sami Zubaida, “The Fragments Imagine the Nation: The Case of Iraq,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 34 (2002), p. 206.
29 Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, p. 1.
30 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread
of Nationalism, 2nd revised edition (London: Verso, 1991), p. 6.
31 Ibid, pp. 9-36.
32 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1986); The Nation and Its Fragments (New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1993).
33 Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, p. 5.
34 Betts, Assimilation and Association, p. 8.
35 Archives Diplomatiques (henceforth AD) Nantes, Maroc, carton DAI-63, Capitane
Bertchi, renseignement du cercle des Beni-Mguild, June 15, 1914; M. Bel to
Lyautey, au sujet des écoles franco-berbères dans la région de Meknès.” September
4, 1915; AD Nantes, Maroc, carton DAI-59, M. Le Glay, Contrôleur civil, Notes
contributives à l’étude de la question berbère. Note no. 4 — Comment administrer
les Berbères?; Le Sûreté Général au Général Commandant, Général du Sud au
sujet de l’organisation judiciaire des tribus berbères. July 30, 1913.
36 AD Nantes, Maroc, carton DAI-59, But d’une enquête sur la société berbère aux
points de vue sociologiques et ethnographiques, sa valeur au point de vue politique,
No date. About the establishment of Comité d’Etudes Berbères in Rabat and the
publication of the review Archives Berbères see AD Nantes, Maroc, carton DAI-
59, direction du service des renseignements, January 5, 1919 Rabbath. See also a
lengthy exchange of letters during 1913 between Lyautey and A. le Chatelier, the
General Delegate of the Mission Scientifique du Maroc, carton 17 DAI.
37 A different and more marginal theory about the racial origins of the Berbers
claimed that they were actually the descendents of Jewish tribes who immigrated
to North Africa as part of the Phoenician expansion in the Mediterranean basin.
Nahum Slouschz, Hebréo-Phéniciens et Judéo-Berbères (Paris, 1908); Slouschz,
La Civilisation Hébraïque à Carthage (Paris: E. Leroux, 1911). The works of
Slouschz were embraced by some Revisionist Zionists in the 1920s-1930s and
later became the basis of the Canaanite movement in pre-Israel. On this, see
Ya‘akov Shavit, Me-‘Ivri ‘Ad Kena‘ani [From Hebrew to Canaanite] (Tel-Aviv:
Domino, 1984), pp. 67-93.
20 REVIVING PHOENICIA

38 Robin Bidwell, Morocco Under Colonial Rule (London: Cass, 1973), pp. 53-54;
Edmond Burke, “The Image of the Moroccan State in French Ethnological
Literature: A New Look at the Origin of Lyautey’s Berber Policy,” in Ernest
Gellner and C. Micaud (eds.), Arabs and Berbers (London: Lexington, 1973), p.
194; Louis-Jean Duclos, “The Berbers and the Rise of Moroccan Nationalism,”
Ibid, pp. 217-229.
39 Lahouari Addi, ‘Colonial Mythologies: Algeria in the French Imagination,’ in L.
Carl Brown and Matthew S. Gordon, Franco-Arab Encounters (Beirut: AUB,
1996), pp. 93-105; Charles-Robert Ageron, L’Algérie Algérienne de Napoléon
III à de Gaule (Paris: Sindbad, 1980), p. 38.
40 R. Robinson, “Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for
a Theory of Collaboration,” in Owen and Sutcliff, Studies in the Theory of
Imperialism, pp. 117-142.
 1
First Buds: 1860-1918

The Cedar should be the flag that all Lebanese hold high and that makes
them leap with pride and joy when they see it fluttering over the hill-
tops and in front of their homes, and for which they will sacrifice, if
necessary, their possessions and lives.
The Cedar, witness of the past, will be the witness of the present and
the future.
The Cedar on a foundation of blue, white and red. This is the flag.
French colors. Phoenician colors, too.
The blue, it is the sea that the Phoenicians introduced, through their
vessels, to human history, and which they traversed along the maritime
routes that civilized the world; it is also the azure of a new sky, a new
horizon: the horizon of peace and heaven of liberty.
The white, it is the eternal snow of the mountain; it is also the purity of
the principles of justice, faith and loyalty on which the Lebanese have
been raised.
The red, it is the purple which gave Phoenicia its reputation and its
fortune; it is the blood spilled through the centuries by ancestors to
safeguard rights and traditions; it is also the struggle to hold on, the
sacrifices made to elevate the fatherland to the rank of the most glori-
ous countries.
Before the flag, all Lebanese bow down, whatever their beliefs. If he
[the Lebanese] dies, it is within its folds that he will sleep his final
slumber.
Pierre Raphaël (Maronite-born Jesuit)1

France in the Levant

On October 21, 1860, the French naval ship Colbert set sail from Marseille,
the French gateway to the east, bound for the shores of Lebanon. On deck
was Ernest Renan, the renowned philologist and orientalist, accompanied by
a unit of French soldiers assigned to work with him. Renan was a member of
22 REVIVING PHOENICIA

the French expedition force that had been dispatched to Lebanon following
the bloody events of the spring and summer on Mount Lebanon. Long years
of capitulations and patronage over the Catholic rites in the Ottoman Empire
had led France to intervene in favor of its Christian protégés to try and halt
the civil war and bloodshed. The inclusion of Renan’s scientific expedition in
this military and political mission was a natural step that corresponded with
France’s political agendas. Acquisition of scientific knowledge of areas oc-
cupied by France had become a tradition, begun by Napoleon Bonaparte and
his “Savants” in Egypt in 1798.
Two years before arriving on the Phoenician coast, Renan expressed his
desire to excavate in Byblos, one of the Phoenician city-states, thirty kilometers
north of Beirut. Following the discovery of a Phoenician inscription at the
tomb of Eshmon‘ezer (Sidon, 1856), Renan hoped that a thorough excavat-
ing enterprise along the Phoenician coast would provide more Semitic texts,
similar to those found in Cyprus, Malta and North Africa. During his year-
long sojourn in Lebanon, he excavated in Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Arados.
He also visited Palestine and prepared notes for his book La Vie de Jésus.
Three years after his return to France, he published his corpulent tome, Mis-
sion de Phénicie.2 Renan’s work was not the most significant scientific enter-
prise in the study of ancient Phoenicia, but it was certainly the most popular
at the time. His reputation in France and abroad made his work in Phoenicia
a most celebrated undertaking. It was the first time that a serious field study
had been conducted in Phoenicia itself rather than in its colonies around the
Mediterranean basin, laying the emphasis on the Phoenician city-states of the
Lebanese coast.
Renan, of course, was not the first scholar to study the Phoenician civiliza-
tion. The first attempts to critically probe the history of ancient Phoenicia
were made in the 18th century by French and German scholars, concomi-
tantly with the beginning of the modern and critical study of the Bible and its
civilizations. Jean-Jacques Barthélémy (1716-1795), Arnold Heeren (1760-
1842), François-Charles Movers (1806-1856) and others became the found-
ing fathers of the study of the ancient Phoenician world, long before Ernest
Renan published Mission de Phénicie.3 For them, just as for Renan, Jerusa-
lem, Bethlehem, Sidon and Tyre were almost equally considered part of the
Holy Land.
The attentiveness of the French public to ancient Phoenicia became appar-
ent with the publication of Salammbô,4 the novel by Gustave Flaubert, only a
year after the return of Renan’s exploratory mission. The novel tells the story
of an historical episode of the most eminent Phoenician colony — Carthage.
Flaubert depicted the second war between the Carthaginians and the Romans
in the latter half of the 2nd century BC and thus introduced the Phoenician
world to the average educated French household. Choosing this theme was
by no means coincidental on Flaubert’s part.5 With France’s growing interest
in North Africa, French scholars began studying the ancient civilizations that
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 23
had lived around the Mediterranean basin. Archaeological excavations in the
Levant became intertwined with French Christian missionary work. As of
1867, the historical research of the ancient civilizations in Algeria and Tuni-
sia became inseparably affiliated with the new Bishop of Algeria, Monsignor
Lavigerie. He entrusted the excavations in Carthage to the hands of the Pères
Blancs and, by so doing, set the example that would be followed in geo-
graphical Syria by the Jesuit mission.6 Lavigerie’s archaeological work in
North Africa, just like the Jesuits’ in Syria, was strongly tied to his Christian
convictions. In this missionary enterprise, excavation of the ancient world
was perceived as the unearthing of the missioners’ own cultural roots. It was
a belief shared by most Europeans, lay and clerical alike. By exposing the
ancient past of the Biblical world, Rome, and Greece, they believed they
were actually excavating and exposing their own progenitors and thus dem-
onstrating their own cultural, scientific and political superiority.7 For this
reason the history curricula of French religious and secular schools focused
not only on local or European history but also on the ancient civilizations of
the Levant — Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Canaan and Phoenicia.8
European exposure of eastern civilizations almost always resulted in ro-
mantic, fantastic attitudes. European travelers had always been attracted to
the Orient, but in the 19th century their number increased dramatically, and
the character of the journeys changed as well. If previously they embarked
on their journeys as private adventurers, then as the 19th century progressed
they often came in official expeditionary delegations with a clear agenda of
unearthing what they perceived as their own history and tradition. Shipping
their finds to Europe was the next natural step. Paris, London, and Berlin
became huge warehouses of these finds. Thus was the Egyptian Obelisk
displaced from Luxor and installed in Paris, at the Place de le Concorde, in a
pompous ceremony orchestrated by French King Louis Philippe; and the
tomb of Eshmon‘ezer, the Phoenician king, was taken from Sidon, where it
had rested untouched for 2,600 years, to be laid, with due respect, at the
Louvre.9
The indigenous populations often came under scrutiny as well, much like
the mute archaeological sites. If a European arrived in Jerusalem to search
after King David under the debris of the Old City, he would then often look
for David’s progeny among the contemporary inhabitants of the city. The
same applied to visitors to Mount Lebanon and the surrounding areas. An
example of such an approach, chosen out of numerous books written by Eu-
ropean travelers, is that of Louis Lortet, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
of the University of Lyon. The University had acted as a patron of Université
Saint Joseph in Beirut since its establishment in 1875. The Jesuit order of
Lyon and the University of Lyon became two of the most important factors in
shaping the character of the Jesuit University. The following description is
quoted from Lortet’s account of his visit to Beirut, where Université Saint
Joseph had been recently established:
24 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Dans les rues, en moins d’une heure, on peut voit les descendants de
tous ces peuples divers: voici un Égyptien aux membres grêles, aux
yeux taillés en amande, au profil de sphinx. A côté de lui s’avance un
guerrier semblable à ceux des palais de Khorsabad et de Ninive; les
membres de l’Assyrien sont épais et robustes, les épaules larges, carrées,
fortement musclées; la taille est petite, la barbe épaisse est frisé en tire-
bouchons serrés et sympathique, comme l’étaient celles des terribles
conquérants des bordes de l’Euphrate. Ici passe le successeur de l’ancien
Phénicien: Sa face est fine, distinguée, son nez aquilin, ses lèvres minces,
il est grand et souple dans ses mouvements; ses beaux yeux noirs pétillent
de feu et d’intelligence. N’exiger cependant de lui aucune autre apti-
tude que celle nécessitées pour le commerce; il est âpre au gain,
quelquefois économe jusqu’à l’avarice, entreprenant, et n’hésitera jamais
à vous tromper pour gagner une somme modique [...] Ce sont les dignes
fils de fameux marchands de Tyr, Sidon et Aradus dont les flottes
puissantes trafiquaient dans les contrées les plus lointaines.

So, the streets of Beirut in 1880 were bustling with descendants of ancient
peoples: Egyptians, Assyrians and Phoenicians. The latter have distinct facial
features and, of course, they excel in commerce. The Arab, Lortet informs us,
is:

... pur sang, fort, vigoureux, infatigable, au teint basané, bien musclé
est néanmoins souple et agile; ses jarrets sont d’acier; cavalier accompli,
sa vie passe à cheval. Il a un front largement développé, des lèvres plus
épaisses que celles du Phénicien, un nez moins aquilin [...] Il estime
aussi avant tout commerce, le trafic, mais il est pourtant passionné pour
les luttes du corps, pour les exercices violentes de la guerre et de la
chasse. Son imagination est vive et enjouée, il adore les contes
merveilleux, les poésies d’Antar, les récits des Milles et une nuit.10

These images were prevalent in many of the travelogues published through-

out the 19th century and were shared by the leading intellectual Europeans of
the time. The scents of the Orient intoxicated the Europeans, who began see-
ing what they had wished and dreamed of witnessing. The ancient world was
revived, and an impoverished peasant in Upper Egypt, the Galilee or Mount
Lebanon suddenly became a descendent of an ancient and imposing lineage.
One of the last French sojourners in the Levant who wrote a travelogue in
the tradition of the time was Maurice Barrès, whose name will resurface re-
peatedly in this study. Barrès, the speaker and thinker of the French radical
right after the French defeat by Germany in 1870, visited the Levant on the
eve of World War I and published a two-volume book depicting his impres-
sions. By 1914, he was a person of great fame, and his trip created as much
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 25
enthusiasm among the local intellectual elite as it did among the French mis-
sionaries who welcomed and facilitated his journey. The book is saturated
with romantic images of the Levant and very strong sympathy for the Chris-
tian Syrians and the French missions. His visit to the Ibrahim River, named
Adonis in antiquity after one of the Phoenician deities, inspired him to write
the following passage:

[…] rien ne m’attire plus que cette vallée de l’Adonis, dont nos maîtres
ont fait le paysage romantique par excellence. L’embouchure de l’Adonis
est un endroit charmant, que l’antique Phénicie a chargé de mythes. Le
fleuve y coule au fond d’un abîme. Un bouquet de trembles le surplombe
et fraîchit dans son courant d’air. Je m’y suis assis, sous une tonnelle
pour boire un verre de cette eau sacrée, surgissant des profondes
déchirures du Liban. Adonis est-il mort? Une petite église sur la côte
l’atteste. Elle surveille les lieux où débouchait, il y a dix huit siècles, à
son retour d’Afaka, le cortège des flagellants, des hurleurs, des danseurs,
des mutilés volontaires, des pleureuses et des prêtres.11

Barrès’ enthusiasm with the ancient Phoenician sites in Lebanon caused

him to reflect upon the influence of the ancient world on the present religions
in Lebanon:

Le vieux culte qui, jadis, attira ici tant de pèlerins, a-t-il été anéanti
sous les ruines du temple? Les dieux de Byblos ont-ils coulé au fond
des âges, sans laisser de ride sur l’abîme? Ces vives sources sont-elles
aujourd’hui complètement desséchées? La racine des sentiments et des
mythes qui, durant des siècles, fleurirent auprès d’Afaka, a-t-elle été
arrachée? Qui le dira? Pour moi j’ai peine à croire que le Christianisme
ait transformé les Libanais jusqu’au fond de leur être, jusqu’au sanctuaire
intérieur où naissent les songeries.12

For Barrès there was no question that the ancient cults of Adonis and the
gods of Byblos could still be found in the Christian traditions of Mount Leba-
non. Just like other European travelers to the Orient, he truly believed that the
imprints of the ancient world could be detected in his own time. Barrès ap-
plied this perception first and foremost to France itself. He believed that French
Roman Catholicism was inseparably intertwined with ancient Celtic tradi-
tions. This conviction deeply influenced Christian Lebanese national think-
ers. They were looking for a “nationalism” to emulate, and found it in the
Barrèsian national idea, a point that will be explored later in this study.
Maurice Barrès died in 1923 shortly after the publication of Une Enquête
aux Pays du Levant, his last book.13 In the concluding remarks of his travelogue
he reflected upon the ties between France and the inhabitants of the Orient:
26 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Comment approprierons-nous l’enseignement occidental à nos élèves

orientaux, de telle manière qu’au sortir de nos collèges ils restent
commerçants, propriétaires, fonctionnaires, au milieu des leurs, pareil
aux leurs, encadrés dans les expériences de leur race, et cependant,
grâce à la langue et à la culture, de moins en moins séparés de nous?
[…] Il s’agit de susciter dans ces peuples étrangers le goût de maintenir,
quoi qu’il advienne un jour de leurs destinées nationales, [emphasis in
original text] le contact avec notre intelligence.

How could we teach our Oriental students, Barrès asked, to remain at-
tached to their national destinies and at the same time, through our language
and culture, stay firmly connected to us? This was the prime objective of the
French mission civilisatrice, and in Lebanon the Jesuit Order would take this
task upon itself to fully implement it.

Franco-Maronite Relations

The French attachment to Syria and to the Maronites did not begin in 1860
with their intervention following the civil war on Mount Lebanon. Both French
and Maronites like to assert that Frankish Crusaders found the Maronites to
be faithful allies in a hostile Muslim environment during the Crusade era of
1099-1291. Probably this is a late-19th century projection of their relation-
ship, but even so, this view is indicative of the close Franco-Maronite ties in
modern times. What is unquestionable, though, is that the Maronite Church
became affiliated with the Vatican in Rome, becoming the first Uniate church
in the East.14 In 1584, a Maronite Seminary was established in Rome, rein-
forcing those ties. The mission to establish the seminary was given to an
Italian Jesuit monk named Eliano Romanero. Thus was the link established
between the Jesuits, whose order was founded in 1534, and the Maronites.15
The Roman-Maronite connection strengthened the Vatican’s influence over
the latter. Maronite children were sent to Rome where they spent their forma-
tive years acquiring religious education and foreign languages; they returned
to Mount Lebanon as clergymen with knowledge of Latin and Italian.16 With
the entry of the French Jesuit order into Syria in 1831, however, French lan-
guage and culture took over all other foreign influences.17 Since the Capitula-
tions Agreement was signed with the Sublime Porte in 1535, France had con-
sidered itself to be the guardian of the Catholics in the Ottoman Empire.18 In
1860, following the massacre of thousands of Christians in Mount Lebanon
during the sanguineous civil war, it was only natural that France would inter-
vene on behalf of its longtime and beloved protégés.
French travelers to the Levant who visited Mount Lebanon have always
written in remarkably warm terms about the Maronites. One, who passed
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 27
through just after the bloody events of 1860, emphatically wrote about the
Maronites the following words:

Il y a pourtant là un peuple dont il est utile d’étudier le caractère; il y a

pourtant là un peuple qui vit, qui pense, qui progresse comme nous; et
si peuple mérite notre sympathie; c’est certainement celui lui; il y a là
un peuple dont toutes les traditions sont des témoignages de notre
ancienne chevalerie; il y a là un peuple qui sème le grain, fait pousser
les mûriers, et voit mûrir la ligne et les orangers sur le sol qui fut le
berceau sanglant de la noblesse des premières maisons de France; il y a
là un peuple qui sait mourir pour les mêmes idées que nous défendons;
mourir, non comme nos soldats d’Europe, avec la mâle consolation que
chaque goutte de leur sang qui tombe est une perle pour la couronne de
gloire que l’Histoire leur réserve, mais mourir martyr et ignoré, sous le
yatagan du fanatisme. Ce peuple, c’est le peuple maronite.19

Words in this spirit had become commonplace in the relationship between

the Maronites and the French. The idea that the Maronites were in fact “les
Français du Levant” was a wish made by both sides – the Maronites, who
entrusted their hopes to the French, and the French who, on the one hand, had
sincere feelings for the Maronites and, on the other, aspired to find a perfect
collaborator for their colonial aspirations in the region.20 The affection of the
French towards the Maronites and the genuine belief in France’s protective
role were important pillars of the latter’s policy in Syria and Lebanon. French
officials, from 1860-1920 and beyond, cultivated the idea that the Maronites
were as close as one could get in the Orient to a civilized and noble culture.21
Only with the formation of the mandate regime over Syria and Lebanon were
mythical notions confronted with reality. Until 1920, and in the few years after
the creation of Greater Lebanon, French officials in the Métropole and in Bei-
rut, the domicile of the High Commissioner, were taken by such sentiments.
Once Greater Lebanon was formed, the French worked ardently to turn it
into a Western-oriented stronghold, for it precisely matched their colonial
doctrine. By establishing a collaborative state, it was believed that it would
be far easier to control the rest of the mandated territories of Syria. Robert de
Caix, the first secretary of the High Commissioner, was one of the most in-
fluential persons to set French policy in Syria and Lebanon during the first
five years of the mandate. An active member of numerous French colonial
circles and colonial ventures, de Caix had worked tirelessly in Morocco, along
with General Gouraud, especially in forming the “divide and rule” policy
between the Berbers and the Arabs.22 When he and Gouraud were transferred
to Syria, de Caix brought with him similar ideas to implement in the newly
acquired territories. He envisioned a complete separation of Syria and Leba-
non — the first belonging to the East, the latter to the West:
28 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Enfin ce qui me parait maintenant le plus important c’est de bien as-

surer la séparation du Grand Liban d’avec la Syrie, l’un doit évoluer
autant que possible vers l’occident, et l’autre nous donner un terrain
d’accès sur le monde oriental. Je me suis d’accord avec le Général sur
ce point […].23

De Caix himself was a very religious person, who was well suited for the
first five years of the French mandate in Lebanon, years that were character-
ized by a very strong French pro-Christian orientation. Nor was the selection
of General Gouraud to the post of High Commissioner coincidental. Gouraud
was also a devout Catholic, whose faith tremendously influenced his poli-
cies. The two, like many other French, regarded the Christian Lebanese, in
general, and the Maronites and the Greek Catholics, in particular, as brothers
of the same faith. Indeed, this notion dramatically influenced the colonial
psyche of France in Syria and Lebanon. It was the only colonial setting in the
French empire where a colonized group shared the faith of the colonizer with-
out any process of proselytizing.
The religious affinity between Christian Syro-Lebanese and the French
cannot be regarded casually. For the French, colonizing was not only an eco-
nomic and political enterprise, it was a Mission civilisatrice, a mission to
civilize. France, as the embodiment of a superior civilization that believed it
absorbed its grandeur from the Roman Empire and Christian creed, could not
simply colonize a territory without spreading its lofty civilization among the
natives. Gabriel Hanotaux, the French foreign minister from 1894-1898, who
worked tirelessly to revive France’s interest in colonialism, was one of the
officials who determined the French colonial idea of the Third Republic. Af-
ter retiring from politics, he turned to historiography and edited a multi-vol-
ume study on French colonialism. In a sub-chapter entitled “L’expansion doit-
il être religieuse” he wrote:

La véritable question est de savoir si l’expansion sur les terres lointaines

peut se justifier si elle n’offre pas un idéal de civilisation supérieure, et
si cet idéal lui-même ne doit pas être soutenu par une croyance
religieuse?
Logiquement, toute action prolongée d’un peuple sur l’autre suppose
un bien fait offert dans les mœurs, dans la direction sociale, non moins
que dans la prospérité matérielle. Il n’y a de conquête excusable que si
elle conserve, protège, élève les peuples qu’elle se soumet.
Pour toute puissance civilisée, fille de la civilisation méditerranéenne,
l’expansion aboutit donc, logiquement, à une extension de la morale
chrétienne [emphasis added, A.K.] puisque celle-ci est à la base de toute
la civilisation moderne. Et il se trouve, en fait, que toutes les puissances
qui ont exercé ou exercent une influence extérieure ont eu et ont des
missionnaires. En fait également, il s’est trouvé que les populations
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 29
occupées, colonisées, ou seulement entraînées dans un courant
civilisateur, n’ont pu s’adapter au bien fait qui leur était présenté que
par un moment plus au moins marqué de leur part vers la pensée
supérieure qui animait les peuples expansionnistes. Si par suit d’un
esprit farouche de résistance, ou, au contraire, par suite d’une trop cruelle
exigences des maîtres, cette amélioration ne se produit pas, ou bien les
populations conquises retournent à la barbarie, ou bien elles persistent
faute d’adaptation.24

Christianity, for Hanotaux, was the foundation and the moral justification
of expansion, especially for France as a Mediterranean power. Such a view
was normal and even conventional among colonial circles in those days; but
in this context Lebanon poses an intriguing situation. Maronites who had for
centuries regarded themselves associated with Catholicism, and who shared
the same Mediterranean Sea with their guardian angel, did not need this civi-
lizing mission, for they were already civilized and well behaved.
Romanticism aside, the Maronites, of course, were not actually treated on
equal terms by the French, yet they did constitute a special case in their em-
pire. One example that illustrates this special status is the idea of transferring
the Maronites to Algeria, which was raised twice by French colonialists —
first after the 1840-1845 events in Mount Lebanon and again following the
1860 civil war. The desire to help their “Christian brothers in a sea of Islamic
hatred” led Frenchmen to come up with this proposition, for it was believed
that in Algeria they would be able to live safely and prosper, thus meeting the
interests of both the Maronites and the French.25 When this idea was pro-
posed, France was just beginning to recreate its overseas empire. The
Maronites, the colonialists believed, were good farmers and good merchants,
they spoke French and, most important of all, they could help France rule
Algeria more easily. In fact, they were like the Berber Kabyles, only better —
they were Christian. The initiative was never realized, but it illustrates how
the French regarded the Maronites in the context of their colonial venture: a
well-loved collaborative group that could only facilitate the process of colo-
nization.

The Jesuits in Syria and Lebanon

From the time of the establishment of the Maronite College in Rome in 1584,
the Jesuit Order was strongly involved in geographical Syria. Jesuits always
considered education the best means of attaining their religious ends. They
aspired not only to influence Christian character and education but also to
have a deep and lasting impact on society at large and on the elite strata in
particular. To achieve this objective, they established chains of schools and
educated children from a very young age according to a strict curriculum.26 It
30 REVIVING PHOENICIA

is not without reason that the telling phrase “give us a child of seven and we
have him forever” is attributed to the Jesuits. In their activities for the Church,
Jesuit priests have often appeared to be opportunists, changing their disposi-
tions due to their subtle understanding of politics, willing to change their
methods and activities in line with the circumstances of time and place. The
College in Rome became an important channel through which Jesuits left
their mark on Maronite students, who, indeed, were often not more than seven
years old. When these students returned to their parishes in Mount Lebanon,
the Jesuit experience remained imprinted on their spirits.
In 1739, the Vatican replaced the Jesuits with the Lazarist Order to run the
Catholic establishments in Mount Lebanon. The Jesuits, however, returned
to the scene in 1831, and this time it was French Jesuits, from Lyon, who
became involved in the missionary work in geographical Syria.27 Their ar-
rival in Beirut that year was in large part the Vatican’s response to the activi-
ties of the American Protestant mission in the region, which had started oper-
ating there in 1823 and caused much anxiety among local Catholics.28
Slowly but surely the new Jesuit mission set up educational institutions in
Mount Lebanon and the surrounding areas. Soon, their superior position in
education became incontestable. Surpassing the position of the American
mission, it was only a matter of time before French became the dominant
foreign language in Syria. The Jesuits spread their famous educational web
and, like a well-oiled machine, were preoccupied with dogmatic instruction
of the Order’s principles, Christianity and French language and culture. Other
French orders followed suit, contributing to the domination of the French
language in Syria. Indeed, religious schools were the spearhead in propagat-
ing French culture in Syria and by the late-19th century at the tip of the spear,
stood Université Saint Joseph.
The first French institute of higher education to be established in Mount
Lebanon was the college in ‘Aintoura, founded in 1734 by Lazarist priests. In
1843 the Oriental Seminary in Ghazir was inaugurated by the Jesuits and
became the leading French missionary school in Syria. By the 1870s, the
Seminary was no longer large enough to satisfy the needs of the mission.
Université Saint Joseph was founded in 1875 to meet the mission’s expand-
ing needs and as a response to the establishment of the Syrian Protestant
College (after 1920, known as the American University of Beirut, or AUB)
only a few years earlier by the American Protestant mission.29
Université Saint Joseph was founded with firm links to France and its
culture. Money flowed from the French government and the university en-
joyed wide political and academic patronage. Academic ventures, political
considerations and commercial interests were often intertwined in the Jesuit
missionary enterprise in Syria and Lebanon. Paul Huvelin is an example of
such an amalgam. He was the dean of the Law Faculty of the University of
Lyon and the head of La mission économique française en Syrie, and he had
strong and warm ties with High Commissioner Gouraud.30 In January 1919,
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 31
the city of Marseille hosted the “Congrès français de la Syrie”. The partici-
pants were all economic, political and religious interest groups attempting to
pressure the French government to take full control of Syria. Among those
attending the congress were representatives of the University of Lyon and the
Lyonnaise Jesuit Order. Huvelin, in an address to the conference, stated:

La France est devenue en Syrie indiscutablement souveraine. La Syrie

est pénétrée jusqu’à la moelle d’influence française. Son instrument
d’action le plus puissant est l’école. Tous les gens cultivés, musulmans
et chrétiens, parlent et pensent français ... Grâce aux écoles françaises,
le français est devenu pour un très grand nombre de Syriens la langue
maternelle ... Il y a là quelque chose d’admirable. Je ne sais pas si
l’histoire nous fournit un autre exemple de la conquête pacifique d’un
pays par une langue ... Il faut remercier profondément, il faut saluer
très bas les bons artisans de cet effort généreux ... Je salue en premier
lieu nos missionnaires français. Sans eux, la France ne serait rien là-
bas, Ils ont accompli une oeuvre admirable ... Le patriotisme des
congrégations françaises dans le Levant est pur, jaloux, ardent. Leur
enseignement est purement chrétien et ouvertement français; français
d’abord, chrétien ensuite.31

Huvelin’s words should be read, of course, in the context of the time and
place they were articulated. He had many reasons to highlight the success of
the French missions in Syria in disseminating French domination. His speech,
nevertheless, reflects the fact that the French missions were indeed penetrat-
ing the fabric of the local society and leaving a lasting impact, especially
among the urban upper-middle class in Beirut.
As the 20th century unfolded, Université Saint Joseph was already com-
posed of the Oriental Seminary (transferred from Ghazir to Beirut) and the
departments of medicine, pharmacology, theology, and philosophy. In 1902,
the Faculté orientale was inaugurated, offering courses in classical Semitic
languages, epigraphy, local ancient history, archaeology and geography.32 By
1905, the Faculty represented the university at international conferences and
in 1906 its monthly review, Mélange de la Faculté Orientale, was launched.33
The Oriental Faculty of Université Saint Joseph was by now the quintessen-
tial center for the study and teaching of the ancient Near East. Many of its
teachers were eminent scholars in their fields and some would play an instru-
mental role in the dissemination of separatist, non-Arab, Syrian and Leba-
nese ideas. Names like Henri Lammens, Louis Jalabert, Sébastian and Louis
Ronzavelle, Louis Cheikho and others embellished the faculty and elevated
it to the highest standards of scholarly work.
Even before the formation of the Oriental Faculty, scholars from the uni-
versity began publishing works at the Imprimerie catholique, setting forth
the history of Syria before the Arab conquest. In the 1880s, the Jesuit teacher
32 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Father Pierre Martin wrote Histoire Générale de la Syrie, the original of which
did not go to print;34 but in 1889 Rashid al-Khuri al-Shartuni translated it to
Arabic and published it as Tarikh Lubnan,35 thereby launching the historical,
archeological and geographical series of the Imprimerie catholique. Martin’s
manuscript was a detailed three-volume work dealing with the ancient his-
tory of Mount Lebanon and the surrounding regions. The first volume begins
by placing Lebanon as part of the Promised Land. Then, Martin moves to
define, very generously, the geographical limits of Lebanon, from Hamma in
the north to the Gilad Mountains in the south. He gives a detailed account of
the Phoenician city-states — their origin, expansion, rulers, religion, mytho-
logical stories and various crafts — and delves into a discussion of the his-
torical sources on the Phoenicians and the extent of their credibility. Martin
depicted the Phoenician cities as one independent and magnificent civiliza-
tion. He made no attempt to link the ancient Phoenicians directly to the mod-
ern inhabitants of Mount Lebanon, but his work represents a new phase in the
study of ancient Lebanon by its depth and extent. When the Maronite Bishop
of Beirut, Yusuf al-Dibs, wrote his eight-volume tome, Kitab Tarikh Suriyya
[The Book of Syrian History], to be discussed later, it was the Jesuit Father
Martin who served as his major source of reference.36
Pierre Martin may have been the first Jesuit scholar to write extensively
about the ancient history of Syria while emphasizing Mount Lebanon and the
coast. It was, however, Henri Lammens who made the most significant con-
tribution to the dissemination of the pre-Islamic history of Syria.37 Lammens
was actually a student of the early Islamic era, where he obtained his world
fame — and infamy.38 He wrote, though, about the ancient history of Syria as
well and turned out to be the most important scholar to supply supporters of
separatist Syrian and Lebanese national movements with scholarly ammuni-
tion for their arguments. He extensively published articles about Lebanon
and its ancient past in the journal of Université Saint Joseph, al-Mashriq,
based on lectures he presented between 1898-1906. In 1906, these articles
were bound into a two-volume book entitled Tasrih al-Absar fi ma Yahtawi
Lubnan min al-Athar [Panorama of Archeological Inventory in Lebanon].39
The first volume concentrates on the archaeology and ancient history of Leba-
non; the second is preoccupied with its geography and ethnography, and con-
tains the substance of many courses Lammens led at the Oriental Faculty
during 1904-1905.
Lammens made a substantial contribution to Saint Joseph, serving for years
as the administrative director of the university’s curriculum. He learned and
taught the history and geography of Syria, embracing this mission with an
enthusiasm that was only comparable to the strength of his contempt for Is-
lam. Even before the publication of his famous book, La Syrie; Prècis
Historique, Lammens’ writings provided Christian Syro-Lebanese with schol-
arly explanations for a separatist Syrian collective identity. He also perfected
the theory of “l’asile du Liban.” According to this theory, Mount Lebanon
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 33
was a region that, along the course of history, had become a refuge for op-
pressed minorities. In this way, although threatened by the Arab-Islamic oc-
cupation, the authentic character of Syria was preserved. In the same book he
widened the definition of the separatist Syrian nationality, based on a na-
tional Syrian consciousness and a Syrian race going back as far as the
Phoenician seafarers. Lammens claimed that ancient Phoenicians were actu-
ally full-fledged Syrians; that the Syrians, from the days of the Phoenician
city-states, were a homogeneous nation; and that the Syrian national idea
had, even back then, begun to materialize in the subconscious of the Syrians.
Lammens may have been one of the first visionaries of separatist Syrian na-
tionalism. As early as 1904 he wrote about the importance of geography in
shaping Syrian nationalism.40 Despite his support for a Syrian, non-Arab,
national consciousness, Lammens’ contribution to Lebanese separatist ideas
was even greater. He enriched the research (albeit very subjectively) and as-
sisted in the consolidation of the Lebanist idea. He was the first to connect
the success of the ancient Phoenicians in commerce to liberal economy, a
concept that later would be used by the neo-Phoenicians. Most importantly,
Lammens was the first to cite, use and restore to life the 1861 French map of
Lebanon, drawn by the French expedition. This map included, in addition to
Mount Lebanon, the coast, the Biqa‘ and Jabal ‘Amil and was used in 1919
as a major card in the Maronites’ demands for the establishment of Greater
Lebanon.41 The weight of Lammens can be viewed in almost every book
written by Syro-Lebanese from the turn of the 20th century until the 1940s.
They all refer to his works as academic proof of the existence of a unique
Syrian or Lebanese national community. His name became inseparably asso-
ciated with Université Saint Joseph and with the pro-Christian policy of France
in Lebanon. The Maronite Lebanese historian, Youakim Moubarak, rightly
defined Lammens as a person who occupied the triple vocation of a scholar,
a missioner and a militant, partisan of the Christian Catholic orientalism.42
Lammens will reappear often in this work, since, almost without exception,
all the champions of the “Phoenician plot” used him as their scholarly pillar.
As important as Lammens was for the circulation of pre-Islamic Syrian
history, he was not the only person at Université Saint Joseph or in Lebanon
to write on the country’s ancient history. In 1918, shortly after the end of
WWI, a very important study — Lubnan; Mabahith ‘Ilmiyya wa Ijtima‘iyya
[Lebanon: Scientific and Social Studies] — was published in Beirut.43 The
initiator of this publication was Isma‘il Haqqi Bey, the governor of Beirut. In
July 1915, the Ottoman government formally abrogated the Règlement
Organique and appointed a Muslim governor, instead of the Mutasarrif who
was a Christian Ottoman subject. In May 1916, Isma‘il Haqqi Bey was ap-
pointed by the Ottoman government as governor of Mount Lebanon, a posi-
tion that he held for a year. He was then assigned to be the governor of Beirut
and remained so until the entrance of the Allied forces to the city in October
1918.44 Although Haqqi was not of Lebanese origin, he demonstrated great
34 REVIVING PHOENICIA

interest in the country. He was in office in Lebanon no more than two years,
but he left in his wake one of the most important scholarly projects on Leba-
non at the time. It was a social, economic, historical and geo-political study
of “Lebanon and Phoenicia” [sic] that was considered, well into the 1960s, a
major source of information about the region. One thousand copies of the
book were printed in Beirut in 1918 and distributed to all administrators of
the Mutasarrifiyya. The introduction of the first edition stated that the book
was published so that the Lebanese administrators would learn about them-
selves and about the country they administered. The Jesuit fathers Antun
Salhani and Louis Cheikho (the former of Syrian descent and the latter from
Kurdistan, Turkey), from Université Saint Joseph, headed the project. Non-
clerical Lebanese, such as Bulus Nujaym, Albert Naccache, ‘Isa Iskandar al-
Ma‘luf and others, contributed articles to the book.45 Although the project
makes no claims for the establishment of a separate Lebanese political entity,
it portrays a strong awareness of a unique Lebanese consciousness, with its
own historical memory connecting the Mountain and the coast. A detailed
account, by Salhani, of the physical geography of wider Lebanon, opened the
book. Cheikho wrote a chapter on antiquities in Lebanon, focusing on the
Phoenician and Roman eras. He also wrote on “Ethnicities in Lebanon and
their Religious Beliefs.” Al-Ma‘luf wrote on “Lebanese Characteristics and
Costumes,” surveying in detail the distinct Lebanese way of living, shared by
local Christians, Muslims and Druze. Naccache contributed a chapter on the
economic situation in Mount Lebanon. And there is a chapter on the history
of Lebanon from antiquity until WWI, co-written by Cheikho and Nujaym.
In Cheikho and Nujaym’s lengthy chapter, the appellations “Lebanon” and
“Phoenicia” appear next to each other, the first denoting the Mountain and
the latter the coastal range. The Phoenician coast is described as an insepara-
ble part of Mount Lebanon, from the Litani estuary in the south to Tripoli,
Arwad and the‘Akkar in the north.46 The historical survey begins with a clear
statement that Lebanon has never been an independent entity, but rather has
been attached to Syria since the beginning of time. We should remember that
in 1918, when the book was written, there were a few Lebanese who advo-
cated a separate Lebanese entity (mainly activists of the Alliance libanaise in
Egypt).47 Lebanon, even as an autonomous region, was perceived as part of a
larger geographical Syrian sphere, and Cheikho and Nujaym only expressed
the prevailing view on this issue.
Although geographically, the project differentiates between Phoenicia (the
coast) and Lebanon (the Mountain), the two names are often used interchange-
ably.48 Thus, a sentence such as the one that follows is often found in the
book:

If we unveiled our ears to Phoenician traditions which were collected

by Sanchoniathon, the Beiruti historian, in the fourth century before
Christ and that Philo of Byblos, Istephan of Byzantium and Usapyus
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 35
the Caesarian carried (to future generations), we would claim that Leba-
nese history begins with the creation of the two first humans.49

The work, in its entirety, provides a very strong sense of continuity be-
tween the ancient civilizations in Lebanon and the modern Lebanese. The
extensive historical survey follows very closely the different occupiers and
political vicissitudes from antiquity to modernity in Phoenicia and Lebanon.
When writing about the Arab occupation, the message is clear. Arabs first
arrived in Lebanon and Phoenicia in 631 AD with the Islamic conquests, but
they had not been successful in entering the Mountain, at least not until the
Fatimid occupation. Even then, the Arabs did not enter the northern, Chris-
tian, districts of the Mountain.50
There is a very detailed account in the book of the different races and
ethnic groups that have composed the population of Phoenicia and Lebanon.
Cheikho’s chapter, “The Ethnic Groups (‘anasir) in Lebanon and their Reli-
gious Beliefs,” portrays the population of Lebanon and Phoenicia as a mélange
of races, starting with the Canaanites, the Arameans and going through all the
different peoples and occupiers that shaped the population of the region. The
Canaanite race, according to the book, remained dominant in Phoenicia until
the time of Jesus. This argument is based on the New Testament, which tells
that Jesus visited the Phoenician coast and cured a Canaanite woman in the
area of Tyre and Sidon.51 It is a significant point because it links the Canaanites
with the birth of Christianity. Thus, a continuous narrative is suggested be-
tween the Canaanite Phoenicians and Christianity, a point that will be used to
full advantage by the neo-Phoenicians.
This work, sponsored by Haqqi, is clearly not a Phoenician manifesto.
Some studies in the book are not even favorable towards the ancient
Phoenicians. In the chapter on Lebanese ethnicities and their religious be-
liefs, Cheikho uses derogatory terms to describe Phoenician paganism. Mono-
theism was the basis of their religion, he claims, but later Phoenicians sub-
verted this monotheism and increased the number of deities in their pan-
theon, giving them wives and worshiping natural phenomena. The pagan na-
ture of Phoenician civilization was always a problem with which Christian
Lebanese had to grapple. It is one of the prime reasons why the Maronite
Church could not possibly advocate for a kinship between the ancient
Phoenician faith and Christianity.52 There was a need for non-clerical Chris-
tian Lebanese to make this correlation between the ancient and the new civi-
lizations, as indeed would occur.
The significance of Lubnan; Mabahith ‘Ilmiyya wa Ijtima‘iyya lies in the
knowledge it conveys and in the writers who participated in its writing. Lead-
ing Jesuit scholars along with local Lebanese, administrators of the
Mutasarrifiyya and teachers from the Syrian Protestant College, joined forces
and wrote this comprehensive study, which radiates a unique historical aware-
ness of “Lebanon and Phoenicia.” A reading of it shows us that by 1918 the
36 REVIVING PHOENICIA

full knowledge of ancient Phoenicia was already available for local Syro-
Lebanese, and not necessarily in the context of anti-Arab sentiments.
Phoenicianism in Lebanon expressed as anti-Arabism would indeed surface,
and not too long after the publication of this book, but WWI had to terminate;
the Ottoman Empire had to disintegrate, and the Arab government in Damas-
cus had to be established before Phoenicianism became associated with anti-
Arab notions.

Maronite Clergy and the History of Syria and Lebanon

The contemporary historiography of modern Lebanon takes it for granted

that Phoenicianism is a Maronite ideology, born and promoted by the Maronite
Church. Meir Zamir, for example, in his important book, The Formation of
Modern Lebanon, notes that the Maronite Church, through its clergy’s
historiographic writings, preserved the community’s faith, unity and iden-
tity. These writings, Zamir asserts, emphasized the ethnic uniqueness of the
Maronites and the claim that Phoenician ancestry originated with them.53
However, as I shall demonstrate below, this was not the case. There is no
doubt that the Maronite Church served as a major force in the construction
of the Lebanese national consciousness. It provided a kind of pole around
which a distinct sense of identity was constructed. From the early 19th cen-
tury the Church became a crucial player in the politics of the region as its
power increased. It served as far more than a religious establishment for the
Maronites. It was the source of their distinct identity, which separated them
from the rest of the communities in the region. For centuries, Maronite clergy
have been preoccupied with writing the annals of the church, its saints, lead-
ers and institutions.54 Yet, a close look at these writings reveals that the his-
torical horizons of Maronite chroniclers went back only as far as the begin-
ning of Christianity and not before. These writers were concerned more with
the Church and its flock than with the history of the land on which both
resided. An issue that was of major concern was the question of Maronite
loyalty to the Vatican. The preoccupation with this point only grew in the
19th century with the increasing exposure to Europe. Maronite clergy obses-
sively tried to prove the Roman Catholic adherence of the Maronites from
the first days of the Church’s existence.55 Two of the most important books
by Maronite clergymen in the 19th century, Nicolas Murad and Abbé Azar,
are a case in point.56 The teleological narrative in both books begins with the
rise of Christianity, and not before. Azar’s work is a chronology of Christi-
anity in general and the Maronites in particular in Lebanon, written in a
traditional historiographical manner. The Maronites, for him, were the Cho-
sen People of God who have preserved Catholicism since the beginning of
Christianity. They have never knelt before Ba‘al, who, for Azar, symbolized
heresy.57 This view of Ba‘al, the leading God in the Phoenician pantheon —
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 37
considered in the Bible an abhorred deity — was only understandable in the
context of Maronite religious writing of the time. We shall see in the follow-
ing chapters the way other Maronites, not affiliated directly with the Church,
related to this idol.
Far more than Azar, the importance of Murad’s book cannot be exagger-
ated. It is the first book written in French by a Maronite demanding a separate
political entity for the Christians in Mount Lebanon. Moreover, arguably, this
is the first work that voiced the Lebanist idea.58 It is, therefore, crucial to note
that the historical narrative, which Murad detailed in his plea to French au-
thorities, began with the birth of the Maronite Church. “La Nation maronite,”
Murad firmly stated at the outset of the book, “tire son origine d’un saint
anachorète appelé Marone, lequel existait vers la fin du IVe siècle, et dont le
nom était en grande vénération au Liban et dans toute la Syrie.”59 Murad
attempted throughout the book to demonstrate, first, the Maronite alliance
with Catholicism and, second, the attachment to France. Maronite
francophilism and Catholicism served for him as justification to ask assist-
ance from France in the formation of a political entity for the Maronites in
Mount Lebanon. All this is without mentioning, even once, either Phoenicians
or any pre-Christian historical notions.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the content of writings by Maronite
clergy on Maronite identity slowly changed. Religious history still dominated,
but as a result of the expansion of scientific knowledge about the region,
other details were added to the origins of the “mountain people.” Yusuf al-
Dibs, the Maronite archbishop of Beirut, is a case in point. His series, Kitab
Tarikh Suriyya [The Book of Syrian History], is a good example of the slow
change of emphasis in the historiography of the Maronites. His major sources
of reference were works completed by Jesuit teachers from Université Saint
Joseph and particularly Father Martin. Al-Dibs noted in his introduction that
until now there had not been a single book in Arabic which dealt with the
“history of our nation Syria” (tarikh watanina Suriyya).60 His work, he con-
tinued, is addressed to the clerical and lay reader alike. This eight-volume
project is constructed as a pyramid. The first volumes portray a wide picture
of geographical Syria from biblical times through the Persian, Greek and
Roman eras. The historical recounting, however, narrows as the volumes
progress, and focuses on the history of the Maronite Church and other East-
ern Christian denominations. The lion’s share of the first volume concen-
trates on the Phoenician past of the Syrian coastal range. Al-Dibs deals with
the origins of the Phoenicians, their commercial skills, their colonies, crafts,
the invention of the alphabet and other subjects that later, over the 20th cen-
tury, became the basis for the assertions of the new Phoenicians of their rich
past and their invaluable contribution to human civilization.61 Al-Dibs made
no direct link between the ancient dwellers of Lebanon and the current inhab-
itants, but he created a continuous chronological narrative from the ancient
Phoenicians to the present inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. Later this descrip-
38 REVIVING PHOENICIA

tion would be adopted and extended by Lebanese who were reconstructing

the history of their emerging nation.
The last Maronite clergyman I would like to draw attention to is Patriarch
Elias Hoyek (Huwayyek) who led his community from 1899-1931, during
one of the most decisive eras for the Maronites and for Lebanon alike.62 Hoyek
was the first to use communiqués as a means to address his community on
occasions or dates of importance. These communiqués were read by the local
priests at Sunday gatherings in church. It was the first time the Maronites
were able to listen to the same message from their leader, simultaneously,
throughout Lebanon.63 Religious convictions, in particular the Maronite un-
ion with Catholicism, patriotism and education are the three most discussed
subjects in the communiqués, which are imbued with a very strong sense of a
Maronite collective consciousness. As for patriotism (hubb al-watan), Hoyek
believed that there cannot be a separation between religion and love of nation
(hubb al-watan min al-din).64 His patriotic horizons, however, never exceeded
the beginning of Christianity. Even when he spoke about “our ancestors”
(ajdaduna),65 he always referred to the founders of the Maronite Church and
never to anything that occurred before the birth of Christian faith. Influenced
by romantic nationalistic ideas, he believed that every nation had a mission to
the world. The mission of the Maronites was to spread Christianity, espe-
cially in the non-Christian Middle East. The role of the civilizing mission of
Lebanon since antiquity was an important pillar in the construction of the
Lebanese national consciousness, but for Hoyek this mission had no secular,
non-Christian, denotation.
The Maronite Church, parochial in nature, could not preach in favor of the
non-Christian, pagan adherence of its ancestors. Even al-Dibs, who wrote
extensively on ancient Phoenicia and whose work is indeed impressive in its
depth, could not write about the pagan Phoenician ancestry of his flock. The
Church indeed provided the foundation for a separate ancestry and a distinct
ethnic cohesiveness, but it was among non-clerical intellectuals (who were
the product of years of exposure to European education in Syria, Egypt and
other emigrant communities of Syro-Lebanese), many of whom were not
Maronites, that the Phoenician myth of origin would surface.

Lay Syro-Lebanese and the Ancient History of Syria

The extensive exposure of Syrians, most of whom were Christians, to West-

ern education created a new type of local intellectual strata. If previously
education was in the hands of the various local churches, the foundation of
foreign missionary schools offered an alternative that challenged the old po-
litical power of these churches. The missionary schools, of course, were not
the only factor that brought this change. The weakening of the Ottoman Em-
pire, the subsequent reform efforts (the Tanzimat) and increasing emigration
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 39
all assisted in the creation of a new type of Syrian who began questioning the
long-lived clerical domination of all aspects of life in Syria in general and
Mount Lebanon in particular.66
Dissemination of modern scientific knowledge was one facet of this change.
As we have seen, the writing of history or chronicles was mainly restricted to
clergy who were preoccupied only with traditional, religious annals of their
communities. The 19th century marked a change in perspective. Perhaps the
first to write in a secular form on the history of Mount Lebanon was Tannus
al-Shidyaq (1794[?]-1861). He was born into a distinguished Maronite fam-
ily strongly influenced by the exposure to Western missions and education.
One of his brothers converted to Protestantism, a phenomenon directly re-
lated to American missionary influence, and another became one of the pil-
lars of the Arabic literary movement, the Nahda. Tannus al-Shidyaq wrote
several books of history, but his most celebrated work was Kitab Akhbar al-
A‘yan fi Jabal Lubnan [The Book of Information about Notable Families in
Mount Lebanon], written in Beirut in 1857-1859. Scholars have noted that
this book demonstrates the shift from the traditional style of historical cleri-
cal writing to secular historiography.67 It surveys the chronicles of distin-
guished families, many of whom were not even Christian and the general
atmosphere of the book is, by and large, secular. Al-Shidyaq opened this book
by defining the limits of Mount Lebanon and reviewing the different sects
residing on the Mountain. Then, in a chapter entitled “Mudun Lubnan al-
Finiqiyya” [The Lebanese Phoenician Cities], he described the eight princi-
pal cities of the Phoenician coast and provided a short historical account of
each.68 He referred to the Mountain and the coast as an integral part of his-
toric Lebanon and, in doing so, came closer than any other writer of his time
to defining the borders of Greater Lebanon. He asserted that a Lebanese en-
tity had existed since time immemorial, not only as a religious group or a
familial estate but as a self-conscious society. The fact that al-Shidyaq’s book
begins with a historical survey of the Lebanese people starting with the an-
cient Phoenicians is very important for understanding the development of the
Phoenician idea in Lebanon. It shows us that, even before Renan’s celebrated
mission to Lebanon, a lay Maronite wrote about the Phoenicians in a history
book, although he stopped short of describing the dwellers of Mount Leba-
non as direct descendants of the ancient Phoenicians.
Tannus al-Shidyaq died in 1861, about the same time as Renan conducted
his scientific mission to Phoenicia and as the Arab literary renaissance move-
ment, the Nahda, was in a moment of ascendancy. The Nahda, whose center
was in Beirut and whose leading personalities were associated with the Ameri-
can Protestant mission, did not only strive to revive Arabic language and
culture. Its leading protagonists aspired to use Arabic as a vehicle for the
formation of a secular identity in the territory they defined as geographical
Syria. They did not present Arabic as the holy language of the Quran, but
rather as a secular unifier of all Arabic speakers. For the same reason, the
40 REVIVING PHOENICIA

group of people who led the Arabic Nahda also initiated interest in the an-
cient pre-Arab-Islamic era of the region. It was a social group that broke
away from the old socio-political system of Mount Lebanon seeking new
avenues of knowledge, and viewed history in a more challenging way. One
of the prime platforms where Nahda members first presented their historical
worldview was the Syrian Society for the Acquisition of Sciences. Formed in
1847 in Beirut by American missionaries and some of their local Christian
students, the society manifested, probably for the first time, the term Syria in
such a context.69 Its activists strove to spread the message of the importance
of education in the region. Some of the lectures given in the Society’s gather-
ing focused on the history of Syria, from the Phoenician era to modernity.
These lectures often radiated a sense of pride in the Phoenician legacy of the
region and a desire to revive the glory days of that ancient Syrian epoch.70
There is no better illustration for the mindset of this literary group than
Da’irat al-Ma‘arif, the Encyclopedia of Butrus al-Bustani and his four sons,
written between 1876-1900. This encyclopedia contained the available body
of knowledge that existed in Syria in the late-19th century about numerous
subjects, from nature to technology to history. The publication of Da’irat al-
Ma‘arif was discontinued after the Arabic letter “‘ain,” which meant that the
crucial entries for this study about the Phoenicians, the Maronites and Leba-
non were never written. Nevertheless, it is easily seen that the preoccupation
with the pre-Arab-Islamic era was equal to the preoccupation with the post-
7th century AD.71 Moreover, in several entries there are direct references to
the Phoenicians as the forefathers of the modern Syrians. In the entry “com-
merce” (Tijara), for example, al-Bustani presented a chronology of commerce
in Syria from the Phoenician era, describing the residents of Beirut as the
descendents of the Phoenician merchants.72
Al-Bustani, the Syrian, the Arab, the Ottoman loyalist harmonically inte-
grated all these identities into one self-identity. Equally, he saw no contradic-
tion in asserting that the ancient Phoenicians were the forefathers of the 19th-
century Arab Syrians. Al-Bustani and his peers were interested in the ad-
vancement of knowledge and this was exactly what they did in their literary
activities. It was left for the following generations to select their preferred
parts of history and construct them according to their own biases and histori-
cal propensities.
An important aspect of the Arab literary revival was the foundation of
numerous journals, reviews and newspapers that brought the tidings of the
new winds coming from Europe. At first Beirut was the center of this activity,
but with the change of policy of the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid, from ap-
parent liberalism to strict autocracy, Cairo, situated out of his reach, became
the hub of the Arab cultural renaissance movement.73 In the 19th century,
Egypt had become the home of many Syrian emigrants, and it now absorbed
a new wave of Syrians who found in Cairo and Alexandria havens where they
could pursue their cultural and journalistic activities.
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 41
Of the numerous publications printed by Syro-Lebanese, first in Beirut
and later in Cairo and Alexandria, al-Muqtataf and al-Hilal were the most
celebrated. The first was launched in 1876 in Beirut and the latter in 1892 in
Cairo. Al-Muqtataf was founded by Ya‘qub Sarruf and Faris Nimr, two Prot-
estant teachers (converted from Maronitism) of the Syrian Protestant Col-
lege, who moved to Cairo in 1884 and continued to issue their journal in the
Nile Valley. Al-Hilal was founded by Jurji Zaydan, a graduate of the Syrian
Protestant College. Zaydan, a Greek Orthodox, became one of the key fig-
ures constructing the Geschichtebild of Arab history through his journal and
the romantic novels he wrote about Arab history. Al-Muqtataf, “a magazine
for science, craft and agriculture,” was primarily preoccupied with the popu-
larization of scientific information, from astronomy to zoology. It neverthe-
less also provided some information on historical subjects, such as the his-
tory of the ancient Near East.74
The first articles to mention the ancient Phoenicians appeared in al-Muqtataf
in 1882-1883.75 Reading through the journal, it is easy to see that in the 1880s-
90s information in Arabic about the ancient Phoenicians reflecting current
scholarly knowledge was readily available. From 1882-1900, twenty articles
dealt with the ancient Phoenicians. The number is not high, but combined
with the “readers’ questions” section, it indicates that the subject was already
in the public consciousness. In the questions section, readers expressed inter-
est in the Phoenicians and some asked the editorial board to elaborate further
on the subject.76
The expanding knowledge about the ancient Phoenicians, and its avail-
ability to the general public in popular forms such as journals, facilitated
making the connection between the ancient and modern worlds. In 1889, al-
Muqtataf articles, written by Syro-Lebanese, claimed for the first time to
have some kind of genealogical relations with the biblical Phoenicians. The
journal reported on the annual meeting of Jam‘iyat Shams al-Birr in Beirut,
at which Najib Efendi al-Bustani, the third son of Butrus al-Bustani and the
last editor of Da’irat al-Ma‘arif, lectured on “Phoenicia and the Phoenicians.”
In the introductory notes to his lecture he explained why he chose this topic:

My subject tonight is ‘Phoenicia and the Phoenicians.’ There are sev-

eral reasons why I chose to discuss this theme: the bond of descent
between us and them; the characteristics that they bequeathed to us; the
archeological proofs of their strength and fame that they left behind;
we are part of them and Beirut is one of their famous cities. I thought
that the best for me would be to address to your thoughts a summary of
the story of our ancestors the Phoenicians [...]77

Jam‘iyyat Shams al-Birr was founded in 1869 as the Beirut branch of the
British YMCA and many of its members were students of the Syrian Protes-
tant College. Faris Nimr, the co-owner and editor of al-Muqtataf, was one of
42 REVIVING PHOENICIA

the association’s two founders and Jurji Zaydan was one of its members.78
Thus, in a cultural gathering, in the heart of the Protestant Mission in Beirut,
a leading local intellectual plainly stated that he and his audience were direct
descendents of the ancient Phoenicians. Browsing through the pages of al-
Muqtataf, it is possible to observe similar thoughts in other contexts. For
example, the journal reported on an annual party of the Greek Orthodox school
in Beirut. The writer congratulated the students on their celebration and re-
quested that they acquire knowledge in order to re-gain the glory of the an-
cient Phoenicians.79
Al-Muqtataf catered mostly to a Syrian audience, reflecting the situation
within the Syrian community in Egypt and its scope of interests.80 Jurji
Zaydan’s journal, al-Hilal, first issued in 1892, enjoyed a larger audience.
Zaydan was more interested in social sciences and humanities and this is
reflected in the content of al-Hilal’s articles. Zaydan, a Greek Orthodox, used
his journal to popularize Arabic and Islamic heritage through historical arti-
cles and short stories, all stressing the Arab pre-Islamic and Islamic civiliza-
tion. Nevertheless, even for Zaydan, the identity issue of the Syrians was still
ambiguous. In the first issue of al-Hilal, in an article entitled “The Origins of
the Arabs of Syria and Palestine,”81 the writer (denoted as “a Syrian”) at-
tempted to trace the lineage of the Syrians. He claimed that the residents of
Syria at the beginning of history were Semitic nomads. They were followed
by the Phoenicians (or the Canaanites) and the Philistines [in Arabic:
filastiniyun]. Then came other peoples: Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Ro-
mans. Syria became Arab with the Islamic occupation, especially with the
establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus. Some of the Syrians
converted to Islam; others preferred to pay the jizya. A group of the latter
escaped to Lebanon, which evolved to be an asylum for Christian minorities.
The writer explained that it is impossible to know exactly what the origins of
the Syrians are because of the multitude of peoples and occupiers who criss-
crossed and settled the country. Rulers and ruled mixed up to form one nation
— a Syrian nation.
Also in that first issue of al-Hilal, another article, “The Syrians in Egypt,”82
discusses why the Syrians preferred to immigrate to Egypt. “The Syrians are
natural-born merchants,” the article explains. They are raised in a nation
(qawm) whose origins go back to the ancient Phoenicians. Syria is a land of
commerce; the coast dwellers particularly excel in business; and they have
always mastered languages. These qualities are fully realized in Egypt. There,
in the Nile Valley, they find the perfect place to practice their commercial
skills. As if to continue this theme, the second issue of al-Hilal ran a detailed
article on “The Phoenicians and Commerce,”83 that provides an account of
the markets with which the ancient Phoenicians traded. Naturally, major em-
phasis is given to the exchange of trade between Egypt and Phoenicia. These
articles also demonstrate the fact that Zaydan, as a new Syrian immigrant in
Egypt, was trying to link his old and new homes into one historical unit. In
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 43
order to do so, he fused the ancient histories of the two countries into one
narrative, starting in antiquity and continuing to the present.
The picture that arises from these articles is quite interesting. First, the
notion of a “Syrian” is as strong as that of an “Arab” and stronger than that of
a “Lebanese.” Second, Syria, in the first article, is a mélange of ethnicities
and in the second article the Syrians, especially the coast dwellers, are direct
descendants of the merchant Phoenicians. Significant to our point is the fact
that Zaydan, who later sharpened his “Arab notions” and contributed to the
crystallization of the Arab historical consciousness, published articles in the
first two issues of al-Hilal in 1892-93 that made a linkage between modern
Syrians and the ancient Phoenicians. For Zaydan, just as for Sarruf and Nimr,
“Syria” was a wide geographical term, and “Syrian” denoted specific and
unique cultural expressions, different from those of the other Arabic-speak-
ing communities of the Ottoman Empire.
Fifteen years after the publication of the first issue of al-Hilal, Jurji Zaydan
tried again to answer the question, “Who are the Syrians?”84 It was a year
after the outbreak of the Young Turk revolution, and the Arab national move-
ment was in a more progressive stage. Syrian and Lebanese sentiments were
also more clearly defined than before. Zaydan attempted to answer questions
posed by many readers as to whether the Syrians were Arabs. As in 1892, he
still believed that it was difficult to know exactly the origin of the Syrians. In
ancient times Syria was populated by Semitic people who immigrated to the
region and overpowered its former residents. The geographical centrality of
the land made it a locus of invaders of the ancient world. All the occupiers
left their mark on the region. The presence of the Greeks was more signifi-
cant along the coast. In the hinterland the Arab race had been very dominant
since the 4th century, three centuries before the Arab-Islamic conquests. De-
spite that mixture of races, the Semitic race managed to maintain its hegemony
in Syria.
The Syrians today, Zaydan continued, are divided by their origin into two
groups: Muslims and Christians. Most of the Muslims are Arabs. As for the
Christians, the majority are descendants of the Arameans, the Arabs and the
Greeks. The Arameans were the original inhabitants of the land, then came
the Greeks from the West, followed by the Arabs, the Ghasanis, who came
from the Hauran in the hinterland. In short, Christian Syrians are not genea-
logically Arabs, even if there is some Arab blood flowing in their veins. Yet
they are considered Arabs because they speak Arabic, they procreate in an
Arab land and they live according to Arab morals. Thus, Syria became an
Arab country after the Islamic occupation.
Zaydan’s views as to who the Syrians were had clearly changed since al-
Hilal first appeared, a change that reflected the general transformation of the
entire region and the development of Arab and other national identities. From
a Syrian nation founded on a mixture of races, Zaydan moved to define Syria
as an absolute Arab nation: by race for the Muslims, and by language and
44 REVIVING PHOENICIA

historical experience for the Christians. In the 1890s, Al-Muqtataf and al-
Hilal were far from being proponents of non-Arab or anti-Arab sentiments;
they only reflected the reality of the time. Arab national sentiments were in a
seminal stage and Syrian notions were much stronger than those of any other
ethnic identity. Mount Lebanon was in a stage of “long peace”85 and very few
Lebanese, if any, challenged the authority of the Ottoman Empire or the geo-
political situation according to which Lebanon belonged to the wider geo-
graphical sphere of Syria.
What is significant to this study is the fact that these journals reflected a
growing interest of Syro-Lebanese in the ancient, pre-Islamic past of their
country. Moreover, the preoccupation with the pre-Islamic past of Syria was
not exclusive to Christians. Ahmad ‘Arif al-Zein, for example, the owner and
editor of al-‘Irfan, a Shi‘i newspaper from Sidon, is a case in point. Al-Zein
and his journal were by no means marginal in Lebanon. His paper was a
major source of information of Jabal ‘Amil, South Lebanon, and al-Zein him-
self was regarded as one of the leading intellectuals of his region.86 In 1913,
he published a book, Tarikh Sayda (The History of Sidon),87 which reviews
the history of the city from antiquity to modern times. He described at length
the scholarly works on the origin of the Syrians, who according to him were
a mélange of races, of which the Phoenician-Semitic race was the first. The
latter received much attention from al-Zein who described in detail their cit-
ies, commerce, colonies, religion, politics and governmental centers. He pre-
sented the city of Sidon and its inhabitants, from the Phoenician Sidonites to
the modern Lebanese, dedicating more than a third of his book to the pre-
Arab Muslim eras. Al-Zein wrote a teleological story providing a continuous
narrative from the ancient to contemporary world. His sources of reference
were articles from al-Muqtataf, Da’irat al-Ma‘arif and Kitab Tarikh Suriyya
of Yusuf al-Dibs, the Maronite Bishop of Beirut. They were all written in
Arabic and, except for al-Dibs, associated with the Protestant College in Bei-
rut rather than the Maronites and the Jesuits.
All these examples indicate that even before Université Saint Joseph be-
came a major center for the dissemination of separatist Syrian and Lebanese
ideas, Syrians, other than Maronites, in Beirut and in Egypt began writing
and deliberating about the ancient, pre-Islamic past of their country. Moreo-
ver, graduates and teachers of the Syrian Protestant College, who were not
products of the Jesuit missionary system, were among the first Syrians to
record the ancient Phoenician past of the Syrian coast.88 Butrus al-Bustani
and his “Nahda peers” aspired to construct a secular identity based on cul-
ture, history and geography. Arabic provided the cultural component and
Syria, from time immemorial to modernity, provided the historical and geo-
graphical axis of this identity. Thus, for the first time Phoenicia was resur-
rected. In doing so, by no means were they expressing anti-Arab sentiments.
It was a time when Arab proto-national sentiments were barely in the incuba-
tion stage and writing about the pre-Islamic past of Syria was merely an ex-
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 45
pression of a secular worldview, influenced by similar European attempts to
trace their progeny as far back as possible in ancient history. Only later, the
association between Phoenicianism and Maronite political aspirations devel-
oped, crystallizing around the years of WWI.
To round out the discussion on Syrian lay intellectuals who began ad-
dressing the ancient past of their country, I shall proceed to Maronite circles,
for they were the ones who, during and after WWI, made Phoenicianism
their prime ideology. As important as al-Bustani and his peers were, they
remained a tiny minority within the small Syrian elite that deliberated about
its identity and its historical consciousness. Moreover, the fact that a large
number of people of this group converted to Protestantism, Islam or aban-
doned religion altogether marked a rupture from their past and a break from
their social milieus.89 The majority of the Christian elite in Mount Lebanon
and Beirut would not turn their back on the past and would work within the
context of their environment of birth.
From the early 20th century Maronite intellectuals would strive to change
the political and social situation in Mount Lebanon and Beirut. Displeased by
the domination of the Maronite church and the traditional notables, they at-
tempted to challenge their supremacy by calling for internal reforms. More
important, they believed that the economic distress in Mount Lebanon could
be resolved by expanding the territory of the autonomous region, including
therein the coast cities and the Biqa‘. This group of primarily Maronites, but
by no means exclusively, were deeply influenced by long years of foreign
education and by internal developments related to economic recession and
political stagnation. They were also influenced by new “liberal” ideas com-
ing from emigrant communities who left the Mountain to the New World but
continued to have a major impact on their communities of origin. We shall see
in the next chapter the influence two of these communities, in America and in
Egypt, had on the political fate of Lebanon. This stratum was engaged in free
professions such as journalism, medicine and law. At the same time many of
them continued to be preoccupied with business ventures as mediators of all
sorts. Thus, it was this group of people who revived the interest in the Lebanist
ideal, first introduced by the Maronite church in the 1840s, but which sub-
sided as a result of the political agreements of 1845 and 1860 in Mount Leba-
non. Having been articulated this time by lay Western-educated people and
not by the Maronite Church the idea acquired secular tones. If religion was no
longer the overt reason for the establishment of a wider entity in Lebanon
(even if it remained the covert reason) a new rationale had to be articulated.
Thus, in addition to the economic need, Christians in Mount Lebanon and
Beirut started for the first time to introduce history and geography as reasons
for the formation of a greater autonomous Lebanon.
One of the leading personalities of this stratum was Bulus Nujaym, whom
I consider the archetype, perhaps the most articulate, of the new lay Maronite
intellectual around the turn of the century.90 Nujaym was born in 1880 in
46 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Junieh, a town on the Lebanese coast north of Beirut. He studied at the Lazarist
college in ‘Aintoura, and completed his education in Paris, where he received
a doctorate in law and political science from the Law Faculty of the Univer-
sity of Paris. He returned to Mount Lebanon and became the director of the
office of foreign affairs of the Mutasarrifiyya under the Mutasarrif Yohanes
Pasha. In 1914, at the outset of WWI, he was deported by the Ottomans from
Lebanon to Jerusalem where he spent the war years. After the establishment
of Greater Lebanon, Nujaym was assigned to be the General Prosecutor of
the newly established state. In the late 1920s he moved back to Paris, where
he died in 1931.
Nujaym’s biography reflects a new kind of Syrian. Educated as a child and
adolescent in a foreign missionary schools and then acquiring his higher edu-
cation in Paris, he was intimately familiar with French and European culture.
Indeed, he was a Maronite, but his worldview extended far beyond the Moun-
tain and the Maronite Church. He belonged to this new stratum of Syro-Leba-
nese who were exposed to, and influenced by, Western values and to whom
the socio-political situation in the region in general and in Syria in particular
was displeasing. Nujaym’s political views were born in the meeting place
between the old Uniate-Maronite notions of self-consciousness in Mount
Lebanon that evolved around the Maronite church and the modern European
education he acquired through the French missions.
In 1908, Nujaym published La Question du Liban under the pseudonym M.
Jouplain. In the book he drafted a proposal for the solution to the Lebanese
question in the wider context of the region. In his eyes, only the establishment
of an autonomous entity in a Greater Lebanon, within a Syrian larger frame-
work, under the aegis of France, would bring a solution to the question of
Lebanon. He envisioned geographical Syria being completely rehabilitated from
its state of stagnation and he bestowed the leading role in this project to the
Lebanese within a wider Syrian political framework.91 In a way, Nujaym pre-
ceded many scholars in his analysis of Lebanon. He saw the Maronite Church
as the pole, the axle, around which a Lebanese nation should crystallize.
The first chapter of Nujaym’s book, Les Origines Historiques de la Syrie
et du Liban, is basically a historical survey of Syria and Lebanon from pre-
history to 1908. From the outset, Nujaym exposes his convictions about the
powers that determine historical phenomena:

L’histoire de la Syrie et du Liban est assise sur les caractères

géographiques du pays. Deux faits géographiques en déterminèrent
l’histoire et l’ethnographie, premièrement sa constitution en une bande
de terrains resserrée entre la Méditerranée et le désert, deuxièmement
sa nature montagneuse.92

It is geography that determines fates, Nujaym affirms. Geographical de-

terminism, according to the school of thought of Elisée Reclus,93 to whom
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 47
Nujaym constantly referred, is reflected in his words. In order to hone his
point about the importance of geography in the physical and human history
of Syria and Lebanon, he elaborates extensively on this subject. The
Phoenicians themselves could not have ascended, had it not been for the unique
geography of the region that enabled them to excel in commerce. The moun-
tains protected them from the east and the Mediterranean basin to the west
was wide open for the practice of their talents. Nujaym adhered to the theory
that the Mediterranean was “phoenicianized” and civilized from east to west,
from the Syrian coast to the Atlantic Ocean. He emphasized in detail the
Phoenician contribution to Western civilization. They invented the fabrica-
tion of glass; they perfected goldsmithing, metal work and dye-works, in-
cluding creating the color purple; and they developed the art of navigation,
math and writing. Needless to say, they invented the alphabet and introduced
it to Greece. In fact, it was the Phoenicians who civilized Greece and brought
it onto the path of progress. They had a similar impact on the Gauls, the
Italians and the Spaniards.
Writing about the Arab-Islamic occupation of Syria, Nujaym makes a very
interesting point. He claims that the Arabs and the Syrians have shared racial
affinities. In fact, thanks to the Arab occupation in the 7th century, the Se-
mitic race regained its dominance in Syria after long years of Hellenic occu-
pation. The Syrians, he asserts, regarded the new occupiers as brothers of the
same race and welcomed them, because they had never accepted the Hellen-
istic presence in their country. Thanks to the Arab invasion:

Une civilisation sémitique allait se développer, profondément indigène,

s’inspirant des particularités du pays et des ses races, véritable héritière
de cette vieille civilisation orientale que les Phéniciens, les Juifs et
d’autres peuplades syriennes avaient illustrée.94

At first the Arab occupation was tolerant and accepted the existing faiths
in Syria. But with time it changed and oppression prevailed. Mount Lebanon
had always demonstrated a strong sense of independence and became the
bastion of opposition to the Arabs. Along the Phoenician coast resistance to
the Arab occupation was the strongest. More than in the Syrian hinterland,
the coastal population maintained strong ties with Greece and Constantino-
ple through its maritime commerce. After the coast was occupied by the Ar-
abs, many inhabitants escaped to the Mountain and continued their struggle,
after joining other refugees coming from Syria. It was during that period that
Nujaym placed the origins of the Maronites. This was the time when Leba-
non began functioning as an asylum for Christians.95 Mount Lebanon has
served since then as a sanctuary for minorities, but its mountainous popula-
tion remained attached to the urban communities on the coast. Their open-
ness to the coast, and to the Mediterranean cultures beyond, furnished the
mountaineers with an open spirit and exposed them to ideas coming from the
48 REVIVING PHOENICIA

West. They developed a culture of commerce, and many of them became

industrialists.96
In 1908, when Nujaym wrote his book, Henri Lammens was already an
authority in the field of the history of Syria. Throughout the chapter on his-
tory, Nujaym used Lammens’ works to support his arguments. He proposed
the existence of a Syrian national framework since the ancient Phoenicians
and argued that Lebanon and the Lebanese should play a leading role in this
setting. Like the Piedmontese in Italy, Nujaym thought, the Lebanese should
be the vanguard of Syrian unification.
Some interesting observations arise from Nujaym’s historical analysis of
Syria and Lebanon. First, he was not intolerant to Arab ethnicity to the point
that he believed there were racial affinities between Syrians and Arabs. This
is yet another indication that anti-Arab notions among Christian Lebanese
nationalists only emerged later after WWI. Second, indeed he called for the
establishment of a Greater Lebanon, but in the context of a larger Syrian
framework. This view of Nujaym is important because it reflects the stance
shared by the majority of Christian Lebanese who, in 1908, could not envi-
sion a Lebanon entirely separated from its surroundings. In 1919, Nujaym
published an article in Charles Corm’s acclaimed La Revue Phénicienne sug-
gesting a different agenda for Arabs and Lebanese independence. We shall
return to this article in the next chapter and follow the development and change
of his ideas.
Nujaym was not the only Lebanese to write in such a vein in 1908, he
simply wrote the most elaborate and well-articulated book. Reading his work
and those of others97 it becomes apparent that a notion of some kind of a
Lebanese political framework, based on historical and geographical justifi-
cations, was in existence at least from 1908. It developed parallel to, and not
in opposition with, Syrian and even Arab notions. The total separation be-
tween Syrianism, Lebanism and Arabism would occur later, around the end
of WWI. Meanwhile, these national movements were just making their first
hesitant steps, and like all national movements, regardless of time or place,
they were scrutinizing the past in search of a golden age to cling to and draw
on as a model for emulation.
The ancient Phoenician seafarers were a perfect choice for this role.

References

1 Pierre Raphaël, Le Cèdre du Liban dans l’Histoire (Beirut: Imprimerie Gédéon,

1924), pp. 221-222.
2 Ernest Renan, Mission de Phénicie (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1864); see also
René Dussaud, L’Oeuvre Scientifique d’Ernest Renan (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1951),
pp. 51-76. Renan’s book was reprinted in 1998 in Lebanon in Éditions Terre du
Liban, marking the ongoing interest in his work there.
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 49
3 M. Gras, P. Rouillard, J. Teixidor, L’Univers Phénicien (Paris: Arthaud, 1989),
pp. 13-15.
4 Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô (Paris: M. Lévy Frères, 1862).
5 Flaubert himself traveled to the Levant in July-October, 1850 and spent over a
month in Lebanon. See Hoda Adra, Flaubert et le Liban (Beirut: Université
libanaise, 1985), especially pp. 205-235, on the influence of Lebanon on his
writing. French interest in Syria can also be seen through the number of French
publications concentrating on Syria. See Paul Masson, Éléments d’une
Bibliographie Française de la Syrie (Paris, Marseille: Champion, 1919). Masson
noted 4, 534 entries from the 15th century to 1919. Of this figure, 3, 699
publications were printed after 1860, the year of Renan’s expedition to Lebanon.
6 Lavigerie also visited Lebanon after the bloody events of 1860. See his book,
Souscription Recueillie en Faveur des Chrétiens (Paris: E. Belin, 1861).
7 Neil Asher Silberman, Between Past and Present (New York: Anchor Books,
1989), p. 2.
8 M. l‘Abbé Gagnol, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient (Paris: Poussielgue,
1889), p. 274; V. Duruy, Histoire de l’Orient (Paris: Hachette, 1896), pp. 235-
248; Désiré Blanchard et Jules Toutain, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples d’Orient
(Paris, 1901); Emile Segond, Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient (Paris, 1920), p. 9.
9 By 1900, the Louvre Museum had a large Phoenician exhibition containing 475
artifacts. See E. Ledrain, Notice Sommaire des Monuments Phéniciens du Musée
du Louvre (Paris: Libraries-imprimeries réuines, 1900).
10 Louis Lortet, La Syrie d’Aujourd’hui; Voyages dans la Phénicie, le Liban et la
Judée, 1875-1880 (Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie, 1884), p. 77. An Arabic version
of this book was printed in 1993 in Beirut under the title Ard al-Dhikrayat, yet
another indication for the interest in such writings in Lebanon.
11 Maurice Barrès, Une Enquête aux Pays du Levant (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1923),
pp. 51-52.
12 Ibid, p. 102.
13 When the news of Barrès’ death reached Beirut memorial services were held at
the Latin church of the city and at Université Saint Joseph. The Jesuit university
eternalized his memory by dedicating a hall in his name, engraving on a memorial
plaque a sentence from Une Enquête aux Pays du Levant: “Liban terre de
souvenirs, et pleine de semences …” Henry Bordeaux, Voyageurs d’Orient (Paris:
Librairie Plon, 1926), pp. 254-255; Bulletin de l’Association Amicale des Anciens
Élèves de l’Université Saint Joseph (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1925), pp.
16-17.
14 The Uniate Churches are the churches of Eastern Christendom, which are in
communion with Rome yet retain their rites, languages and laws, in accordance
with the terms of their union. In addition to the Maronite Church, five other
Uniate churches were formed as a result of Catholic missionary activities: the
Syrian Catholic (1662), Chaldean Catholic (1672), Greek Catholic (1724),
Armenian Catholic (1724), and Coptic Catholic (1741). See Joseph Hajjar, Les
Chrétiens Uniates du Proche-Orient (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1962).
15 Sélim Abou, Le Bilinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban (Paris: Presses
universitaires de France, 1962), pp. 179-180. A very detailed and documented
description of the commencement of the Maronite ties with Europe can be found
50 REVIVING PHOENICIA

in the two volume work of Nasser Gemayel, Les Echanges Culturelles entre les
Maronites et l’Europe 1584-1789 (Beirut: [s.n.], 1984).
16 M. Jullien, La Nouvelle Mission de la Compagnie de Jésus en Syrie (Paris:
Imprimerie A. Mame et Fils, 1899), p. 41, p. 152; see also Abou, Ibid, pp. 180-
189.
17 Georges Samné, Les Oeuvres Françaises en Syrie (Paris, 1919), p. 9; Jullien, La
Nouvelle Mission, pp. 47-65.
18 John Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon; 1861-1914 (Oxford: Ithaca Press,
1977), p. 4; Nasri Salhab, La France et les Maronites (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq,
1997), pp. 43-44.
19 Alfred d’Ancre, Silhouettes Orientales (Paris, 1869), p. 203.
20 See, for example, René Ristelhueber, “Les Maronites,” La Revue de Deux Mondes
(January 1, 1915), pp. 198-212.
21 The warm attitude of the French towards the Maronites can also be seen in the
introduction to Renan’s Mission de Phénicie. Renan thanks Yusuf Bey Karam,
the Maronite Patriarch and his network of priests in the various Maronite churches,
for helping him in conducting the excavations. He then moves to discrediting the
Muslim and Shi‘i “half savage and stupid […] inferior races,” who disrupted his
scientific work in Phoenicia. Ibid, p. 14.
22 Edmond Burke III, “A Comparative View of French Native Policy in Morocco
and Syria, 1912-1925,” Middle Eastern Studies, 9 (May 1973), pp. 178-179.
23 MAE Paris, Papiers Robert de Caix. P11203 PA-AP 353, Vol. 3, pp. 311-316, de
Caix to Kammerer. Beirut, May 16, 1921.
24 Gabriel Hanotaux et Alfred Martineau, Histoire des Colonies Françaises et de
l’Expansion de la France dans le Monde (Paris: Plon, 1931), p. XXXIII. And see
Vol. III, “La Syrie,” by Robert de Caix.
25 E. Vayssettes, Sauvons les Maronites par l’Algérie et pour l’Algérie (Algeria:
Bastide, 1860); A similar idea was first articulated in the book of Louis de
Baudicour, La Colonisation de l’Algérie (Paris: Lecoffre, 1847), pp. 234-239;
see also Sarkis Abu Zayd, Tahjir al-Mawarina ila al-Jazai’r [The Emigration of
the Maronites to Algeria] (Beirut: Dar Ab‘aad li-al-tiba‘a wa al-nashr, 1994), pp.
33-64.
26 See the following books written by Jesuit priests: François Charmot, La Pédadogie
des Jesuites (Paris: Spes, 1951); John W. Donohue, Jesuit Education (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1963).
27 M. Jullien, La Nouvelle Mission de la Compagnie de Jésus en Syrie, p. 41.
28 A.L. Tibawi, “History of the Syrian Protestant College,” Middle East Journal,
Vol. 21 (1967), pp. 199-212.
29 Ibid, pp. 47-65.
30 MAE Paris, Vol. 207, November 11, 1919. A report of an honorary reception to
Gouraud at the University of Lyon.
31 Chambre de commerce de Marseille, Congrès Français de la Syrie (January, 3-5
1919), pp. 7-8.
32 The Jesuit Archives at Vanves, file no. RPO 52. Curriculum of the Oriental Faculty,
1904-1905, 1906-1907.
33 Université Saint Joseph, Les Jesuites en Syrie 1831-1931, Vol. VI, “Les Oeuvres
de Presse” (Paris: Les Éditions Dillen, 1931), pp. 59.
34 Ibid, p. 60.
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 51
35 Ibid. Pierre Martin, Tarikh Lubnan (Lubnan: Matba‘at al-Abaa al-Yasu‘iyyin,
1889). Note the easiness in which the names Lebanon and Syria are interchanged.
36 Martin’s work was used as a source of reference in many other cases. Michel
Ma‘luf, a Greek Catholic from the Biqa‘ wrote in 1890 Histoire de Ba‘albek, and
used Martin’s book extensively in his Arabic translation. Ma‘luf’s book is
interesting in and of itself, as it demonstrates the local interest in the ancient
history of Lebanon, especially the Phoenician and Roman eras.
37 Lammens was actually Belgian, but for all practical matters he was part of the
Lyonnais French Jesuit Order. On Lammens, see Kamal Salibi, “Islam and Syria
in the Writings of Henry Lammens,” in Lewis and Holt (eds.), Historians of The
Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 330-342; See also
Youakim Moubarac, Recherches sur la Pensée Chrétienne et l’Islam dans les
Temps Modernes et à l’Époque Contemporaine (Beirut: Université Libanaise,
1977), pp. 177-205.
38 Henri Lammens published hundreds of articles about early Islam. See a list of his
publications in Mélanges de l’USJ (1938).
39 Henri Lammens, Tasrih al-Absar fi ma Yahtawi Lubnan min al-Athar [Panorama
of Lebanese Antiquities] (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1906). In 1914, the
Imprimerie catholique, the Jesuit publication house, printed the second edition of
this book. It was reprinted twice, in 1982 and 1996, in Dar al-Ra’id al-Lubnani,
reflecting the ongoing interest in Lammens’ writing.
40 Henri Lammens, La Syrie et Son Importance Géographique (Lourain, 1904).
See also Levantine H. (pseudonym of Lammens), “Le Liban et son rôle
géographique en Syrie,” Études 116 (1908), pp. 487-505.
41 Henri Lammens, “Rasm Khara’it Lubnan,” [Record of Lebanese Maps] in Tasrih
al-Absar, pp. 98-105.
42 Youakim Moubarac, Recherches sur la Pensée Chrétienne et l’Islam dans les
Temps Modernes et à l’Époque Contemporaine, p. 177.
43 The references to the book are drawn from its 1968 edition, edited by Fu’ad
Afram al-Bustani, another important protagonist in the “Phoenician plot.” We
shall discuss him and his role further in Chapter III. Lubnan; Mabahith ‘Ilmiyya
wa Ijtima‘iyya, 2nd Edition (Beirut: Université Libanaise, 1968). Henceforth:
Lubnan; Mabahith.
44 Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Lebanon (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1965), pp. 116-117; Engin Deniz Akarli, The Long Peace, Ottoman Lebanon,
1861-1921 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 199.
45 Albert Naccache was a close friend of Charles Corm and a staunch supporter of
the Phoenician identity in Lebanon. Al-Ma‘luf continued to write on the history
of Lebanon and contributed to the construction of the Lebanese historical
consciousness. See his book Tarikh al-Amir Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni al-Thani [The
History of the Prince Fakhr al-Din II], (Junieh: Matba‘at al-Risala al-Lubnaniyya,
1934). This book was in fact a collection of several articles that al-Ma‘luf himself
published in a journal he owned and edited in Zahle, al-Athar, between 1911-
1914. See Ahmad Beidoun, Identité Confessionnelle, p. 516. On Bulus Nujaym,
see below in this chapter.
46 Lubnan; Mabahith, p. 262. Salhani himself circumscribed the “natural borders”
of Lebanon from the south in the Litani River to the north in Nahar al-Kebir and
from the west in the Mediterranean sea to the east in the Biqa‘.
52 REVIVING PHOENICIA

47 About the Alliance Libanaise, see Chapter II.

48 The geo-political distinction between Phoenicia and Lebanon was often blurred.
See for example Pierre Raphaël, the Jesuit teacher from USJ of Maronite descent:
“Lebanon is an integral part of Phoenicia, says a well known orientalist” [Henri
Lammens in Tasrih al-Absar Vol. II, p. 228. A.K.] Phoenicia and Lebanon, two
names of the same country. Phoenicia, it is the Lebanese coast; Lebanon, it is the
Phoenician mountain.” Le Cèdre du Liban, p. 1.
49 Lubnan; Mabahith, p. 263.
50 Ibid, p. 244.
51 The New Testament, Matti, 15, 21-28. Marcus, 7, 24-30.
52 This situation would change with time. Maronite clergymen would become
increasingly involved in the dissemination of Phoenicianism in Lebanon,
especially in the 1970s, as a result of the civil war that radicalized all groups
within the Lebanese society.
53 Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon (London: Croom Helm, 1985),
p. 7.
54 Kamal Salibi, Maronite Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon (Beirut: American
University of Beirut, 1959).
55 The Maronite Church has tried to demonstrate that it has always followed Catholic
Orthodoxy. Matti Moosa, in his The Maronites in History (New York: Syracuse
University Press, 1986), pp. 217-232, presents an angry reproach against the
Maronite attempts to demonstrate their “orthodoxy” since the Church’s inception.
Pierre Dibs, in his Histoire de l’Église Maronite (Beirut: La Sagesse, 1962),
demonstrates the opposite approach. In any case, this topic left the theological
field and evolved into a purely political issue long ago.
56 Nicolas Murad, Notice Historique sur l’Origine de la Nation Maronite et sur Ses
Rapports avec la France (Paris: Adrien le Clere, 1844); Abbé Azar, Les Marounites
d’après le Manuscrit Arabe du R.P. Azar (Cambari: F Deligne et E Lesne, 1852).
For other works written in a similar vein, see Yussuf Debs [sic], Lettre de Mgr
Debs Touchant le Patriarche des Maronites, 30 December 1893 (Amiens, 1894);
Mgr Emmanuel Pharès, Les Maronites du Liban (Lille: Imprimerie de la Croix
du Nord, 1908); Bernard Ghobaira al-Ghaziri, Rome et l’Église Syrienne Maronite
d’Antioche, 517-1531 (Beyrouth: Khalil Sarkis, 1906).
57 Abbé Azar, Les Marounites, p. 7.
58 See Carol Hakim-Dowek, The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, p. 86;
Iliya Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1968), pp. 139-142.
59 Murad, Notice Historique, p. 11.
60 Yusuf al-Dibs, Kitab Ta‘rikh Suriyya (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1893), Vol.
1, p. 4.
61 Ibid, pp. 255-365.
62 See Samawil Bulus, The Maronite Patriarch Elias Butrus al-Howayyek and the
Establishment of Greater Lebanon (Hebrew). (MA Thesis, Haifa University,
1987), pp. 16-22.
63 These communiqués were made possible through the introduction of mass print,
which only strengthened the sense of a (imagined) community among the
Maronites. See Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 37-46. In 1931, the
communiqués were compiled into a book, Al-Dhakha’ir al-Saniyya [The Splendid
 FIRST BUDS: 1860-1918 53
Treasures] (Junieh: Matba‘at al-Mursalin al-Lubnaniyin), by Filib al-Samrani, in
honor of the Patriarch’s 32nd year in office.
64 Al-Dhakha’ir al-Saniyya, p. 587.
65 See, for example, his sermon on the occasion of the end of the War. He thanks the
two factors that brought about the successful end: the Europeans, mainly the
French, and “our ancestors,” the first Maronites. Ibid, pp. 487-509.
66 Carol Hakim-Dowek, The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, p. 270. The
socio-political changes in 19th-century Lebanon were the subject of several works,
most notably William R. Polk, The Opening of South Lebanon, 1788-1840
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963); Iliya Harik, Politics and Change
in a Traditional Society Lebanon, 1711-1845 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1968); Samir Khalaf, Persistence and Change in 19th Century Lebanon:
A Sociological Essay (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1979).
67 See: Kamal Salibi, Maronite Historians of Medieval Lebanon (Beirut: AUB, 1959),
pp. 161-233; Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 58, pp. 97-98. Harik, Politics and
Change, pp. 145-147.
68 Al-Shidyaq, the scholar, was by no means oblivious to the biggest archeological
discovery in Lebanon of his time. In 1856, a year before he began writing his
book, the great sarcophagus of Eshmon‘ezer, the Sidonite king of the 5th century
BC, was discovered and generated waves of excitement among Western savants.
See: James B. Pritchard, Archaeology and the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1958), p. 95.
69 Fruma Schreier-Zachs, From Communal to Territorial Identity: the Emergence
of the ‘Syrian Concept’ 1831-1881 (Hebrew), Ph.D. Dissertation, Haifa University,
September 1997, p. 130.
70 Ibid, pp. 140-147.
71 See, for example, the entries: “Adunis,” Vol. 3, pp. 713-714; “Ba‘al,” Vol. 5, pp.
493-496; “B‘albak,” Vol. 5, pp. 496-501.
72 Schreier-Zachs, From Communal to Territorial Identity, pp. 142-143.
73 Donald J. Cioeta, “Ottoman Censorship in Lebanon and Syria, 1876-1908,”
IJMES, Vol. 10 (May 1979), pp. 167-181.
74 Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995), p. 53.
75 “The Phoenicians and their Religions,” Al-Muqtataf, 7 (1882), p. 602, p. 749;
“The Expansion of Phoenician History” 8 (1883), p. 245; “An Important Discovery
in Phoenicia,” 9 (1883), p. 35; see also in 12 (October 1887), pp. 321-328.“The
Phoenicians and their Glorious Deeds,” 12 (1888), p. 321.
76 See for example Al-Muqtataf, 8 (August 1883), p. 245.
77 Al-Muqtataf, 14 (October 1889), p. 729.
78 Thomas Philipp, Gurgi Zaidan; His Life and Thought (Beirut: Franz Steiner,
1979), pp. 22-23.
79 Al-Muqtataf, 12 (October, 1887), p. 578.
80 For more information, see L. M. Kenny, “East Versus West in Al-Muqtataf, 1875-
1900,” in Donald P. Little (ed.), Essays on Islamic Civilization (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1976), pp. 140-154.
81 Al-Hilal, 1 (1892-1893), pp. 219-222.
82 Ibid, pp. 359.
83 Al-Hilal, 2 (1893-1894), pp. 354-357.
54 REVIVING PHOENICIA

84 Al-Hilal, 17 (1909), pp. 425-429.

85 Engin Akarli, The Long Peace; Ottoman Lebanon 1861-1920 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993).
86 Tarif Khalidi, “Shaykh Ahmad ‘Arif al-Zayn and al-‘Irfan,” in Kemal Karpat,
Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East, Revised Edition
(New York: Praeger, 1982), pp. 110-123.
87 Ahmad ‘Arif al-Zein, Tarikh Sayda (Sidon: Matba‘at al-‘Irfan, 1913).
88 This point is especially interesting in light of the vehement attacks of Louis
Cheikho, the editor of the Jesuit journal al-Mashriq, against al-Hilal and al-
Muqtataf, because of their Protestant background and their affiliation with the
Freemasons. See: Robert Bell Campbell, The Arabic Journal, Al-Mashriq: Its
Beginning and First Twenty-Five Years under the Editorship of Père Louis
Cheikho, S.J. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Michigan, 1972. pp. 2-3; pp.
165-169.
89 Jean Fontaine, La Crise Religieuse des Écrivains Syro-Libanais Chrétiens de
1825 à1940 (Tunis: IBLA, 1996).
90 Biographical notes about Nujaym are taken from the introduction to the second
edition of his book: M. Jouplain [Bulus Nujaym], La Question du Liban; Étude
d’Histoire Diplomatique et de Droit International (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1908).
See also Marwan Buheiry, “Bulus Nujaym and the Grand Liban idea 1908-1919,”
in L.I. Conrad (ed.), The Formation and Perception of the Modern Arab World.
Studies by Marwan Buheiry (New Jersey: Darwin Press, 1988), pp. 575-595.
91 Hakim-Dowek, The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, pp. 297-301.
92 Nujaym, La Question du Liban, p. 1.
93 On Reclus, see the Introduction.
94 Ibid, p. 7
95 Ibid, pp. 12-34.
96 Ibid, p. 35.
97 For example: Ferdinand Tyan, Sous les Cèdres du Liban, la Nationalité Maronite
(Montligeon, 1905). Unlike Nujaym, the reason behind Tyan’s appeal for an
establishment of an independent political entity in the Mountain was strictly
religious. In the Middle East, he asserted, nations are formed around their faith.
Therefore, the Maronite nation is entitled to have its own political entity. Following
this theme, Tyan did not exceed beyond Christianity in his historical narrative.
 2

Before and After the War

At the foot of these majestic mountains, which have been the strength
of your country and remain the impregnable stronghold of its faith and
freedom; on the shore of this sea of many legends that has seen the
triremes of Phoenicia, Greece and Rome, that, in subtle spirit, carried
through the world your fathers, skilled in commerce and eloquence.
Now, by a happy return, this sea brings you the confirmation of a great
and ancient friendship and the blessings of French peace. In front of all
these witnesses of your wishes, of your struggles and of your victory, it
is in sharing your joy and pride that I solemnly salute Greater Lebanon
in its glory and its force from Nahr al-Kébir to the gates of Palestine
and to the crest of the Anti-Lebanon mountains

General Henri Gouraud’s proclamation

of Greater Lebanon, September 1, 1920

By the early 1910s many voices in the Middle East were calling for transfor-
mation of the political system shaped by the Ottoman Empire. Syrianism,
Arabism, Ottomanism, Islamic revivalism and Lebanism (in Mount Lebanon
and the coast) were all competing to put their mark on the political and cul-
tural fate of the region. Inspired by the Young Turk revolution and its after-
math which unleashed unprecedented desire for change in the Arab Middle
East, between 1908-1914, some twenty associations were established advo-
cating reform. Paris, Cairo, Alexandria and immigrant communities in the
New World, out of Ottoman reach, became the hubs of this political activity.
The difference between the various political streams, however, was not at all
evident. Notions of Arabism were often intertwined with Syrian conscious-
ness, and vice versa. Most Lebanese, who after April 1919 were calling for
the establishment of an independent Greater Lebanon, still saw Lebanon as
part of a larger Syrian framework, even if only as an autonomous enlarged
56 REVIVING PHOENICIA

region. Advocates of a clear Syrian non-Arab identity were, in 1913, still

participating in Arab associations. Islamic revivalists were often associating
the attainment of their objectives with Arab and Syrian notions of identity.
Last but not least, Ottomanism, albeit in demise, was still considered a viable
option for the majority of the Syro-Lebanese.
The 1908 revolution in Istanbul, then, provoked much turmoil in the po-
litical structure of Mount Lebanon. The Western-educated stratum that emerged
in Mount Lebanon and Beirut from the end of the 19th century sought to use
the momentum of the liberal winds blowing from Turkey to transform the
socio-political system in the Mountain. Pro-Ottoman tendencies became preva-
lent among many members of this new group. Some were hoping to be elected
to the Ottoman parliament as delegates from the Mountain; others even sup-
ported full attachment to the Young Turk movement. Lebanese pro-Ottoman
associations were formed in Paris and in Egypt.1 The common denominator
of this activity was the desire to transform the old, worn out, stagnant politi-
cal situation in the Mountain and join the new spirits of progressiveness blow-
ing from Istanbul.
A counter-reaction to this activity was quick to surface. The Maronite
Church and the old notables did not wish to change the existing system and
relinquish the special status of the Mountain. And once the centralizing at-
tempts of the Young Turks were revealed, secular, liberal Lebanese joined
forces with the Church. Now the opposition was not only unwilling to aban-
don the privileges of the autonomous region of the Mountain, but also as-
pired to expand them, especially in light of the centralizing attempts of Istan-
bul. Thus, following the 1908 events and the successive hopes,
disillusionments and reassessments, the first Lebanist associations were
formed. They did not share an identical platform, but they all supported the
existence of a somewhat independent political framework in Lebanon, either
as an autonomous region of the Mountain or as part of a greater Syrian politi-
cal setting. They also called for a re-examination of the Organic Law
(Règlement organique) of 1861, adapting it to the needs of the time. These
associations did not yet have a clear national agenda. Yet, the fact of their
formation bore witness to the rebirth of the Lebanist idea: the conception of
an extended Lebanese political framework embracing the various communi-
ties residing in the Mountain, the coast, the Biqa‘ in the east and Jabal ‘Amil
in the south, into one political community.
Once the Lebanist idea came back to the fore, there was a need to support
it with historical justification. If there should be a Lebanese entity, then there
should also be a historical reason for its existence. Philippe and Farid al-
Khazin, two important Lebanese journalists, published in 1910 a manifesto,
“Perpétuelle indépendance législative et judiciaire du Liban depuis la conquête
ottomane en 1516,”2 in which they emphasized the continuous existence of
an independent Greater Lebanese political entity and demonstrated its viabil-
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 57
ity since the days of Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni in the 16th century. There is no
reference in this famous pamphlet to any Phoenician past of Lebanon. Clearly,
knowledge about ancient Phoenicia was available, but the authors chose not
to use it. Rather, they limited the historical horizon of Lebanon to the 16th
century. The reference to Fakhr al-Din as the founding father of modern Leba-
non became one of the foundation myths in Lebanon. It reflected the laical
worldview from which the two Maronite brothers were writing: Fakhr al-Din
was a Druze, but still a founder of modern Lebanon.3
Philippe and Farid al-Khazin belonged to the new liberal Western-edu-
cated stratum that emerged in Beirut and in Mount Lebanon towards the end
of the 19th century. Some of their peers were already speaking about the
Phoenician past of Lebanon. In 1910, as we have seen, Phoenician expres-
sions were not yet uttered in any political context (meaning Phoenicianism as
an expression of national aspirations of one kind or another). It is possible
that this was the reason the Khazins did not use the Phoenician past in their
pamphlet. Considering their socio-political background, there are many rea-
sons to believe that, had they not been executed by the Ottomans in 1916,4
they would have become pillars of the new Lebanese state and most likely, as
their peers did, would have supported, if not advocated, the Phoenician nar-
ration of Lebanon.
While the Khazin brothers published their pamphlet, other Lebanese were
active in similar initiatives. However, as a result of the Young Turks’ coercive
measures the center of the political activity moved out of Mount Lebanon into
Paris, Cairo, Alexandria and other Syro-Lebanese emigrant communities in
the Americas. There, the Ottomans could not curtail separatist political activ-
ity. These communities were not only struggling to define their identity in the
context of their countries of origin, but also vis-à-vis the societies to which
they had immigrated and in which they lived. Only by the end of WWI did the
center of the political activity return to Beirut. By that time the Ottoman Em-
pire was out of the equation and a new world order was emerging.

The Syro-Lebanese Community in Egypt

Syrian emigrants began arriving in Egypt by the end of the 18th century.
They sought refuge from the Ottoman system and found it in the Nile Valley
under the relative independent regime of the Mamluk Beys.5 By the mid-19th
century a steady stream replaced the small trickle of Syrian émigrés. The
reign of Muhammad ‘Ali in Egypt opened the country to Europe and, par-
ticularly, to the European economic system. A desperate need emerged for
skilled professionals to administer the burgeoning Egyptian economy. The
Egyptians themselves, lagging behind in their level of education, could not
meet this need. Syria, however, had begun producing more and more gradu-
58 REVIVING PHOENICIA

ates of European missionary schools who were exposed to Western thought

and knew foreign languages. This new educated stratum was looking for
sources of livelihood, which it could not find in Syria, but found in abun-
dance in Egypt. Cairo and Alexandria attracted thousands of Syrians, Chris-
tians mostly, who found these cities to be safe asylums and islands of stabil-
ity in a precarious region. Muhammad ‘Ali and his heirs knew how to use the
Syrians and their skills. Modernization, becoming the mark of the Khedive
family, necessitated cadres of administrators, technicians and clerks, posi-
tions the Syrians filled with joy. The fact that they mastered Arabic and at
least one or two foreign languages gave the Syrians an advantage in the local
market. The ambitious plans of the Khedive Isma‘il to make Egypt a part of
Europe opened up ample options for the educated, and the Syrians took full
advantage of these opportunities. The following testimony of the time well
illustrates this:

In certain offices which have been remodeled according to foreign ideas,

or in which technical knowledge is required, there is a sprinkling of
foreigners; and standing half way, as it were between the Europeans
and the Egyptians, are a number of Syrian Christians, who have been
educated in the French schools of their native province, and who have
come to make their fortune in a country not yet overstocked with a men
of their own type. The young Syrian is becoming, indeed, a common
and rather conspicuous typical figure in this section of Cairo society.6

The landing of Napoleon’s Armée d’Orient in Alexandria in July 1798

was a watershed event for the entire Middle East. Napoleon, just like the
French expedition sixty-two years later in Lebanon, had in tow a group of
scholars (the savants d’Egypte) who launched a scientific survey of Egypt.7
One of the most important subjects they explored was the pharaonic past of
the country. The French scholars mapped the country (as they would do in
Lebanon in 1861) and conducted archeological excavations, which led, among
other things, to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone that would later help deci-
pher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. French Egyptomania was underway.
Paradoxically, the Egyptian exposure to France was only strengthened with
the departure of Napoleon’s army in 1801. Muhammad ‘Ali used many French-
men in his ambitious plans to develop Egypt into a modern state. His heirs
followed suit and were helped by French specialists in their projects. Cairo,
and more so Alexandria, evolved to become cities imbued with strong Euro-
pean influence. The latter developed as a typical Mediterranean cosmopoli-
tan city, home to many Levantine communities. For the Alexandrians, “whether
they were great merchants or middling shopkeepers or humble artisans,
whether Greek or Italian or French or Syrian or Maltese in origin, Egypt was
a land of opportunity and Alexandria a new home.”8
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 59
The city accommodated a Levantine society with a unique culture, in many
aspects shared by other Mediterranean cities such as Smyrna, Salonika, and
later Beirut. Although in each the socio-political backgrounds of the commu-
nities and their class divisions differed, many cultural realms were shared. It
was a world where at least three languages were spoken, commercial ties
were drawn and strong geographical mobility was prevalent. It was not un-
common to see families with branches around the Mediterranean basin: one
brother in Alexandria, another in Beirut and a third in Smyrna.
By the turn of the century, Alexandria and Cairo were hubs of a vibrant
Syrian community. Three factors shaped the political proclivities of the Syro-
Lebanese residing in Egypt: the cosmopolitan lifestyle (in Alexandria in par-
ticular), the rising Egyptian national movement, and the socio-political vicis-
situdes in Syria and Lebanon. The Syro-Lebanese knew how to use the Medi-
terranean basin and the Ottoman system to their own advantage. The mobil-
ity the Ottoman Empire provided between the different Mediterranean cities
enabled them to conduct commerce with much success. The city of Alexan-
dria, as a commercial center located on an important trade route, provided
access to markets both in the east and the west. In a way, Alexandria, even
after the British occupation in 1882, was a world with no borders. The city
was part of one large financial system in which the Syrians excelled, not so
much because commerce was imprinted in their blood, as they often seemed
to believe, but because of several cultural and political configurations. To
begin with, they were better educated than the average Egyptian. Second,
they spoke French and often another foreign language as well, possibly Eng-
lish or Italian. These qualities were also shared by the European communities
in the Levantine cities. The Syrians, however, also knew Arabic and were
part of a larger Arabic-speaking world. This fact gave them an edge over the
other foreign communities and opened many more horizons in their financial
transactions. This border-less world treated them well, and many Syrians who
lived in Alexandria wished to preserve it.9 Lord Cromer, the British High
Commissioner in Egypt, described this situation well:

When the demand for employés was felt, the supply of Europeanized
Egyptians was insufficient, and further, the Europeanized Egyptian was
often a less useful agent than his social and political kinsman, the Syr-
ian. The Syrian’s opportunity, therefore, came, and he profited from it.
He possessed all the qualifications required. Arabic was his mother
tongue. He was generally familiar with French, having been educated
at some French college in Syria. He was versatile, pushing, and ambi-
tious. [...] He possessed in no small degree the talent, which was par-
ticularly useful in a cosmopolitan society, of being all things to all men.10
60 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Local socio-political developments were also crucial in shaping the politi-

cal agenda of the Syro-Lebanese in Egypt. Long years of exposure to the
West bore fruit; a new stratum of educated Egyptians was formed that chal-
lenged Syrian dominance in Egyptian administration. The use of national
claims became more and more frequent as a justification for the demand to
overthrow the Syrians from their positions and statures. Of the foreign com-
munities in Egypt, the Syrians were the first to be attacked by the rising Egyp-
tian nationalism.11 The British occupation in 1882 diverted the anti-Syrian
tendencies in the Egyptian national movement, and the Syrians became even
more powerful under the British than they had been in the days of the Khedive
Isma‘il. This, however, was only temporary. The rising Egyptian intelligent-
sia aspired to have control in exactly the fields in which the Syrians were
dominant: journalism and public administration. To demonstrate the frustra-
tion of the Egyptians against the Syrians, I shall again use the words of Lord
Cromer:

For the more intelligent Moslem, when he gradually woke up to what

was going around him, said to himself: The Englishman I understand; I
recognize his good qualities; he brings to bear on his work, not only
knowledge, but energy superior to my own; I do not like him but I under-
stand that he means well by me, and I see that he confers certain material
benefits on me, which I am very willing to accept; but what of the Syr-
ian? Am I not as good as he? If native agents be required, why should not
my kinsman be employed rather than this alien, who possesses neither
the advantages of the European nor those of the Egyptian.12

By 1908, the year of the Young Turk revolution, there was little doubt that
the Syrians had no place in the rising Egyptian national movement. Integra-
tion into the state was no longer an option. When new Syrian émigrés arrived
in Egypt from 1908 onward, their center of attention remained in their coun-
try of origin.
Syrian emigrants have always remained in very close contact with their
communities at home. Those in Egypt retained even stronger attachments
because of the geographical proximity of the two countries. Only a two-day
sail separated Alexandria and Beirut and even less time was required for a
train ride, once this option was available. When WWI broke out, Egypt be-
came the major location of refuge for many Syro-Lebanese who escaped the
oppressive measures of the Ottoman government. Alexandria, over Cairo,
was the preferred place of sanctuary perhaps because of the similarities be-
tween this city and Beirut. Hundreds of Lebanese found refuge in Egypt dur-
ing the war, including numerous personalities who would play a crucial role
in the formation of modern Lebanon: Emile Eddé, Béchara al-Khoury, Michel
Chiha, Jacques Tabet, Gabriel Trad, Choucri Cardahi, Béchara Tabbah, Gabriel
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 61
Yared, Daoud ‘Amoun and others.13 The local Syro-Lebanese community
embraced them with warmth. Many of the newcomers even had branches of
their own families who had resided in Egypt for a generation or two — the
‘Amouns, the Naccaches, the Tabets, the Klats, the Trads, the Sursuks, the
Doumanis. These families belonged to a strong, bourgeois urban class in Beirut
as much as in Alexandria and Cairo. They were engaged mainly in commerce
and they further augmented their ties through financial interests and inter-
marriages that crossed sectarian lines.14 By no means were they exclusively
Maronites. Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Protestants, Maronites and Ur-
ban Sunnis cooperated in this world that revolved around commerce. Inter-
marriage, however, existed only between the Christian communities. As of
1920, this class would become the backbone of the Lebanese state. In fact, it
could be said that they were the raison d’être for the formation of Greater
Lebanon. Lebanon as a “Republic of Merchants” was shaped in their image.
The Syro-Lebanese community in Egypt was tied to the political develop-
ments in Lebanon. The numerous societies formed in Egypt by members of
this community between 1908-1919 reflected their deep involvement in the
political process in Syria and Lebanon in those years. One of the first and
most important of these societies was the Alliance libanaise. Its Cairo branch
was established in February 1909, followed by the Alexandria branch a year
later.15 The Alliance expressed steadfast support for the re-evaluation of the
Règlement organique and, towards the end of the war, for the formation of
Greater Lebanon as an independent state. The Alexandria branch became
largely identified with its secretary, Yusuf al-Saouda, one of the most prolific
and vocal Lebanese advocating for the “Phoenician idea” in Lebanon well
into the 1970s.
Al-Saouda was born in 1891 in the village of Bikfaya. He acquired his
primary education at the Maronite École de la sagesse (Madrasat al-hikma).
From 1900-1907 he studied at USJ. He then moved to Alexandria to study
law at the Faculté français de droit, after which he worked at the mixed
judicial courts (Tribunaux mixtes) for foreigners and locals, a position he
could hold thanks to his bilingual skills. His family was not part of the Beirut
bourgeoisie and his social milieu was always associated more with the Moun-
tain than the city. He knew French,16 but preferred to write his books in Ara-
bic, marking him conspicuously as an Arabic writer in a generation of
francophone Lebanese nationalists.
Having studied at the Oriental Faculty under teachers such as Henri
Lammens, Antun Salhani, Gabriel Levenq and others, he must have been
well informed of the pre-Islamic past of Lebanon.17 In early 1919, when the
peace conference was underway in Paris, he published Fi Sabil Lubnan (For
the Sake of Lebanon). In writing this book, al-Saouda’s aim, as he himself
testified many years later, was to chronicle the 5,000-year history of a Leba-
non portrayed as “the lighthouse of civilization and a fortress of freedom.”18
62 REVIVING PHOENICIA

The book is divided into three parts: the history of Lebanon from the
Phoenician city-states until 1860; the status of Lebanon in international law;
and Lebanon after the Règlement organique of 1861.19 The first chapter be-
gins with the following statement:

Every nation has a strong desire to return to its roots by drawing from
the well of its past to its present the glory of its pedigree. Italy is proud
to be the heir of mighty Rome with its triumph, its glory and its banner.
The Greeks glorify in their lineage to the important dynasty of person-
alities of the Iliad with its poets and philosophers. The civilized world
thanks Italy and Greece and respects their descendants and the great-
ness of their forefathers. [...] The same as a nation is proud of its roots
and draws its good virtues from its good progeny, so is Lebanon proud
to remember and remind all that it is the cradle of civilization in the
world. It was born on the slopes of its mountain and ripened on its
shores, and from there, the Phoenicians carried it to the four corners of
the earth. Just as Europe must be committed to Italy and Greece, it also
has to be committed to a land that is the teacher of Rome and the mother
of Greece.20

Al-Saouda was a prolific writer, although too often quantity interested him
over quality. He left us, therefore, several books, all advocating a separatist,
Lebanese, non-Arab (if not anti-Arab) identity. Prolific as he was, there were
many other Lebanese who wrote in a similar vein in Egypt between 1917-
1920. One of these was Auguste Adib Pasha. Born in 1859 in Deir al-Qamar
to a Maronite family, he studied with the Jesuits, first at the Oriental Seminar
in Ghazir and then in 1875 at the newly founded USJ. In 1885 he moved to
Egypt where he soon integrated into the state administration. He spent thirty-
five years in Egypt before returning to Lebanon in 1920.21 The positions he
occupied upon his return attest to his high status in his homeland: in Septem-
ber 1920 he was appointed Lebanon’s first director of finances; the following
May he became the first general secretary of Greater Lebanon; and in May
1926 he had the honor of being the first prime minister of the Lebanese Re-
public.22
In his book, Le Liban après la Guerre, Adib Pasha wrote about his solu-
tion to the Lebanese problem after the war. Following the official stand of the
Alliance libanaise, of which he had been president since 1918, he was in
favor of the establishment of a Greater Lebanese state with the assistance of
the European powers.23 Like all books at the time, his work provides a his-
torical précis as a foundation to the political demands that follow. The an-
cient Phoenicians occupy a large portion of this chapter with a clear message
that modern Lebanese are actually descendants of the ancient Phoenicians
and, therefore, are not part of the larger Arab world.24 In July 1919, Auguste
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 63
Adib Pasha published an article in Charles Corm’s La Revue Phénicienne
entitled, “Aperçu historique sur le Liban depuis les origines jusqu’au début
de la grande guerre,” declaring it was “à l’usage des jeunes Libanais qui
feront la Patrie de Demain.”25 Beginning with the ancient Phoenicians he
explained what had made the Lebanese race so unique. First were the
Phoenicians, thereafter other nations came and went, and thus a mélange of
races was created in Lebanon. “[…] c’est de cet amalgame de races,” Adib
Pasha concluded,” où prédomine le sang phénicien, qui sont sortis les habitants
actuels du Mont Liban et du littoral qui l’avoisine.”26
The significance of Adib Pasha to this study lies not so much in the quality
of the Phoenician expressions he uttered, but in the generation he represents.
Having been born in 1859, he was part and parcel of the Ottoman system. He
studied under the Jesuits even before USJ had been founded. He was much
older than Charles Corm and his peers, to whom I shall refer in greater detail
later. Corm’s generation was born in the last decade of the 19th century and
underwent the “Jesuit experience” in the Oriental Faculty in the first decade
of the 20th, under the supervision of Lammens, Cheikho, Jalabert and others.
Adib Pasha belonged to an older generation for whom the Ottoman world
was part of reality. It is clear that his exposure to Phoenician-Lebanist ideas
were entirely an outcome of life and experience in Egypt. Living for so many
years in the Nile Valley, he must have been exposed to and influenced by the
burgeoning Egyptian national movement that had put its emphasis on separa-
tist Egyptian-Pharaonic characteristics. Upon his return to Lebanon he did
not join the “Phoenician circles,” most likely because of the generation gap.
He was an administrator in Egypt and remained so in Lebanon. He neverthe-
less adopted the Phoenician plot, seeing Lebanon and the Lebanese as direct
descendants of the Phoenician seafarers.27
Yusuf al-Saouda and Auguste Adib Pasha were part of the emigrant com-
munity that had resided in Egypt before WWI. One member of this commu-
nity, actually born in Alexandria, was Hector Klat, one of the most prolific
francophone Phoenician poets right up until his death in 1973. The Greek
Orthodox Klat family hailed from Tripoli and had branches in Alexandria
and Cairo. Hector was born in 1888 and spent all his school years in French
missionary educational establishments in the city, Collège Ste Catherine and
Collège des Frères des écoles chrétiens.28 Klat reflects even more than al-
Saouda and Adib Pasha the importance of the atmosphere in Alexandria on
the political and cultural trends of the Syro-Lebanese community in Egypt.
Born and raised in Alexandria, Lebanon was not part of his day-to-day real-
ity, except in the context of nostalgia and family anecdotes. The schools he
attended instructed him in French history, religious practices, civil studies
and, of course, language.29 By the time he graduated from college, he was
completely immersed into French culture. He visited Europe twice before the
war, in 1909 and 1912, to pursue his art education.30 His family, coming from
64 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Tripoli, the Sunni-dominated city, was not even part of the Mountain experi-
ence. Yet he evolved to be a firm supporter of the Phoenician narrative and of
the Lebanist idea.
Klat began writing poetry at a fairly young age and published his works in
local Egyptian literary magazines. In 1910, he published “Mots français,”
one of the first poems that carried his reputation all the way to Beirut. Klat
testified that when Maurice Barrès landed in Alexandria in 1914, the French
ambassador asked him to read this poem before the distinguished French
intellectual. Later, when Barrès arrived in Beirut he mentioned, in passing, a
certain Syrian poet who recited to him a poem about the love of France.31
Because of the length of the poem I will quote here only the first verse, which
sufficiently illustrates Klat’s cultural world.

Mots français, mots du clair parler de douce France;

Mots que je n’appris tard que pour vous aimer mieux
Tels des amis choisis au sortir de l’enfance;
Mots qui m’êtes entrés jusqu’au cœur par les yeux,
Ceux du berceau m’ayant conquis par les oreilles;
Mots qui m’avez du monde enseigné les merveilles;
Mots sur qui j’ai pâli; mots par qui j’ai pleuré,
Soit que l’on me grondât, petit, de vous mal lire,
Soit que l’on m’applaudît, plus tard, de vous mieux dire;
Mots par qui j’ai connu le vertige enivré
De vous goûter, savants, poètes, philosophes
Et d’apprendre, dans vos systèmes ou vos strophes,
La force de la prose ou la grâce des vers;
Mots qui, par vos vertus fécondant mes études,
Avez ouvert mes yeux cillés sur l’univers,
Mot français, tous les mots, les doux, les forts, les rudes,
Les mièvres, je vous aime, Ô Mots avec ferveur. 32

Hector Klat gave a very warm account of his Alexandria experience in his
memoirs. He described the city’s Lebanese community and its vibrant cul-
tural activities. He depicted at length the arrival of the Lebanese political
refugees who escaped troubled Lebanon at the beginning of WWI and found
shelter in Alexandria. The image derived from his and al-Saouda’s descrip-
tions is that of a close circle of Lebanese, living side by side through the war
years, crystallizing their ideas concerning Lebanon’s cultural and political
future.33 Shortly after al-Saouda’s Fi Sabil Lubnan was released, Hector Klat,
Béchara al-Khoury and Michel Chiha decided to translate it to French. By the
time Klat finished the translation of the first chapter, Chiha and al-Khoury
had returned to Lebanon. Later, according to al-Saouda, al-Khoury, back in
Lebanon, asked Charles Corm to translate the rest of the book.34 Poetry writ-
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 65
ing and exchanges of dedications also characterized the literary cooperation
of this group in Alexandria. Michel Chiha, then twenty-four years old, wrote
the following poem in Alexandria and dedicated it to Klat. I present it here in
its entirety as it provides an excellent illustration of the writer’s cultural ref-
erences. The architect of the Lebanese confessional system and the driving
and financial force behind Béchara al-Khoury, with whom he had close fa-
milial ties, Chiha’s role in the fate of Lebanon throughout the 20th century
cannot be exaggerated.

Toi que la Muse latine

Qui Lutine,
Tous les fols, fous de rimer,
Sut aimes;

Fils de la côte fleurie,

Ma patrie,
Jadis royaume des Francs
Conquérants;

Toi qui fais de la musique

Symphonique,
En sertissant les beaux mots,
Ces émaux;

Ivre du parler de France

Dès l’enfance,
Et de son rythme obsesseur
Et berceur,

J’aime ta voix sérieuse

Ou rieuse,
Voix d’un pâtre de vingt ans
Au printemps.
Lorsque ta lyre résonne,
Je frissonne.
Mes yeux revoient, éblouis,
Mon pays,

Elle évoque, douce et fière,

Notre terre,
Le parfum oriental,
L’air natal.
66 REVIVING PHOENICIA

La cité de la “lointaine”
Souveraine,
Mélissinde, que Rostand
Aima tant;

Béryte, cette amoureuse

Langoureus,
Fraîche du baiser amer
De la mer;

Héroïnes d’épopées,
Éclopées,
Tyr, la ville de Didon
Et Sidon:

Paysage noble et triste

Où persiste
L’ombre immense d’un passé
Effacé ...

Et les vieux Cèdres sublimes

Et les cimes
- Roches roses au front blanc-
Du Liban.

C’est la divine allégresse

De la Grèce,
Le ciel le plus bleu, l’azur
Le plus pur
Et c’est la brune Italie
Si jolie,
La Sicile et ses vergers
D’orangers;

C’est surtout ce coin de France

La Provence
Où croît, près du clair vivier,
L’olivier.

Car le laboureur agile

De virgile
Et le sillon ancestral
De Mistral,
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 67
L’Hellade de Théocrite
Qui s’agite
A l’appel mélodieux
De ses dieux:

Tout se trouve en ma patrie

Si chérie …
-Aussi passionnément
Son amant,

Tu vas à l’heure héroïque.

Gesteé pique,
Ceindre le front des guerriers
de laurels.

A very strong affection towards Latin culture and Mediterranean socie-

ties, especially France, surfaces in the poem.35 Tripoli, on the northern part of
the Syrian coast, is mentioned in the play of Edmond Rostand, La Princesse
Lointaine,36 Beirut is ancient Béryte, the Phoenician port city, and Tyre is
referred to through Dido[n], the legendary Tyrian princess who founded the
Phoenician colony of Carthage. The sea, the cedars, the blue skies, the orien-
tal perfume all blend into a remarkably romantic image of Lebanon.
Michel Chiha and Hector Klat cooperated in Alexandria on the publica-
tion of a short-lived literary magazine, Ebauches.37 Klat claimed that he was
the editor in chief and Chiha remained behind the scenes. The friendship
between the two was clearly warm, according to accounts by both.38 In the
1930s the political map of Lebanon was harshly divided between the camps
of Béchara al-Khoury and Emile Eddé. Chiha was squarely in the al-Khoury
camp and Klat, upon his final return to Beirut in 1932, became identified
with Eddé. Thus, WWI saw strong ties being built between individuals who
were now becoming political rivals. And yet Chiha, for example, as we shall
see, never abandoned the literary activity led by Klat and Charles Corm, even
though politically the two were associated with Eddé.
Chiha’s significance in the dissemination of the Phoenician myth of origin
in Lebanon is far beyond what scholars have attributed to him. I shall return
to this point in Chapter IV. For now, it is sufficient to say that Chiha, as the
architect of the Lebanese confessional system and one of the few political
philosophers Lebanon has produced, had enormous power in the Lebanese
political arena. His Phoenician-Mediterranean beliefs were far more signifi-
cant to the spread of the idea than those of Klat, al-Saouda or even Corm,
whose impact on the shape of Lebanese society was minimal.
Returning to Alexandria, among the many Lebanese who found refuge in
the city during the war was Jacques Tabet (1885-1956), himself a strong ad-
68 REVIVING PHOENICIA

vocate of the Phoenician identity in Lebanon. The Maronite Tabet family was
one of the richest in Beirut, gaining its wealth primarily from real estate deals.
As with many other Lebanese families, a number of Tabet relatives lived in
Alexandria and Cairo. Jacques Tabet arrived in Alexandria at the outset of
WWI, escaping troubled Beirut. In 1915 he wrote a book, La Syrie,39 urging
the creation of a Syrian federation wherein Lebanon would hold a leading
role. This Syrian federation, he proposed, would be comprised of one nation
— the Syrian nation — which draws its origins from the ancient Phoenician
seafarers. Like Bulus Nujaym, he based his assertion on the theory that his-
tory is a result of geographic circumstances and that politics derived from
geography are the kind that determine destinies. In his own words:

La Syrie est syrienne et phénicienne comme son histoire et sa nature

géographique l’indiquent, elle aspire désormais à redevenir elle-même
et vivre de sa vie indépendante et personnelle.40

Both Jacques Tabet and Bulus Nujaym drew their references largely from
Lammens’ works on Syrian, Phoenician, non-Arab identity. In fact, Tabet’s
book almost repeats word-for-word Lammens’ ideas about Syrian national-
ism. Through the examination of history, ethnography, religion, language,
geography and economy, Tabet elaborated on the uniqueness of the Syrian-
Phoenician nation, which is utterly different from the Arab race. For exam-
ple, outlining the different faiths which have been practiced in Syria he natu-
rally began with the Phoenician religion. Indeed it was a pagan religion, but it
was a tolerant one, he contended. Tabet even offered a correlation between
the Phoenician paganism and the monotheist religions that followed.41
Like many other Lebanese, Tabet also attempted to come to grips with the
issue of whether language is an essential, or inessential, ingredient in na-
tional consciousness. Phoenician for him was clearly the “national language”
of the ancient Syrians, although they did speak many other languages through-
out history. He expressed regret that this language was not revived, but he
insisted that it did not diminish the validity of Syrian nationalism. The Arabic
spoken in Syria since the Arab occupation evolved to be a Syrian dialect
different from other Arabic dialects.42 Arabic language, therefore, was not a
factor in determining the national identity of Syria. “It is the character of the
people, a natural product of the country, that had an influence on the lan-
guage, and not the language on the character of the people.”43 In other words,
language is not a factor in shaping collective identities. It is only the natural
setting of the land that serves as a cast from which the nation is shaped. In the
concluding notes of the book, Tabet located the reconstruction of ancient
Phoenicia in a broader historical picture:

Il est un moment où les peuples sortent de la longue léthargie où les

plongent d’épuisants efforts, et réclament leur héritage tombé entre les
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 69
mains des nations. L’Italie rêve aujourd’hui de reconstituer l’Empire
Romain; Athènes et les Etats Macédoniens se disputent le sceptre
d’Alexandre; la chute de l’Empire Turc va redonner le jour [...] aux
royaumes d’Alyatte, de Cyrus et des Pharaons. Le pays de Cadmus et
de Hiram a sa place toute indiquée dans ce concert oriental, et c’est
naturellement à la France, la plus généreuse de toutes les nations [...]
qui revient la tâche d’aider à sa résurrection. La reconstitution de la
Phénicie sur des bases larges et solides s’impose donc pour le présent
comme pour l’avenir; elle est une nécessité géographique et politique,
une arme très précieuse dont la France ne saurait méconnaître la valeur,
en même temps qu’un gage d’équilibre et de paix pour le monde
occidental et oriental.44

Tabet raises some intriguing observations. His social background corre-

sponded well with his “Phoenician peers.” Born in 1885 to a wealthy Maronite
family in Beirut, he was part of the bourgeoisie that emerged in the city from
the second half of the 19th century. Naturally, he studied at the Jesuit Univer-
sity under the supervision of Henri Lammens, who left a lasting impact on
him.45 When the war broke out, he fled to Alexandria where he met his future
wife, Anna Karameh. Her familial biography can serve, in and of itself, as a
reflection of the Levantine world in which she and her family lived. She
belonged to a branch of the Maronite Karameh family that emigrated to Al-
exandria in the last third of the 19th century. Her mother was a member of the
flourishing Greek community that dominated the city.46 Jacques and Anna
Tabet were a very wealthy couple. Alexandria, Beirut and Paris were their
cultural circles. Reading through the archives of the French Mandate in Syria
and Lebanon and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jacques Tabet’s
name surfaces time and again. He often visited Paris, wrote articles for French
journals and was invited to parties and receptions given by French officials.47
He frequently wrote to French officials expressing his views, and they in turn
approached him for his opinions. Shortly after his return to Beirut he launched
a project for the construction of the Lebanese National Museum.48 Through
this initiative he became one of the most important persons in the dissemina-
tion of the Phoenician past in Lebanon. Like many other Lebanese, after the
formation of Greater Lebanon he abandoned his Syrian tendencies.
In Alexandria and Cairo there were many more Syro-Lebanese who, like
Tabet, were advocating the formation of a greater Syrian, non-Arab, state.
The Comité central syrien of Chékri Ganem (Ghanim) and Georges Samné
had branches in Egypt named Le comité libano-syrien,49 which enjoyed fi-
nancial and other support from French officials. The Maronite vicar in Egypt,
Monsignor Darian, was one of the founders and an active member of the
Comité. Later analyses have tended to attribute Greater Lebanese tendencies
to the Maronite Church, yet Monsignor Darian, the highest Maronite official
in Egypt, was active in societies that supported the Greater Syria option and
70 REVIVING PHOENICIA

at the same time wrote about the Phoenician origin of the Maronites.50 This is
especially interesting because, as a Maronite clergyman, Darian stands out
by the fact that he explicitly connected the ancient Phoenicians with the
Maronites. It seems to be directly related to the fact that he was residing in
Egypt and was strongly influenced by the Phoenician claims made by the
Lebanese community there. Darian, whom the French considered a
francophile, was even assisted financially by the Quai d’Orsay.51 The French
government supported and financed his trip to New York to the Syro-Leba-
nese community residing along the American East Coast, so that he could
promote the French “Greater Syria” position there.52
To conclude the discussion of Egypt, it is no wonder that the Nile Valley
was a center of Syro-Lebanese political activity. It is possible to find among
members of this community opinions from the entire political spectrum, from
pan-Islamic notions53 through pro-Arab tendencies, all the way to Syrian and
Lebanese non-Arab inclinations. The number of Syrians in Egypt reached a
critical mass, at which point the community was felt in various levels of re-
gional politics.54 Just like elsewhere, until April 1919 the majority of the Syro-
Lebanese community in Egypt supported the formation of a Syrian secular
federation, granting Lebanon a leading role therein. The Alliance libanaise
was the only group that from the start advocated the formation of an inde-
pendent Greater Lebanon.
As a result of its physical proximity to Syria and Lebanon, there were
close contacts between this community and its lands of origin. Egypt — Al-
exandria in particular — provided a door to the world, which many Syro-
Lebanese enjoyed and utilized. For many of them, the Phoenician idea was a
tool through which they expressed their desire to be oriented towards the
Mediterranean rather than the Arab Orient and they looked to the pre-Islamic
history of Syria to locate their roots as far back in time as possible. Egypt
itself was going through a similar process simultaneously. The Syro-Leba-
nese could not participate in the Egyptian national movement and they cer-
tainly could not claim to be descendants of the Pharaohs, as many Egyptian
intellectuals began to allege about themselves. Persons like Michel Chiha,
Jacques Tabet, Hector Klat, Béchara al-Khoury, Emile Eddé, Yusuf al-Saouda
and many more formed a cohesive social group that worked together for the
betterment of their political and socio-economic future. Later on, in Lebanon
of the 1920s-30s, some of them would become bitter rivals. But in their Alex-
andria days, the political skirmishes that characterized the mandate period
did not yet exist.

Syro-Lebanese in America

Syro-Lebanese immigrants began crossing the Atlantic Ocean in relatively

large numbers in the 1880s. They were overwhelmingly Christian from Mount
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 71
Lebanon and they almost all came from lower social classes.55 Although many
immigrated to Latin America as well, this part of the study will be limited,
with the exception of a few references, to the United States. For it was in
North America, until the closing of the immigration gates in 1924, that the
majority of the Syro-Lebanese immigrants built their new homes.
The Syro-Lebanese immigration can only be understood within the larger
context of immigration to the new world.56 The arrival of this group in America
in the 1880s coincided with the large waves of immigrants from elsewhere
who had left their countries as a result of socio-economic and political cen-
trifugal dynamics — the “push forces” — and were attracted to the thriving
economy in America — the “pull forces.”57 These millions of new arrivals
triggered what became to be known in America as the “Immigration Prob-
lem.”58 The mass immigration from Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and
the Mediterranean menaced the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant
American majority, who quickly developed a strong dislike towards the new-
comers. Erroneous sociological and anthropological studies encouraged these
fears. Pseudo-scientific research provided a social ladder of the human race
in which the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic races were at the top, followed by the
Eastern Europeans, Mediterraneans, Asians and finally the other races that
were classified as low on the human scale.59 Quite a few voices in America
called for rejecting these inferior races lest they impair the high standards of
American society. Indeed, many Americans perceived their country as “the
highest, best civilization in the world,”60 and the desire to constrain the masses
of immigrants was often stronger than the recognition of the positive eco-
nomic ramifications of immigration to America.61
The preoccupation with immigrants and their impact on American society
manifested itself in the printed press and in the House of Representatives and
the Senate. Many sessions were spent discussing these issues, expressing
concern about the uncontrolled waves of new aliens.62 As part of an attempt
to have better control over them, several bills were legislated between 1889-
1913, all attempting to filter the waves of immigrants and select a better pool
of people, more “constructive” to American society. In 1891, an article in the
new immigration law obliged the commanding officer of every vessel bring-
ing in aliens to report to the inspection officers the name, nationality, last
residence and destination of each one.63 In 1907 an amendment to the bill was
added and the immigrants had to answer additional questions concerning their
identity — name, sex, age, marital status, occupation, level of literacy, na-
tionality, race, last residence and expected residence in the U.S.64
The questions concerning nationality and race are of major importance for
this study, for they demonstrate a collision between two different concepts of
identity. On the one hand, there was the modern American concept that di-
vided the world according to races and nations; on the other, there was the
traditional (Syrian, in our case) concept in which the identity realms were
more local and limited: the family, village, church and so forth. This clash
72 REVIVING PHOENICIA

between modernity and tradition existed throughout the world, in all colonial
settings, wherever “West” encountered “East.” Syrians, arriving at Ellis Is-
land, must have answered the questions as to “who they were” for the first
time in their lives. It is practically impossible to find their responses, but we
can imagine that the few educated Syrians, students of the foreign missions,
better understood these questions and could answer them with Western termi-
nology, whereas the vast majority of the Syrian newcomers had no idea as to
the race to which they belonged, or the nationality of which they were a part.
The American Immigration Bureau, for its part, defined the Syrians as
“Turks from Asia” or as “other Asians” until 1899. Only at the turn of the
20th century did the term “Syrian” begin to appear in Bureau reports.65 The
American public, however, continued to use the appellation “Turk” to define
all immigrants hailing from the Middle East, often confusing Turks with Ar-
abs and with Muslims, or referring to all three definitions as one, despite the
fact that the majority of those disembarking on Ellis Island were Christians
from Mount Lebanon.66
The image of the Turk in the eyes of the American was not too encourag-
ing for the arriving Syrians. Most Americans were totally ignorant of the
Ottoman Empire, its Arab provinces and inhabitants. When the first wave of
Syrians came to America, there was no knowledge whatsoever as to who they
were. Only a few Americans who had been involved in missionary work in
Syria had some idea who the Syrians were.67 Turks were perceived by the
average American as the most inferior ethnic group in America, bar the
Blacks.68 Even the Chinese, who were excluded from immigration to America
by law, were higher on the social ladder than the Turks. A 1924 survey stated
that the Turk “ranks among the highest in the racial antipathy column of
Americans and among the lowest as far as any direct personal experiences of
Americans are concerned.”69
The “Immigration Problem” continued to preoccupy the American public
until well into the 1920s. Due to the general ignorance of both the American
populace and politicians as to the immigrants’ identity and racial origin, the
Immigration Commission of the House published in 1911 a Dictionary of
Races or Peoples, “to promote a better knowledge of the numerous elements
included in the present immigrant movement.”70 The dictionary enables us to
see what the official standpoint of the American government was vis-à-vis
the groups that concern us: the Syrians and the Arabs.
The Syrians, the dictionary tells us, are the native Aramaic race or people
of Syria. They are not Arabs, although they do speak Arabic and a consider-
able number of Arabs live in Syrian territory. Of the estimated three million
residents of geographical Syria the majority is Syrian Christian and not Arab.
Elaborating on the various groups of the Syrian population, we are told that
the descendants of the ancient Phoenicians, who are closely related to the
Syrians if not of the same blood, reside along the coast.71 The entry on the
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 73
Arabs tells us that we should not confuse them either with the Turks who
belong to the Mongolian race, or with the Syrians, who are Semites like the
Arabs but are mostly Christian.72
These interesting entries mark two facts. First, official American docu-
ments in 1911 made a distinction between Syrians and Arabs and referred to
the inhabitants of the Syrian coast as descendants of the ancient Phoenicians.
Second, America, as a developed national collective society, provided its Syrian
newcomers with an identity of their own to cling to. If a villager from Mount
Lebanon who immigrated to America did not know in 1910 “who he was,”
the American modern national consciousness, assisted by scientific research,73
provided an answer for him. This does not mean, of course, that the Syrians
learned they were Phoenicians from the American Immigration Bureau, but
it is impossible to ignore the fact that an American official document
“phoenicianized” the Lebanese and differentiated between Arabs and Syr-
ians.
Once they had undergone the immigration inspections that defined them,
as of 1899, as Syrians, the immigrants from Mount Lebanon had to confront
additional obstacles of identity. An example comes from Birmingham, Ala-
bama.74 One of the more industrialized burgeoning centers in the U.S. around
the turn of the century, Birmingham drew many immigrants searching for
sources of livelihood. The Alabama Legislature, aspiring to attract desirable
immigrants, passed laws encouraging newcomers to move to the state and
establish their homes in the heart of the American South. In section 8 of the
Act of 1907, Alabama State Law, it is clearly stated that “be it further enacted
that immigrants shall be sought from desirable white citizens of the U.S. first
and then citizens of English-speaking and Germanic countries, France and
the Scandinavian countries, and Belgium, as prospective citizens of this State
[...].”75 The Alabama State Legislature had no qualms about clearly declaring
the preferred kind of immigrants.
Still, some Syro-Lebanese trickled into Birmingham — into this white-
supremacy reality — and a small community took shape. Between 1899-
1910, 270 Syro-Lebanese arrived in the city,76 most originating from the city
of Zahle and its surroundings in the Biqa‘, making them predominantly
Maronite and Greek-Catholic. The ethnic hierarchy in Birmingham clearly
gave a superior place to white Protestant Americans, who constituted the
majority throughout the American South. The immigrants found themselves
in the midst of a racial struggle, which forced them to ask themselves ques-
tions of identity as to who they were and to what race they belonged.
The struggle of the “whites” in Birmingham against the “non-white” im-
migrants who infiltrated the South allows us to observe an interesting devel-
opment in the Phoenician identity of Syro-Lebanese in America. A congress-
man from South Carolina, E. J. Burnett, who was a member of House Immi-
gration Commission, aspired to limit the number of undesirable aliens to the
74 REVIVING PHOENICIA

U.S. through legislation. Following a trip of the Immigration Commission to

Europe and the Ottoman Empire to study, up close, the reasons for the mass
emigration, Burnett drafted a bill that was supposed to “cut out 50% of the
South Italians and more than 35% of the Greeks, Poles and Syrians and other
undesirable classes”77 from the immigrants to the U.S. His anti-Syrian incli-
nations were already stated in a lecture he gave at the Birmingham Commer-
cial Club in the fall of 1907. Among the many anti-immigration issues he
raised, he named the Syrians immigrants in the U.S. “a Phoenician curse.” In
response, a Lebanese resident of Birmingham, Dr. El-Khoury, wrote in a lo-
cal paper that the Syrians were actually of the Semitic race and therefore
belonged to the larger white Caucasian race. The Semitic Phoenicians, he
continued, made an invaluable contribution to white-Western civilization:
the invention of the alphabet, the perfection of navigation and so forth. What
surfaces from the attack against the Syrians and the response that follows is
the fact that House Representative Burnett charged the Syrians as
“Phoenicians,” which provides a clear indication that in 1907 in America,
there were Syrians who were defined as such (even derogatorily), and a Syr-
ian defended his Phoenician-ness by asserting that, first, the Phoenicians were
Semites and therefore Caucasians and, second, these ancient Phoenicians
should be evaluated according to their contribution to Western civilization.
In light of their racial and religious marginalization in white-Protestant
Birmingham, the Syro-Lebanese in the city clung strongly to each other and
to their community. In addition to the two Maronite and Greek Catholic
churches that functioned as social and cultural centers, they also established
a meeting house, named “The Phoenician Club,” which evolved into a com-
munity cultural center.78 In the community school at the St. Elias Maronite
Catholic Church, established in 1915, Lebanese children learned about their
Phoenician heritage and studied Arabic and the history of Lebanon.79
The encounter with American society clearly escalated the process of iden-
tity searching among the Syro-Lebanese immigrants. Syrian immigrants in
America were asking themselves questions concerning their identity a dec-
ade before similar questions preoccupied their relations in Syria. Obviously,
the problem of identity did not preoccupy the entire Syrian community in
America. The majority was more concerned with daily survival and had no
time to engage in the “luxury” of identity issues. For the educated minority,
however, who were asking these questions, the Phoenician identity was a
valuable option. As the first wave of Syrian immigrants began arriving in
America in the 1880s, the Phoenician past began to be excavated in Lebanon
and, as we saw in Chapter I, some Syrian intellectuals were already elaborat-
ing about their ancestors the Phoenicians. Upon settling in the New World,
the label “Phoenician” came to the fore as an attempt to define their identity
in a society that, on the one hand, despised them as Arabs or Turks and, on the
other, forced all immigrants to be labeled according to nationality and race.
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 75
By the 1920s many Phoenician clubs had been established in Lebanese com-
munities throughout the U.S., addressing the American and the Lebanese
populace.80 It was an expression of their support for the existence of Greater
Lebanon as a non-Arab state and their attempt to define themselves in the
American social ladder higher than the Arabs or the Turks and equal to the
Caucasian majority.
Two notable examples of this process are Na‘um Mukarzal and Philip Hitti,
two Maronites who made America their home, although they remained in
intimate contact with Lebanon, and through their respective fields of occupa-
tion — journalism and historiography — had an impact on Lebanon’s politi-
cal and cultural fate. Na‘um Mukarzal’s biography concurs with many other
biographies of Maronites who originated from Mount Lebanon.81 He was
born in 1864 in Freiké (Furayka),82 a village twenty kilometers northeast of
Beirut. His father, Antun, was a Maronite priest. He acquired his education at
the Maronite Madrasat al-Hikma in Beirut under the supervision of Bishop
Yusuf al-Dibs and at USJ where he mastered Arabic and French. After gradu-
ation, he moved to Cairo and taught Arabic for a year at the school of the
Jesuits. An unexpected illness caused him to return to his village in Lebanon.
In 1890, he immigrated to America to try his luck in the land of opportunity.
He found work as a French teacher at the Jesuit school in New York and later
turned to journalism. In February 1898, he began publishing al-Hoda, first as
a bi-weekly in Philadelphia and then, from 1902, as a daily in New York. In
1910, he left the running of the paper to his brother Salum and immersed
himself in political activity for Lebanon. The following year, he established
the Lebanese League of Revival, a sister association of the Alliance libanaise.
He participated in the 1913 Arab-Syrian Congress in Paris representing his
League and in 1919 he was in France again, calling for the establishment of
Greater Lebanon as a non-Arab state at the peace conference in Versailles.
His political convictions were almost identical to those of the Alliance libanaise
branch in Alexandria. In fact, had he remained in Egypt and not returned to
Lebanon he probably would have integrated perfectly within the leadership
of the Alliance in Egypt along with Auguste Adib Pasha, Yusuf al-Saouda and
Daoud ‘Amoun.83
Philip Khuri Hitti, the reputed historian of the Middle East, was born in
1886 in Shimlan, a village south of Beirut. Unlike the Maronite villages in
the northern part of Mount Lebanon that were heavily influenced by the Jesu-
its, Shimlan’s proximity to Beirut and its location at the heart of a predomi-
nantly Druze region opened the village to additional currents. This explains
how Hitti, although a Maronite, acquired his secondary and higher education
in American Protestant educational institutions, first in the American High
School of Suq al-Gharb and later at AUB where he graduated with honors in
1908. After teaching at AUB, Hitti moved to New York in 1913 to pursue his
studies at Colombia University. He received his Ph.D. in Oriental languages
76 REVIVING PHOENICIA

and literature in 1915 and for the next five years taught the history of the
Near East at Colombia. As part of his involvement in the life of the local
Syrian community, Hitti founded the Syrian Educational Society in New York
in 1916.84 In 1920, he returned to AUB as a professor of oriental history. In
1926, he moved to America permanently after being offered a position at
Princeton University where he spent the remainder of his long and distin-
guished academic career.
Mukarzal and Hitti do not represent the average Lebanese immigrant to
America because of the extent of their education. They were far more learned
and well-informed than the majority of the Syro-Lebanese community. When
Mukarzal landed at Ellis Island the “immigration problem” was just begin-
ning and Syrians were still defined as “Turks” or “other Asians” by the Immi-
gration Bureau. When Hitti first crossed the Atlantic Ocean, in 1913, Ameri-
ca’s relations with its immigrants were at a different stage — and so was the
political situation in the Ottoman Empire. Twenty-three years separate their
respective arrivals to America, but, as we shall see, Hitti’s writings indicate
that the Syro-Lebanese in America were facing similar absorption problems
in the 1910s to those they had faced in the late 19th century.
Mukarzal used al-Hoda not only as a news source but also as a tool through
which he tried to shape the collective agenda of the Maronite community in
America. Al-Hoda became the voice of two seemingly different streams. On
the one hand, Mukarzal shaped the paper in his image and made it a staunch
Maronite publication and an advocate of the Lebanist idea.85 On the other
hand, living in America, Mukarzal used the paper almost from its inception
to defend the idea that the Syrians were part of the white race and, therefore,
the Immigration Bureau and American society should not label them either as
Asians or Turks.86 As we have seen, this duality between Syrian and Leba-
nese identities was prevalent in the first two decades of the 20th century and
even beyond. In America it was sharpened in the context of the identification
of all immigrants from greater Syria as Syrians. From 1910, the commence-
ment of Mukarzal’s political activity for the Lebanist idea, he honed his Leba-
nese inclinations through the Lebanese League of Revival. He expressed simi-
lar ideas to Yusuf al-Saouda about Lebanon and its non-Arab identity.87 Al-
Saouda and Mukarzal, in a time difference of fifteen years, went down the
same track: the Maronite Madrasat al-Hikma, the Jesuit college and thereaf-
ter immigration to Egypt. Interestingly, the two developed the exact same
views about Arabic, seeing it as the sole Lebanese national language.88 Their
origin from the Mountain rather than the city and the impact of the parochial
Maronite school may have caused them to refer to Arabic as they did, differ-
ent from the Beirut francophile milieu.
In Hitti’s first sojourn in New York, from 1913-1920, Syro-Lebanese con-
tinued to arrive in large numbers in America. Their identity problem was not
fully resolved, as is reflected in Hitti’s writings about them. During these
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 77
years Hitti contributed several articles to al-Muqtataf concerning his experi-
ences as an Oriental in America.89 In 1917, he penned “The Colonization of
the Syrians between Two Eras,”90 which recounts the story of Syrian emigra-
tion from antiquity to modernity, beginning with the Phoenicians, who, ac-
cording to Hitti, were as Syrian as their modern counterparts. The ancient
Phoenician-Syrians had a lasting impact on the countries to which they im-
migrated, he explained. Their impact on the Roman Empire, for instance,
was very significant, for they actually revitalized the Roman Empire and re-
stored its strength.91 Like many other Lebanese who wrote about the Phoenician
heritage in Lebanon Hitti demonstrated, in a lengthy elaboration, the invalu-
able contribution of the Syrians to Western civilization. Using al-Muqtataf as
a stage for his articles was not coincidental. As noted in Chapter I, this jour-
nal addressed primarily the Syro-Lebanese community in and out of Egypt
and it publicly supported an exclusive, non-Arab identity for the Syrians and
Lebanese.92 While the competing journal, al-Hilal, was active in the con-
struction of Arab-Islamic past, al-Muqtataf clearly provided an alternative to
Jurji Zaydan’s pro-Arab inclinations.
For Philip Hitti in 1917, the Syrians were clearly descendants of the an-
cient Phoenicians and Lebanon and the Lebanese were part of a larger Syrian
political framework. In 1924, four years after his return to Beirut, Hitti con-
tinued to write in the same vein of thought, referring to the Phoenician origin
of the Syrians. In The Syrians in America, addressed to an American audi-
ence, he elaborated more on the origin of the Syrians. The book is an attempt
to incorporate the Syrians into mainstream America and it demonstrates the
fact that the identity problems the first Syrian immigrants faced at the turn of
the century were similar to those in 1924. In contrast to what Americans
believe, Hitti explains, the Syrians are neither Turks nor Arabs. They are
Semitic Arabic-speaking Syrians. Arabism is a linguistic rather than ethnic
designation. The Syrians spoke Aramaic for most of their history and adopted
Arabic only with the rise of Islam.93
So who are the Syrians?

The modern Syrians are the remnant of the ancient Phoenician-Canaanite

tribes who entered Syria about 2500 B.C. and the Arabs who have drifted,
and still drift in, from the desert and gradually pass from a nomadic to
an agricultural state. With this Semitic stock as a substratum the Syr-
ians are a highly mixed race of whom some rightly trace their origin
back to the Greek settlers and colonists of the Seleucidae period, others
to the Frankish and other European Crusaders, and still others to Kurdish
and Persian invaders and immigrants.

The fact that the Syrians carry some Arab blood does not have an effect on
their race, Hitti explains, because “after all, culture, and not a strain of blood,
78 REVIVING PHOENICIA

is the determining factor in the identification of a race.”94 As in the aforemen-

tioned article on Syrian emigration, Hitti provided a sense of continuity be-
tween ancient times and modernity. Thus, the Syrian immigration to America
began, according to him, not in the mid-19th century, but rather with the
Phoenician seafarers who were the first Syrian immigrants to the American
continent.95 The idea that the ancient Phoenicians had crossed the Atlantic
was a view shared by many Lebanese and supported by dubious scholarly
work.96 It reflected the attempt made by Syro-Lebanese, advocates of the
Phoenician identity, to illustrate their contribution to Western civilization since
time immemorial. In the American context, it was an attempt to make evident
that the Syro-Lebanese were actually more American than Americans. The
ancient Phoenicians arrived to the American continent in their pursuit of com-
merce and well-being and their descendants, the modern Syrians, were sim-
ply emulating their forefathers’ conduct. Hitti’s continued use of the term
“Syrian” in 1924 is another example of the American context from which he
wrote. Although he was a professor at AUB in 1924, and a strong supporter
of the Lebanist idea, he wrote his book using terms understandable to the
Americans.
By the 1950s, Hitti was regarded as one of the most distinguished histori-
ans of the Middle East. There is no doubt about his empathy toward the sub-
ject of his studies, the Arabs. This extended to his politics too, expressed in
his support of the Arab cause against the Zionist movement.97 Nevertheless,
his academic writing continued to promote the unique cultural features of
Syria and Lebanon. In 1951, he published the first edition of History of Syria,
Including Lebanon and Palestine. In 1957, when Lebanon was believed to be
stepping forward into a bright and promising future, Hitti published another
book in the same vein, Lebanon in History, which had a lengthy narrative that
began with the Stone Age and followed, of course, with the ancient Leba-
nese, the Phoenicians, and their contribution to Western civilization.
Philip Hitti was a very important factor in the dissemination of the
Phoenician myth of origin in Lebanon. Through his studies on Lebanon he
provided the Lebanist idea a thoughtful scholarly mantle. Students in the
Lebanese educational system learned about their country’s historical legacy
through his books that were always translated into Arabic.98 His work on
Arab civilization and Islam reflected his worldview, seeing the Arab-Islamic
occupation as just another event in a region with a history of 5,000 years.
Thus, equal attention should be given to ancient pre-Islamic civilizations that
left their ethnic and cultural mark on the region, in some places — like Leba-
non — even more than the Arab-Islamic civilization.99 It should be remem-
bered that Hitti was never considered a staunch Phoenician or an anti-Arab.100
This fact only helped in the dissemination of his views about the history of
Lebanon because he was accepted in circles otherwise closed to Mukarzal
and his peers.
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 79
Phoenicianism in America, as elsewhere, was more than an intellectual
enterprise of a few individuals. It was a kind of an abstract code shared by
many Syrians and Lebanese who attempted to construct their national narra-
tive. In America it meant that not only did they participate in the political and
cultural debate of their country of origin but they also emphasized to their
American neighbors that they were part and parcel of the Western world and
equal members in the American melting pot. The need to define their identity
led them to use the Phoenician past as a political tool before this was done in
Lebanon or Egypt. There was strong interaction between Syro-Lebanese im-
migrants and their communities of origin. It was manifested not only in a
constant flow of moneys but also in the flow of ideas. When Hitti arrived in
New York in 1913, there were not yet Phoenician clubs in Beirut but such
clubs were already operating in various Syrian communities in North and
Latin America.101 By 1920, when he returned to Lebanon, the Phoenician
view of the past was already completely identified with the Lebanese na-
tional movement.

Between Paris and Beirut: 1913-1919

For many Middle Easterners, Paris has always been the gateway to the West.
Since the early 19th century, the French capital attracted numerous Levantines,
who were often enchanted by French society and culture.102 As a result of the
political vicissitudes in the Ottoman Empire, Paris also evolved to be an asy-
lum for political dissidents and for intellectual freethinkers who could not
express themselves freely in the framework of the Empire. When the 1908
Young Turk revolution erupted, it was only natural that Paris would become
a center of political activity for a great number of associations and secret
clubs, formed as a reaction to the turmoil in Istanbul. Syrians like Ganem,
Samné and Khairallah Khairallah, who made Paris their home, worked vig-
orously, along with others, on shaping the fate of their countries of origin.
Unlike in either America or Egypt, the Syro-Lebanese who resided in France
prior to WWI were not integrated into a large-scale community. They were,
for the most part, educated professional individuals who did not live in a
closed community, as did the Syrian emigrants elsewhere. The political ac-
tivity in Paris, therefore, was characterized not by the mass presence of a
Syrian community, but rather through the activity of a few individuals. The
French, naturally, had a clear interest in encouraging and controlling such
activity, for it enabled them to manipulate and play a better hand in the politi-
cal game concerning the fate of the Ottoman Empire. Some Syro-Lebanese
were even on the Quai d’Orsay’s payroll — Chékri Ganem and Georges Samné
are the most notable examples — and French impact on their opinions was
evidently great. Nevertheless, despite the fact that they were “French merce-
80 REVIVING PHOENICIA

naries,” their views reflected the convictions held by many Syro-Lebanese at

the time, and should, therefore, be assessed seriously.103
In the following section I shall examine the Syro-Lebanese political activ-
ity in Paris through three different angles: the Arab-Syrian Congress, the
Comité central syrien (CCS) and the post-war peace conference. These three
themes provide a good spectrum of the political changes before, during and
after WWI. The Arab-Syrian Congress gives a good perspective of the politi-
cal convictions held by many Syrians before the war. The CCS reflects the
opinions shared by many Syro-Lebanese during and after the war; and the
peace conference in Versailles mirrors the change of the political conviction
of most Syro-Lebanese regarding the fate of their country. In discussing the
peace conference I shall digress from Paris to Beirut and elaborate on the
American King-Crane Commission and the reactions it stirred in Syria and
Lebanon.
Between 1908-1919, many Syro-Lebanese who had lived in America, Egypt
and Syria arrived in Paris at various times to participate in political gather-
ings of clubs and associations which used Paris as the center of their activity.
One such entity, formed mainly by Syrians demanding the decentralization
of the Ottoman Empire, was the Arab-Syrian Congress, convened in June
1913 in Paris. The Congress, an umbrella organization for several societies
with different agendas, was composed of twenty-three members: eleven Chris-
tians, eleven Muslims and one Jew, twenty-one Syrians and two Iraqis. Twelve
delegates were Lebanese in the sense that they either lived in what would
become Greater Lebanon or had emigrated from the region to a different
overseas locale. The organizers set the agenda to focus on the national exist-
ence of Arabs in the Empire and their rights, demanding reform and decen-
tralization. However, because of internal rivalries and ideological disagree-
ments between the participants, the statements issued by the Congress were
often confused and mixed with Arab, Syrian, Lebanese and Ottoman convic-
tions.104
Looking at the names of the delegates, the picture presented reflects the
complexity and lack of unanimity of the political orientation of many Syro-
Lebanese in the pre-war era. Of the twenty-three members there were at least
five who later, in one way or another, would not consider themselves part of
a larger Arab ethnicity. For example, Ayyub Tabet (Protestant) from Bhamdoun
who would become Emile Eddé’s right hand in the 1920s-1930s and an emi-
nent politician in his own right.105 From 1917-1920 he called for the estab-
lishment of non-Arab Greater Syria through a society he established in New
York, where he spent the war years. Na‘um Mukarzal (Maronite), the emi-
grant from New York, who, as we saw above, was one of the more vocal
voices in favor of the Phoenician narrative. Chékri Ganem (Maronite), presi-
dent of the CCS from April 1917 and one of the leading personalities behind
the idea of the formation of non-Arab Greater Syria. Charles Debbas (Greek
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 81
Orthodox), a supporter of the Western, non-Arab orientation of Lebanon who
would become, in 1926, the first Lebanese president. Khairallah Khairallah
(Maronite) who, unlike most Lebanese, from the early 1910s was consistent
in his Greater Lebanese leanings. He would later publish national poetry us-
ing Phoenician symbols to extol Lebanon.106 I do not mean here to attribute
Phoenician tendencies to all these five individuals, although Mukarzal clearly
saw himself a neo-Phoenician. I only wish to demonstrate, again, that in 1913,
expressing or writing about the pre-Islamic past of Lebanon or Syria did not
yet imply a complete separation between races: Arabs on the one hand and
Lebanese (or Syrian) Phoenicians on the other. Muslims, Christians and Jews
could participate in such a conference since they shared the same agenda —
improving the status of the Arabic-speaking communities within the context
of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, in 1913, being an “Arab nationalist”
meant a different thing from being one in 1919, after the war. Arabism was
mainly focused in the Syrian lands and was not associated with Arabia, an
association that in 1918-1919 would alienate many Christian Syro-Lebanese.
Though beginning to take shape as a political manifestation, it was still pre-
dominantly a cultural movement asking for a larger share within the Ottoman
Empire.
Nadra Moutran, another participant in the Congress, represents this kind
of Arabism that dominated the Christian participants of the Arab associations
in Syria. A Greek Catholic and a graduate of USJ,107 Moutran should have
seemingly endorsed either a Syrian or a Lebanese rather than an Arab solu-
tion. However, a longtime Syrian activist, Moutran advocated the formation
of a Syrian-Arab political entity that included Lebanon. In 1916, he wrote a
book, La Syrie de Demain, stressing his political convictions concerning the
fate of Syria. Primarily an ardent pro-French and vehement anti-Turk work,
the book enables us to observe the available knowledge regarding identity
issues from an oppositional angle to separatist non-Arab tendencies in Syria
and Lebanon. Moutran saw the Syrians as outright Arabs, descendents of the
glorious Umayyads, and he viewed France as a “Muslim power” that should
assist the Syrians in forming their own political framework.108 The Franco-
Syrian alliance began, he claimed, in the 8th century with the cooperation of
Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid Khalifa, and Charlemagne, the Frankish leader.
Maronites tend to trace the beginning of the Franco-Maronite friendship to
the Crusader era, giving it a Christian setting, rather than Muslim. Moutran,
though a Christian, interpreted history through Arab-Muslim eyes. Lebanon,
according to him, had always been an integral part of Syria and had never
enjoyed any form of political independence.109
Moutran’s large Greek-Catholic family was from Zahle, the capital of the
Biqa‘, the valley between Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain
range. Nadra was not part of the Christian Beirut milieu. He did, however,
graduate from USJ, making his educational background similar to the
82 REVIVING PHOENICIA

francophone, bourgeois environment in that city. As a result, his book draws

on the same sources that many Syro-Lebanese graduates of French mission-
ary schools used.110 Referring to the origin of the Maronites, he states that
while some tended to see them as descendents of the Assyrians, who emi-
grated from Mesopotamia to Lebanon, others claimed that they were descend-
ents of the Marada, the Christian tribe of the 7th century, that was thought to
have fought the Muslim occupation. There is also a belief, he wrote, that
they are the offspring of the ancient Phoenicians.111 He acknowledges that
none of these hypotheses can be proved today. It is clear, however, that the
Maronites became a well-defined community only around the 8th century.
When describing their characteristics, he states clearly: “Les Maronites ont
toutes les qualités viriles des habitants des montagnes, et commerciales des
descendants des Phéniciens.”112 Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic Syrians,
according to him, were Arabs through and through. Moutran traces their ori-
gins, and for that matter his own, to the Arab Ghassani tribes that entered
Syria centuries before the Arab Islamic conquests. These tribes adopted Chris-
tianity shortly after their arrival in Syria, and many of them continued to
cling to their faith after the Islamic occupation.113
The fact that he mentions several times the possibility of a Phoenician
descent of the Maronites, as opposed to an Arab descent of the rest of the
population, reflects the beginning of a change in emphasis in the Phoenician
myth of origin in Syria and Lebanon. Although Moutran was an opponent of
Lebanese irredentism, he acknowledged ethnic differences between the
Maronites and the rest of the population — Christians and Muslims — in
Syria. We clearly see a gradual shift in the emphasis on Phoenician expres-
sions. If previously one could be simultaneously an Arab, a Syrian and an
heir to a Phoenician pedigree, then by 1916, phoenicianism began to be asso-
ciated with Lebanon and Maronite separatist demands.114 It is possible that
Moutran’s origin from the Biqa‘, the buffer zone — an important link be-
tween Mount Lebanon and the Syrian hinterland — had an impact on his
political convictions. His hometown, Zahle, was predominantly Greek Catho-
lic, but overall the Biqa‘ was principally Muslim. The Zahliotes developed a
strong Arab collective identity and a historical narrative beginning with the
Ghasani Arab pre-Islamic tribes. Growing up in a city whose population was
conscious of its Arab identity, Moutran may have reflected in his book these
Arab convictions shared by many Zahliotes, proud of their Arab Bedouin
origin.115
Moutran died in 1917, soon after publishing his book, and it is of course
impossible to know what his political convictions might have been after WWI,
the occupation of Syria by Britain and France, and the struggle for the forma-
tion of an independent Lebanon. At around the time he died, the CCS was
established in Paris by two of his colleagues at the Syrian-Arab Congress,
Samné and Ganem. Between its formation and the establishment of Greater
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 83
Lebanon in September 1920, the CCS had become one of the most dominant
societies in Paris. Ganem, as president, and Samné, its secretary, ardently
advocated the formation of Greater Syria under the aegis of France. They
perceived the Syrians, the Lebanese included, as a full-fledged nation, utterly
different, ethnically and culturally, from the Arabs.116 Their activity was co-
ordinated with the French government and supported by the colonial circles
in Paris. Georges Samné was particularly active in literary and journalistic
activity promoting the CCS’s themes. A Greek Catholic from Damascus, liv-
ing in Paris for more than twenty years, Samné perceived the Syrians as a
nation whose ethnic roots go back to the Aramaic people who occupied the
Syrian hinterland in Biblical times. He believed the Syrians were also cultur-
ally different from the Arabs. They were closer to the Mediterranean Greek-
Latin culture and were not associated with the Arab desert culture.117 He
strongly disapproved, even more than Chékri Ganem, of the separation of
Lebanon from Syria, a conviction, which he continued to hold even after
1920, when Greater Lebanon was already a fait accompli.118 Following the
arrival of Faysal in Damascus in October 1918 and the formation of the Arab-
Syrian Government in the city, Ganem and Samné sharpened their advocacy
for a non-Arab Greater Syria. Samné’s Le Chérifat de la Mecque et l’Unité
Syrienne,119 was written exactly for this purpose. This booklet explains that
Arabia had never been connected either by race or by customs with Syria.
The Arabs in Arabia, Samné claimed, are pure Arabs. In Syria, by contrast,
any Arabs who crossed this land may have merged with the many other peo-
ples who traversed Syria, forging one nation, the Syrian nation. Faysal’s takeo-
ver of Syria is, therefore, unjust for historical, ethnic, cultural and national
reasons.
Neither Ganem nor Samné advocated the Phoenician narrative publicly to
Syria. They did, however, open their journal, Correspondance d’Orient, for
Syrian Phoenician expressions. Jacques Tabet, for example, published Syrian
nationalistic poems with Phoenician symbols in this journal.120 Ganem par-
ticipated in Charles Corm’s La Revue Phénicienne, as we shall see below,
and Corm corresponded with him in April 1919, expressing his support of
Ganem’s activity. The CCS, however, did not become a “Phoenician” soci-
ety. Advocating the establishment of Greater Syria, the CCS may have been
more attuned to the multitude of communities residing in Syria, especially
Muslims, to whom Phoenician expressions would not have been comprehen-
sible. It is also possible that the fierce rivalry between the CCS and the Alli-
ance libanaise in Egypt generated the different historical positions the two
societies embraced. Each evolved to stand on a separate, opposite convic-
tion: the former, supporting the formation of Greater Syria with the assist-
ance of France, and the latter promoting the formation of Greater Lebanon
with the aid of the European powers in general, and not specifically France.
The CCS was supported and financed by France and the Alliance libanaise
84 REVIVING PHOENICIA

evolved to be a strong anti-French society. It would appear that the two soci-
eties also developed two different historical narratives to support their re-
spective solutions.121 The CCS, particularly Georges Samné, referred to the
Arameans, the inhabitants of biblical Damascus, as their ancestors, whereas
the Alliance libanaise, and especially Yusuf al-Saouda and Auguste Adib
Pasha, referred to the ancient Phoenicians whose center was the coast.
The CCS was very active in the political bargaining of the Versailles peace
conference, relentlessly calling for the formation of a Syrian federation un-
der the aegis of France. The conference evolved to be a new diplomatic bat-
tlefield between the victorious powers over the fate of the Ottoman lands.
The U.S., against the wishes of Britain and France, demanded to send a com-
mission to the disputed region to examine the dispositions of the indigenous
populations. A commission was eventually sent, composed only of two Ameri-
can delegates, Henry King and Charles Crane. The King-Crane Commission,
which arrived in Beirut in June 1919, may have been a nuisance for France
and Britain, but it created much enthusiasm throughout the Syrian lands. The
Syrian and Lebanese elites took the commission ever so seriously and lined
up to stress their political convictions. Politicians, religious leaders, busi-
nessmen and journalists met with them to express their desired political solu-
tions. By that time the Greater Syria option had begun to be identified with
the Arab government of Faysal in Damascus, and as a result many Christians
from the Mountain and the coast no longer called for the establishment of a
Syrian federation but rather reverted to the Greater Lebanon option. Thus, for
example, a petition, one of many, from a Beirut Christian delegation stated
that the need to separate Lebanon from Syria was supported by history, mo-
res, racial affinities, geographical considerations, language, legislation and
common intellectual thinking. Syria and Lebanon were simply two different
civilizations, because “the coast, which has turned towards the Occident since
the days of the Phoenicians, cannot consciously consent to let itself drown in
an intrusive and planned pan-Arabism.”122 The petition’s signatories were
Michel Tuéni (Greek Orthodox), Alfred Mussa Sursock (Greek Orthodox),
Pierre Trad (Greek Orthodox), Emile Achou (Greek Orthodox), Chécri Arcache
(Greek Catholic), Phillipe de Tarrazi (Syrian Orthodox), Michel Namé Trad
(Greek Orthodox), Michel Chiha (Chaldean Catholic). This list of personali-
ties indicates again that the vision of Lebanon as a Western-oriented state,
supported by a historical narrative beginning with the Phoenicians, was preva-
lent in Beirut among the Christian bourgeoisie and was not confined to the
Maronites.
Calls for the recognition of Lebanese (or Syrians) as non-Arabs reached
the American Commission from many Christian communities throughout
geographical Syria. In the hinterland, the petitions focused on Syrian ethnic-
ity as separate from Hijazi Arab ethnicity. On the coast, the calls often added
the Phoenician angle to the Greater Lebanese demands, as the following pe-
tition demonstrates:
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 85
Nous demandons la justice et l’égalité entre tous les habitants, et que
cette paix, cette justice et égalité soient dispensées dans ce pays qui
appartient, par hérédité, à nous, descendants des Phéniciens sous l’égide
d’un gouvernement chrétien et démocrate, dont le passé et le présent
sont le meilleur gage de bonheur pour nous et nos enfants tant opprimés,
et pour notre pays qui a stupéfié le monde entier par ses dons naturels et
par le vertu d’assimilation de ses enfants.123

Clearly, by July 1919 the term “Phoenician” bore a definite political weight,
implying non-Arab, non-Syrian, pro-Western orientation. There were still a
few Syro-Lebanese, however, such as Jacques Tabet, who used the term in
the wider context of Syria. The employment of the designation “Phoenician”
in a context of claims for age-old historical roots was so prevalent that even
some advocates of Arab identity began using it. In the Syrian-Arab journal
al-Kawkab, edited by ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Shahbandar, the future eminent
Arab-Syrian leader, the following statement was made: “We Syrians, we ob-
tain Arab blood and traces of Phoenician blood. The [Turkish] conquest modi-
fied our social character, but the unity of language unifies us as much as
living in the same fatherland.”124 Shahbandar was, of course, a Syrian-Arab
nationalist with strong Arab convictions, but in his attempts to demonstrate
the long-lasting Greater Syrian-Arab nationality, he did not mind using the
term Phoenician. By doing so he began a trend that would continue among
the adversaries of the Lebanese-Phoenician idea: attempting to expropriate
the Phoenicians from the Lebanese national movement and arabize them.
The second Lebanese delegation, headed by the Maronite Patriarch Elias
Hoyek, arrived in Paris in August 1919 to present its platform before the
delegates of the peace conference. By that time, Phoenician expressions were
totally identified with the Greater Lebanon camp. Charles Corm in Beirut
had just published the second issue of La Revue Phénicienne, and in Egypt,
al-Saouda, Adib Pasha and other longtime supporters of the Greater Lebanon
idea were publicly identified as “Phoenicians.” What Hoyek could not state
before his own community — that their ancestors were the pagan, idol
worshiper Phoenicians — he had no problem proclaiming to the delegates of
the Western powers. In the memorandum he submitted to the peace confer-
ence on October 23, he demanded independence of Lebanon in its natural,
historical and geographical borders, under the aegis of France. He inserted
Phoenician notions in his words:

Par une conception abusive de la notion de la langue, on a voulu

confondre le Liban et la Syrie. C’est là une erreur. Sans remonter à
leurs ancêtres Phéniciens, les Libanais ont toujours constitué une entité
nationale, distincte des groupements voisins par sa langue, ses mœurs,
ses affinités, sa culture occidentale.125
86 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Demanding that France should become the mandatory power over Leba-
non, again Hoyek used the ancient Phoenicians. Historical ties bound the
French and the Lebanese. The Frankish Crusaders who arrived in Lebanon in
the 12th century were actually the descendants of the Phoenicians. Hoyek
explained that the French cities, from which these cavaliers left, heading to
the Levant, had been actually founded by the ancient Phoenicians, making
these cities and their inhabitants Phoenicians as well.126 In Paris, before a
Western audience, Hoyek did not see any dilemma in highlighting the
Phoenician origin of the Lebanese. He did not, however, use the Phoenician
past of Lebanon before his flock in his frequent communiqués, not even in
1919-1920. Possibly the reason, as I have previously noted, was that he could
not preach in Maronite churches, before Maronite believers, about the pre-
Christian past of the country and its people.
In the three months Hoyek and his delegation spent in France, the Maronite
claims for the establishment of Greater Lebanon became strongly identified
with the Christian assertions for a Phoenician pedigree. An American jour-
nalist in Paris, unfamiliar with the Middle East, reported on the “Lebonites”
in the context of their political aspirations as expressed before the peace con-
ference. He visited a Sunday mass at the Maronite church in Paris on rue
d’Ulm and learned from those present that these “Lebonites” were divided
into different religious groups but united politically. They had a historical
connection to the Phoenicians, and Tyre and Sidon were their outlets to the
sea. They were zealous of their autonomy and wished not to be swallowed up
by the Muslims.127 This report of the American journalist is of course some-
what shallow, but it indicates the prevailing atmosphere created by the Leba-
nese delegation as to the cultural and political orientation of all Lebanese.
Another case that demonstrates the Phoenician atmosphere exhibited by
the Lebanese delegation in Versailles is that of Ibrahim Salim al-Najjar. Al-
Najjar was a Maronite political activist and journalist who, by 1919, opposed
the Greater Lebanon idea and put his trust in the Arab cause and Faysal in
Damascus.128 His paper, L’Asie Arabe, became the voice of Faysal in Paris in
1918-1919. Writing counter to the Maronite claims for independence based
on their ethnic differences from the Arabs, al-Najjar criticized the Phoenician
tendencies of the Christian Lebanese as expressed by the Lebanese delega-
tion to the peace conference. He called for Christian recognition of the reality
of the Arab-Muslim region in which they lived.129 As a Maronite whose po-
litical convictions supported the Arab identity in Syria, al-Najjar reflects the
fact that there was no absolute homogeneity in the political orientation of the
Syro-Lebanese. By July 1919, most Maronites did support the formation of
Greater Lebanon as an independent pro-French entity with historical roots
beginning with the ancient Phoenicians. There were, however, others, like al-
Najjar, who opposed this solution. Sometimes the division cut across familial
lines. The eminent ‘Amoun Maronite family, for example, had two of its sons
in different camps. Daoud ‘Amoun was a strong advocate of the Greater Leba-
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 87
non idea and Iskandar ‘Amoun joined the Arab government of Faysal in Da-
mascus.130
By 1920 the fate of Syria and Lebanon was determined when France fi-
nally decided to fully support the establishment of a Christian Western-ori-
ented state in Lebanon and to assume direct control over Syria at the expense
of Faysal’s regime. By then, there was neither space nor point in having soci-
eties such as the CCS that would advance a Syrian option. Indeed, by the
time Greater Lebanon was formed in September 1920, the CCS had been
dissolved. Chékri Ganem, disappointed by the formation of Greater Leba-
non, wrote in Georges Samné’s book, La Syrie, an ill-fated prophecy. He
claimed that within a few years Greater Syria would be established and Greater
Lebanon or Phoenicia [sic] would dissolve. In referring to the supporters of
Greater Lebanon he was very clear in naming them Phoenicians, as if to say
that the entire Greater Lebanon movement was Phoenician.131 A few years
later, Ganem changed his convictions and supported the Lebanist idea, pre-
sumably also embracing its national historical narrative, beginning with the
ancient Phoenicians.

Beirut 1919: Charles Corm and La Revue Phénicienne

Everything in him is charm, his hair is black, his eyes are wide, his look
is sharp. His name fills the world. Who does not know about Charles
Corm [...] but nobody knows who he is, because he wants to keep it a
secret. Where was he born, where did he study, and what did he do
before the world learned about him as an inspired genius poet? This is
a secret he keeps and does not wish anyone to inquire about. Even
when the oriental and occidental journals wrote about the master of the
“Diwan” La Montagne Inspirée, the lengthy columns, the multitude of
chapters, they could not find a thing about the past of Charles Corm.
They had to settle with the study of his brilliant poetry.132

In 1934, Charles Corm underwent a radical transformation. From being a

businessman, preoccupied with operating a large and successful firm, he be-
came a poet, an homme de lettres, a thinker “at the service of his country.”133
He liquidated his business and wiped out his past. The quotation above sug-
gests the mist Corm himself cast upon his literary rebirth.
So who was Charles Corm, the person inherently associated with the
Phoenician idea in Lebanon?
Born into a francophile Beirut family, Corm’s life started out on an antici-
pated trajectory. His father, Daoud Corm (1852-1930), was born in the vil-
lage of Ghousta, but his family soon moved to Ghazir. The physical proxim-
ity to the Jesuits of the Oriental Seminar in Ghazir introduced Daoud to the
Jesuit mission up close. Jesuit priests were the first to notice his painting
88 REVIVING PHOENICIA

talents and used his skills in their churches and schools. At the age of eight-
een, after spending a considerable number of years next to the Oriental Semi-
nar, Daoud left Ghazir and traveled to Rome to study drawing at the Institute
of Fine Arts. He returned to Lebanon five years later, settled in Beirut and
married Virgine Na‘man. He began painting portraits of important personali-
ties and church interiors throughout Syria. His works were exhibited at the
Exposition Universelle in Versailles in 1889 and in Paris in 1901.134 Daoud
and Virgine Corm lived in a social milieu remarkably exposed to the West.
Beirut, with its cosmopolitan communities and its role as the Mediterranean
port of the Syrian hinterland, became their city. Charles, their first of four
sons, was born in 1894 into that environment; the rural and bare life of the
dwellers in Mount Lebanon was far-removed from his day-to-day reality.
Charles Corm must have had an impressive and charming personality. His
name is always couched in affectionate terms, with repeated references to his
alluring nature. He was born in the burgeoning, Levantine city and spent the
majority of his childhood and adolescence in Jesuit establishments. Between
1906-1911 he studied at the Oriental Faculty of the College of Saint Joseph.
In the last year of his studies he wrote his final thesis: “Quelle est la fin de
l’éducation et quel y doivent jouer les idées religieuses.”135 Maybe this was
an indication of his future religious inclinations. He won the highest honor-
ary award for this paper and also earned from his father a trip to Europe and
New York. He traveled for a year, probably establishing initial connections
with the Ford Motor Company, of which he later became the sole representa-
tive in all of Syria and Lebanon. Shortly after his return to Beirut, he founded
the Association des arts which was short-lived due to the outbreak of WWI.
At that point the Corms left Beirut and moved to the Mountain, only return-
ing to the coast when the cannons stopped their roar. Already by then Charles
was leaving memorable impressions on people who had encountered him.
He helped the French rehabilitate Beirut, in particular the buildings of USJ,
and Gontaut-Biron, the French official, took the trouble to personally thank
him for his assistance.136
In February 1919, shortly after the first Lebanese delegation to the peace
conference arrived in Paris, Charles Corm established l’Association nationale
de la jeunesse syrienne, advocating “indissolvable Syrian unity, equitable
conciliation between all parties and disregarding all consideration of ritual or
religion.”137 The association supported the formation of Greater Syria as a
non-Arab state, disassociated from the Arab movement of the Hijaz. The as-
sociation’s members gave public lectures on the different social and intellec-
tual questions that concerned Syria.138 Corm also planned for the association
to open an evening school for the study of French and Arabic and to establish
a Syrian academy of fine arts.139 In the closing words of the mission state-
ment of the association, Corm wrote:
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 89
Nous ne doutons pas que c’est d’un tel foyer d’activité et d’énergie
nationales, que doivent sortir un jour les hommes qui mèneront les
destinées de la plus grande Syrie [emphasis added, A.K.]. Tous nos
encouragements et toute notre confiance leur sont acquis.140

Clearly, in early 1919 Corm supported the formation of Greater Syria, like
many other Lebanese. They all wished to form an extended political frame-
work oriented towards the West, separated from the Arab movement.141 Only
when Faysal’s Arab movement slowly took over the Syrian national move-
ment and identified it with Arab-Islamic causes did this group change its
orientation and begin calling unequivocally for the establishment of Greater
Lebanon. The British-French rivalry also contributed to the separation be-
tween the Syrian (and Lebanese) and the Arab national movements.142 At the
end of March 1919, Corm wrote to Chékri Ganem, president of the CCS,
supporting the Committee’s stand and entrusting him to represent the Asso-
ciation’s view in Versailles.143 Corm also asked Ganem to join his Associa-
tion, which the latter honorably accepted.144 By the time the American King-
Crane Commission arrived in the region in June 1919, Corm had already
changed his views and supported the formation of a Greater Lebanese state.145
The Association nationale de la jeunesse syrienne did not last too long. The
last records of its activity are dated July 1919.146 The transformed views of
Corm and many other Lebanese no longer left room for the existence of a
pro-Greater Syrian association.
In July 1919, Charles Corm began issuing his most celebrated journal, La
Revue Phénicienne, from his father’s printing house Editions maison d’art.
Only four issues appeared: July, August, September and December. La Revue
Phénicienne became, however, one of the most renowned publications of the
time, and Charles Corm attained his eminence thanks to it. It is very possible
that French officials, and especially Robert de Caix, Gouraud’s general sec-
retary, helped finance the review’s publication.147 De Caix, who, as noted in
Chapter I, aspired to turn Lebanon into a Western-oriented, pro-French bas-
tion, had many reasons to support such a publication. Corm gathered around
him a group of francophile businessmen, lawyers and administrators, all writ-
ing about socio-political, economic and historical issues concerning Syria
and Lebanon. The unadulterated francophilism of its writers can be encoun-
tered in every note and letter in Corm’s review. The anti-Arab inclinations
are just as evident. Although about forty people wrote for the review, the final
product was the fruit of Charles Corm’s personality and creativity. He wrote
several articles in each issue, under various noms de plumes: “Caf Rémine,”
standing for the Arabic (or other Semitic) letters of his last name: Caf, Ra,
Mim; “Chinalef Relame”, standing for the letters of his first name: Shin,
Alef, Ra, Lam; “Sanchoniathon,” referring to the Beirut historian who wrote
the annals of the city in 1000 BC; “Ariel Caliban,” a reference to the two
90 REVIVING PHOENICIA

images from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and probably also to Ernest Renan’s
Caliban: Suite de la Tempête; and E. Le Veilleur, meaning the guardian (of
Lebanon?).
Participating in the review, Phillippe de Tarrazi and Joseph al-Gemayel
each contributed a series of four articles, one to each issue. Michel Chiha,
Jacques Tabet and Emile Arab each contributed three articles. Albert Naccache,
Ibrahim J. Tabet, Abdallah Kheir and Auguste Adib Pasha each wrote two.
Many others contributed one article; among them were Elie Tyane, Chékri
Ganem, Hector Klat, Paul Nujaym and Henri Lammens. La Revue Phénicienne
also inaugurated the publication of francophone poetry by Lebanese poets
composing “national poetry” saturated with Phoenician symbols.148 Hector
Klat, Elie Tyane, Michel Talhamé, Emile Coussa, Georges Corm, Alfred
Naccache, Michel Chiha and Jean Corm were the first to publish their poetry
in Corm’s forum.
If we take the first issue of La Revue Phénicienne and examine the articles
and their writers, we get a good picture of the atmosphere that surfaces in its
pages. Of the twenty essays, Charles Corm wrote six, one in his own name
and the rest under different pseudonyms. One deals with a current political
issue, the American King-Crane Commission, and the other five are literary
pieces underpinning, on the one hand, the immense love and devotion of the
Lebanese to France and, on the other, the disassociation between Lebanon
and the Arab national movements.
Five articles are preoccupied with economic issues of Syria and Lebanon.
Albert Naccache, a close friend of Corm, opened the issue with an article
entitled “Notre avenir économique.” Using economic rationale, he justified
separating Lebanon from Syria. Joseph Gemayel, a tobacco industrialist and
the owner of a large pharmacy in Beirut, commenced with a series of articles
entitled, “La culture du tabac au Liban.” Amin Mouchahwar, the future in-
spector of finances in Lebanon, wrote “Nos resources agricoles, industrielles,
minières et commerciales.” Fouad al-Khoury, a member of Corm’s Associa-
tion nationale de la jeunesse syrienne wrote about the hotel industry in Leba-
non. Under the pseudonym D.C.F. (denoting David Corm et Fils), Daoud
Corm sealed the first issue with an essay on “Le movement commercial,”
discussing the necessary steps to revitalize commerce in Lebanon.
Two articles deal with Lebanon’s ancient past. The first was by Jean Jalkh
who wrote about ancient Béryte (Beirut) being the major city of law of the
Roman Empire.149 Surveying the famous jurists the city produced and the
Roman Codex of Law written in Béryte in the second century AD, Jalkh
offered a link between the ancient center of jurisprudence and the modern
French Faculty of Law at USJ:

Mais comme la Phénicie avait jadis attiré les yeux de Rome sur ses
ressources intellectuelles, nous avons depuis 6 ans, une Faculté de droit
à Beyrouth, qui avec le code romain, qui lui a été inspiré par nos pères
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 91
[the ancient Beiruties, A.K.], nous enseigne les principes de droit in-
comparable de la “Justice française.150

The second article was written by Jacques Tabet and entitled, “Ce qu’était
notre patrie (9 siècles AC).” It explored the religion, culture and accomplish-
ments of the ancient Phoenician cities, giving them credit even for social
achievements:

Il était dit que le petit peuple phénicien qui, le premier avait fait connaître
au monde les bienfaits du commerce, devait aussi entrer le premier
dans l’ère des revendications sociales; et cela au moment où la société
chez ses puissants voisins, Chaldéens, Égyptiens et Grecs, se contentait
encore de lois à demi barbares.151

Three articles are political in nature. Chafic Halabi, magistrate of the Bei-
rut Court of Appeals, wrote on Les bases de l’état: équilibre, nationalité,
plébiscite. Auguste Adib Pasha wrote Constitution politique du Liban
administratif, analyzing the negative repercussions of the Règlement organique
of 1861 on Lebanon. The third article, written by Charles Corm as Caf Rémine,
focused on the American Commission and called for instituting a French man-
datory regime over Lebanon.
There is also an article by Dr. Emile Arab, a lecturer at the Faculté française
de médecine at USJ and a member of Corm’s Association, pertaining to health
issues in Lebanon. Elie Tyane contributed “Le symbolisme dans la littérature
française.”152 Several articles in the four issues of La Revue Phénicienne sur-
veyed literary trends in France. They all illustrate the extent of knowledge
and intimacy with France and its cultural currents possessed by Corm’s so-
cial milieu.153 Philippe de Tarrazi embarked on a series of essays entitled
“Nos grands hommes,” dealing with famous literary, Lebanese personalities.
Lastly, Corm published a letter dated April 29, 1919 from Chekri Ganem
thanking Corm for asking him to be an honorary president of the Association
de la jeunesse syrienne.
Corm authored five additional articles, in his own name and under pseu-
donyms, which enable us to determine his own worldview in July 1919. Al-
though by that date he already supported the formation of Greater Lebanon, it
is still possible to see his Greater Syrian inclinations. Moreover, he hosted, in
his Review, persons who were still strong advocates of the Syrian option,
such as Jacques Tabet, Henri Lammens (in the December issue of the Re-
view) and of course Chekri Ganem. The opening essay of the July issue is
entitled, how else, “Phénicia.” It is a short exposition of the contribution of
the ancient Phoenicians to humanity. The second one, penned by Corm —
“L’ombre s’étend sur la montagne” — calls for the establishment of Greater
Lebanon in its natural borders, casting Lebanon as a shining light154 and the
Arab movement coming from Asia as threatening darkness: “Nous avons
92 REVIVING PHOENICIA

toujours été, malgré l’adversité, le rempart de la civilisation, dressé contre les

Ténèbres de l’Asie. L’ombre ne doit plus escalader la montagne éclatante.
L’ombre ne doit plus étouffer la lumière.”155
Under the pseudonym Cédar, Corm also wrote “Les impressions d’un jeune
phénicien d’aujourd’hui,”156 which seems to be based on his personal experi-
ences during WWI in Lebanon. It tells the story of a young man who re-
mained in Lebanon through the war but fled to the mountains where he waited
for the French to arrive. When the French landed in Beirut he was filled with
bliss. He returned to the city to be among the first to welcome them. The
article is imbued with words of admiration for France and its culture. “Nous
sommes plus francophiles que les français! … Seuls, les français ne sont plus
francophiles! …,” the “Young Phoenician” Cédar tells us.
Then, as Chinalef Rélame, Corm wrote another piece which, it seems, is
also partly autobiographical.157 In the form of a screenplay he recounts the
story of a bourgeois family in Beirut and the way they relate to the arrival of
the French army. The characters include a man and his wife, a son and a
niece. The teenagers, bearing the French names of Jean and Henriette (most
likely named after Ernest Renan’s sister whose remains are buried in Amchit,
a few kilometers north of Byblos), are very excited about the arrival of the
French soldiers. They run off to the bustling streets and cheer them on; M.
Jabali,158 the boy’s father, meanwhile, is troubled by the political fervor that
has caught everyone. Risking his life, Jean had left the Mountain seven months
earlier to welcome the first French soldiers at the port of Beirut. Jean and
Henriette wish to introduce “la vrai Syrie” to the French through the publi-
cation of a journal called La Jeune Syrie or La Syrie nouvelle. Returning
from the streets, Jean brings home a French captain who speaks French badly,
corrupted by military slang. The Jabalis decide to re-teach the French soldier
his own language. Henriette informs the captain that many Syrians, espe-
cially activists of l’Association nationale de la jeunesse syrienne, write French
poetry. Their source of inspiration, she says, is France and the patrie. As the
plot unfolds, it turns out that Henriette has been corresponding with the cap-
tain for the last three months, not realizing who he was. The play terminates,
as expected, with Henriette and the captain falling in love and with the prom-
ise of marriage, symbolizing the cultural and political wedlock between France
and Lebanon.
In another literary effort Corm wrote the first essay in a series entitled
“Variations sur le mode sentimental,”159 describing personal encounters with
different Lebanese women who enchanted him. This essay was written under
the pseudonym Ariel Caliban, an interesting name in and of itself for it en-
lightens us to Corm’s cultural world. As noted above, Ariel and Caliban are
two contradictory characters in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is set on a
Mediterranean island. The former is a spirit with high moral standards; the
latter is an earthly deformed servant who lacks any moral values. The appel-
lation Ariel has become identified over the years with highly poetic imagina-
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 93
tion. Caliban, even more than Ariel, has been a significant cultural reference
since Shakespeare conceived him in the early 17th century. The only native
on the island taken by Prospero, the Duke of Milan, Caliban has evolved to
represent anti-colonial movements and the struggle of the indigenous against
the white European imperialist. Ernest Renan, a cultural reference himself
for many Lebanese, wrote in 1878 his own sequel to Shakespeare’s master-
piece. In the final act of The Tempest the grotesque Caliban remains alone on
the island while the rest of the play’s characters return to Italy; however, in
Renan’s sequel Caliban leaves the island with the group. In Milan, according
to Renan, he learns manners and becomes civilized, eventually becoming the
city’s ruler. Interesting as it may be, it is beyond the scope of this study to
elaborate more on this issue. It is only important to remember that Corm was,
by no means, oblivious to the multiple cultural layers of Ariel and of Caliban.
By fusing them into one nom de plume, perhaps he demonstrated his own
duality: the spiritual Ariel and the materialistic Caliban; the savage Caliban
of the island and the civilized, elitist Caliban of Renan after his translocation
to Milan. We shall see in Chapter IV that this duality served as a central
theme in Corm’s epic La Montagne Inspirée.
The other three issues of La Revue Phénicienne resemble the first. About a
third of each issue features articles preoccupied with economic themes. An-
other third contains political articles on the preferred solution for the Leba-
nese question. The remaining essays are literary or historical pieces high-
lighting their authors’ Western cultural orientation. It is obvious that the par-
ticipants in Corm’s review were from the urban commercial elite in Lebanon.
Some were more Westernized than others, but they all shared a close com-
mercial interest. From Michel Chiha, who, upon his return to Lebanon in
1918, became involved in managing his familial bank, to Jacques Tabet the
real estate landlord, to Albert Naccache the engineer who worked in the French-
financed Kadicha electric power plant; all wished to preserve the world that
enabled them to be affluent. At first, many of them believed that an enlarged
Syrian political framework would provide the means for them to maintain
this world. As 1919 unfolded, it became more and more evident that the Syr-
ian idea had been taken over by Faysal and his movement. This change is
crystal clear in La Revue Phénicienne. Bulus Nujaym, for example, who in
1908 wrote in favor of the formation of a Greater Lebanese autonomous re-
gion, but in a larger Syrian framework, wrote in the August issue of the Re-
view about the Lebanese nation which, jealous of its independence, does not
wish to be attached to Syria.160
Charles Corm, Bulus Nujaym, Hector Klat, Emile Eddé, Alfred Naccache
and others from the same social milieu were intimately familiar with Western
cultural references. They may have been numerically marginal in the Leba-
nese society of 1919, but they had a non-marginal political role in determin-
ing the fate of Lebanon in the post-war period. Arguably, Michel Chiha is one
of the most outstanding examples of this social and cultural environment.
94 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Chiha has long enjoyed his reputation as the father and thinker of the Leba-
nese confessional system.161 He was the major architect of the 1926 constitu-
tion and of the 1943 “National Pact” and the vigorous engine behind Béchara
al-Khoury’s camp for more than twenty years. Although the Chihas origi-
nally came from Iraq, Michel adopted Lebanon as his land and wrote exten-
sively about its national culture. He wrote three essays for the Review, under
the banner Entretiens de Patrice, which are imagined conversations between
himself and a person named Patrice. There is no etymological connection
between the name Patrice and the word patrie, but the visual association is
unmistakable. In the first conversation Chiha and Patrice sit in an Athenian
setting gazing at the patrie from across the Mediterranean Sea and reflecting
upon its current situation. We are lacking an ideal, Patrice says, we think on a
small scale:

Nous nous réclamons des Phéniciens: que nous reste-t-il de leurs vertus?
Ils donnèrent la pourpre162 à Rome! Impavides, ils allaient sur la mer
furieuse portant comme une torche, l’idée! Et nous?

We have become a nation of petty merchants, Patrice concludes. “This is

why the bones of our fathers are warmer than our lives.” Chiha’s criticism of
the Lebanese merchant characters is actually quite interesting, especially con-
sidering his own background as a businessman. Given his future writings, I
can only assume that Chiha had visions of a larger scale for Lebanon, beyond
a country of petty merchants. In the same essay, Chiha harshly disapproves
of the idea that the United States might become the mandatory power in Syria
and Lebanon. Interestingly, he employs cultural reasons to reject this idea.
We Lebanese belong to the Mediterranean Latin culture through our past, our
traditions, our morals and our language, Chiha affirms. It is this identity of
spirit and thought that ties us with the Latin Occident. We should not enable
the Anglo-Saxon iceberg to penetrate the warm waters of the Mediterranean,
concludes Patrice-Chiha. Three quotations embellish Chiha’s essay and ex-
pose his cultural realm: the first by Victor Hugo, the second from The Odys-
sey and the third from Anthinéa by Charles Maurras, the radical right French
thinker.
In 1919, Chiha was part of Charles Corm’s intimate circle. Politically he
changed his views in the 1920s, even more so in 1930s, and differed from
Corm in his ideas about the integration of Lebanon in the Middle East. Nev-
ertheless, socially and artistically he never left this circle. Even in the heyday
of the political rivalry between Béchara al-Khoury and Emile Eddé that found
Corm and Chiha in two different camps, the two men did not loosen their
literary ties, as we shall see later.
Phoenicianism in 1919 was no marginal phenomenon; it was one of the
foundations of the Lebanist idea. Adib Pasha, Chiha, Mouchahwar, Nujaym
and others all turned out to be leading political and administrative figures in
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 95
Lebanon after 1920. Charles Corm, Joseph Gemayel and Jacques Tabet were
prominent businessmen, representing the urban commercial backbone of
Lebanon. There is no need to elaborate on the gravity of the Maronite Patri-
arch Elias Hoyek, whose report about his trip to Paris with the Lebanese
delegation to the peace congress appeared in the December issue of the Re-
view. Habib Pasha al-Sa‘ad, the President of the Administrative Council of
the Mutasarrifiyya, Emile Eddé and Michel Bey Tuéni participated in Corm’s
extra-journalistic activity.163 Corm turned out to be a pivot around which the
Phoenician idea was expressed in Beirut of 1919, but the entire socio-politi-
cal milieu that supported the formation of Greater Lebanon was “Phoenician”
in a way. Chékri Ganem, still defending the Greater Syrian idea, wrote in
1920:

Dans vingt ou trente ans quand on demandera à un musulman, à un

chrétien de n’importe quel rite, qu’êtes-vous? il répondra: je suis Syrien
et non pas ce qu’il répondait dans le passé, ou bien dans les années de
début: je suis Phénicien (grand Libanais), [sic]ou Damascain, ou Alépin
...164

Ganem repeated this analogy between Phoenicianism and Greater Leba-

non several times, as if to say that one who supported the creation of Greater
Lebanon also supported the Phoenician idea. Referring specifically to Corm’s
Review, Ganem said:

Je lisais il y a quelques mois, dans une Revue syrienne qui se publiait à

Beyrouth, “La Revue Phénicienne”, des articles qui auraient fait figure
dans n’importe quelle grande Revue de Paris. Elle avait pour directeur
M. Charles Corm qui avait réuni autour de lui une pléiade de jeunes
écrivains, tous syriens [...] On me dit que cette Revue ne paraît plus. Je
le regrette. Les Syriens et ceux qui viennent de prendre en main la
destinée de ces pays s’honoreraient en encourageant de telles publica-
tions.165

Indeed, the December 1919 issue sealed the publication of La Revue

Phénicienne. The six months that passed between the publication of the first
and last issues witnessed a crucial change in Syria and Lebanon. If, in July,
the fate of Lebanon was not at all clear and France was still deliberating as to
what its policy should be in Syria and Lebanon, then by January 1920, espe-
cially with the governmental change in Paris, France decided to fully side
with the Maronites’ demands.166 It is not clear to me why Corm discontinued
publication of the Review. In the September issue, he hinted to some finan-
cial difficulties, and that could be a possible reason.167
In the academic year of 1919-1920, Charles Corm was registered as a
student at the French Faculty of Law at USJ.168 The following year he did not
96 REVIVING PHOENICIA

return to school but completely immersed himself in business. He established

a company, La société générale industrielle et commerciale Charles Corm et
Cie,169 that served as the sole agency of the Ford Motor Company in Syria
and Lebanon. By 1923, he must have been very wealthy: forty-five percent
of all cars traveling on the French mandatory roads were Ford vehicles.170
The reputation he had gained in 1918-1919 as a “Lebanese patriot” opened
doors within the French mandatory regime.171 He ceased, however, his liter-
ary activities only to resume them years later, in 1934.
Corm did not invent, nor was he the first to express, Phoenician ideas. Yet,
his alluring personality shaped Phoenicianism in the Lebanon of 1919-1920.
It is often the character of the right person showing up at the right time that
molds an ideology in the person’s image. Such was the case with Charles
Corm. In the 1930s, when he resumed his literary and artistic activity, Leba-
non would be at a different stage of development — and so would the
Phoenician narrative of the past.

References

1 Carol Hakim-Dowek, The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea; 1840-1914,

pp. 312-319. Eliezer Tauber, The Emergence of the Arab Movements (London:
Frank Cass, 1993), pp. 70-71.
2 The pamphlet can be found in MAE, Paris, NS Turkie, Vol. 113, or in l’Asie
Française (September 1911), the journal edited by Robert de Caix.
3 On the historiographical debate about Fakhr al-Din’s role in the formation of
modern Lebanon, see Ahmad Beydoun, Identité Confessionnelle, pp. 513-565.
4 The Khazins were executed in the central square of Beirut along with fourteen
other Lebanese. All sixteen became national mythical figures in Lebanon. The
central square in Beirut, Place des Martyres (Sahat al-shuhada), is named for
them.
5 Albert Hourani, “Lebanese and Syrians in Egypt,” in Hourani and Shehadi (eds.),
The Lebanese in the World (London: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1992), pp.
498-499; Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1985), pp. 1-
24.
6 O.M. Wallace, Egypt and the Egyptian Question (London, 1883), p. 143, cited in
Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt, p. 99.
7 On Napoleon’s infatuation with antiquity, see Jean Charles Assali, “Napoléon et
l’antiquité,” in Michel Ganzin (ed.), L’Influence de l’Antiquité sur la Pensée
Politique Européenne (XVI-XX siècles) (Aix-en-Provence, 1996), pp. 423-431.
8 Michael J. Reimer, Colonial Bridgehead; Government and Society in Alexandria,
1807-1882 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), p. 12.
9 The affection towards this Levantine world is especially apparent when reading
Michel Chiha’s political writing in the 1930s-1940s. I shall discuss this point at
length in Chapter IV.
10 Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt (London: Macmillan, 1908), 2nd Vol. p. 215.
11 Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt, pp. 100-101.
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 97
12 Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt, p. 216.
13 See more names in Yusuf al-Saouda, Fi Sabil al-Istiqlal [For the Sake of
Independence] (Beirut, [n.s.] 1967), p. 66. Henri Lammens also found refuge in
Alexandria during the war. See in Université Saint Joseph, “In Memoriam, Le
Père Henri Lammens,” Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale (1937-1938), p. 335.
14 On the sectarian relations, see Leila Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth
Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 103-120.
15 Yusuf al-Saouda, Fi Sabil Lubnan, (Alexandria: Matba‘at madrasat Freir al-
Sina‘iyya, 1918), p. 25. See also al-Saouda, Istiqlal Lubnan wa al-Itihad al-
Lubnani fi Iskandariyya [Lebanese Independence and the Alliance Libanaise in
Alexandria] (Alexandria: Matba‘at al-Hilal, 1920), p. 8.
16 MAE, Nantes, Syrie-Liban, carton 930. Renseignements, December 1924. See
also Jurj Harun, Yusuf al-Sawda (Beirut: Kaslik, 1979). The entire book is one
lengthy homage to al-Saouda’s Phoenician inclinations. See p. 131 on his use of
Arabic. Not surprisingly, the book was issued by the publishing house of the
Maronite Université Saint Esprit, in Kaslik.
17 Association amicale des anciens élèves, Livre d’Or (Beirut, 1949), p. 25. Louis
Cheikho, Souvenir des Noces d’Or, de l’USJ de Beyrouth (Beirut, no date); Bulletin
Annuel de l’Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves de l’USJ (Beirut, 1907), p.
50.
18 Al-Saouda, Fi Sabil Lubnan, p. 183.
19 Al-Saouda claimed that the book reached the hands of the administrative council
and the Patriarch who were influenced by it. See Fi Sabil al-Istiqlal, p. 184.
20 Yusuf al-Saouda, Fi Sabil Lubnan (Alexandria, 1919), p. 15.
21 Information taken from MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 630, p. 20. Notes
biographiques.
22 Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, pp. 214-215; Kamal Salibi, The
Modern History of Lebanon, p. 170; Meir Zamir, Lebanon’s Quest (London: I.B.
Tauris, 1997), p. 45.
23 St. Antony’s College, Yale papers, Report no. 12. January 28, 1918. William
Yale was an American officer who served the American consulate in Egypt. When
the American Commission arrived to the region in July 1919 he worked as its
special advisor. See also Auguste Adib Pasha, Le Liban après la Guerre (Paris:
E. Leroux, 1918), pp. 161. According to the author’s note the book was written in
April 1917 with the assistance of Henri Lammens.
24 Ibid, pp. 46-49.
25 La Revue Phénicienne (July 1919), pp. 136-141.
26 Ibid, p. 136.
27 Auguste Adib Pasha sent a copy of the article he published in La Revue Phénicienne
to the High Commissioner in Beirut. See MAE, Nantes, Syrie-Liban, carton 1561.
28 For biographical information on Hector Klat, see his semi-autobiography, Feuilles
Mortes (Beirut: Ghorayeb, 1970); Who’s Who in Lebanon (Beirut, 1963-1964);
La Revue du Liban et l’Orient Méditerranéen, No. 36 (January 1936), p. 16;
Rachid Lahoud, La Littérature Libanaise de Langue Française (Beirut: [n.s.],
1945), pp. 60-64.
29 The curricula in the French Jesuit schools throughout the Levant were similar.
See Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves des Pères Jésuites en Orient;
Alexandrie, Beyrouth, le Caire (Cairo, 1929).
98 REVIVING PHOENICIA

30 Klat, Feuilles Mortes, pp. 25-26.

31 Ibid.
32 Hector Klat, Le Cèdre et les Lys (Beirut: Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 1935),
p. 6. See also his poem “Notre Dame des opprimés”, in La Revue Phénicienne
(August 1919), pp. 125-126.
33 See also Béchara al-Khoury’s testimony about his Alexandria experience in
Haqa’iq Lubnaniyya [Lebanese Facts] (Beirut: Awraq Lubnaniyya, 1961), pp.
78-85.
34 al-Saouda, Fi Sabil al-Istiqlal, p. 380.
35 The Catholic extraction of Chiha should be remembered in this context. As Robert
Haddad wrote in his Syrian Christians in Muslim Societies (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970), pp. 51-52: “...the Uniate Melkites were the most
‘westernized’ Arabic-speaking community in Syria (and Egypt) and the most
alienated from indigenous traditions and values.” Chiha was a Chaldean Catholic,
but Haddad’s words can also be applied to his church.
36 Edmond Rostand was a beloved author among many Syro-Lebanese. His hero,
Cyrano de Bergerac, became a national symbol in France. The French saw in
him the soldier, the daring and gentleman of spirit, the embodiment of all the
positive national characteristics they needed so badly at the end of the nineteenth
century. Rostand wrote this play in 1895. It tells a love story of a desperate French
troubadour and an Oriental princess, the Countess of Tripoli. See many other
references to Rostand, some in a Phoenician context, in Hector Klat, “Edmond
Rostand: Poète de guerre,” La Revue Phénicienne (August, 1919), pp. 92-104. In
a separate article in the Revue, Henri Lammens also refers to Rostand’s “La
Princesse Lointaine,” La Revue Phénicienne (December, 1919), p. 196.
37 Klat, Feuilles Mortes, p. 86. p. 110. The first issue of Ébauches appeared in May
1916. The review lasted no more than a year. Another indication of the Jesuit
connection emerges from Klat’s description. He writes about an exchange of
poems with Chiha while the latter was recuperating in the “Maison des campagne
des pères jesuites” out of Alexandria. p. 110.
38 Al-Saouda, Fi Sabil al-Istiqlal, especially pp. 373-380.
39 Jacques Tabet, La Syrie (Paris: A. Lemerre, 1920). According to the author’s
note, the book was written between 1915-1920.
40 Ibid, pp. 28-29.
41 Ibid, p. 105.
42 This idea would be adopted and used in the 1930s-1940s by Lebanese poets with
Phoenician tendencies such as Sa‘id ‘Aql, Rushdi Ma‘luf and Salah Labaki. See
more about them in Chapter IV.
43 Tabet, La Syrie, p. 151.
44 Ibid, pp. 301-302.
45 On May 1922, Jacques Tabet wanted to set up a foundation that would offer an
annual essay competition on the history and geography of Syria and Lebanon for
local students taking the French baccalauoréat. He presented this idea to Robert
de Caix and Henri Gouraud, suggesting that the essays be based on Lammens’
book, La Syrie; Précis Historique. Tabet conditioned this initiative with the request
that the history and geography of Syria and Lebanon become recognized subjects
in the baccalauoréat, a condition that neither de Caix nor Gouraud could approve,
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 99
since the matriculation exams, they responded, could only be changed by Paris.
The two officials also wrote him that such an initiative should be based on more
than one book. Tabet then defended Lammens’ book, arguing that it was the only
study that fulfilled the national needs of Syria and Lebanon. This initiative of
“Prix Jacques Tabet de l’histoire et de la géographie syrienne” never materialized.
MAE, Nantes, Syrie-Liban, Carton 14, de Caix to Tabet, May 9, 1922; de Caix to
Tabet, May 30, 1922; Tabet to Gouraud, June 14, 1922. In the same year, Tabet
published a lengthy novel, Helissa, that told the story of the Tyrien princess who
founded Carthage in the 8th century BC.
46 I would like to thank Carol Hakim-Dowek for providing me with this valuable
information on Jacques and Anna Tabet.
47 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 57, pp. 123-124, notes de presses, December 30,
1920, a report about a party in Paris thrown by Henri Gouraud. Jacques and Anna
Tabet were invited along with other distinguished Syrians and Lebanese, among
them Charles Corm, “the well-known Lebanese patriot.” See also the participation
of the Tabets in organizing social-academic events, in René Moutèrde, “Le congrès
archéologique en Syrie, April 8-7, 1926,” Études (April-June, 1927), pp. 564-
570. Yusuf Ahmad al-Zein, the owner of al-‘Irfan, also helped in the preparation
of the congress along with the wife of Alfred Bey Sursuk. (Note the confessional
cooperation: a Maronite [Tabet], a Greek Orthodox [Sursuk] and a Shi‘i [al-Zein]).
MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 209, pp. 75-82, Tabet to the French Prime Minister,
August 26, 1924; MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 531, p. 13, Revue de la Presse,
August 30-September 5, 1937.
48 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 252, pp. 34-44. Rapport sur la Situation de la
Syrie et du Liban (Paris, 1924). See also the 1928 report to the League of Nations:
MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 253, pp. 89-91. See also http://www.lebanon.com/
where/lebanonguide/nationalmuseum.htm
49 See the books of two activists of the Committee that emphasize the non-Arab
identity of the Syrians and Lebanese, referring to their Phoenician ancestors:
Edgard Tawil, La Syrie (Alexandria, 1919). ‘Abdallah Sfeir Pasha, Le Mandat
Français et les Traditions Françaises en Syrie et au Liban (Paris, 1922). Edgard
Tawil was the secretary of the Alexandria branch of the Committee and ‘Abdallah
Sfeir was president of the Cairo branch.
50 See the review in al-Muqtataf (July 1917), pp. 84-86, of a pamphlet Darian wrote,
entitled Nubdha Tarikhiyya fi Asl al-Tai’ifa al-Maruniyya wa Istiqlaliha bi-Jabal
Lubnan [A Historical Note about the Origin of the Maronite Community and its
Independence in Mount Lebanon]. The review elaborates on Darian’s attempts
to demonstrate the Phoenician descent of the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. Darian
wrote this book in response to Nadra Moutran’s book in order to prove the unique
and separate identity of the Maronites. See in Cedar of Lebanon, Syria Reborn
(Alexandria: Molco, Petrini & Co., 1919), p. 28.
51 The French regularly allocated money to Monsignor Darian (50,000 FF a year).
MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 110, p. 36, MAE to Lefevre-Pontalis, Ministre
Plenipotentiaire, September 3, 1918. See also Béchara al-Khouri, Haqa’iq
Lubnaniyya, Vol. I, p. 84; al-Saouda, Fi Sabil al-Istiqlal, pp. 79-82.
52 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban Vol. 110, June 14, 1918, MAE to Jusserand, the French
ambassador to the USA, asking him to allocate funds for Darian’s visit to America
because “it is in the best of our political interests.”
100 REVIVING PHOENICIA

53 The most famous is of course Rashid Rida. We shall discuss his stand vis-à-vis
the Phoenician myth of origin in Chapter V.
54 Thomas Philipp provides the following figures of Syro-Lebanese in Egypt: 10,000
Greek Catholic; 6,000 Maronites, 5,000 Greek Orthodox. The Syrians in Egypt,
p. 86.
55 The 1911 U.S. census recorded 56,903 Syrians emigrants who arrived in America
between 1899-1910. Philip Hitti, in his The Syrians in America (New York:
Georges H. Doran Company, 1924), p. 65, estimated that around 200,000 Syrians
lived in the U.S. at the end of WWI, of whom 95% were Christians. The sectarian
division he provides is as follows: 45% Maronites, 43% Greek Orthodox, 5%
Catholic, 2.5% Protestants, and 4.5% Druze and Muslims. On the social class of
the Syrian immigrants, see Magelssen to Loomis, 12 September 1904, US GR
84, Miscellaneous, Beirut, quoted in Charles Issawi, The Fertile Crescent 1800-
1914, A Documentary Economic History (New York: Oxford University Press,
1988), p. 71; See also Philip M. Kayal and Joseph M. Kayal, The Syrian-Lebanese
in America (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975), p. 74.
56 See Roger Owen, “Lebanese Migration in the Context of World Population
Movements,” in Hournai and Shehadi, The Lebanese in the World, pp. 33-39.
57 For more information on the socio-political reasons that “pushed” the emigrants
from Mount Lebanon to the Americas, see Samir Khalaf, “The Background and
Causes of Lebanese/Syrian Immigration to the United States before World War
I,” in: Eric J. Hoogland (ed.), Crossing the Waters (Washington D.C., Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1987), pp. 17-35; Said Himadeh, Economic Organization of
Syria (Beirut: American Press, 1936), pp. 14-20; Charles Issawi, “The Historical
Background of Lebanese Emigration 1800-1914,” in Albert Hourani and Nadim
Shehadi, The Lebanese in the World (London: I.B. Tauris and The Centre for
Lebanese Studies, 1992), pp. 13-32; Najib Saliba, “Emigration from Syria,” Arab
Studies Quarterly 3, No. 1(1981), p. 61.
58 See Jeremiah Jenks & Jett Lauck, The Immigration Problem (New York: Funk &
Wagnalls, 1911).
59 The leading thinkers of these theories were: Gobineau, Essai sur l’Inégalité des
Races Humaines (Paris, 1853-1855); H.S. Chamberlain, The Foundations of the
Nineteenth Century (London: J. Lane, 1910); C. Woodruff, The Expansion of
Races (New York: Rebman Company, 1909); G.V. Lapouge, Les selections
sociales (Paris: A. Fontemoing, 1888-1889).
60 Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem, p. 1.
61 See, for example, William Ripley, “Races in the United States,” Atlantic Monthly
(1907). The writer, a distinguished professor at Harvard, wrote against the
absorption of inferior Mediterranean races to America. “We have even tapped
the political sinks of Europe and are now drawing large numbers of Greeks,
Armenians and Syrians. No people is too mean or too lowly to seek asylum on
our shores.”
62 Congress, House, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Immigration
Legislation, 61st Congress, 3rd session, 1911, p. 38.
63 Ibid, p. 40.
64 Ibid, p. 63.
65 Congress, House, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Abstracts of Reports
of the Immigration Commission (Washington, D.C. 1911), p. 96. In 1899, the
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 101
year in which the term “Syrian” began to be used, 3,708 immigrants registered
themselves as Syrians and only 28 as Turks. See in The Immigration Problem, p.
667.
66 See Philip Hitti, The Syrians in America, pp. 19-20; Michael W. Suleiman, “Early
Arab Americans: The Search for Identity,” in Hoogland, Crossing the Waters, p.
42
67 See, for example, the case of Louise Houghton, an American missioner, who
returned to America and wrote about the Syrian immigrants mentioning the
Phoenician blood that flows in their veins: Adele L. Younis, The Coming of the
Arabic-Speaking People to the United States (New York: Center for Migration
Studies, 1995), p. 174; Helen McCready Kearny, American Images of the Middle
East, 1824-1924: A Century of Antipathy (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Rochester, 1976), p. 310.
68 Helen McCready Kearny, Ibid, pp. 6-8.
69 Ibid, p. 15; p. 18. A different study conducted in 1928 among undergraduate
students of the University of Chicago had similar results, making the Turk only
better than the Negro. See Ibid, pp. 300-302 for many examples of negative
reactions to the arrival of Arabs and Syrians to America.
70 Congress, House, Reports of the Immigration Commission, presented by Mr.
Dillingham, Dictionary of Races or Peoples (Washington, D.C. 1911), p. 1.
71 Ibid, p. 139.
72 Ibid, p. 16.
73 See Ibid, pp. 9-12 for the bibliographical list used to write the Dictionary. Elisée
Reclus’ Nouvelle Géographie Universelle stands out, yet again, on this list. In
addition to Reclus, other works consulted on the subject “Geography of Races”
were: Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel (London, 1983-1899);
Hugh R. Mill (ed.), The International Geography (London, 1909); and Alfred
Hettner, Grundzüge der Länderkunde (Leipzig, 1907).
74 The example of Birmingham, Alabama is primarily based on the following
fascinating project: Nancy Faires Conklin and Brenda McCallum, “Final Report:
Greek School, Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Orthodox Cathedral, and Lebanese Arabic
School, St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church, Birmingham, Alabama;” in Project
on Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America, 1982. I would like to
thank Jim Hardin from the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress
for providing me with this study.
75 Congress, House, Immigration Legislation, 61st congress. 3rd session. doc no.
758. p. 519. About the racial discrimination in Birmingham, see also Hitti, The
Syrians in America, p. 89.
76 Congress, House, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Abstracts of Reports
of the Immigration Commission (Washington, D.C., 1911) p. 106: Table:
destination of immigrants admitted to the U.S. between 1899-1910; See also Kayal
& Kayal, p. 83.
77 Congress, House, Report No. 851. 62nd Congress, 2nd Session. June 7, 1912.
78 Nancy Faires Conklin and Nora Faires, “Colored and Catholic; The Lebanese in
Birmingham, Alabama,” in: Eric Hoogland (ed.), Crossing the Waters, pp. 69-
84.
79 Conklin and McCallum interviewed a Maronite elder who testified that as children
they studied their Phoenician heritage in this school. “We started learning. We
102 REVIVING PHOENICIA

started navigation. We started accounting. Just name it and it was started by the
Phoenicians.” Conklin and McCallum, “Final Report,” pp. 238-239. In a telephone
interview I conducted with Mr. Hardin from the American Folk Life Center at the
Library of Congress, he recalled Phoenician vessels decorating the history
textbooks used in this school.
80 Alixa Naff, Becoming American, p. 310.
81 Biographical information about Mukarzal is taken from Henry Melki, Al-Sahafa
al-‘Arabiyya fi al-Mahjar wa ‘Alaqatuha bi-al-Adab al-Mahjari [Arabic Press in
the Diaspora and Its Ties with the Diaspora’s Literature] (Ph.D. Thesis,
Georgetown University, 1972), p. 56; Tarikh Jaridat al-Hoda wa al- Jawali al-
Lubnaniyya fi Amrika, 1898-1968 [The History of the journal al-Hoda and the
Lebanese communities in America] (New York, 1968), pp. 5-12. The author
defined Mukarzal as a Phoenician by ancestry, a Maradite in his carriage, an
Arab by his pride, a Crusader through his sacrifice, and above all a Lebanese.
82 See in Chapters IV and V about another son of Freiké, Amin al-Rihani, who
developed a different worldview from Mukarzal’s.
83 Mukarzal also wrote history books supporting the historical validity of the
existence of Lebanon since antiquity. See, for example, Qissat Yusuf bek Karam
[The Story of Yusuf Bey Karam] (New York, 1909) and Tarikh Hanib‘al [The
History of Hannibal] (New York, 1924). Both were published in al-Hoda Press.
Hannibal was a hit among many Lebanese nationalists. See also Farid Haddad,
Sirat Hanib‘al Shi‘iran, [The Epic of Hannibal in Poetry] (Alexandria, 1925).
84 See his Educational Guide for Syrian Students in the United States (New York:
The Syrian American Press, 1921).
85 Al-Hoda became the voice of the Maronite community in America, often with
fierce opposition to other Syrian communities, especially the Greek Orthodox in
New York. See Henry Melki, al-Sahafa al-‘Arabiyya, p. 56.
86 Mary Mokarzel, Al-Hoda, 1898-1968 (New York: [n.s.], 1968), p. 7; see also Al-
Hoda, January 17, 1914.
87 Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements in World War I, pp. 223-230, p. 256.
88 Mukarzal, like al-Saouda, loved and mastered Arabic. In the platform of
Mukarzal’s league, he called for Arabic to be the official language of Lebanon.
French, although he knew it very well, is not mentioned at all. The platform of
the Lebanese League of Progress appeared for ten consecutive days on the front
page of al-Hoda; July 10, 1919. Like al-Saouda, Mukarzal vehemently opposed
the CCS of Chékri Ganem and Georges Samné. See al-Hoda, August 12-13,
1919. The French, for their part, regarded Mukarzal a Francophobe, just as they
viewed al-Saouda: MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 4, p. 62.
89 Hitti, Amrika fi Nadhar Sharqi [America in the Eyes of an Oriental] (New York,
1919).
90 Philip Hitti, “Isti‘mar al-Surriyyin bayna al-‘Ahdayn,” [Colonization of the Syrians
Between the Two Eras], al-Muqtataf (July 1917), pp. 9-18. Salum Mukarzal,
Na‘um’s brother, published this article in 1919 under a slightly different title:
Muhajarat al-Suriyyin wa ’Isti‘imaruhum bayna al- ‘Ahd al-Finiqi wa al-‘Ahd
al-Hadir [The Emigration and Colonization of the Syrians between the Phoenician
and the New Eras] (New York: al-Matba‘a al-Tijariyya al-Suriyya al-Amrikiyya,
1919). The Mukarzals also published Hitti’s famous Antuniyus al-Bish‘alani:
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 103
Awwal Muhajir Suri ila al-‘Alam al-Jadid (Antonius al-Bisha‘alani, First Syrian
Immigrant to the New World) (New York, 1916).
91 Hitti, Muhajarat al-Suriyyin, p. 14.
92 See the political views of Faris Nimr, the owner and editor of al-Muqtataf, as
cited in Correspondance d’Orient, No. 213 (May 15, 1919), pp. 422-423. See
also al-Muqtataf (July 1917), p. 84, about the strong support of the journal in the
establishment of Greater Lebanon, Phoenician or not. On al-Muqtataf’s orientation
see also Ami Ayalon, The Arab Press, pp. 53. Rightly, it seems, Muhammad
Kurd ‘Ali, the Arab journalist and scholar, accused the editors of al-Muqtataf of
degrading Arab civilization. See in Kenny “East Versus West,” p. 152.
93 The Syrians in America, p. 19.
94 Ibid, p. 21.
95 Ibid, p. 56.
96 See, for example, Le Vicomte Onffroy de Thoron, Les Phéniciens à l’île d’Haïti
et sur le Continent Américain (Paris: Louvain C. Peeters, 1889). The writer was
a Lebanese immigrant who lived in Mexico; see also “Al-Finiqiyyun wa Iktishsf
Amrika” [The Phoenicians and the Discovery of America] Al-Hilal, 16(1907-
1908), pp. 545-547. For more recent studies that deal with the disputed issue of
the arrival of the Phoenicians to America see Cyrus H. Gordon, Before Columbus
(New York: Crown, 1971); Frederick J. Pohl, Atlantic Crossings before Columbus
(New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 17-35.
97 Hitti, Testimony before the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine (Washington,
D.C.: Arab Office, 1946).
98 Kamal Salibi referred to Hitti’s role in the dissemination of the Phoenician idea
through the history textbooks in Lebanese schools that used Hitti’s studies to
prove the political and cultural continuity between ancient and modern Lebanon.
See in Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, p. 174. See also Bassem Khalifah, The
Rise and Fall of Christian Lebanon (Toronto: York Press, 1997), pp. 100-105.
99 Hitti’s writings on the Middle East were widely read in the West and in Lebanon
but criticized by many Arabs. See, for example, Shawqi Abu Khalil, Mawdu‘iyyat
Filib Hitti fi Kitabihi Tarikh al-‘Arab al-Mutawwal [The Objectivity of Philip
Hitti in His Book History of the Arabs] (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1985).
100 Zionist activists in America, for example, considered Hitti a pro-Arab: CZA S25
4549, Tuvia Arazi to the Political Department, April 8, 1945. Yusuf al-Saouda,
one of the most ardent Phoenician Lebanese, criticized Hitti’s claims that the
Phoenicians came from the Arabian Peninsula and therefore were ethnically similar
to the Arabs. See Jurj Harun, A‘lam al-Qawmiyya al-Lubnaniyya, Yusuf al-Sawda
(Kaslik, 1979), p. 24.
101 On Syro-Lebanese associations in Latin America and their Phoenician inclinations,
see MAE, Paris, Vol. 412. Publications des Syriens en Amerique, p. 34; MAE,
Paris, Vol. 525, propagande et presse, p. 277; MAE Paris, Vol. 46, A memorandum
of “Union libanaise,” Les aspirations des libanais (Buenos Aires, 1919). See also
in chapter 5, note 7, an article written by Rashid Rida in al-Manar, dated 1914,
that attacks the Phoenician inclinations of the branches of the “Lebanese Revival”
in São Paulo and New York.
102 L. Carl Brown, “France and the Arabs: An Overview,” in L. Carl Brown and
Mathew S. Gordon, Franco-Arab Encounters (Beirut: American University of
Beirut, 1996), pp. 1-31.
104 REVIVING PHOENICIA

103 Georges Samné, in particular, was a very serious and pensive person. His writings
and specifically the journal of the Comité central syrien, Correspondance d’Orient,
which he edited, were far from being French platform but rather sober and realistic,
representing the complexities of the political situation.
104 Eliezer Tauber, The Emergence of the Arab Movements (London: Frank Cass,
1993), pp. 178-197. Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1997), pp. 137-140.
105 On Ayyub Tabet see MAE, Nantes, Syrie-Liban, carton 455, renseignement au
sujet de Eyub Tabet. No date.
106 Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements in World War I (London: Frank Cass, 1993),
pp. 204-205. Khairallah Khairallah, “Le Cèdre, emblème national,” La Revue du
Liban et l’Orient Arabe, (September 1, 1942), p. 6; See also La Voix du Liban,
No. 1(August 1945), p. 10.
107 Louis Cheikho, Souvenir des Noces d’Or de l’USJ de Beyrouth. page number
missing.
108 Nadra Moutran, La Syrie de Demain (Paris, 1916), p. 48.
109 Ibid, p. 97: “Le Liban est une partie intégrale de la Syrie. Au point de vue
historique, ethnographique, et commercial, il ne saurait en être distingué.”
110 See Moutran’s reference to Elisée Reclus in La Syrie de Demain, p. 42.
111 Ibid, pp. 354-356.
112 Ibid, p. 358.
113 Ibid, pp. 365-368.
114 As discussed earlier, signs of the identification of Phoenician claims with Lebanese
irredentism can already be found in 1907 in the U.S. See also in Chapter V, Rashid
Rida’s reaction to these claims.
115 Alixa Naff, A Social History of Zahle, The Principal Market Town in Nineteenth
Century Lebanon (Ph.D. Thesis, UCLA, 1972), p. 2, pp. 109-129. Sai‘d ‘Aql,
another distinguished Zahliote, developed an entirely different identity, as will
be discussed in Chapter IV.
116 Comité central syrien, L’Opinion Syrienne à l’Étranger pendant la Guerre (Paris,
1918); Comité central syrien, La Syrie devant la Conférence (Paris, 1919).
117 La Syrie devant la Conférence, pp. 7-8; see also many articles in Correspondance
d’Orient written in a similar spirit, for example No. 205, January 15, 1919, pp. 1-
21; No. 206, January 30, 1919, p. 88.
118 Samné remained faithful to the Syrian idea even after Greater Lebanon was
established. In an article in Correspondance d’Orient, September 15-30, 1921,
he ferociously rejected the establishment of Greater Lebanon, and the division of
Syria into four petty states. There is one Syrian people, he stated. There are no
Lebanese people. There are many Christians on the Mountain, where the idea of
“foyer libanais” had emerged, but this does not justify an establishment of a
Lebanese state. Samné also uses Elisée Reclus as a reference. We can see again
that the scholarly sources were the same for the two camps, the Syrian and the
Lebanese. See the pamphlet written by Samné, Comité de l’Orient, Les Oeuvres
Françaises en Syrie (Paris, 1919). See also Georges Samné, Vers le Petit Liban
(Paris, 1926), in which he recognizes the existence of independent Lebanon, but
calls for reducing its borders.
119 Georges Samné Le Chérifat de la Mecque et l’Unité Syrienne (Paris, 1919).
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 105
120 Jacaues Tabet, “À la Syrie” Correspondance d’Orient, Vol. 209 (March, 15 1919).
121 See about this rivalry in MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, carton 313, Dossier 1. Chékri
Ganem to Stephen Pichon, the minister of Foreign Affairs, protesting against the
Alliance libanaise in Cairo, following an article published in Le Temps in March
6, 1918 on behalf of the Alliance libanaise entitled “La question du Liban.” See
also Comte R. de Gontaut-Biron, Comment la France S’est Installée en Syrie
1918-1919 (Paris: Plon-Nourrit 1922), p. 188; Tauber, The Arab Movements in
World War I, pp. 197-199.
122 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 43, p. 113, Le Comité Permanent Exécutif du
Groupement Chrétien de Beyrouth, July 7, 1919. See a report on this group in Le
Journal du Caire (July 19, 1919).
123 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 43, p. 156, Mme Antoine Sassy, présidente du
Comité de dames de Saida, July 10, 1919, Memorandum to the American
Commission.
124 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 4, Annexe à la dépêche politique du Caire, May
16, 1918, a translation of an article entitled “The Future of Syria” as appeared in
al-Kawkab, May 7, 1918.
125 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 266, Elias Hoyek, “Les revendications du Liban.”
The memorandum can also be found in La Revue Phénicienne (December 1919),
pp. 236-241.
126 See Georges Samné’s report about the Patriarch’s visit to Paris in “Le Patriarche
maronite en France,” Correspondance d’Orient, No. 221 (September, 15 1919),
p. 125; see also MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 278, p.28, Patriarcat maronite.
127 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 12, p. 257, “Lebanon of the Cedars,” by J.C. Walsh,
Staff Correspondent of America at the peace conference.
128 Al-Najjar began his journalistic activity in al-Hoda, the paper of Na‘um Mukarzal,
the devout Maronite Lebanist, yet another indication for the flexibility in the
political orientation of Syro-Lebanese in the 1910s. See Mary Mukarzel, Al-Hoda,
1898-1968 (New York: Al-Hoda Press, 1968), pp. 9-11. The French attested to
al-Najjar’s dubious personality. MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 57, p. 145, Note
au sujet de l’Asie Arabe, January 26, 1921.
129 L’Asie Arabe, 2 (August, 1919); L’Asie Arabe, 5 (November, 1919); in L’Asie
Arabe from November 25, 1919, al-Najjar reports on pamphlets with Phoenician
claims, distributed by the Lebanese delegation in Versailles, which he naturally
criticizes.
130 Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements, p. 169, pp. 192-194; Lynne Lohéac-Amoun,
Daoud Amoun et la Création de l’État Libanaise (Paris: Naufal, 1972), pp. 71-
72. Daoud ‘Amoun’s daughter, Blanche ‘Amoun, would become an artist with
strong Phoenician tendencies. See more about her in Chapter IV.
131 George Samné, La Syrie (Paris, 1920), p. XI.
132 Anis Nasr, al-Nubugh al-Lubnani fi al-Qarn al-‘Ishrin [Lebanese Genius in the
Twentieth Century] (Aleppo: Maktabat al-‘Asr al-Jadid, 1938), p. 82.
133 “[...]I left definitively business in order to be able to dedicate myself to my country
through speech and writing. I hope my action will succeed in tightening the ties
between Lebanon and France [...].” Charles Corm to the Jesuit father Louis
Jalabert, the director of the prestigious Jesuit journal Études, a former teacher at
USJ and the representative of the Faculty of Medicine of the University in Paris.
Jesuit Archives, Vanves. Fond Louis Jalabert, May 24, 1934.
106 REVIVING PHOENICIA

134 Lebanon — The Artists View (London: The British Lebanese Association, 1989),
p. 101. Edouard Lahoud, L’Art Contemporain au Liban (Beirut: Librairie
Orientale, 1974), pp. 1-9.
135 USJ, 1875-1925, Cinquantenaire de l’Université St. Joseph (Beirut, 1925), p. 27.
136 Gontaut-Biron, Comment la France s’est Installée en Syrie, p. 93. See also Anis
Nasr, al-Nubugh al-Lubnani, pp. 82-83.
137 Correspondance d’Orient, No. 210 (April 1, 1919), pp. 378-379. A report from
Le Journal de Beyrouth, February 3, 1919.
138 A list of the lectures can be found in Correspondance d’Orient, No. 209 (March
15, 1919), pp. 378-379. The bulletin of the Association of July 1919 can be found
in the September issue of La Revue Phénicienne, pp. 127-128. See also MAE,
Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 103, p. 151. A report of the Mission Laïque in Beirut,
dated February-April 1919, protests the pro-Christian policy of France in Beirut.
The report mentions an incident in a gathering of Corm’s Association in which
Muslims were thrown out of the meeting while the Christians chanted mocking
songs against them. The writer, Paul Deschamps, director of the Mission Laïque,
also mentions the Christian-Phoenician versus Muslim-Arab division that
dominates Beirut.
139 Alfred Sursock, Albert Masoul and Georges Tabet were the patrons of these plans.
Georges Tabet was a distant cousin of Jacques Tabet. He also spent the years of
the War in Alexandria where he married Laure Klat, the younger sister of Hector
Klat. The social circles are almost always the same. Georges Tabet would become
a leading politician in mandated Lebanon and one of the major contestants for
the president’s seat.
140 Correspondance d’Orient, No. 212 (April 30, 1919), p. 377.
141 See a recent attempt of a Lebanese writer, Jamil Jabar, to hide the fact that Corm
supported the formation of a Greater Syrian state. Jabar did write about the
formation of the association by Corm, but he named it “The National Association
of Lebanese Youth,” instead of the correct name, which, as mentioned above,
was the “Syrian Youth.” Jabar, Sharl al-Qurm (Beirut: Al-Majala al-Finiqiyya,
1995), p. 24. Note that the book was published by the still active publishing
house Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, initiated and owned by Charles Corm.
142 Malcolm B. Russell, The First Modern Arab State; Syria Under Faysal, 1918-
1920 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1985), pp. 42-66; David Fromkin, A
Peace to End all Peace (New York: Avon Books, 1989) pp. 315-331, 435-440.
143 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 11, p. 141, Corm to Ganem, March 28, 1919. See
also Correspondance d’Orient, No. 211(April 15, 1919), p. 324.
144 La Revue Phénicienne (July 1919), pp. 46-47.
145 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 43, p. 111, a petition of Beirut journalists to the
American King-Crane Commission, dated July 21, 1919, calling for the
establishment of Greater Lebanon with France as a mandatory power. Charles
Corm signed the petition as the owner of La Revue Phénicienne.
146 La Revue Phénicienne, p. 127.
147 CZA S25 10225, a report by Eliahu Epstein (Elath) of a visit to Syria and Lebanon,
October 1934. Epstein describes a meeting with Corm and Albert Naccache, two
of the founders and activists in the “Young Phoenicians” association. He claims
that the association was helped by de Caix and submitted in 1919 a memorandum
to the peace conference in Versailles, in which they presented the question of
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR 107
Lebanon as a separate question from the Syrian one. According to the
memorandum, “one cannot consider the inhabitants of Lebanon as part of the
Arab world. The Lebanese are descendants of the ancient Phoenicians that were
mixed among the Arab speakers.” I could not cross reference this information
and I suspect that such a memorandum was never sent.
148 This kind of poetry would reach its golden days in the 1930s, again with the
assistance of Charles Corm, a point I shall discuss in Chapter IV at length.
149 Jalkh relied on a study conducted by Paul Huvelin, the Dean of the Law Faculty
of the University of Lyon that gave the patronage to the Law Faculty of USJ.
Fifteen years later Jalkh became an active member of Antun Sa‘adeh’s PPS.
150 La Revue Phénicienne (July 1919), p. 14.
151 Ibid, p. 19.
152 Ibid, p. 33. Elie Tyane (1885-1957) was one of Corm’s closest friends. In the
1930s he published two books with Corm’s publication house, Éditions de la
Revue Phénicienne, which I shall discuss in Chapter IV.
153 See Hector Klat, “Edmond Rostand, Poète de Guerre” (August 1919), pp. 92-
104; B. Routhin, “Rieurs Mélancoliques; Villon, Scarron, Molière” (September
1919), pp. 154-165.
154 Illustrating Lebanon as a light to all nations, Liban lumineux, will become
identified with a different modern Phoenician, Sa‘id ‘Aql, whom I shall discuss
in Chapter IV. See also Nabih Amin Faris, “Lebanon, ‘Land of Light,’” in James
Kritzek & Bayly Winder, The World of Islam (New York: Books for Libraries,
1959), pp. 336-350.
155 La Revue Phénicienne (July 1919), p. 13.
156 Ibid, p. 30.
157 “Le français tel qu’on le parle: Comédie Pochade en un Acte et en Prose,” Ibid,
pp. 57-58.
158 Jabali, or the Mountaineer, is probably a reference to the origin of the family
from Mount Lebanon, an attempt by Corm to create a link between the Beirut
bourgeois family and the Mountain.
159 Ibid, p. 43.
160 Paul Noujaim, “La Question du Liban, étude de politique économique et de
statistique descriptive,” Ibid, (August 1919), pp. 66-81; especially p. 66.
161 Fawaz, N. Traboulsi, Identités et Solidarités Croisées dans les Conflits du Liban
Contemporain (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Paris, 1993), pp. 298-363; Traboulsi,
Silat bila Wasl: Mishal Shiha wa al-aydiyulujiyya al-Lubnaniyya [Michel Chiha
and the Lebanese ideology] (Beirut: Riyad al-Rayyis lil-Kutub wa al-Nashr, 1999).
See also Khalil Ramiz Sarkis, Sawt al-Gha’ib [The Voice of the Absent] (Beirut:
Al-Nadwa al-Lubnaniyya, 1956).
162 The new Phoenicians cherished the Word “pourpre” or purple. The radical of the
word Phoenicia in Greek meant purple, given to the ancient Phoenicians
presumably because of the color of the fabric they traded. It denotes in French
also power, imperial distinction. “La Pourpre Romaine” signifies a Cardinal’s
rank — yet another play on words.
163 In the September issue of La Revue Phénicienne, p. 192, Corm published a notice
about an essay competition. The jury was composed of Chekri Arcache (Greek
Catholic), Michel Chiha (Chaldean Catholic), Emile Eddé (Maronite), Marquise
Jean de Freige (Latin), Habib Bey Pharaon (Greek Catholic), Habib Pasha el-
108 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Saad (Maronite), Jacques Tabet, (Maronite), Michel Bey Tuéni (Greek Orthodox)
and Charles Corm (Maronite). One could not get higher in Beirut’s social echelons
of 1919. It stands out that no Muslim is mentioned.
164 George Samné, La Syrie (Paris, 1920), p. XI.
165 Ibid.
166 Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, pp. 95-96.
167 La Revue Phénicienne (September 1919), p. 129
168 MAE, Nantes, Syrie-Liban, carton 2, Ecole Française de Droit, June 7, 1920, a
list of registered students.
169 Proche Orient, Revue Économique et Financière (Beirut, October 1922), page
number missing.
170 Bulletin de l’Union Économique de Syrie (Beirut, February, 1923); see also Olivier
Dugast, Automobiles, Chauffeurs et Transports Routiers en Syrie et au Liban
pendant la Période Mandataire (MA Thesis, Université de Rennes II, no date),
p. 22.
171 MAE, Paris, Syrie-Liban, Vol. 57, Revue de la Presse, p. 123, A report on a
dinner General Gouraud threw in Paris for the local Syro-Lebanese community.
Among those present was Corm, who was referred to in the press as “the well-
known Lebanese patriot.” Jacques Tabet and his wife were also present.
 3

The Mandate Years

[…] Lebanon is the meeting place of widely branching roads, strug-

gling nations and various crossing cultures. And just as no power on
earth can shut off its western shores — this wide open gate to the Medi-
terranean — from civilizations and nations which gave unto it and re-
ceived from it […] so there is no power in the world that can remove it
from this Semite East, whence, since and even before the beginning of
history, it received its blood and tongue, its tradition of legend and cul-
ture. […] By nature and by historical decree, Lebanon serves as a means
of communication between the East and the West which meet there
[…] Possibly the best wares provided by Lebanon are its children, who
emigrate to all four corners of the world, who build cities and ships,
who compete without being unfair, who are intelligent by nature and
work, who are conservative without gloomy gravity, who are new with-
out doing evil, who invented the alphabet in ancient times and who
today embrace Arabic; these children carry the cultural mission of Leba-
non to the world.
Sunni writer ‘Umar Fakhuri1

The creation of Greater Lebanon on September 1, 1920 thoroughly trans-

formed the lives of the population in Mount Lebanon and in the territories
annexed to the new entity. Much has been written about these fateful days
and their impact on the fragile socio-political structure of the fledgling politi-
cal community.2 The Maronite absolute majority in the Mutasarrifiyya, the
autonomous region, was wiped out, and with it the political and cultural jus-
tification for the existence of a cohesive national community in Lebanon dis-
appeared. The historical narrative of the Maronites, as a self-conscious com-
munity with historical memories that are traced back to the Church’s forma-
tion in the 5th century, and to the legendary Marada Christian tribe, could not
have worked for the rest of the communities in Lebanon. As we have previ-
ously seen, in the 1880s the ancient Phoenicians began to be thought as the
ancestors of all Syrians by lay Syro-Lebanese from Beirut who were seeking
a secular identity for themselves and their communities. Phoenicianism, then,
110 REVIVING PHOENICIA

did not bear any political connotation. However, during the political strife
that led to the formation of Greater Lebanon, the Phoenician identity crystal-
lized and was used by Christian Syro-Lebanese as the historical justification
for the existence of a distinct national community, founded on the ethnic and
cultural non-Arab similarities of its members. Most of the annexed popula-
tion, however, could not and would not recognize this identity as their own.
Moreover, the Phoenician identity was still an alien concept even for a large
number of the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. Before 1920, Phoenician ex-
pressions were strictly limited to the bourgeoisie in Beirut. Thus, Greater
Lebanon was founded on a national historical narrative that was not only
renounced by the non-Christian population, but was also somewhat foreign
for many of the Christian Lebanese, residents of the Mountain and other iso-
lated locales.
The objective of this chapter is not to provide a chronological description
of the development of Phoenicianism in mandatory Lebanon. Rather, I ex-
plore several subjects that, overall, provide a wide picture of the social, po-
litical and cultural forces that helped shape this identity and make it part of
the (much disputed) Lebanese national narrative. The first subject I investi-
gate is the French High Commission, which strove to shape the Lebanese
society by all possible means. I examine its policy towards education in Leba-
non and its approach to archeology in the mandated regions. The second sub-
ject is the Jesuits, who, although they were a foreign element within the Leba-
nese society, evolved to become an inseparable part of the social, political
and cultural life there. Thus, their lasting impact on Lebanon was the impact
of an insider and, therefore, much stronger than any French colonial force.
Third, I look at the period 1936-1937, perhaps the two most turbulent years
in mandatory Lebanon, and the role the Phoenician identity played therein.
This period saw a concentration of the social and political forces in Lebanon
that used this identity to support their political views and challenge the views
of their opponents. The chapter concludes with an inquiry of the process that
gradually led to the acceptance of Lebanon as a fait accompli by all sectors of
Lebanese society, most notably the Sunni community. This process also in-
evitably led to the recognition of a separate Lebanese national narrative, which
ushered in an acknowledgement of the Phoenician past, though in a modi-
fied, arabized form.

The French Mandate and the Lebanese Educational System

The crucial role of historiography in the process of nation-forging has long

been recognized by students of nationalism.3 Throughout the world, scholars
and politicians often collaborated in the dissemination of national sentiments
and the crystallization of collective identities by conducting selective histori-
cal scientific research, proving the indigenous nature of their nations and dem-
 THE MANDATE YEARS 111
onstrating their ancient and proud pedigrees. Universities, the most powerful
institutions of the production and diffusion of knowledge, often served as vi-
tal agents in the dissemination of these national sentiments. Using the net-
work of state-controlled schools, the Ministry of Education also evolved as a
spearhead in the development of historical national narratives.4 Keeping all
this in mind, there is no surprise in the fact that one of the first steps the
French took upon their arrival in Syria, at the end of World War I, was the
rehabilitation of the devastated education system and the construction of a
wide, French-oriented public school system. They believed that this would
best serve their colonial interests and would also befit their mission civilisatrice.
Prior to WWI, education in Syria was mainly in the hands of private schools
of the various religious communities and the foreign missions that operated
throughout Syria but were especially dominant in Mount Lebanon and Bei-
rut. There were also Ottoman state schools, mainly in the large cities of Bei-
rut, Damascus and Aleppo, but only a small number of Syrians attended them
and in general these schools were poorly equipped.5 The two foreign univer-
sities in Beirut, Université Saint Joseph and the Syrian Protestant College,
were the vanguard of higher education in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman
Empire. In addition to functioning as institutes of higher learning, these uni-
versities also operated as the basis of a network of schools, from kindergarten
through secondary, in their respective missions throughout Syria.6
A few days after the entry of the British and French forces into Beirut in
October 1918, Colonel Piepape, the head of French troops, issued an act pro-
claiming the maintenance and rehabilitation of the educational system and
the replacement of Turkish with French as the official language of instruc-
tion, along with Arabic.7 At first, this act affected only Lebanon, which was
controlled by the French, but in July 1920, General Gouraud entered Damas-
cus and extended the policy to Syria as well. The calamities of the war had
left the educational system, like other domains, in debris. The French worked
to reconstruct the existing confessional and foreign schools and to construct,
almost ex nihilo, the public school system. The records of the Office of Pub-
lic Instruction of the High Commission (that was actually in charge of the
private schools as well) are filled with deliberations and reports about the
desired curricula in the public state schools. The French authorities were ab-
sorbed by the idea that they could use school curricula as an the avenue through
which to cast national content into the new petty states they had formed by
teaching Syrian, Lebanese, Druze and ‘Alawite children French and Euro-
pean Civilization, on the one hand, and selective local history, on the other.8
This, of course, was not a novel idea for the French, who had already practiced
this policy extensively in their colonies, most notably in North Africa. In fact,
the majority of the officers who served in Syria during the first decade of the
French mandate had previously served in Morocco and were intentionally
transferred to Syria so that they could implement the same colonial policy
there.9 French, previously studied only in the private and confessional schools,
112 REVIVING PHOENICIA

became a compulsory subject in the public schools as well. After French,

history and geography were naturally considered to be the preferred fields
through which political messages could be conveyed. The following exam-
ples, from the first two years of the mandate, mirror the atmosphere of these
deliberations and the educational orientation dictated by the High Commis-
sion, particularly from 1920-1924, the terms of the first two commissioners,
Henri Gouraud and Maxime Weygand.
In one of the numerous exchanges of letters between the High Commis-
sion and its representatives in the mandated regions, High Commissioner
Gouraud replied to a report written by Combe, the inspector of public in-
struction in Aleppo, elaborating on the curriculum in two public schools in
the city. Gouraud criticized the content of the curriculum, particularly in the
subject of history, and asked Combe to make major revisions. Gouraud wrote
that the curriculum did not reflect the shift from Ottoman to French control
the region had undergone. It should include courses on the history of Syria
instead of on the Arabs. Ancient history prior to the Arab-Islamic conquest
should also be taught, Gouraud stated, because there had been other civiliza-
tions in Syria before the Arabs and the Prophet. Arab civilization should not
be given a place in history greater than it deserved, concluded the High Com-
missioner.10 In response, Combe explained that history of the Arabs was stud-
ied more than that of Syria simply because the teachers were unfamiliar with
the latter. With time, he continued, teachers would learn this new subject and
be able to teach Syrian and not only Arab history.11
The second example, reflecting the atmosphere in the first years of the
French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, pertains to Louis Jalabert, one of the
most outspoken Jesuits in support of the Christian Syro-Lebanese and an
advocate of the non-Arab identity of Lebanon.12 Jalabert taught at USJ from
1901-1919, then moved back to Paris to become the editor of the prestigious
Jesuit journal Études and the representative of USJ’s Faculty of Medicine to
the Quai d’Orsay. He wrote often to French officials stating his views about
political issues in the mandated regions. In a correspondence with Robert de
Caix, the secretary of the High Commissioner and the architect behind French
policy in Syria and Lebanon, Jalabert explained his ideas on the educational
system in Lebanon. He argued that if France wished the mandate to become
“France d’autre Méditerranée,” there was a need to furnish the Lebanese
with local, national, and French education simultaneously.13 Our interest,
Jalabert wrote, lies in attaching the thoughts and the hearts of the local elite to
France, thus mixing their interests with ours.14 This goal, he believed, could
be achieved by emphasizing secondary and higher education at USJ and AUB.
History classes, according to Jalabert, should focus on the Mediterranean and
Roman ancient history and on local histories of Syria and Lebanon. Conclud-
ing his remarks, Jalabert wrote: “Un programme libanais, syrien, conçu dans
cet esprit semblerait devoir donner une satisfaction suffisante à tous les besoins
politiques du pays, tout en réservant l’intérêt français.”
 THE MANDATE YEARS 113
When Gouraud demanded that the history of Syria should be studied more
than the history of the Arabs in public schools, he marked a major change in
the historiographical and political focus of the region.15 Private and confes-
sional schools had already been teaching local history before the establish-
ment of the French mandate, especially in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Now,
with French guidance and a state-controlled educational system, public schools
began doing the same, introducing to their primarily Muslim students a new
concept of history, one that preceded Muhammad and went as far back as the
dark days of the Jahiliyya in the pre-Islamic eras. The change did not come at
once, for public schools were never too popular in Syria and even less so in
Lebanon, but with time, more students attended these schools and naturally
were affected by their curricula.
As for Jalabert’s ideas regarding the educational system in Syria and Leba-
non, they reflect two points. First, they mirror the power of the Jesuits, who
felt quite comfortable pressuring the High Commission to follow their de-
sired agenda and, second, they reflect the educational orientation the Jesuits
pursued in their schools. The idea of teaching local and Mediterranean his-
tory in order to strengthen local patriotism, on the one hand, and to attach the
local population to France, on the other, prevailed in Jesuit establishments
long before 1920. Jalabert simply wanted to insure that the High Commis-
sion would also pursue this policy. The Jesuits, who had been installed in
Syria since 1831, and who dominated not only education but also many other
aspects of life in Syria and Lebanon, wished to preserve their power also
after the formation of the High Commission. This power implied not only the
ability to dominate fields such as education, one of the most important in
Jesuit dogma, but also other political domains such as state administration
and control over local politics.16 That said, it should not undermine the fact
that the French did aspire to rehabilitate and ameliorate the education system
in the mandated regions. They simply wished, at the same time, to profit
politically from this process by creating a curriculum that would best serve
their colonial interests.
The schools’ curricula continued to preoccupy the French High Commis-
sion throughout the Mandate period. Numerous drafts can be found in the
files of the Service de l’instruction publique in Syria and Lebanon. History
and geography, the subjects that concern us, were two of the most sensitive
domains in the public school curricula. From the multiple proposals, the pic-
ture that emerges of the contents of history and geography classes is of cur-
ricula that focused on French and European history and local history begin-
ning in antiquity and chronologically surveying the different eras of Syria
and Lebanon. Out of numerous examples, I chose the curriculum of Leba-
nese state elementary schools, which reflects the curricula of other types of
schools. As noted, half of it is dedicated to French and European history, the
details of which will not be discussed here. The other half, dedicated to local
history, is as follows:
114 REVIVING PHOENICIA

First Section: Syria before the Arab conquest

First inhabitants of Syria.
Beginning of agriculture.
The Syrian race, the tribes, life of the clans.
The Phoenicians.
The invasions: Greek, Roman, Byzantine.

Second Section: The Arab conquest

The Umayyads.
Society under the Umayyads.
The Caliphs of Baghdad and Egypt.

Third Section: Frankish Syria

The Crusades, Saint Louis.
Organization of the Frankish state.
Political, social, economic, military and judicial institutions.
Frankish intellectual movement.
Architecture, industrial arts.
The Mamluks.
Beirut and Lebanon in the XV century.

Fourth Section: Ottoman Syria

Ottoman conquest, Organization of Ottoman Syria.
Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni.
The Capitulations, François I, Richelieu, Louis XIV and the Maronites.
Lebanon in the XVII century, Constitution, The Shihabi family.
The French Revolution.
The accords and the Protectorate of the Catholics of the Orient.
Napoleon Bonaparte in Syria.
Syria and Lebanon in the XIX century, the Amir Shihab.
The Egyptians in Syria, Muhammad ‘Ali and Ibrahim Pasha.
Anarchy in Lebanon, the events of 1860.
The Autonomous government of Lebanon.
The Third Republic and the French policy in Lebanon.
Syria on the eve of and after WWI.
Reorganization of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon.17

The curriculum speaks for itself. First, there is an emphasis on the pre-
Arab history of Syria, which for the contemporary reader might seem natural
and expected, but for Muslim Lebanese students of the time it was a novel,
almost revolutionary, concept. Second, the Arabs receive mention, but as an
occupier in a line of occupiers and are represented as “an era” among other
eras in Lebanon and Syria, beginning in antiquity and progressing to the Greek,
Roman, and Byzantine eras, the Crusades, and so forth. The relations be-
 THE MANDATE YEARS 115
tween France and Syria and Lebanon win particular attention. Thus, the era
of the Crusades, entitled La Syrie franque, reminding the students that Syria
was once French, was taught in even more detail than the Arab-Islamic era.18
There is no particular Phoenician message in this curriculum, but the con-
cepts that it and other state schools’ curricula carried unmistakably empha-
sized Lebanon as a distinct nation with 5,000 years of history, tied to France
since the era of the Crusades.
The impact of the public schools on Lebanese society was minimal at first.
With time, however, more students, mostly from Sunni and Shi‘i lower-class
families, began attending, which inevitably facilitated the process of acknowl-
edging the existence of Lebanon as a fait accompli.19 An indication of the
growing strength of these schools on the Lebanese educational and political
scene can be viewed through the “public school crisis” of 1929. This crisis
was triggered as the result of an attempt by Emile Eddé, the new Prime Min-
ister, to close down about a hundred public schools, attended mostly by lower-
class Muslims. The Muslim leadership in Lebanon, with bold support from
Syrian and other Arab politicians, launched a fierce campaign against Eddé’s
plan. They saw it as an attempt to force Muslim families to send their chil-
dren to Christian missionary schools and thus to expose them to Western,
anti-Arab, education. As a result, Eddé was forced to resign and the public
schools he wanted to close down remained intact. This crisis marked a water-
shed in Lebanese politics. Eddé was labeled as anti-Arab; his rival, Béchara
al-Khoury, overtly cooperated with Muslims against him and for the first
time Lebanese Muslims won a major political confrontation against the
Maronites.20 By struggling to maintain a state apparatus, the crisis was regis-
tered also as one of the first signs of Muslim acknowledgement in the Leba-
nese state, a process that would culminate in the 1943 National Pact and the
recognition by Muslim-Arab leadership of the right of Lebanon to exist as an
independent state.
The Muslims’ support of the public schools in Lebanon was motivated
more by political causes than educational or ideological considerations. It is
true that many Muslims feared sending their children to Christian missionary
schools, lest they lose their Arab values in these Western institutions. But it is
equally true that many haut-bourgeois Sunni families, which actually led the
struggle against closing the public schools, had no misgivings about sending
their sons to foreign schools, understanding that this was the key for a better
future.21 Moreover, although Muslims defended the public schools in this
political crisis, they, nevertheless, also harshly criticized the curriculum con-
tent, especially with regards to the sensitive issues of Arab and Muslim his-
tory and Arab culture in Syria and Lebanon. Many complaints by students,
parents and politicians as to the way Arabs and Islam were presented in pub-
lic schools fill the records of the Service of Public Instruction.22 In December
1932, following ongoing complaints against the public school system, Gabriel
Bounoure, the Director of Public Instruction, circulated a note to all public
116 REVIVING PHOENICIA

schools in the mandatory regions asking educators and teachers to be ex-

tremely sensitive not to offend the oriental students in history classes, espe-
cially the Muslims, because French books, used in France and also in Syria,
often contained insulting remarks against Muhammad and Islam. The High
Commissioner, he recalled, had already discussed this problem in 1924.23
Indeed, with time, the French learned to be more sensitive to the books and
curricula employed in public schools. Thus, for example, the inspector of
Public Instruction wrote the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Tawfiq Khalid,
asking his opinion about a disputed history textbook. The book (Le Moyen
Âge jusqu’à la Guerre de Cent Ans, by Charles Aimond) presented Islam in
derogatory terms and depicted the Crusades in bright colors. The Mufti re-
jected the book, and the High Commissioner published an edict prohibiting
its use in public schools.24
From the records of the Service of Public Instruction, it is apparent that the
most sensitive and disputed topics in the public schools were not the ancient
civilizations in Syria and Lebanon but rather the way Islam and the Arabs
were depicted. The portrayal of the Crusaders was much more problematic
and stirred more controversy than the eras that preceded the Arab occupation
of Syria and Lebanon. The Crusades symbolized Western and Christian domi-
nance and superiority, and the French spared no effort to present themselves
as the new Crusaders. In history classes, as noted, the era of the Crusades was
entitled “La Syrie franque,” semantically stressing the connection between
the Crusades and the French. It was the pro-Western and anti-Muslim orienta-
tion that agitated Arab-Muslim Lebanese more than the ancient civilizations
of the Near East. This was also true for the entire secular Arab movement that
did not necessarily view these civilizations as an opposing factor to their na-
tional aspirations, so long as they were not used to undermine the Arab culture
of the region and were incorporated into the Arab national narrative.
During the first decade of the French mandate, the books used in the pub-
lic school system were mostly history textbooks written by teachers from
USJ. At first, the Service of Public Instruction ordered schools to adopt his-
tory and geography textbooks that had been used in the French private
schools.25 From 1920, teachers from USJ began writing new books especially
for use in public schools. Henri Lammens, Gabriel Levenq, René Mouterde
and Ferdinand Taoutel, all professors at USJ, were the first to publish books
on the history and geography of Syria and Lebanon in simple language with
clear messages.26 They all surveyed the history and geography of Syria and
Lebanon from antiquity to modernity, demonstrating the Semite, yet not Arab,
origins of the inhabitants of Syria and Lebanon and emphasizing their unique
physical features. According to these books, the history of Syria and Lebanon
began with three major ancient civilizations, Phoenician, Greek and Roman.
These civilizations were followed by other occupiers, among them the Arabs,
Crusaders, Mamluks and Turks. Thus, the ethnic composition of Syria and
Lebanon had evolved to be a mélange of races, forming together a racial
 THE MANDATE YEARS 117
mixture ethnically and culturally unique to those lands. Christianity occupies
a larger portion than Islam in these works, emphasizing the Christian domi-
nance in the region. These books were not overt Phoenician manifestations
(although Lammens, followed by other professors at USJ, clearly supported
the Phoenician image of the past in Syria and Lebanon). Yet they began to
spread the Phoenician message, first by providing historical narratives of the
pre-Islamic and Christian eras and second, by presenting a wide view of his-
torical chronology from antiquity to modernity and by weaving Lebanon and
Syria into the history of Europe.
Historical writing on Lebanon was not restricted to Jesuit professors from
USJ. Two of the most notable historians of Lebanon were actually Lebanese
— Asad Rustum (1897-1965) and Fouad Afram al-Bustani (1906-1995) —
who, during the mandate years, became the leading national historians of
Lebanon. They deserve the title “national historians” not so much because
they wrote about Lebanese nationality, but because they provided Greater
Lebanon with a national history of its own, separating it from the history of
the Arabs and that of greater Syria.27 Al-Bustani was a Maronite who ac-
quired his education in USJ and remained a teacher of Arabic and history of
the Arabs at the university’s Oriental Faculty.28 Although Arab civilization
was his field of specialty, al-Bustani subscribed to the non-Arab identity of
Lebanon and often referred in derogatory terms to the Arab-Muslim popula-
tion of Lebanon. In 1951, he became the first president of the newly-founded
Lebanese University and used this influential position to spread his views
about the identity of Lebanon.29 Asad Rustum was born into a Protestant fam-
ily converted from Greek Orthodoxy. He acquired his education in American
mission schools in Lebanon, at AUB, where he graduated in 1916, and at the
University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. In 1922, he returned to
Lebanon and became a faculty member of AUB as a teacher of the modern
history of the Middle East.30 The ancient Phoenicians did not preoccupy the
historiographical work of Rustum and al-Bustani. Their contribution to the
national historiography of Lebanon lay mainly in their concentration on the
eras of the two princedoms of the Ma‘nis and the Shihabis, describing them
as the political precursors for Greater Lebanon and, specifically, depicting
Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni as the father of modern Lebanon.
In 1937, following an agreement with the Ministry of Education, Rustum
and al-Bustani wrote a series of history textbooks entitled Tarikh Lubnan
[The History of Lebanon] which included five books at different levels of
complexity, designed for different age groups, from elementary to high
school.31 According to these books, the history of Lebanon began with the
cave men who were the first Lebanese, followed by the immigration of the
Semitic Phoenicians from the Red Sea, who settled on the Lebanese coast
and made it their home. Their preoccupation with the Phoenician civilization
covers about a third of each of the books: their arrival in Lebanon, their com-
merce, the maritime activity, the invention of the alphabet, their ties with
118 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Egypt, Greece and Rome, the establishment of Carthage and the military ac-
tivity of Hannibal. By the time the reader finished the lengthy section on the
Phoenicians there was no question as to who were the ancestors of the mod-
ern Lebanese. The books continue covering the history of Lebanon in broad
strokes, surveying the Arab occupation, the Crusade era, the Ottoman arrival
in Lebanon, the Imara [princedom] in the days of Fakhr al-Din and Bashir II
in Mount Lebanon, concluding with the Lebanese contribution to the Nahda,
the French arrival and the independence of Lebanon.
The publication of the first edition of Tarikh Lubnan, in 1938, stirred sharp
controversy concerning the way the authors depicted certain episodes from
the history of Lebanon. Yet, as happened previously with disputed books in
Lebanese public schools, the sections that upset the Arab-Muslim camp in
Lebanon were not about the ancient Phoenicians and their role in the forma-
tion of Lebanese national identity, but rather the negative portrayal of the
Arabs and the positive description of the Crusaders. A fierce debate ensued in
Lebanese papers between supporters and opponents of these books, embel-
lished with exchanges of personal insults between papers such as l’Orient
and Bayrut.32 The Minister of Education, Khalil Kseib (Kussayb), under whose
administrative supervision the books were written, promised to review them
and reconsider their use in public schools. Kseib may have reexamined the
books, but the fact remained that even after this debate the books were exten-
sively used, right up to 1946, when the sixth edition appeared. These were
not easy years for the Lebanese state. Politically, it was struggling on two
fronts with France and Syria. Culturally, the country experienced internal
strife that practically began with its formation and peaked towards the end of
the 1930s, dividing Lebanon between supporters and opponents of its politi-
cal integrity and cultural uniqueness. In the meantime, in public schools as
well as in many of the private and confessional Christian schools, Lebanese
students studied the history of their country, beginning with the ancient
Phoenicians and concluding with the French mandate, providing them a tele-
ological narrative that justified Lebanon’s cultural and political distinctive-
ness. The history and geography curriculum did not necessarily undervalue
the Arab neighbors of Lebanon. In fact, as the following 1946 report indi-
cates, Lebanese students did focus also on Arab civilization and the place of
Lebanon therein. This report, conducted by the American Council on Educa-
tion, explains the objectives of historical studies in primary public schools:

In teaching history and geography, the teacher is reminded that these

subjects are of great use in developing patriotism and national spirit,
that the two subjects are intimately related, […]. History and geogra-
phy start informally in the first grade […]. In the second and third years
historical pictures and stories about Lebanon and the Arab world are
taken up […] In the fourth grade, early history of Lebanon is brought
down to the end of the Byzantine period and the history of the world to
 THE MANDATE YEARS 119
the discovery of America […]. In the fifth year Lebanese history to the
present day is studied including relations with the Arab countries, while
modern history takes up to the modern period […]. In the higher pri-
mary course, the history of the ancient peoples having relations with
Lebanon is studied, including the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Assyrians
and Chaldeans, the Aegeans, Hittites, Hebrew, Persians, Greeks and
the Romans; the growth of Christianity and the Byzantine empire. The
ancient history of the Phoenicians — the early inhabitants of Lebanon
— is then studied with emphasis on their invention of the alphabet,
their seafaring and trade, their founding of Carthage and other colonies
around the Mediterranean.33

The report continues to describe the subjects that Lebanese students study
in their schools, following the Arabs, Mamluks, Fatimides, Crusaders, and
Ottomans through the 17th century to the establishment of the princedoms of
the Ma‘nis and later the Shihabis, and concluding with the autonomous re-
gion of Mount Lebanon, the arrival of the French and the formation of Greater
Lebanon. The picture is very clear. Lebanon is part of a larger geographical
Arab region, but it also enjoys a distinct history that begins with the ancient
Phoenicians and continues to the present time. This process in Lebanese pub-
lic schools was one of the strongest forces that led to the inclusion of the
Phoenician past into the much-disputed Lebanese national narrative; we shall
return to this point later.

Université Saint Joseph and Its Graduates

USJ functioned as a major center of the dissemination of the Phoenician iden-

tity in Lebanon, and not only through its curriculum and the history and ge-
ography school textbooks its professors had written. The university played a
principal role in the formation of the Lebanese state, which enabled the Jesu-
its to spread their views about the character and identity of the fledgling state.
From the first days of French presence in Syria after the war, the Jesuits
became involved in the administration of the Syrian territories.34 Shortly af-
ter the formation of Greater Lebanon, an evening school was founded in USJ
to train a capable local cadre of state employees that would occupy adminis-
trative positions of the state. In addition to the professional classes on state
administration, the students of this school were obliged to attend classes on
the history and geography of Syria. The teachers were no less than Henri
Lammens, René Mouterde and Gabriel Levenq.35 One does not need to think
too hard to guess at the content of these classes. Indeed, USJ evolved to be a
quintessential player in the crystallization of Greater Lebanon as a civil and
political society. The two following quotes provide two polarized views about
the Jesuits and USJ but they also reflect the weight the university carried in
120 REVIVING PHOENICIA

the consolidation of the Lebanese state. The first quote is taken from a report
written by Gabriel Besnard, the General Secretary of the Mission Laïque in
Syria, who naturally opposed the worldviews of the USJ Jesuits and strug-
gled against their omnipresence in Lebanon:

Les Jésuites tiennent tout le clergé maronite; ils agissent sur le

Gouvernement local et sur le Haut Commissariat. Rien ne se fait au
Liban sans l’assentiment des Jésuites; l’appui que leur donnent les
pouvoirs publics explique en grande partie la crainte qu’ils inspirent.
Gens aimables et cultivés, ils savent utiliser au plus grand profit de la
puissance de l’ordre l’influence réelle dont ils jouissent au Liban. Les
Jésuites n’aiment pas la démocratie; ils ne s’en cachent pas; ils ont
même été créés pour combattre les institutions qui reflètent plus au
moins l’esprit dont elle s’inspire. Et l’on assiste au Liban à ce paradoxe
qui serait amusant s’il n’était tragique.36

It is tragic, concluded Besnard, because they control the instruction in

Lebanon and teach their students their flawed ideas. Besnard’s commentary
should be read, of course, in the context of the fierce animosity that existed
between the Mission Laïque and the Jesuit Order in Lebanon. Yet it should be
remembered that many Syrians and Lebanese shared his criticism of the Jesuits
because of the immense power they wielded in Lebanon. So powerful was
their hold that even the High Commission repeatedly complained to the Quai
d’Orsay of the Jesuit dominance in Lebanon and tried to curb it, often to no
avail.37
The second example that illustrates the strength of the Jesuits and their
university comes from Georges Naccache, himself a full-fledged product of
Jesuit education which he acquired in Alexandria and Beirut.38 The following
quotation is taken from an article he wrote in his newspaper l’Orient in honor
of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of USJ in 1875:

Ce serait sans doute une stupidité de dire qu’il n’y aurait pas eu un
Liban sans l’Université Saint Joseph; mais il nous serait à peu près
impossible d’imaginer quelle aurait pu être l’autre figure de notre destin,
si une dizaine de prêtres français, il y a soixante-quinze ans, n’avaient
débarqué sur ce littoral de la Turquie d’Asie ... Pouvaient-ils pressentir
ici l’extraordinaire aventure? Et quand ils obtenaient d’un vali ottoman
l’autorisation de fonder le collège de Beyrouth, voyaient-ils déjà le
déroulement précipité qui devait faire de ce petit rocher libanais l’un
des centres spirituels — et politique — du monde? Ce fut d’abord une
très petite maison, mais qu’habitait une très grande idée. Puis la maison,
avec l’idée, a grandi. Et c’est finalement toute l’histoire de notre ren-
aissance intellectuelle et nationale ... C’est là que furent formés les
quelques centaines d’hommes — de juristes, de savants, d’ingénieurs
 THE MANDATE YEARS 121
et de médecins, — qui devaient, en trois générations, refaire du Liban
un État et une nation ... Nous ne pensons pas qu’il soit exagéré de dire
qu’à peu près tout ce qui s’est bâti de valable, au Liban, depuis soixante-
quinze ans, est né de cette rencontre.39

It is interesting that opponents and supporters of the Jesuits in Lebanon

held similar views as to the power they enjoyed in Lebanon; the former sim-
ply viewed it negatively and the latter positively. The important point, never-
theless, is that the Jesuits regarded Lebanon as their own front yard and con-
stantly aspired to realize their vision of a Christian-Catholic, Western-ori-
ented society there. They often collaborated with their graduates for the pur-
pose of attaining this goal, as in the case of Maurice Sarrail, the third French
High Commissioner (January-November 1925), whose appointment infuri-
ated the Jesuits as well as many of the Christian Lebanese. After two devout
Catholic High Commissioners, Sarrail was a dedicated atheist with strong
ties to the French anti-clerical left. In his short term as High Commissioner,
Sarrail strove to appease the Syrian national movement and the Muslim Leba-
nese and attempted to curb the immense power of the Jesuits in Mandatory
Syria and Lebanon.40 The Jesuits, who conducted a fierce battle against his
policy, both in the mandated regions and in France itself, found a devoted
ally in this struggle in the person of Georges Naccache, who ceaselessly wrote
against Sarrail and his anti-Jesuit-cum-anti-Lebanese policies in his journal
l’Orient. Among other things, l’Orient reprinted articles from l’Action
française, the French fascist radical right journal that attacked Sarrail and his
anti-Christian policy in Syria. In response, Sarrail suspended the publication
of l’Orient, accusing Naccache of receiving payments from the Jesuits to
conduct this struggle against the High Commission.41
As the case of Naccache demonstrates, the Jesuit experience did not cease
with graduation from USJ. From 1898, a very active Alumni Association
operated in Beirut, functioning as a social club for the USJ graduates.42 A
reading through the various publications of this association reveals the social
circles and the social life of these graduates, who used to meet three times a
year at the Alumni Association General Assembly at the university, with many
of the Jesuit faculty, other dignitaries, and the “who’s who” in Syria and Leba-
non present. It was a cohesive social class of devout francophones, remark-
ably influenced by the Jesuit dogma which they experienced during their
adolescence and adulthood years.43 The regular gatherings included speeches
by dignitaries, a report of recent achievements of particular graduates and an
artistic program.44 In 1934, the year in which the Oriental Faculty of USJ
reopened its gates, the Alumni Association began issuing a new journal, L’U
(short for Bulletin de l’Université), that supplemented the old Bulletin Annuel
de l’Association Amicale des Anciens Eélèves de l‘Université Saint Joseph.
Alfred Naccache,45 then the secretary of the association, opened each issue
with a transcript of the speech he had given at the last gathering. In the sec-
122 REVIVING PHOENICIA

ond issue of L’U from June 1934, a third of his speech is dedicated to the
recently published La Montagne Inspirée, sparing no words to compliment
the artistic and patriotic values of Charles Corm, the “aède phénicien.”
Naccache himself never published any work with direct Phoenician symbols
but his reference to Corm indicated an unequivocal support of the business-
man-poet’s Phoenicianism. He ended his praise of Corm with the following
sentence: “Le meilleur éloge que je puisse faire de notre ami, c’est que
l’émotion qu’il réveille dans nos âmes est de la plus noble qualité et qu’à la
lecture de certains passages, j’ai vu perles des larmes dans des yeux libanais.”46
Two years later, in 1936, Alfred Naccache was still secretary of the Alumni
Association. It was a special year for the francophile milieu in Beirut. Emile
Eddé ascended to presidency and the pro-Eddé camp had good reason to
celebrate. As always, Naccache gave the opening speech to the association’s
General Assembly. Half of it he dedicated to Eddé’s victory, which was seen
as the Association’s victory and a triumph of the Christian francophone cir-
cles in Lebanon. A year earlier, Corm had represented Lebanon in the Congrès
de la Méditerranée (discussed below), which also received its fair share in
Naccache’s report. His opening words, in front of the Jesuit teachers, who
were always present at these gatherings, and scores of USJ graduates, were
as follows:

S’il est vrai que le soleil est père de la joie, quelle chance pour nous qui
sommes du pays de Baal ! Quelle jubilation en cette saison même où la
Mer et la Montagne chantent sous la lumière et réveillent dans nos
cœurs néo-phéniciens le désir des lointaines évasions!47

Unlike the mythological La Revue Phénicienne or Phénicia, L’U was not

an overt Phoenician organ. It nevertheless reflected the francophone
Phoenician circles of Beirut via its writers, who belonged to this clique, and
through the atmosphere that imbued its lines. The ambience of L’U was rec-
ognizable from its front cover. A drawing, depicting a Phoenician vessel with
Phoenician seafarers approaching the edifice of the USJ, adorned the bulle-
tin. Parallel to the edifice stood the title, L’U, designed as an additional con-
struction. The symbolism was clear: ancient Phoenician seafarers sailing into
Beirut docked directly before the walls of USJ and the mansion of L’U. Thus,
a direct link was formed between the ancient Phoenician maritime navigators
and the students of USJ — the “neo-Phoenicians.”

Archeology and National Museums

Modern excavations in Syria and Lebanon began, as noted in Chapter I, with

the scientific mission of Ernest Renan in 1860. Since then, numerous exca-
vating teams, primarily led by French archeologists, unearthed the ancient
civilizations of Syria and Lebanon. The discoveries were either shipped to
 THE MANDATE YEARS 123
Paris and Istanbul or kept in private collections in Syria. The Jesuits accumu-
lated an impressive collection at USJ, and the Syrian Protestant College
amassed its own collections in Beirut and Sidon. One of the first administra-
tive measures the French took after their arrival in Syria was to create the
Service of Antiquity and Fine Arts that took charge of the administration of
excavations and the formation of several museums throughout the mandated
regions. On July 1922, the first Lebanese National Museum was inaugurated
with the blessing and supervision of the High Commission. It was only a
provisory enterprise, and the aim was to later found a larger museum that
would bring together under one roof all the archeological collections in Leba-
non.48 In the museum’s mission statement, the French authorities made it very
clear that the Lebanese National Museum would concentrate on Phoenician
archeology, whereas the future museum in Damascus would focus on Islamic
and Arab art.49 The French continued to conduct the policy of archeological
division between Beirut and Damascus throughout their mandate in Syria
and Lebanon. The 1928 French report to the League of Nations contained a
section about archeology and fine arts.50 The subdivision on archeology in
Lebanon was arranged in three different parts, covering Phoenician, Frank-
ish-Crusade and religious-Christian archeology. Muslim Archeology, con-
ducted by l’Institut français d’archéologie et d’art musulmane de Damas,
was covered in a different section in the report, reflecting the separation the
French made between Syria and Lebanon in the domain of archeology.
Simultaneous with the founding of the museum in Beirut, the Service of
Antiquities began issuing its journal, Syria, at the publication house of David
Corm, the father of Charles. In the first issue of Syria, René Dussaud, one of
the most distinguished French archeologists in Syria, commented on the An-
tiquities Service’s mission statement. “Notre programme,” he explained, “se
résume en deux phrases: développer en Syrie le goût de l’art et des antiquités
du pays; mieux faire connaître au dehors les arts syriens de toutes les époques.
La revue Syria doit servir de trait d’union entre l’intellectualité française et
l’élite syrienne en leur fournissant l’occasion d’une collaboration féconde.”51
Befitting the French colonial idea, Syria had a civilizing mission to educate
the Syrians and to strengthen the ties between Syrian and French intellectu-
als, with the underlying political agenda of winning the support of the elite to
facilitate French control. Moreover, as Benedict Anderson noted in his Imag-
ined Communities, there was nothing innocent in the construction of muse-
ums and the establishment of national services of antiquities, let alone when
these were erected in colonial settings. Anderson named this process “politi-
cal museumizing” and although his examples for this process were taken
from the other, eastern, side of the Asian continent, they elucidate very clearly
what happened in any other nation-building processes associated with a colo-
nial power.52 After France took control over Syria and Lebanon in 1919-1920,
it finally had the opportunity to fully manage the archeological excavations
of the region. Emulating their own national conduct regarding museums (for
124 REVIVING PHOENICIA

what symbolizes French national patrimony and pride better than the Lou-
vre?), the French authorities established “national museums” in Beirut, Da-
mascus, and Aleppo, each focusing on a different theme. The journal Syria
supplemented the museums with data, tables, illustrations and reports, all to
be consumed by the local elite, establishing the triangular connection be-
tween ancient local history, its explorer, the French, and its recipient, the
Syro-Lebanese. Until 1928, the conservation of the Lebanese National Mu-
seum was put in the hands of Charles Virolleaud, Director of the Service of
Antiquities, and Philippe de Tarrazi, the Lebanese Conservator of the newly-
born National Library.53 In July 1924, several affluent Lebanese, led by Jacques
Tabet launched a committee, Amis du Musée,54 for the construction of a large
and respected home for the Lebanese National Museum. They raised money
from wealthy families in Beirut and from the Lebanese immigrant communi-
ties throughout the world.55 The process lasted more than a decade, until the
completion of the building drew near, and in 1937 the new structure was
inaugurated with equal pomp and fanfare.56
In 1928, a watershed was crossed in the history of modern Lebanon when
Maurice Chéhab became the conservator of the Lebanese National Museum.
It was a significant event because it symbolized the beginning of the transfer
of archeological management from the French to local Lebanese. Chéhab,
scion of the highborn Chéhabi family, was also a product of the Jesuit educa-
tion system. In one of the USJ alumni bulletins he explained why he chose to
be an archeologist. He wrote that he was deliberating over which profession
he should choose.57 The courses he took in local archeology fascinated him.
Then, in 1921, Henri Lammens’ book, La Syrie; Précis Historique, was pub-
lished and clarified for Chéhab his ideas about the national history of Leba-
non. He decided to study archeology, becoming the first Lebanese archeolo-
gist to excavate professionally in Lebanon, at the Byblos site. Even more
than devout Phoenicians such as Charles Corm and Sa‘id ‘Aql, Chéhab actu-
ally played a tremendous role in the insertion of Phoenician messages into
the Lebanese national narrative. Unlike those two, Chéhab was never thought
to be a Phoenician thinker. Yet, through his thirty-three years as director of
the National Museum and later as the director of the Service of Antiquities, in
addition to his numerous publications on Phoenician and Greco-Roman Leba-
non, Chéhab was able to spread the word on Phoenicianism more than the
best-recognized Phoenician preachers.
Maurice Chéhab is only one example of the fact that by the mid-1930s,
intellectual Lebanese were expressing a growing interest in the ancient his-
tory of their country. The continuing excavations at various sites in Lebanon,
most notably Byblos, Tyre and Sidon, and the sensational discoveries in Ugarit
in northern Syria after 1929 added to the growing curiosity about the ancient
history of the country.58 In addition to Syria, the Lebanese government began
funding the publication of additional archeological journals, such as Études
et Documents d’Archéologie and Le Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth, first pub-
 THE MANDATE YEARS 125
lished in 1937 with, on its front cover, a Phoenician vessel. The “political
museumizing” that characterized French colonial conduct continued as Leba-
non followed the lead of its mandatory power. Imitating the French was not
too surprising, for, after all, Lebanon exhibited marked continuity from the
French mandate to its independence in many aspects of state and public life,
archeology included. In any case, museums are a national educating instru-
ment of the first degree, with or without French influence, and the Museum,
through its exhibitions and its Bulletin, was a clear Phoenician agent. The
Bulletin’s mission statement stated its objective plainly:

Une chronique sera consacrée à l’activité archéologique du Liban. Les

documents inédits ou peu connus de nos collections y seront publiés, et
ses pages seront ouvertes à toute étude relative à l’histoire et à la civi-
lisation des Phéniciens ainsi qu’aux disciplines connexes.59

The Jesuits naturally enjoyed the growing interest in local archeology. In

the academic year of 1933-34, the Oriental Faculty at USJ, under the new
name of Leçons des lettres orientales, reorganized its courses and, for the
first time since WWI, offered an organized curriculum and a certified degree
in the ancient history and archeology of the region.60 Charles Dugas, a French
professor from Université de Lyon, wrote a special report about the old-new
faculty. He praised its director, the Jesuit René Mouterde, for the initiative,
but he had two major criticisms of new faculty. He remarked that the theo-
retical classes required also a practical angle and that there was too much
focus on local ancient history. He also averred that a sound education for an
archeologist demanded a qualified background in Latin and Greek, not only
in Phoenician and other local Semitic civilizations. Still, concluding his re-
view, Dugas wrote that the initiative of opening the Leçons de Lettres
Orientales deserved all the support possible from the French authorities be-
cause at the time of signing the Franco-Syrian and Franco-Lebanese treaties,
it was important to win the hearts of these students who find special interest
in the history of their county and who, in the foreseeable future, would be-
come history teachers in local schools.61
Less than a year after Dugas submitted his report about the Leçons des
Lettres Orientales, the new Bibliothèque Orientale was inaugurated. This li-
brary was one of USJ’s finest treasures and its reopening in a smartly reno-
vated building was a joyful occasion for the university. A large fresco, depict-
ing a map of the Near East, welcomed visitors to the new library. Designed
by a Jesuit teacher, Father Louis Tresca, it reflected the Jesuit view of the
history of the region. Lebanon was located at the center of the map, symbol-
ized by the Mountain and the cedars. Two Phoenician vessels crossed the
Mediterranean westwards and one, Jonah, reached the shores of Jaffa. In Egypt,
a large image of a Pharaoh stood poised, watching Mesopotamia. An impres-
sive convoy of Crusaders approached the region from Europe, and from the
126 REVIVING PHOENICIA

east a huge chariot harnessed to four magnificent horses carried Apollo straight
to the heart of the Near East. The image of Jesus was depicted walking along
the Phoenician coast. Damascus was represented by the great Umayyad
mosque, Jerusalem by a drawing of the Old City and Constantinople by an
illustration of the Haghia Sophia. A brochure explained the meaning of the
fresco in the following words:

… [D]e tout temps, la côte phénicienne en fut la patrie [of the light,
A.K.], en particulier ce Liban qui occupe le centre de l’œuvre. L’artiste
néglige même de le nommer, tellement la place qu’il occupe montre à
l’évidence que c’est vers lui que tout converge. […]. D’Égypte et
d’Assyrie vinrent, avec d’innombrables objets d’art, la science des
nombres et les cultes mystérieux qui furent à la base des premières
spéculations philosophiques des Grecs. Puis, lorsqu’arriva la plénitude
des temps, la Syrie et le Liban durent à leur proximité de la “Terra
Domini” de recevoir aussitôt le message de Celui qui vint lui-même un
jour “jusqu’aux confines de Tyr et de Sidon.” Ce furent alors les siècles
de vie chrétienne intense qui précédèrent la conquête musulmane ; puis
Bagdad et Damas succédèrent à Byzance et à la “Saint Jérusalem,”
jusqu’au jour où les Croisés, venus par Constantinople, consolidèrent
les résultats de la guerre sainte en fondant le Royaume France de Syrie.
Le Levant fait alors la connaissance de l’Occident chrétien comme pu-
issance à la fois politique et spirituelle : main bientôt, dès la fin du
Moyen-age, cette influence de l’Occident se réduit au seul élément
spirituel. De pays de colonisation, la Syrie devient champs d’apostolat,
et la fresque nous rappelle qu’en 1523, Ignace de Loyola, nouvellement
converti, s’embarqua pour cette terre d’Orient qu’il désirait ramener
tout entière au Christ. Ainsi se trouvait inauguré par le fondateur de la
Compagnie de Jésus le travail apostolique auquel, de nos jours encore,
ses fils se consacrent ici même. Leur but, en construisant cette nouvelle
Bibliothèque Orientale a été de promouvoir le règne du Christ, unique
synthèse possible de tant d’influences contradictoires.62

This description well outlines the view of history as seen and taught within
the walls of USJ in the formative years that shaped Lebanon as a political
community. This was the historical baggage with which the graduates of the
university departed, which they carried to their posts in state administration,
politics, business, instruction and other fields of Lebanese public life.

1936-1937: A Case Study of Phoenicianism and Its Adversaries

On January 20, 1936, Emile Eddé was elected president by the Lebanese
Chamber of Deputies. It was the first time the president was nominated by
 THE MANDATE YEARS 127
the votes of the deputies rather than by direct appointment of the French High
Commissioner. Perplexingly, Eddé won with the support of the majority of
the Muslim deputies, whereas his rival Béchara al-Khoury received insuffi-
cient votes from the deputies of the Mountain. The results demonstrated the
complexity of Lebanese politics. Although Béchara al-Khoury was clearly
culturally and socially closer to the Muslim population in Lebanon, he did
not win their votes; Eddé, meanwhile, the devout francophile who found it
even difficult to converse in Arabic and whose world of reference was the
cosmopolitan life of Beirut, did not win the support of the Maronites and
instead found his allies among the Sunni and Shi‘i deputies. It was an expres-
sion of the fact that the Mountain and the ideology it radiated intimidated the
Muslim population of Lebanon. Muslim deputies preferred to cast their bal-
lots for Eddé, the “non-Arab” who, as I shall elaborate below, flirted with the
Phoenician circles of Beirut, rather than voting for al-Khoury whose power
base was less in the city and more in the Maronite fortress of the Mountain.
The results of the elections also reflected the fact that the Maronite commu-
nity was far from united even on its dearest and most important issue —
maintaining the integrity of Lebanon and its Christian character.
Eddé’s assuming the presidency launched the two most tempestuous years
in mandatory Lebanon. From those presidential elections, in January 1936,
to the parliamentary elections of October 1937, Lebanon was on the brink of
civil war. The streets of its major cities experienced consecutive violent dem-
onstrations, governments rose and fell, major strikes paralyzed the country
and Lebanese society seemed on the verge of total anarchy. Internal and ex-
ternal reasons led to this predicament. The Eddé/al-Khoury rivalry continued
at full steam and divided the Lebanese social and political scene. In Septem-
ber 1936, the Franco-Syrian treaty was ratified by the Syrian parliament, bring-
ing the Muslim population of Lebanon into the streets, afraid lest their Syrian
brothers neglect them. Following the conclusion of the negotiations over the
Franco-Syrian treaty, the French began discussing a Franco-Lebanese pact
with the Lebanese government. Eddé and al-Khoury cooperated for the talks,
but, once the treaty was signed, in November 1936, they resumed their ri-
valry even more ferociously than before. As a reaction to Muslim irredentist
demands and to the growing strength of the Partie Populaire Syrien, Maronite
leaders formed the Lebanese Kata’ib in November, marking the establish-
ment of the first well-organized Maronite mass movement within Lebanon.
On the Syro-Lebanese front, Tripoli became the major source of contention
between the two countries. The Syrians, supported by the majority of the
Muslim Lebanese, continued to demand the annexation of the city to Syria.
The entire Middle East experienced dramatic shifts in these two years. The
Palestinian uprising was underway in Palestine, while in Egypt and Iraq agree-
ments were being signed between Britain and the two local governments. In
Europe, the drums of war began pounding, adding to the general sense of
insecurity and uncertainty about the future.
128 REVIVING PHOENICIA

The Phoenician identity of Lebanon was by no means at the center of

these events, yet often it echoed in the background of the political and social
turmoil that characterized 1936-37. Several examples well demonstrate this
point. On March 1936, Muslim and Christian leaders63 convened in Beirut at
what was known as the “Congress of the Coast and the Four Districts.” re-
sponding to the Franco-Syrian negotiations, with two conflicting demands.
On the one hand, they demanded that the annexed regions of Lebanon be
returned to Syria but on the other, they appealed for a larger and more equal
share of Lebanese politics and social life.64 The Congress triggered a fierce
squabble in journals and newspapers in Beirut for and against the demands
of the Muslim leadership and their declaration that Lebanon was an Arab
country, indistinguishable from its Arab neighbors. The francophone le Jour
and l’Orient shared with the Jesuit al-Bashir the view that Lebanon was
Lebanese and not Arab, whereas the leading Arabic journals al-Nahar and
Bayrut repeated and supported the demands of the Congress of the Coast.65
The response of Lebanese nationalists to this Congress often involved the
Phoenician angle. Najib Dahdah, for example, a Maronite politician and jour-
nalist, responded to the demands of the Conference in an article in the Jesuit
journal al-Mashriq. There he argued that, geographically, the Lebanese coast
had been part of the Mountain since the Phoenician era and, therefore, those
who lived along the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon had been Lebanese
then just as they are Lebanese today.66 Similarly, the Beirut municipal elec-
tions that took place a month after the Congress ended were also influenced
by the claims of the Phoenician identity of Lebanon. Christian and Muslim
candidates were divided along Phoenician and Arab lines, increasing the
already mounting tension between the two communities.67 As a reaction to
the demands of the Congress of the Coast and to the growing tension in the
streets of Beirut, the Maronite Patriarch initiated the formation of a party,
Front national libanais, headed by Yusuf al-Saouda, one of the most vocif-
erous voices in favor of the Phoenician identity of Lebanon, who used his
publication, al-Raya, to express his views about the political integrity of
Lebanon and its non-Arab identity.68 Lacking wide popular support, al-
Saouda’s party did not survive long, but it marked the desire within the
Maronite community to establish a popular organization that would con-
front the Arab and Syrian agitation in Lebanon. This desire was fulfilled at
the end of 1936 with the formation of the Lebanese Kata’ib by Pierre al-
Gemayyel and four other Christian leaders. The vast majority of Kata’ib
supporters in its first stages were students and graduates of USJ69 who stormed
the streets of Beirut calling for Lebanese integrity and independence; assert-
ing its unique non-Arab cultural and national features. The Kata’ib were not
labeled as a Phoenician movement, but its leaders often used Phoenician
phraseology to explain the non-Arab identity of Lebanon. Lebanon is not
Phoenician, it was asserted, in the political meaning, for Lebanon is a rela-
tively new political body dating to the 17th century. It is Phoenician, how-
 THE MANDATE YEARS 129
ever, in culture and ethos, bequeathed to the modern Lebanese by their fore-
fathers in ancient times.70
The preparations for the 1937 parliamentary elections were also marked
by the division between supporters and opponents of the distinct non-Arab
identity of Lebanon. Newspapers in Beirut were saturated with accusations
and counter-accusations over this disputed national identity. Al-Nahar, the
journal of the Greek Orthodox Gebran Tuéni, the Arabic paper with the high-
est readership in Beirut, led the attack against the Phoenician tendencies of
the presidency of Emile Eddé and his prime minister, the Sunni Khair al-Din
Ahdab.71 The city of Tripoli, which had always been a center of pro-Syrian
agitation, was also doused with the anti-Phoenician mood. A Sunni organiza-
tion was formed in this coastal city carrying the flag of anti-Phoenicianism,
and, as in the case of the Congress of the Coast, the Beirut press used the
opportunity to support or denounce this trend.72 Using the term “Phoenician”
in these cases did not strictly mean a recognition of the Phoenician descent of
Lebanon in the same way Sa‘id ‘Aql and Charles Corm understood
Phoenicianism. It was more a Christian statement that Lebanon had the his-
torical right of being a political and cultural separate entity. More than any-
thing else, it reflected the fact that in the 1930s Phoenicianism was “in the
air,” and was used not only by the leading “Phoenician prophets” but also by
many Lebanese nationalists, to assert their national identity. So prevalent was
the use of the term “Phoenician” that in 1937, when Edmond Rabbath, the
Arab-Syrian nationalist, published his book, Unité Syrien et Devenir Arabe,
he referred to the entire Lebanese national movement as Phoenician and de-
scribed Lebanese society as split in two camps: supporters and opponents of
the Phoenician identity.73 Similarly, the appearance in January 1938 of
Phénicia, the literary journal to be discussed below, can only be understood
in the context of the political events that preceded its publication. Although
Aurore Ougour, the owner and editor of Phénicia, clearly stated that there
was no political motive behind the journal, only cultural and artistic ones,74
there is no question that the timing of its appearance, on the heels of two such
chaotic years in Lebanese politics, marked a very clear statement by Ougour
and her writers — from Charles Corm to Sa‘id ‘Aql and Michel Chiha — as
to their cultural and political convictions about the identity of Lebanon.

Towards Independence

In the week of February 15-21, 1942, the Lebanese Ministry of Education

and Fine Arts initiated and organized a series of lectures on Radio Levant
(Idha‘at al-Sharq) entitled, “The Week of Culture in Lebanon.” Ramiz Sarkis,
the Maronite minister, opened the series with an address emphasizing Leba-
non’s eminent culture, its esteemed location among its Arab sister countries,
and its role in the renaissance of the Arabic language. The lectures clearly
130 REVIVING PHOENICIA

supported Lebanon’s right to exist as a viable national community, and at the

same time they also depicted it as an integral, culturally leading, member of
the Arab world. One of the lecturers in this series was presented by ‘Umar
Fakhuri (1896-1946), a Sunni thinker and writer from Beirut,75 whose pres-
entation was entitled “Risalat Lubnan al-Thaqafiyya” [The Cultural Mission
of Lebanon]. The following quotation reflects its content:

Since Lebanon’s existence, it did not stand still on the shores of this
Mediterranean, in front of its ancient and modern civilizations […]. Its
historical and geographical smallness did not prevent it from providing
the world, in any era of its civilization, the instrument of ideal commu-
nication [the alphabet, A.K.], the methods of preferable worship [mono-
theism, A.K.] the paths to thought and uprightness. Moreover, possibly
this very smallness […] was what instigated this people (Sha‘b), push-
ing itself with undiminished determination, to seek and find greatness
for itself. And thus, we have seen Lebanon spreading by means of ships
and towns, gods and temples, expanding the boundaries of handicrafts
and thought. From its holy woods they built lofty houses of prayer and
ships that sailed afar, and it seemed that because of its limited scope it
pursued vengeance on distant parts, and it did not rest until it brought
the scattered near, assembled the opposites and united the material and
the spirit simultaneously.

These words of Fakhuri could have been comfortably uttered by any Chris-
tian Lebanese who supported the idea of Lebanon’s unique cultural and spe-
cial national features. 76 His lecture clearly reflected the long way
Phoenicianism had come from the end of the 19th century to the 1940s. By
the mid-1930s, there were enough Muslim Lebanese, especially the Sunni
haute-bourgeois leadership in Beirut, who were willing to acknowledge the
existence of Lebanon as a fait accompli as long as Lebanon was recognized
as part of a larger Arab world and the Muslim Lebanese were allowed to
participate in its national institutions on equal terms. It was a lengthy and
rocky process, but recognizing the existence of Lebanon as an independent
sovereign state inevitably implied also acknowledging the fact that Lebanon,
in its current extended borders, had a separate history that justified its exist-
ence as an independent state. Fakhuri’s words on Radio Levant were an inte-
gral part of this inevitable process. He said not a word about “our ancestors
the Phoenicians.”77 Yet, the language he used in his broadcast was based on
years of Phoenician terminology recited by historians, archeologists, poets,
authors and nationalists. Al-Adib, the popular literary journal that published
the various lectures of “the Week of Culture,” printed them in an interesting
format. The top of each page was decorated with drawings of a Phoenician
vessel with a woman on each side, dressed in Greco-Roman robes. Thus,
“The Week of Culture in Lebanon” conveyed a very clear message that this
 THE MANDATE YEARS 131
was an independent country, tied to the Arab world, and simultaneously it
also reflected a distinct identity of which one attribute was the Phoenician
heritage. Even one of the most francophile journals and a staunch supporter
of Lebanon-Phoenicia in the 1930s recognized this transformation in the 1940s.
La Revue du Liban et de l’Orient Méditerranéen, founded in 1928 in Paris by
Ibrahim and Emile Makhluf, was a popular journal with a wide circulation of
readers in France and in Lebanon. Almost every issue contained references to
the Phoenician descent of Lebanon and included articles about Phoenician
archeology, history and civilization.78 In 1933, the Makhluf brothers founded
an organization in Paris for Lebanese émigrés, which they called Nova
Phenicia, marking their cultural orientation with this appellation.79 Yet, in
1939, when they moved back to Beirut as a result of the mounting war in
Europe, they continued to publish their journal but with a changed name —
La Revue du Liban et de l’Orient Arabe — symbolizing their own recogni-
tion of change within the Lebanese society.
It is evident that by the 1940s, Phoenician terminology had entered the
Lebanese national narrative and become an established part of the story of
the formation of the Lebanese nation. Many Muslims and more than a few
Christians continued to view Phoenicianism as a foreign, anti-Arab concept,
imported by French colonialism, especially in light of the growing strength
of the pan-Arab movement in the 1950s.80 But at the same time, Phoenician
symbols, icons and images became an inseparable part of the day-to-day re-
ality of Lebanon. By the mid-1940s the following phrases became conven-
tional wisdom within Lebanon: “Lebanon is a crossroads of civilizations;”
“The ancient Lebanese invented the alphabet;” “For 6,000 years, Lebanese
have been natural born merchants;” and “Lebanese emigration started with
the Phoenician colonies.”81 Younger Lebanese studied about their Phoenician
ancestors in school while older ones were smoking Adonis, Byblos and Amir
cigarettes, the latter packet decorated with a Phoenician vessel. A Lebanese
who used the Indicateur Libano-Syrien, the Lebanese “Yellow Pages,” en-
countered a historical précis in the introduction, outlining the history and
ethnography of Lebanon, beginning with the ancient Phoenicians.82 Guide-
books and manuals, written by Lebanese themselves, often with the encour-
agement of the Lebanese government,83 played on the Phoenician chord and
explained at length the “evolution of the Lebanese nation.” The famous se-
ries, Les Guides Verts, published a handbook Beyrouth et la République
Libanaise, that opened with an introduction by Philip Hitti and with an essay
by ‘Abdallah ‘Alayli about the history of Lebanon. ‘Alayli, a Sunni scholar
from Beirut, who acquired his education at al-Azhar University in Cairo, was
one of the most important Arabic linguists in the Arab world and no one
would dare question his Arab identity. Nevertheless, the history section he
wrote carried an unequivocal message that the annals of the Lebanese nation
began with the Phoenician navigators. According to him, these Phoenicians
were Bedouin Arab tribes that arrived in Lebanon from the Arabian Penin-
132 REVIVING PHOENICIA

sula and whose contribution to the evolution of the Lebanese stock was im-
mense. Four drawings embellish this section of the guidebook. The first two
depict the invention of the alphabet and the construction of Phoenician ships
and the other two portray Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni and Bashir II, demonstrating
the three foundational pillars of the Lebanese national history. By “arabizing”
the Phoenicians it was possible for him to write a historical essay about the
origin and evolution of the Lebanese nation that would not have dishonored
any average Christian Lebanese with Phoenician tendencies. ‘Alayli was not
the first to refer to the Phoenicians as genuine Arabs. He only reiterated the
thesis supported by many Arab demographers who considered Arabia as the
human source of the entire population of the Near East.84 Right or not, if the
Phoenicians were believed to be Arabs then a 20th-century Arab nationalist
like ‘Abdallah ‘Alayli could take pride in his civilization and its contribution
to Arab Lebanon. It would be inconceivable to think that in the 1920s and
1930s, ‘Alayli or ‘Umar Fakhuri would have elaborated on the Phoenician
components in the Lebanese collective identity. Yet, in the 1940s, following
the gradual process of reconciliation with the existence of Greater Lebanon,
these two Sunni intellectuals did glorify the Phoenician past of Lebanon, while
at the same time they continued to view themselves as proud Arabs and re-
gard Lebanon as a leading Arab state.
On September 1943, the National Pact, the historic agreement between
Béchara al-Khouri and Riad al-Sulh, defined Lebanon as a country with an
“Arab face,” and simultaneously it also guaranteed the continuation of its
traditional links with the West. A year later, Lebanon became one of the
founding members of the Arab League. Avid Phoenicians, such as Yusuf al-
Saouda, opposed its joining the League.85 The Maronite Bishop of Beirut,
Monsignor Ignace Moubarac, was also one of the most vociferous voices
against the inclusion of Lebanon into the Arab fold.86 Moubarac’s views,
however, were not endorsed by the Maronite Church. They were more of an
independent plea supported by a few Christian intellectuals who remained
marginal in 1940s Christian Lebanese society. By and large, the Lebanese
population, Christian and Muslim alike, supported the independent,
integrationist stream and rejected the vision of a Christian isolationist entity.
Even devout, pro-Western Phoenician sympathizers such as Charles Malik
and Philip Hitti recognized this. Malik, a well-known philosopher and poli-
tician, stood out in his long public career as a sound supporter of Phoenicia-
Lebanon. In 1945, he was appointed the Lebanese ambassador to the United
Nations and evolved to be the strongest voice in the General Assembly, fight-
ing for the Arab-Palestinian cause and denouncing Zionist ambitions in Pal-
estine.87 Similarly, Philip Hitti, whose contribution to the diffusion of the
Phoenician past into the Lebanese national narrative was immense, also stood
out as a defender of the Arab-Palestinian agenda and as an opponent of the
Zionist movement.88 Both Malik and Hitti were avid Lebanese nationalists
who simultaneously supported the historical narrative of Lebanon as neo-
 THE MANDATE YEARS 133
Phoenicia and of Lebanon as an active, though unique, member of the Arab
world.
The tension between the Christian Phoenician ideal and the Arab-Muslim
population of Lebanon never ceased, because the Phoenicianism of some
Christian Lebanese remained permanently tied to their assertion that they
were not Arabs. Yet the fact remains that, despite this tension, Phoenician
expressions did enter Lebanese national consciousness and became an in-
separable part of the country’s myth of origin. In a way, this kind of
Phoenicianism was a return to the first expressions of the Phoenician identity
in the 1880s. In a world of “awakening” national communities that were im-
agining and writing their own autobiographies, the Lebanese were beginning
with their distant and invented birth in antiquity.

References

1 Usbu‘ al-Thaqafa fi Lubnan (Beirut, 1942), p. 4.

2 See Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, especially pp. 97-146; Gérard
D. Khoury, La France et l’Orient Arabe (Paris: A. Colin, 1993), pp. 353-399;
Kamal S. Salibi, The Modern History of Lebanon, pp. 151-167; Georges Adib
Karam, L’Opinion Publique Libanaise et la Question du Liban (Beirut: Librairie
Orientale, 1981).
3 See, for example, the following works: David, N. Myers, Re-Inventing the Jewish
Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Ranajit Guha, An Indian
Historiography of India: A Nineteenth Century Agenda and Its Implications
(Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co., 1988); Bernard Lewis, History: Remembered,
Recovered, Invented (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); David C.
Gordon, Self-Determination and History in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1971).
4 Sati‘ al-Husri, of course, is the most notable example within the Arab world of
the use of the Ministry of Education in Iraq for the dissemination of national
sentiments. See in William Cleveland, The Making of an Arab Nationalist;
Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of Sati‘ al-Husri (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 59-80.
5 For a survey of education in Syria before 1918, see J. A. Babikian, Civilization
and Education in Syria and Lebanon (Beirut: 1936), pp. 80-87.
6 See more in Munir Bashshur, The Role of Two Western Universities in the National
Life of Lebanon and the Middle East. A Comparative Study of the American
University in Beirut and the University of Saint Joseph (Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Chicago, 1964).
7 Haut Commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, La Syrie et
le Liban en 1921 (Paris, 1921), p. 106.
8 See, for example, the curriculum that was designed for the ‘Alawite state. AD
Nantes, Carton 9, Programme d’études, territoire autonome des ‘alaouite, 1921.
The entire program is focused on the ancient history of the region and on European
and French histories. The French were very persistent in their attempt to create a
134 REVIVING PHOENICIA

“nation” out of the ‘Alawite region in northern Syria. See, for example, MAE
Paris, Vol. 527, Review of the Press, p. 82. May 14-20, 1933, a report of an
article written by the Jesuit Louis Jalabert and supported by l’Orient, in favor of
maintaining the ‘Alawite state.
9 See more in Edmond Burke, “A Comparative View of French Native Policy in
Morocco and Syria, 1912-1925,” Middle Eastern Studies (May 1973), pp. 175-
186.
10 AD Nantes, Carton 14, Gouraud to Combes, August 10, 1922.
11 AD Nantes, Carton 14, Combes to Haut Commissariat, October 27, 1922. This
report stands in sharp contradiction to the situation in USJ and other French private
schools where, since the turn of the century, the local history of Syria, together
with French history, were the focus of history classes.
12 See some of his articles in Études concerning Lebanon and Syria, “L’Amitié
Française au Liban,” 159(1919), p. 235; “La France Abandonnera-t-elle la Syrie?”
191(1927), pp. 161-182; “Au Pays de l’Amitié Française, à Travers le Liban,”
215(1933), pp. 416-435. The publications of Jalabert as a teacher at USJ primarily
focused on Phoenician and Roman archeology. See Louis Cheikho, USJ;
Catalogue des Ouvrages, 1875-1925 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1925), pp.
18-19. For biographical notes on Louis Jalabert, see Henri Jalabert, Les Jésuites
au Proche Orient, pp. 420-421.
13 Jesuit Archives, Vanves, Fond Louis Jalabert, Chemise F. A report from Jalabert
to de Caix (1922[?]), p. 3.
14 Jalabert made an interesting comparison with Tunisia and Morocco where the
majority of the elite opposed French presence. There, he wrote, we do not need
the elite in order to control the local population. In Syria and Lebanon, however,
because of the high level of the local societies, we do need the elite and therefore
we must attach them to us.
15 Henri Lammens recorded in the introduction to his La Syrie; Précis Historique
that he had written this book at the personal request of Henri Gouraud. It reflects
the desire of the French authorities in general and Gouraud in particular to provide
Syria with a new local history separated from the Arab history. The book itself
became one of the most important textbooks for the supporters of the non-Arab
identity of Syria and Lebanon. See more about the use of this book in note 26.
16 Louis Jalabert wrote several times to the High Commission, demanding that more
resources be allocated to USJ at the expense of other educational establishments,
most notably in Damascus. His explanations were always political, arguing that
it serves best the colonial interests of France. See, for example, MAE Paris, Vol.
378 pp. 9-10, Jalabert to the MAE, October 10, 1922. In this letter Jalabert opposes
the plans to establish a faculty of medicine in Damascus. Such an act, he wrote,
might attract Arabs from the entire Arab world and create anti-French activity in
Damascus. Beirut, therefore, should remain the only city within the mandated
regions with a school of medicine.
17 AD Nantes, Carton 14, Instruction publique, programme du brevet élémentaire,
(a certificate of elementary school) 1922-1923.
18 See also AD Nantes, Carton 2, Baccalauréat frano-syrien 1920-21 June 7, 1920;
programme d’étude 1930; Carton 9, “Certificat d’études primaires franco-syrien,”
May 1921.
 THE MANDATE YEARS 135
19 A report of “Schools of the Lebanese Republic” of the Instruction publique dated
25 April, 1933, gives a detailed list of all schools and registered students in
Lebanon. There were 16,706 students in 203 public schools; 52,665 students in
737 private confessional schools; and 38,402 in 420 private foreign schools. AD
Nantes, Carton 102, Table des écoles de la République Libanaise. The numbers
in the public schools were by no means large. Lebanese families continued to
prefer to send their children to private foreign or confessional schools. These
figures are approximately confirmed in J. A. Babikian, Civilization and Education
in Syria and Lebanon (Beirut, 1936), p. 214. The attendance in public schools
continued, however, to rise steadily. By 1945, Lebanon had 308 public schools
with 30,113 students, most of whom were low-middle class Muslims. See Roderic
D. Mathews and Metta Akrawi, Education in the Arab Countries of the Near
East (Washington: American Council on Education, D.C., 1946), p. 422.
20 On this affair, see Meir Zamir, Lebanon’s Quest, pp. 76-83.
21 The most notable example is that of Riad al-Sulh who graduated from USJ. There
were many more Muslim leaders who studied in private foreign schools.
Muhammad Jamil Bayhum studied at the schools of the Mission Laïque in Beirut
and ‘Abdallah al-Yafi studied at USJ and completed his higher education in France.
22 See, for example, AD Nantes, Carton 933, Service des renseignement, Tripoli,
June 1, 1928, a report of an incident in a school, where a teacher used a French
textbook that sharply criticized Islam. Muslim students protested and newspapers
followed suit (Al-Sha‘b, May 26, 1928; Al-Jawa’ib, May 28, 1928). AD Nantes,
Carton 102, Instruction publique, December 1932, a report of a textbook that
described Muhammad as a liar. MAE Paris, Vol. 532, p. 197, Review of the press,
December 28-March 6, 1938, an argument between al-Bashir and Bayrut over a
history manual entitled, Histoire du Liban. Bayrut accused the authors of having
used only Henri Lammens as their source and ignoring Arab sources. In response,
the Jesuit paper al-Bashir charged Bayrut of harming Lebanese national integrity.
For another argument between al-Bashir and Bayrut over a different textbook
and its interpretation of the Koran, see MAE Paris, Vol. 532, p. 60, Review of the
Press, February 16, 1938.
23 AD Nantes, Carton 102, a letter from Bounoure circulated to all public schools in
Syria and Lebanon, December 29, 1932.
24 AD Nantes, Carton 129, an exchange of letters between Bounoure and Sheikh
Tawfiq Khalid, September 17, 18, 19, 1936.
25 AD Nantes, Carton 9, Service de l’Instruction Publique, Monthly Report,
September 1921.
26 Gabriel Levenq, Géographie Élémentaire de la Syrie (Beirut: Imprimerie
catholique, 1920); Henri Lammens La Syrie; Précis Historique (Beirut:
Imprimerie catholique, 1921); Henri Lammens, Ferdinand Taoutel and René
Mouterde, Petite Histoire de la Syrie et du Liban (Beirut: Imprimerie catholique,
1924). Ferdinand Taoutel published a similar book in Arabic, Mukhtasar Tarikh
Suriyya wa Lubnan (Beirut: Imprimerie catholique, 1924). Mouterde republished
it under the title, Précis d’Histoire de la Syrie et du Liban (Beirut: Imprimerie
catholique, 1931, second edition; 1937, third edition). See also Jacques Eddé,
Géographie de la Syrie et du Liban (Beirut: Imprimerie catholique, 1924); this
was essentially a popularization for children of Lammens’ work, La Syrie; Précis
Historique and was used extensively in governmental schools. By 1931 its third
136 REVIVING PHOENICIA

edition was already in print, following a formal decision of the office of public
instruction to use it as a formal textbook of the public schools. See USJ, Les
Oeuvres de Presse, in the series of booklets Les Jésuites en Syrie 1831-1931, Vol.
VI (Paris: Les Éditions Dillen, 1931).
27 See their joint works that were initiated and financed by the Lebanese Ministry
of Education, Hurub Ibrahim Basha al-Misri fi Suriyya wa al-’Anatul [The Wars
of Ibrahim Pasha in Syria and Anatolia], (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Bulusiyya, 1927);
Lubnan fi ‘Ahd al-Umara’ al-Shihabiyyin [Lebanon in the Time of the Shihabi
Princes], (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Kathulikiya, 1933); Lubnan fi ‘Ahd al-Amir Fakhr
al-Din al-Ma‘ni al-Thani [Lebanon in the Time of the Prince Fakhr al-Din al-
Ma‘ni II], (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Kathulikiya, 1936). In addition to his historical
researches al-Bustani also wrote several books of fiction, some of which focused
on the Amir Bashir II. See ‘Ala ‘Ahd al-Amir (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Kathulikiya,
1926); Limadha (Beirut: Manshurat al-Da’ira, 1930).
28 Bulletin de l’Association des Anciens Élèves de l’USJ, 1928. See also the 1934-
1935 curriculum in Jesuit Archives, Vanves, RPO 52.
29 See, for example, his praising remarks on Charles Corm’s La Montagne Inspirée
in the Jesuit journal, al-Mashriq (April-June 1934), p. 308-309; and in al-Ma‘rid
(July 2, 1934), p. 15. Al-Bustani became one of the chief ideologues of the
Lebanese Forces during the Civil War. See Walid Faris, Lebanese Christian
Nationalism (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), p. 110.
30 For biographical information on Asad Rustum see Ilyas al-Qatar and others, Asad
Rustum, al-Insan wa al-Mu’arikh [Asad Rustum, the Person and the Historian]
(Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Bulusiyya, 1984), pp. 19-34.
31 The five books were Tarikh Lubnan al-Tamhidi al-Musawwar [the illustrated
preliminary]; al-I‘dadi al- Qassasi [the preparatory narrative]; al-Mujaz [the
concise]; al-Mujmal [the complete]; al-Mufassal [the detailed].
32 MAE Paris, Vol. 532, Review of the Press, p. 101, February 19, 1938; pp. 150-
151, February 21-27, 1938.
33 Matthews and Akrawli, Education in Arab Countries of the Near East, pp. 430-
431.
34 David A, Kerr, The Temporal Authority of the Maronite Patriarch, 1918-1958: A
Study in the Relationship of Religious and Secular Power (Ph.D. dissertation,
Oxford University, 1977), p. 151; See also Iskandar al-Riashi, Ru’asa Lubnan
kama ‘Araftuhum, pp. 220-222.
35 AD Nantes, Carton 2, École française de droit, December 1920. The professional
teachers of this school were Paul Roubier, Dean of the Law Faculty, Emile Achou,
director of Banque de Syrie, and Béchara al-Khoury. See also MAE Paris, Vol.
57. Note de presse by Robert de Caix. December 12, 1922.
36 Archives Jesuites, Fond Louis Jalabert, Paquet VII, Chemise GP. M. Besnard, La
Culture française en Orient, June 1934, p. 6.
37 Meir Zamir, Lebanon’s Quest, pp. 42-43. Zamir, The Formation of Modern
Lebanon, p. 84.
38 Georges Naccache was born in Alexandria in 1904. He graduated in 1920 from
the secondary school Collège de Pères Jésuites in Alexandria and moved to Beirut
where he studied at the Engineering Faculty of USJ. He was never involved directly
in Phoenician activity, but he used his paper, l’Orient, to expound on the non-
Arab identity of Lebanon, alleging that along the course of history, a distinct
 THE MANDATE YEARS 137
Lebanese identity had developed which had nothing to do with Arab or Syrian
identities. In November 1937, he was one of the founders of the Lebanese Kata’ib.
39 Georges Naccache, “Au service du Liban: Les 75 ans de l’Université Saint Joseph,”
l’Orient, 30 April, 1950; Cited in Sélim Abou, Le Bilinguisme Arabe-Français
au Liban, pp. 203-204. See also Yusuf al-Saouda’s reference on the impact of
USJ on the formation of his national thought. Fi Sabil al-Istiqlal (Beirut: 1967),
pp. 11-13.
40 Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, pp. 159-160.
41 MAE Paris, Vol. 378, p. 46, Herriot to Sarrail, December 27, 1924; MAE Paris,
Vol. 286, pp. 176-177, Sarrail to MAE, February 28, 1925; p. 183, Sarrail to
MAE, April 21, 1925; pp. 221-223, Sarrail to MAE, May 14, 1925. The ties
between certain Lebanese nationalists and the French radical right are an issue
that has yet to be studied properly. It is clear that l’Orient was infatuated with
l’Action Française, to judge by the number of articles it quoted. Even the Catholic
High Commissioner General Weygand, who was in favor of the pro-Christian
policy of France, noted this connection between the two journals. See MAE Paris,
Vol. 286, p. 159, Weygand to MAE November 30, 1924. As for the ties between
the Jesuits and the French radical right, it is a well-known fact that the former
found the latter to be loyal allies in the domains of Catholicism and political
conservatism. Thus, in 1941, the Jesuits welcomed the Vichy regime and refused
to cooperate with General Catroux, the representative of Free France in the Levant.
Chanteur, the Rector of USJ, even encouraged his students to carry prayers for
Marshal Petain. See David C. Gordon, The French Language and National Identity
(The Hague: Mouton, 1978), p. 75.
42 Henri Lammens was the first president of this association. See in Association
Amicale des Anciens Élèves de l’USJ (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1949), p.
23.
43 The 1938 Bulletin de l’Association listed its active members according to their
year of graduation from the university. The list consists of hundreds of names,
but there are certain family names that reappear time and again such as Tabet,
Eddé, de Tarrazi, Tuéni, Chéhab, Gémmayel, de Freige, Abéla, Sarkis, Hacho,
Makhlouf, Gédeon, Hélou, Trad, Tyane, Pharaon, Corm, Haddad, Khayat,
Naccache, Cardahi, Chiha, Misk, Yared, Sa‘ad, and many more. They were all
part of the Lebanese social, commercial and political elite and they formed a
distinct social class. Munir Bashshur, writing about the USJ graduates in his study
about the two foreign universities in Beirut, stated that “the homogeneity of USJ
students in terms of national origin [Lebanese], religion [Christian] and type of
secondary education [private Maronite or French schools], makes the efforts of
USJ to mold its students in uniform modes of thinking more feasible and
acceptable. Consequently, USJ students turn out to be more cohesive in their
beliefs and tend to constitute within the Lebanese society, a community of their
own.” The Role of Two Western Universities in the National Life of Lebanon and
the Middle East, p. 317.
44 The 1937 report informs readers that the tradition of showing a play at the alumni
gatherings was neglected for awhile and renewed that year with the drama
Phéniciennes, by Georges Rivollet. See Bulletin de l’Association, 1938, Nouvelle
Série, no. 1.
138 REVIVING PHOENICIA

45 For biographical notes about Alfred Naccache see AD Nantes, Carton 2990, Surété
générale, info. 1738. April 9, 1932. Naccache was a faithful Christian Maronite
and more francophone and francophile than most Lebanese. He was not involved
directly in politics until the French themselves suggested him as a possible
candidate for presidency.
46 L’U (June 1934).
47 L’U, no. 6 (June 1936). A speech at the General Assembly, June 7, 1936.
48 MAE Paris, Vol. 380, p. 20, A report of Archeological excavations in Lebanon,
July 1922. See also Vol. 52, p. 158-159, Article 14 of the Mandate charter for
Syria and Lebanon, July 24, 1922. The document can also be found in Albert
Hourani, Syria and Lebanon (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 308-
314.
49 Syrie et Liban, Rapport Mensuel d’Ensemble, (Beirut, June 1921), pp. 4-6.
50 Rapport sur la Situation de la Syrie et du Liban (Paris, 1928), p. 42. See also the
1924 report, pp. 34-44.
51 SYRIA, Revue d’Art Oriental et d’Archéologie, no. 1(Paris, 1920), pp. 72-74.
52 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 178-185.
53 AD Nantes, Carton 6, April 18, 1921, letter from Tarrazi to Henri Gouraud.
Philippe de Tarrazi was part of the social and cultural circles of Charles Corm
and Michel Chiha and on several occasions he participated in Corm’s Phoenician
activities and even wrote himself about the autochthon-Phoenician origins of his
own community, the Orthodox Syrian Church. Filib di Tarazi, Asdaq Ma Kana
‘an Tarikh Lubnan [The Reliable History of Lebanon] (Beirut: Matabi‘ Juzif
Salim Siqli, 1948), p. 13.
54 The other “Friends of the Museum” were Alfred Sursok, Marios Hanimoglo,
Albert Bassoul, ‘Omar Daouk, Kamil Eddé, ‘Ali Junblat, Henri Faraoun, Georges
Veyssié, Assad Younes, Hassan Makhzoumi, Joseph Farahi, Georges Corm, Jean
Debs, ‘Arif Bayhum and Wafiq Beydoun. See in Yammin Muhsin Edmond,
Lubnan al-Sura: Dhakirat Qarn fi Khamsin al-Istiqlal (Beirut: Jarrus, Bris, 1994),
p. 190.
55 MAE Paris, Vol. 379, Beaux Arts, pp. 22-23; au sujet du musée national de
Beyrouth, July 12, 1924.
56 Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth, no. 1 (Paris, 1937). A Phoenician vessel decorates
the front cover of the bulletin. Although the museum was inaugurated in 1937, its
construction was actually completed in 1941.
57 Jesuits Archives, Vanves, RPO 63, Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves de
l’Université Saint Joseph (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1947), pp. 60-61.
58 In 1935, eleven scientific missions were excavating in the mandated territories.
See the section on “Service des antiquités” in Rapport à la Société des Nations
sur la Situation de la Syrie et du Liban (Paris, 1935). See, for example, the various
issues of La Revue du Liban. Almost every issue contains articles about recent
archeological discoveries in Lebanon.
59 Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth, no. 1, p. i.
60 L’U, no. 3 (January 1935).
61 AD Nantes, Carton 137, Rapport sur un voyage au Liban, June 5, 1937. Dugas
reported that in 1937 eighty Lebanese and Syrian students were registered at the
Oriental Faculty.
 THE MANDATE YEARS 139
62 Jesuit Archives, Vanves, RPO 52. A brochure entitled, La Nouvelle Bibliothèque
Orientale, 1938.
63 The Maronites Salah Labaki and Yusuf Yazbek participated in the Congress; the
former represented the PPS and the latter attended as an independent.
64 The discussions and the final statement of the Congress can be found in Hassan
‘Ali Hallaq, Mu’tamar al-Sahil wa al-Aqdiya al-Arba‘a [The Conference of the
Coast and the Four Districts] (Beirut: al-Dar al-Jami‘iyah, 1983). The Congress
reflected the process of gradual recognition of Lebanon as an independent state
by Muslim Lebanese. The fact that not all Muslim leaders attended the Congress
and that, in conclusion, the participants asked for a larger share in the Lebanese
politics marked this change. The conclusions of the Conference of the Coast
continued to resonate more than a year after its termination. MAE Paris, Vol.
503, p. 11, The National Muslim Council of Beirut to the MAE July 2, 1937.
65 MAE Paris, Vol. 529, pp. 64-198, Review of the Press, January-October 1936.
66 Najib Dahdah, “Lubnan al-Kabir fi al-Tarikh” [Greater Lebanon in History], al-
Mashriq, 34 (1936), p. 555.
67 CZA S25 3143 Landman to the Political Department, April 29, 1936.
68 The establishment of al-Saouda’s party was also a result of internal Maronite
tensions. Tawfiq ‘Awad, backed by Emile Eddé, established the Parti de l’Union
Libanais. The Maronite Patriarch, Arida and the constitutional bloc responded to
this initiative by instigating the formation of al-Saouda’s party. AD Nantes, Carton
457, Merier to MAE, July 10, 1936; MAE Paris, Vol. 529, Review of the Press,
January-October 1936, pp. 198-200, August 7, 1936; AD Nantes, Carton 462,
L’Unité Libanaise, parti national politique, July 24, 1936. See also La Revue du
Liban, December 9, 1945.
69 MAE Paris, Vol. 503, p. 238, Information, October 1937.
70 John P. Entelis, Pluralism and Party Transformation in Lebanon; al-Kata’ib
(Leiden: Brill, 1974), p. 77. We shall see below that Sa‘id ‘Aql held very similar
views on Phoenicianism, interpreting it culturally and not politically.
71 MAE Paris, Vol. 531, Review of the Press, p. 1. p. 4, August 22-29, 1937; p. 13,
pp. 24-25, August 30 – September 5, 1937.
72 MAE Paris, Vol. 531, Review of the Press, September 13-19, 1937.
73 See more about Edmond Rabbath in Chapter V.
74 Phénicia, no.1 (January, 1938), p. 1.
75 In 1919-1920, Fakhuri cooperated with the Arab government of Faysal, then
moved to Paris where he obtained a law degree and returned to Lebanon thereafter,
becoming involved in the intellectual and journalistic circles of Beirut until his
premature death. See more about his place of eminence in the intellectual circles
of Beirut in the introduction to the 1982 reprint of his book al-Haqiqa al-
Lubnaniyya, first published in 1945.
76 See also the opening quotation in the beginning of this chapter that is taken from
the same lecture.
77 See also his al-Haqiqa al-Lubnaniyya, pp. 40-41, which contained similar
messages.
78 See some examples: Amy Kher, “Complainte d’Astrate,” 32(March, 1933); “Les
Phéniciens ont crée et répandu l’alphabet,” 43 (October, 1934); “Annibal, le
phénicien,” (March 9, 1942); “Un Peu de mythologie phénicienne: qui est
140 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Adonis?” (March 23, 1942); “Les Phéniciens, ont-ils découvert l’Amérique avant
Christophe Colomb?” (August 3, 1942); “Les hommes de l’indépendance: Hiram
Roi de Tyr; Byblos pionnier de l’Indépendance; Cadmus” (July-August, 1945)
79 La Revue du Liban, 32 (March 1933), p. 23. See also Jurj ‘Arij Sa‘adah, Al-
Sahafa fi Lubnan [Journalism in Lebanon] (Beirut: Dar Wakalat al-Nashr al-
‘Arabiyya, 1965), pp. 165-166. On the front cover of this book there is a picture
of a Phoenician vessel made out of pieces of newspaper.
80 Mustafa Khalidi and ‘Umar Farukh, al-Tabshir wa al-Isti‘mar fi al-Bilad al-
‘Arabiyya [Missionary Activity and Colonialism in the Arab Countries] (Beirut:
al-Maktaba al- ‘Ilmiyyah, 1953), p. 174.
81 See, for example, the writing of Lebanese who were not necessarily labeled
Phoenicians but still used these phrases to describe Lebanon and its national
character. Béchara al-Khoury, Majmu‘at Khutab [Collection of Speeches] (Beirut:
s.n, 1951), p. 202; Camille Cham‘un, Marahil al-Istiqlal [Stages of Independence]
(Beirut: Maktabat Sadir, 1949), p. 7. Kamal Junbalat as quoted in Les Cahiers de
l’Est, no. 1(1945), p. 3.
82 E. & G. Gédéon, L’Indicateur Libano-Syrien, (Beirut, 1928-1929) (5th edition).
83 See the brochures “Au Liban, pays des Cèdres,” edited in English and French by
the Commission de Tourisme et de Villégiature. The authors were Michel Bahout,
inspecteur général de services economiques, and Toufic ‘Awad, a member of the
Commission de l’industrie du tourisme et de l’estivage, AD Nantes, Carton 944,
Report of a meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, December 17, 1937. See also
La Revue du Liban 41(June 1934), p.13.
84 Philip K. Hitti, A History of the Arabs (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970), p. 3.
85 Yusuf al-Saouda, Étude Juridique sur la Protocole d’Alexandrie (Beirut,
November, 1944).
86 Walid Faris, Lebanese Christian Nationalism (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
1995), p. 96
87 Sharl Malik, Sharl Malik wa al-qadiyya al-filastiniyya (Beirut: Mu’assast Badran,
1973).
88 Philip Hitti, Testimony before the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine
(Washington, D.C., Arab Office, 1946).
 4

Three Phoenician Currents

The Phoenician narrative never developed into an integrated ideology led by

key thinkers. There were, however, a few Lebanese who stood out more than
others in their support of the Phoenician view of the past. This chapter fo-
cuses on three of the Phoenician “preachers” — Charles Corm, Michel Chiha
and Sa‘id ‘Aql — who shaped, to a large extent, the Phoenician narratives
and, indeed, the Lebanese national identity(ies). For social and political rea-
sons, these three writers developed different interpretations of the Lebanese
identity; the following discussion sheds light not only on their different views
but also on the dissemination of Phoenicianism in Lebanon and its many
hues.

Charles Corm, the Inspired Maronite Francophone

No small number of Lebanese wrote about Phoenicianism and publicly advo-

cated the Phoenician identity for Lebanon. Nevertheless, it is Charles Corm
who became most strongly identified with the Phoenician myth of origin,
despite the fact he was neither the most original nor the most articulate
“Phoenician.” The reasons for this Phoenician fame probably lie in the fact
that Corm dedicated his life to the dissemination of his Phoenician message,
he was a charming person with abundant charisma, and, no less important,
enjoyed abundant wealth which facilitated his mission, especially in Beirut,
among the haut-bourgeois Christian milieu.
As noted in Chapter II, in 1934 Charles Corm left a life of business to
completely immerse himself in literary and artistic activity with the prime
purpose of spreading Phoenicianism in Lebanon.1 In February 1934, he
launched his Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, a publication house that be-
came the major platform for “Phoenician” works in the 1930s-1940s. He also
founded La société des gens de lettre du Liban and La société des auteurs
libanais de langue française,2 loose organizations of Lebanese writers and
thinkers who used to meet in his home and discuss literary issues as well as
Lebanon’s cultural and political orientation.3 In general, his house became a
142 REVIVING PHOENICIA

center of artistic activity and he himself became the patron of leading Leba-
nese painters and sculptors such as Youssef Hoyeck and Halim al-Hajj who
used his studio for their artistic work.4
Corm was not a politician nor did he ever participate in any public politi-
cal activity. He clearly identified, however, with the camp of Emile Eddé,
with whom he shared views about the cultural and political orientation of
Lebanon. Eddé, similarly, sympathized with the causes of Corm and Albert
Naccache, Corm’s closest “Phoenician friend,” but, as a politician with his
two feet planted on the ground, Eddé did not participate in their Phoenician
activities.5 Still, unlike Béchara al-Khoury, Eddé did refer on public occa-
sions to the Phoenicians as the ancestors of modern Lebanese.6 And Corm,
like Eddé, used only French as his means of communication; indeed, the
devotion of the two towards France was above and beyond that of most Leba-
nese to the mandatory power in their land. In November 1943, following the
events that led to the eleven-day presidency of Eddé, his loss of power, the
rise of al-Khoury to the presidency, and the recognition of Lebanon as a country
with an “Arab face,” Corm was devastated, fearing that Lebanon was headed
toward relinquishing its Christian Western-oriented character.7
Charles Corm befriended more than persons like Eddé, who were part and
parcel of his socio-political class. Amin al-Rihani, the Lebanese Arab nation-
alist writer and philosopher, was also a very close friend. Al-Rihani recorded
their friendship in his book, Qalb Lubnan [The Heart of Lebanon], which he
dedicated to “my friend Charles Corm.” This beautiful descriptive travelogue
about Lebanon gives us interesting insight into Corm’s character and tem-
perament. Al-Rihani referred to him as “the Lebanese, Phoenician, French
poet […] one of the legends in the country of legends,”8 indicating the famed
and almost mythical place Corm held in Lebanese society in the mid-1930s.
The import of having such a title bestowed on Corm by al-Rihani, another
Lebanese legend, should not be overlooked. Al-Rihani made the journey that
inspired Qalb Lubnan in 1936, one of the most decisive years for Lebanon. It
was also a very dynamic time period for Charles Corm. In 1935, his poetic
talent won him fame also in France, where he won the Edgar Allan Poe prize
for international poetry and the acclamation of numerous French journals.9
That same year he represented Lebanon at the Congrès de la Méditerranée
and was also very active at the annual gathering of the Cercle de la jeunesse
catholique de Beyrouth, a cultural club for young Maronites and other Catho-
lics directed by the Jesuits. Let us not omit the spicy fact that in 1935, Corm,
the avid bachelor, finally married Samia Baroudy, Miss Lebanon of 1934 and
the winner of fourth place in the Miss Universe pageant of the same year.
Alfred Naccache, marking this marriage in L’U, defined it as “the prize of
poetry marries the prize of beauty.”10 All these deeds of Corm are noted only
to confirm the legendary designation with which al-Rihani, who believed
that Lebanon and Corm were together in “an inseparable spiritual unity,”11
crowned his compatriot.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 143
And yet, Al-Rihani, the Arab nationalist, was irked by the fact that Corm’s
language was French and not Arabic.12 Al-Rihani viewed Lebanon as an Arab
state, politically and culturally tied to the Arab world, and the Western-
Phoenician message of Corm could not have appealed to him in its entirety.
Thus, for example, al-Rihani scoffed at Corm’s tendency to “phoenicianize”
every rock and tree in Lebanon. “Corm sees the Phoenicians everywhere in
Lebanon,” he wrote. “A stone or a worship place? A church? They all go
back to the Greek-Roman era, and yes, they are Phoenician.”13
As part of his travelogue, al-Rihani described a banquet at the house of As‘ad
Yunis in the village of Laqluq, at which Corm, who accompanied him on this
part of the journey, participated. The following illuminating description and
critique of Corm’s conduct at this banquet gives a good indication of his stature
at the time. Al-Rihani told of a vivacious gathering enhanced with the wafting
aromas of Lebanese cuisine when suddenly Corm rose and began speaking:

Charles Corm, the Lebanese who writes poetry in the language of Racine
and Molière, to whom Paris abides, extols and honors, does not know
the language of his closer forefathers, the Arabs, and does not know to
say ‘I love you’ in the language of his distant forefathers, the
Phoenicians, [...] after we were fortunate to know him and were de-
lighted by his love and affection, we enjoyed conversing only in this
noble language, the language of the dad. [Suddenly] he began saying
[in Arabic]: ‘You are truly fooling me around.’ He did not say this sen-
tence very clearly, but clear enough that we understood it. And this is
what he stated: ‘Teach me the language of my father and my mother
and I will be grateful. And in that night in La’lu’[the colloquial form of
Laqluq, A.K.], on the dining table of Yunis, the sun poet14 stood up,
[…] the poet of La Montagne Inspirée, the dresser of Lebanon with
grandeur and glory, stood and began speaking in Arabic. We were all
astonished. He awakened in us feelings of love and awe. Ask me what
he said? What does it matter? He spoke in Arabic and that was enough.15

Corm’s decision to use Arabic and the veneration it generated in al-Rihani

and his friends who gathered around the dining table of As‘ad Yunis reveals
to us the cultural world in which Corm lived. By the 1930s most educated
Lebanese were fluent in French as well as Arabic, but Arabic remained their
prime means of expression. Corm, however, belonged to a small group of
Lebanese for whom the prime medium of communication was French. For
him, just as for Eddé, Naccache, ‘Ammoun, Chiha and a few others, French
was the one and only language in which he felt at home. The fact that he did
not speak Arabic, however, did not prevent him from being liked by many
Arabic-speaking Lebanese, such as Amin al-Rihani or even the Sunni Taqi
al-Din al-Sulh and the Druze Khalil Taqi al-Din who admired his charm and
valued his passion for Lebanon, though they criticized his Phoenician ideas.
144 REVIVING PHOENICIA

The Inspired Poet and the Sacred Mountain

Immediately with the resumption of his literary activity in February 1934

Charles Corm published La Montagne Inspirée, undoubtedly his most fa-
mous book of poetry. It is divided into three sections Corm called “cycles.”
The first, “Le dit de l’enthousiasme,” dedicated to Maurice Barrès, contains a
chain of stanzas of which each is a proclamation of joy for the termination of
World War I, the arrival of the French and the auspicious future of Lebanon.
Needless to say, even the title of La Montagne Inspirée is inspired by La
Colline Inspirée of Maurice Barrès who, as Corm worded it in his dedication,
“a su nous comprendre parce qu’il nous a aimés.”16 The second cycle, “Le dit
de l’agonie” (dedicated to the Maronite Patriarch Elias Hoyek), depicts hor-
rific scenes and episodes Lebanon has experienced at any given time in its
history, alleging that its history is saturated with calamities and atrocities.
This cycle, however, concludes with a notion of hope and optimism because,
according to Corm, despite its terrible historical experience, Lebanon has
never lost its soul and self-respect. The optimistic last verse leads the reader
directly to the third cycle, which deals with this soul of Lebanon, with which
Corm was so intrigued.
The third cycle, “Le dit du souvenir,” occupies three quarters of La
Montagne Inspirée and is the part that concerns us the most, for it contains
the most engaging Phoenician message Corm ever wrote. It is not without
reason that Corm dedicated this cycle to Victor Bérard, “qui nous restitua une
part légitime de nos contributions au patrimoine de l’humanité.”17 Bérard
was one of the most important French scholars to lay the foundation for the
Phoenician Geschichtebild, and Corm recognized his importance and contri-
bution to the crystallization of his Phoenician worldview. This cycle is brim-
ming with references to Lebanon’s history in general and to the Phoenicians
in particular, and it would be superfluous to discuss them all. Instead, I chose
to review certain themes that are important to understanding Corm’s
Phoenician worldview. They include the following: the way he perceived the
Phoenician-Lebanese mission to the world; his views about faith and Leba-
non, and, lastly, the hymn to the Sun that concludes La Montagne Inspirée.
“Le dit du souvenir” unfolds with the question that haunts Corm through-
out this cycle: Where is the Phoenician language and what has become of it?
This is the language that “spread the Idea to the four corners of the earth just
as wheat is scattered in the fields and just as God himself sprinkled His purest
diamonds in the bosom of profound nights.” Corm searches after this lan-
guage in the local Phoenician sites, on the highest peaks of the Mountain and
in the lowest plains of the Biqa‘, but to no avail. The language and its spirit
are absent.

Je te recherche en vain le long de nos ravages,

Dans le golfe où la nymphe a baigné Cupidon,
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 145
Sur les stèles d’Amrith, et dans les sarcophages
De Tyr et de Sidon;18
[…]
Absente, absolument absente de notre âme,
Cette extrême puissance où l’on tombe à genoux,
Pour recevoir des Cieux la rosée et la flamme
Qui descendaient en nous;

Nul ne célèbre plus la splendeur de vos fêtes,

O Baal et Melkhart, El, Ashmoun et Thammour
Qu’invoquaient en tremblant les rois et les suffètes,19
Dans vos temples d’amour;20

Corm continues in a similar tone for many pages, remarking on the glory
days when the Phoenician language was dynamic and its people led the world
with their spirit and intellect. The strength of the Phoenicians, which they
bequeathed to their descendents, the modern Lebanese, was never expressed
in arms and warfare, but rather in intellectual vitality and allure of a great
culture. At one point in this long eulogy of the Phoenician civilization, Corm
discloses the reason he writes this homage to the language and the role he
assigns to Phoenician history:

Si je rappelle aux miens nos aïeux phéniciens

C’est qu’alors nous n’étions au fronton de l’histoire,
Avant de devenir musulmans ou chrétiens,
Qu’un même peuple uni dans une même gloire,
Et qu’en évoluant, nous devrions au moins,
Par le fait d’une foi d’autant plus méritoire,
Nous aimer comme aux Temps où nous étions païens!…
[…]
Langue de mon pays, dites-nous notre histoire,
Dites à nos enfants que tout semble humilier,
Qu’ils peuvent être fiers d’avoir eu dans la gloire,
Des gloires par milliers!

Langue de mon pays, donnez-nous confiance,

Faites-nous croire en nous et nos aïeux,
Gardez-nous notre rang, gardez notre audience
A la table des dieux!21

Thus, Corm portrays the Lebanese as one people unified in their ancestral
past, and he begs this past, represented by “the Phoenician language,” to be a
bridge for all Lebanese and to teach them — Muslims and Christians — their
place of glory in human history. Yet, in a different place in the epic, immedi-
ately after Corm praises the Crusaders, the Medieval defenders of Lebanon
146 REVIVING PHOENICIA

who found the Christian Lebanese to be their sole allies in the Holy Land, in
a sea of Arab-Muslim hostility, he writes perhaps the most famous verse of
La Montagne Inspirée:

Mon frère musulman, comprenez ma franchise:

Je suis le vrai Liban, sincère et pratiquant;
D’autant plus libanais que ma Foi symbolise
Le cœur du pélican.22

Thus, despite the fact that Corm writes about the history of Lebanon as a
unifying factor for all Lebanese, the message of La Montagne Inspirée is
explicitly and naturally Christian. The images he uses are taken from Chris-
tian theology and the majority of the events he mentions highlight Christian
moments in the history of Lebanon. Islam, the Arabs and the Arabic language
are practically non-existent in La Montagne Inspirée.
Christianity was the epitome of perfection for Corm and the ancient Leba-
nese played a momentous role in its formation and dissemination. Even be-
fore Jesus walked in Phoenicia,23 faith in one god prevailed among these age-
old people. Charles Corm was a person of faith and the message of monothe-
ism is an inseparable part of La Montagne Inspirée. Already the Phoenician
faith, according to him, was somewhat monotheistic:

Bal-Shamin, Dieu du ciel, Ô Nomen ineffable,

O seul propriétaire, Ô maître, ô Possesseur,
Dieu du Temps, Dieu total, Seigneur inconcevable,
Suprême Créateur;

Toi par qui s’affirmait notre monothéisme,

Et l’immense unité des cultes phéniciens,
Avant le grand Moïse, avant le judaïsme,
Et les platoniciens;24

What had begun with the Phoenicians, even before Judaism, continued
with Christianity, for “being faithful to God”25 ties the ancient Lebanese to
the modern ones. Viewing the Phoenician faith as monotheistic was, of course,
a very liberal interpretation by Corm, but it emanated from a scholarly theory
that saw the gradual ascendance to prominence of one supreme Canaanite
god from within a group of deities as a forerunner to monotheism.26
Numerous geographical and historical locations are described in La
Montagne Inspirée, but three — the Kadicha Valley, the Ibrahim River and
the Temple of Balbeck — receive the greatest attention. These three sites
demonstrate Corm’s preoccupation with faith and the link he makes between
the Phoenicians and Christianity. They also serve Corm in his attempt to lo-
cate and define the Lebanese society within its natural landscape. As Anthony
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 147
Smith wrote, “holy places of man-made or natural origins are crucial for iden-
tifying ethnie, both in the past and today, because they evoke forces greater
than the individual and induce feelings of awe and reverence by their historic
associations and symbolic meaning.”27 Kadicha, the Ibrahim River and
Balbeck, three sacred locales, are brought up by Corm to recall dramatic
events in the history of the Lebanese nation and “to endow it with foci of
creative energy,”28 energy that emanates from the ancient history of Lebanon
and from Christianity.
Kadicha, the Holy Valley, still bearing its Phoenician name, is part of the
gorges of the Abu ‘Ali River which starts at the highest altitudes of Mount
Lebanon and flows down to the Mediterranean sea, emptying not far from
contemporary Jbeil, the Phoenician Geval or the Greek Byblos. The majestic
atmosphere of the canyon led Byzantine hermits, followed by Maronite monks,
to build their monasteries on its magnificent cliffs. The valley, dotted with
Maronite villages and churches, evolved to become one of the clearest
Maronite strongholds in Mount Lebanon. Paraphrasing Corm, this was
Kadicha, a multiple amphitheater where the heart surrenders to the vertigo of
the skies; this was the valley where our most humble priests seem to live with
God, and which, like Jacob’s ladder, may take you directly into the heavens.29
If the Kadicha valley symbolizes for Corm the ubiquitous Christian pres-
ence in Mount Lebanon, then the Ibrahim River provides the Phoenician an-
gle of faith and history. In ancient times this river was known as the river of
Adonis.30 It was one of the holiest sites for the ancient Phoenicians who used
to make a pilgrimage to the source of the river to commemorate one of the
greatest love stories of all times: thought to be where Adonis and Astarte
(‘Ashtoreth in the Hebrew Bible, while in Greek and Roman mythologies it
was Aphrodite and Venus, respectively, both descended from Astarte, the
Canaanite goddess) first loved and where the most handsome god hunted and
died. From Lammartine to Barrès, the Adonis River and its source, Aphaca,
today Afka (“the erotic triangle” in Corm’s words), also became a pilgrimage
site for European travelers who were enchanted by the mythical halo of the
place and its extraordinary beauty.31 The immortal and timeless love story of
Adonis and Astarte-Aphrodite provides Corm the backdrop for a very sen-
sual and erotic description of this river, its sources and waters that cut through
the deep walls of the canyon “as a virgin in her wedding night is torn by a
rapier of happiness.”32 Corm, however, aware of the orgies that occurred at
the annual festivals of Adonis, asks the river to mitigate the passion that flows
in the veins of the Lebanese:

Ne laisse pas l’ardeur qui domine nos âmes

Jamais dégénérer dans le plaisir pervers;
Fleuve de l’amour pur, ne laisse pas nos flammes
Dépérir dans la chair!
148 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Que les philtres sans fond, l’ivresse et l’ambroisie

Dont le sexe étourdit nos assauts triomphants,
Demeurant, à jamais, générateurs de vie,
Multiplient nos enfants!33

The language Corm uses to describe Christianity is different from the lan-
guage he employs to portray the Phoenicians. The former is always depicted
in a spiritual metaphysical manner whereas for the latter he uses physical,
tactile terminology, often associated with sex. The two sides of the Lebanese
coin complement each other in Corm’s world of reference and the earthly and
sensuous Phoenicians serve as an appendage to Christian spirituality.
The strongest illustration of the earthly manner Corm perceived the
Phoenicians and their heritage for modern Lebanon comes from the hymn to
the sun, the penultimate section of La Montagne Inspirée. These are engag-
ing verses that begin with a description of the ruins of Balbeck, referring to
the masculine character of the famous columns and to the virile message they
convey to the Lebanese:

Il vous importe peu d’être aimée, Ô Virile;

C’est d’aimer ô Balbeck, corps six fois masculine,34
C’est de pouvoir aimer, que nous dit l’évangile
Qui clame dans nos reins!35

C’est d’aimer l’absolu, le divin, l’impossible;

Et folle du Soleil, d’y tendre éperdument;
C’est de darder vos fûts vers l’éternel cible;
C’est d’être un Mâle amant!
[…]
Colonnes de Balbeck, vous fûtes les prémices
De nos virilités;
Sous vos sceptres d’amour, gardez-nous les délices
De votre royauté
[…]
Car de tous les honneurs que l’homme se partage
Avec avidité,
Vous resterez toujours, Balbeck, notre héritage
A la postérité! …36

Balbeck, possibly the Lord of the Valley (Ba‘al Beqa‘) or the Lord of the
Source (Ba‘al Nebek) in its ancient Phoenician name, was a sacred site even
before the Greek Seleucid kings erected shrines there and named it Heliopolis,
“City of the Sun.” Following the Greeks, the Romans began constructing
their temples on this ancient holy spot around the 1st century AD, and left for
us the most noticeable archeological wonder in Lebanon. The ruins of Balbeck
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 149
caught the attention of every traveler to Lebanon; all were enchanted by the
magnitude of the site, its complexity and architectural uniqueness, which fused
classical Roman sanctuaries with Phoenician-Semite shrines. The fact that
the temples of Balbeck were erected for the worship of three Roman deities,
Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus, did not make this a foreign shrine for Corm,
because it was the spirit and concept of Balbeck that made it Lebanese.37
Furthermore, Greek and Roman mythologies recount that the mother of
Bacchus (Dionysus in Greek mythology, the god of wine and vegetation) was
Semele, daughter of the celebrated Phoenician, Cadmus King of Thebes, a
fact that made Bacchus-Dionysus a Phoenician himself. In one of his numer-
ous trips Bacchus-Dionysus went to Lebanon to visit Aphrodite and Adonis,
whose daughter, Beroë, he loved. Indeed, Charles Corm, who intimately
mastered Greek and Roman classics, refers only to this god of wine in his
verses on Balbeck, possibly because of his Phoenician roots.
The prime message of Balbeck, according to Corm, is clearly the cult of
the Sun. This is the Sun that Corm names “the god of my race,” to whom he
offers himself as a human sacrifice just as his ancestors did more than two
millennia earlier:

Me voici revenu
Loyal, fidèle et nu,
Comme tu m’as connu,
Soleil, mon Souverain!

Reçois ma chair
Dans ton or clair
Mon trésor
Le plus cher
Et mes formes d’airain!
[…]
je m’offre à toi, Soleil au seuil de ton palais,
Ainsi que tu me veux, ainsi que je te plais!38

The human sacrifice here evolves into a concrete sexual act. The Sun, just
as the city that worships it, is the masculine entity, whereas Corm turns into a
frail female:

Tu es si fort
Contre mon corps
Tu es si dur avec ta flamme
Et portant si subtil
Que je me sens, moi le viril,
Devenir, tout à coup, comme une faible femme!39
150 REVIVING PHOENICIA

This weak woman who was once the poet himself, in turn becomes Mount
Lebanon, and it is now the latter that is conducting a passionate penetrating
intercourse with the Sun. Thus, Corm’s identification with the Mountain comes
into completion in this part of the epic. Mount Lebanon is Corm and vice-
versa, and both are offering themselves to the Sun, the ancient god of their
race. Yet, Corm cannot allow the Mountain and himself to remain weak
women, because they have a certain message to convey and this can only be
done through powerful physical masculinity:

[…]
Que pour te recevoir, il faut que je sois femme;
Et pour mieux me donner, pour prodiguer mon âme
Pour accomplir mon but, pour compléter mon somme,
Il faut en même temps que je demeure un homme;
Que pareil au foyer de ta forge fumante,
Je suis cette femelle et ce mâle à la fois,
Je suis le Mont altier, et la montagne aimante,
[…].40

The cadence of the hymn to the Sun is very rhythmic, like the accelerating
beat of drums that leads to the total unification of the Mountain with the Sun.
The Mountain, the spine of Lebanon, the Maronite stronghold that symbol-
izes Christianity, unites with the Sun that represents ancient pre-Christian
Lebanon, masculinity and almost primitive and organic manners of the an-
cient Lebanese.
La Montagne Inspirée does not end with this unification, for Corm has not
yet answered the question woven into almost every page — what has become
of the Phoenician language, the soul of Lebanon? Corm begins on a pessi-
mistic note:

Mais tristesse, tristesse, indicible tristesse! …

Nos grand-mères parlaient le syriaque à Ghazir,
Le syriaque où survit la phénicienne adresse
Et son rude désir
Mais nul ne songe plus à retrouver l’empreinte
Des pas d’une grand-mère autour d’un vieux rosier;
La langue d’autrefois est à jamais éteinte
Dans nos maigres gosiers.41

After this bleak description of the death of the language, he reverts back to
a more optimistic tone. The language itself may be dead, but its spirit is still
alive in the heart and soul of the Lebanese:

Nous avons secoué cette planète immense,

 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 151
Nous avons labouré, jadis, les continents;
Mais notre langue est morte, un soir, dans le silence;
Et nous sommes vivants!42
[…]
Mais non, vous n’êtes pas, ma langue maternelle,
Un cadavre échoué dans les gouffres du temps,
Puisque j’entends monter votre sève éternelle
Et mon jeune printemps!

Puisque j’entends encor chuchoter dans mon âme,

Et sourdre du passé vos sources de cristal,
Puisque j’entends vibrer votre haleine de flamme
Dans l’air oriental!

Puisque dans le frisson de toute la nature

Qui façonna l’esprit de mes lointains aïeux,
C’est encor votre souffle et c’est votre murmure
Qui passent dans les cieux!43
[…]
Puisque lorsque j’écris une langue étrangère,
A l’ombre du silence ou dans l’or du discours,
Vous êtes dans ma voix, sainte voix de ma mère,
Chaude comme l’amour!
[…]
Puisque même ces mots qu’aux lèvres de la France
J’ai pris en frissonnant d’un cœur passionné,
Ont un goût, sur ma lèvre, où sourit ma souffrance,

De baisers Libanais!44

In other words, if the spirit is alive in the landscape and the people of
Lebanon, the language itself is also alive. Thus, language is a component in
Lebanese nationalism, but it dwells in the heart and not on the lips of the
Lebanese. The preoccupation with language as a national symbol troubles
Corm throughout the epic. Each cycle begins with a statement “translated
from Lebanese” to highlight the ultimate fact that the Phoenician language is
not dead, it is simply expressed non-verbally but rather in a metaphysical
spiritual way. Colloquial Lebanese, let alone literary Arabic, are not the Leba-
nese languages for Corm. It is an interesting point because at the same time
Corm wrote La Montagne Inspirée, there were already other Lebanese who
began thinking about colloquial Lebanese as the Lebanese national language;
we shall see below how two other Phoenicians, Michel Chiha and Sa‘id ‘Aql,
referred to the problem of language and its place in Lebanese identity. For
Corm, however, the Lebanese language was ancient Phoenician, but one did
152 REVIVING PHOENICIA

not need to revive it because it still lived in the heart of every single Lebanese
and, therefore, it could be expressed in French and yet still leave the after-
taste of a Lebanese kiss.
The publication of La Montagne Inspirée stirred many reactions in Leba-
non. The francophone circles of Beirut celebrated and praised the poetic and
nationalistic values of the book. Lebanese journals devoted their literary sec-
tions to Corm and his work, glorifying him as the Lebanese nationalist par
excellence. The literary journal of Michel Zakkur, al-Ma‘rid, dedicated a whole
issue to La Montagne Inspirée.45 Zakkur was one of the strongest supporters
of Béchara al-Khoury, and his preoccupation with Corm’s work demonstrates,
again, that Phoenicianism was not limited only to supporters of Eddé’s camp
but was actually shared, passively if not actively, by the majority of the Chris-
tian elites in Lebanon. Most of the articles in al-Ma‘rid extolled the author
and his work with only minute differences between them. Amin al-Rihani
contributed an article (to be discussed in the next chapter) with mixed mes-
sages about Corm’s Phoenicianism.46 As‘ad Yunis praised his friend Corm
and apologetically tried to explain that he did not discard Arabism and Islam
from the history of Lebanon but that he actually recognized the value of Arab
culture and history for the Lebanese society.47 Taqi al-Din al-Sulh titled his
article “al-Jabal al-Ha’ir” [The Confused Mountain] and wrote the only some-
what negative critique of The Inspired Mountain. He stated that, like Corm,
he recognized Lebanon as an independent national community, but unlike
Corm, he perceived the Lebanese identity as part of the larger Arab world. If
Corm insisted on the idea that the Lebanese were Phoenicians then it should
be remembered that these Phoenicians were actually of Arab descent, and
therefore, even if one agreed to Corm’s Phoenician claims, it still did not
change the fact that the Lebanese had always been Arabs, which made Corm
himself an Arab, whether he liked it or not. Al-Sulh’s article is the longest of
the critiques of La Montagne Inspirée and is largely preoccupied with reduc-
ing the achievements of the ancient Phoenicians, on the one hand, and affirm-
ing the Arab identity of Lebanon, on the other.48 It reflects the general views
of the Muslim community in Lebanon about Phoenicianism, and I shall re-
turn to this issue in the next chapter.
La Montagne Inspirée not only focuses on the Phoenician era, but is also
imbued with references to the Mediterranean basin. Indeed, Charles Corm’s
strong Christian convictions tied him to the Mediterranean, which he per-
ceived not only as a Phoenician basin but perhaps even more as a Christian
sea. Thus, Lebanon, for Corm, was Phoenician and Mediterranean simulta-
neously. Nationally and culturally it was Phoenician but it belonged to the
wider Mediterranean civilization — a civilization that the Phoenicians them-
selves, together with the Greeks and the Romans, helped shape in a lengthy
historical process that culminated in the birth of Christianity. In November
1935, Corm had the opportunity to expound his views about the ancient
Phoenicians and the Mediterranean basin, the two complementary pillars of
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 153
the Lebanese identity. He represented Lebanon at the Congrès de la
Méditerranée in Monaco, where he gave two lectures. The first, “The De-
scription of Lebanon,” concentrated on the geography of Lebanon and its
Phoenician heritage and identity. The ideas he presented in this lecture were
not different from those expressed in La Montagne Inspirée. The second lec-
ture, “The Vow of Lebanon,” elaborated on the ties between Lebanon and the
Mediterranean and the role of Christianity in the formation of a Mediterra-
nean humanism. This humanism, he stated, was based on two foundations:
first, a certain altruistic idealism that since antiquity had made the inhabitants
of the Mediterranean think about causes higher than themselves, and second,
that Christianity was born out of the ancient pagan world and infused a new
life to the Greek-Latin civilization, bestowing on it the virtues that, through-
out time, have created Mediterranean humanism. This humanistic Mediterra-
nean Christianity, born in the age-old basin, had resided in the hearts of the
Lebanese for the last two millennia, forming their character and tying them to
the Christian Mediterranean. It provided them their tranquil and peace-ori-
ented nature, because for Corm “to really have christianized a country” (as
Lebanon is) “is to have made peace in this country.”49
Thus, the Mediterranean, for Corm, was another facet in the national and
cultural identity of Lebanon. Unlike Chiha, whom we shall discuss below,
Corm, the non-politician, had never had to mitigate his straightforward views
about the Christian identity of Lebanon. On a few occasions he wrote about
Muslim-Christian cooperation under one Lebanese umbrella,50 but, in gen-
eral, his views on the aspired identity of Lebanon remained similar to those
of the Maronite Church in 1919: a multi-confessional society in theory, but in
practice a state dominated by the Maronite community and supported by the
French, culturally associated with Europe and financially tied to the Arab
east. The Mediterranean provided all the appropriate ingredients for this iden-
tity. Geographically it had always served as a bridge between East and West;
historically it was Phoenician, Greek and Roman and the northern, better half
of it was religiously and culturally Christian and Latin. Indeed, all the re-
quired elements were present to form an identity that would divorce Lebanon
from its geographical Arab-Muslim surroundings.

New Phoenicia in New York

On July 13, 1939, the Lebanese pavilion of the New York World’s Fair opened
its gates with great fanfare.51 The mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia,
the French ambassador to the United States, René de St. Quentin, other Ameri-
can and French dignitaries and members of the large American Lebanese
community attended the opening ceremony. Charles Corm, the commissioner
of the pavilion, gave the inaugural speech, expounding in a very flowery tone
about Phoenicia-Lebanon and its place and role in human history.52 It was the
154 REVIVING PHOENICIA

culmination of about a year-long process of preparations for this interna-

tional event, the first at which Lebanon represented itself independently, sepa-
rate from its mandatory guardian, France. In retrospect, the 1939 New York
World’s Fair marked the end of an era. The drums of war were already pound-
ing away. It was the last fair before the total collapse of the world system and
Lebanon, as a tiny cog in this system, had the benefit of participating in this
last world’s festival. Within a few years, Lebanon and the entire world would
wake up to a new reality and a different world order.53
From the 1850s, world fairs had become part of the landscape in Europe
and North America. These international expositions were huge extravagan-
zas, designed to boost the local economy and promote the grandeur of the
hosting state. Guest countries, too, considered these fairs important and eco-
nomically promising for participation granted them an entry ticket to the
world’s international club. Vast sums of money were invested and immense
pavilions were constructed by the greatest architects and designers of the
time. The fairs became a sort of a window display of the entire developed
world, each pavilion reflecting the way the participating countries wished to
be seen. This is the reason why the 1939 New York World’s Fair was so
important for Lebanon and why the selection of Charles Corm as the planner
and commissioner of the Lebanese pavilion is so significant for this study.
Analyzing the Lebanese pavilion reveals to us not only Corm’s worldview,
which in many ways could be foreseen, but more interestingly it suggests the
agenda of his senders. It also uncovers for us the Lebanese artistic commu-
nity and its willingness to cooperate with Corm’s Phoenician views.
The preparations for the fair began in November 1938, soon after Corm
was assigned to be the commissioner of the pavilion by the Lebanese Cham-
ber of Deputies. The official discussions on the character of the fair and the
fiscal allocations indicate that the supporters and opponents of Corm and his
Phoenician views cut across other political divisions within the Lebanese
government. The Finance Committee supported the plans for the pavilion,
although its Muslim members rejected Corm’s layout on a budgetary pretext,
alleging that they would prefer to allocate such sums to education. Tawfiq
‘Awad, a Maronite politician close to the Maronite Patriarch and a supporter
of Emile Eddé, opined that the government needed to allocate more money
for the fair, lest Lebanon be presented in an undignified way. He nevertheless
exploited the moment to attack the Phoenician tendencies of Corm and other
Lebanese personalities. The Minister of Finance, Hamid Franjiyeh, defended
the project and promised the Chamber of Deputies that the pavilion would
not only deal with the Phoenician era of Lebanon but would also portray the
Greek, Roman, Crusader, Arab and Turkish times. He emphasized the politi-
cal and commercial profits Lebanon stood to gain from participating in the
fair. Gébran Tuéni, the politician, journalist and a member of al-Khoury clan,
rejected the project for financial and personal reasons, disparaging Corm as
the commissioner of the Lebanese pavilion. Ayyub Tabet, Emile Eddé’s right
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 155
hand, found an unexpected ally in the image of Béchara al-Khoury, Eddé’s
bitter foe as both energetically defended the principles of the project.54 Mean-
while, in a different government session, Corm too found another ally for his
plans. Following a debate about the character and predicted expenses of the
pavilion, ‘Abdallah al-Yafi, the Beirut Sunni prime minister, defended Corm’s
patriotism and approved the plans.55 Further indicating the cross-political di-
visions on this subject, al-Khoury, Ayyub Tabet and ‘Abdallah al-Yafi, who
could not have agreed on most political issues, professed support for Corm
and his project. On the other hand, Tawfiq ‘Awad, a staunch supporter of the
Maronite-Christian identity of Lebanon, and the Greek Orthodox Gébran
Tueni, one of the most vociferous pro-Arab voices in Beirut, shared similar
disapproving views about the Phoenician character of the pavilion. Finally,
and despite his controversial Phoenician tendencies, Corm was assigned as
the commissioner, his plans were approved and the Lebanese pavilion went
on its way.
Charles Corm made all possible efforts to portray Lebanon at the New
York World’s Fair as the new Phoenicia, culturally and ethnically unrelated
to its Arab neighbors.56 The Lebanese pavilion, very modest in size compared
with the other pavilions, was arranged into several subdivisions, each focus-
ing on a particular theme: America in Lebanon, France in Lebanon, Arts and
Crafts from Lebanon, Lebanese Economy, Intellectual Culture in Lebanon,
Archeological Excavations in Lebanon, Lebanon in the Future, and Artistic
Work on Phoenician History and Legends. Corm demonstrated the Phoenician
identity of Lebanon to the fair visitors through almost every possible artifact.
Thus, for example, a large painting, depicting the Galls assisting Hannibal to
cross the Alps in his famous journey into the heart of Europe in 218 BC,
welcomed visitors entering the “France in Lebanon” gallery. This drawing,
Corm explained, was placed there “because, in fact, the great Phoenician of
Carthage could not have traversed the Pyreneans, the Rhône and the French
Alps, before invading Italy, had he not had a solid alliance with the Gallic
tribes.” And higher education in Lebanon? Why, its roots lie in the Roman-
Phoenician Beirut school of law. Lebanese economic success? It all began
with Phoenician trade. Numerous examples can be given that reflect the same
ubiquitous tone but it would be superfluous to describe them all.57
The ancient Phoenicians took over the Lebanese pavilion, but Corm also
referred to other historical personalities and events as long as they did not
engage Arab or Muslim presence in Lebanon. Thus, for example, three large
statues of Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni (1585-1635), Bashir II (1767-1840) and Yusuf
Karam (1822-1889) greeted the visitors at the entrance of the pavilion. The
first, the father of modern Lebanon as he is exaggeratedly known in Leba-
nese national narrative and the reviver of “New Canaan,” as Corm named
him in La Montagne Inspirée; the second, the last great amir of Mount Leba-
non who symbolized the transfer of dominance in the Mountain from the
Druze to the Maronites; and the third, the Maronite leader who led a popular
156 REVIVING PHOENICIA

revolt against the local government in 1864 and became a mythical figure of
endurance and zeal for many Maronites.58 The Crusaders, as expected, also
received their fair share in the historical display in the pavilion. Thundering
silence, however, accompanied the almost complete absence of Arabs or
Muslims from the display.
Corm recruited almost the entire artistic community of Beirut to partake in
the Lebanese pavilion. He prepared sketches of ancient Phoenician draw-
ings, statues and scripts found at excavation sites in Lebanon, and asked the
artists to incorporate them into their works.59 I shall refer here in some detail
to the artists and other personalities who cooperated with Corm on this project,
because it provides another very good indication of the fact that Phoenicianism
in the 1930s was more than a capricious idea of a few dreamers. César Gemayel
(Maronite), one of the most important painters and art teachers in Lebanon,
depicted the great Phoenician inventions on canvas: the alphabet, navigation,
glass and creation of the color purple; Abdel-Wahab Addada (Sunni) drew a
series of pictures about the great Phoenician constructions; Mardiros Altounian
(Armenian), an architect, painted the important Phoenician maritime discov-
eries; Blanche ‘Ammoun, daughter of Daoud and sister of Charles ‘Ammoun,
contributed paintings recalling Phoenician diplomatic treaties with the Egyp-
tians, Romans and Israelites;60 Saliba Douaihi, (Maronite), another legend in
Lebanese world of painting, sketched Phoenician, Roman and Christian im-
ages to be displayed at the pavilion, as did Georges Coury, who depicted the
world-famed Phoenician love affair between Aphrodite-Venus and Adonis;
Halim al-Hajj and Yousef al-Hoyeck, the sculptors who worked at Corm’s
studio in Beirut, contributed medallions and bas-reliefs depicting Phoenician
artifacts from the British Museum; Mustapha Farroukh (Sunni), one of the
most important Lebanese painters of his time did not provide any Phoenician
paintings, but his participation in this Phoenician festival cannot be over-
looked.61 Other Lebanese artists, such as Marie Haddad,62 Ibrahim ‘Abdo
Jabbour, Chucri Gabriel, and Maroun Sfeir, appear in the long list of pavilion
participants. Clearly Corm managed to turn the project into a joint enterprise
of the leading artists in Beirut, who, for their part, must have relished the
opportunity to display their art at an internationally acclaimed event.63
In addition to the artistic community of Beirut, Corm also engaged the as-
sistance of old Lebanese and French friends. Albert Naccache, perhaps his
closest Phoenician friend, prepared a graph of the hydro-electric industry in
Lebanon, and French architect Romain Delahalle offered several models of
contemporary and future Beirut. Long before the New York World’s Fair,
Delahalle was infatuated with Lebanon’s Phoenician identity. In 1936 he de-
signed an urban plan for Beirut, never to be materialized, reflecting its unique
Phoenician and Arab faces,64 and in 1938 he contributed an article about the art
of architecture in Phénicia.65 Jean Dodelle, the French editor of the pro-Chris-
tian la Syrie, also contributed paintings for the pavilion66 and R.P. Christophe
de Bonneville, the venerable Jesuit from USJ,67 helped formulate its themes.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 157
Maurice Dunand, the renowned French archeologist who excavated the site in
Byblos, headed the archeological gallery of the pavilion and also designed a
model of the ancient city of Byblos. Thus, it seems the creation of the Leba-
nese pavilion of the 1939 New York World’s Fair became the joint enterprise
of a large number of people, orchestrated by Corm, attempting to exhibit Leba-
non as an intellectual, spiritual Western fortress, rooted in the ancient Phoenician
past. When Corm returned to Beirut from New York, the Lebanese govern-
ment decorated him with the celebrated title “Officier de l’ordre du cèdre” for
his distinguished service as the spearhead of the pavilion, thus giving the offi-
cial stamp of recognition for his nationalistic activity.68
Charles Corm’s Phoenicianism was a mélange of several social and politi-
cal streams of thought. First and foremost, Corm was a Maronite from Beirut,
with strong roots in the heart of the Mountain, the village of Ghusta, where
the Corm family originated. Beirut was his day-to-day reality, but the Moun-
tain continued to preoccupy his spiritual world of reference. Thus, despite the
fact that the cosmopolitan city was his daily reality, his poetry was saturated
with allusions to life, nature and landscape on the Mountain and little with
Beirut and the coast. Lebanon for him was a Christian country, led by the
Maronite community, and his entire political and cultural perspectives ema-
nated from this standpoint. The Phoenicians supplemented the Christian na-
ture of Lebanon by giving it historical depth and a wider cultural and geo-
graphical context. They placed Lebanon in the Mediterranean rather than the
Arab east and they established the Lebanese-European connection, begin-
ning with the famous Greek-Phoenician myth of Europa, Zeus and Cadmus.
Corm viewed the pagan Phoenician world as a precursor for monotheism and
Christianity. The ancient Phoenicians worshiped several deities, but they also
believed in a one stronger god, Ba‘al, a belief that became the antecedent for
monotheism and later for Christianity.69 It is not without reason that Jesus
walked in Tyre and Sidon, for there he found a receptive audience for his
reverent views. The ancient Phoenicians, according to Corm, were a peaceful
people with ample joie de vivre embodied in their festivals, wine-drinking,
sexual conduct and animated worship of the elements. Christianity mitigated
their sensuality but left their joy of life intact. The issue of racial and biologi-
cal ties between the ancient and the modern Lebanese never bothered Corm.
Not once did he refer to blood or genealogy as the generational link of all
Lebanese from the beginning of time. For him, it was the immortal spirit of
the Phoenicians that remained vital within the hills and trees of Lebanon that
united all eras into one Lebanese fate. Christianity perfectly expressed this
spirit that had been initiated long before the immaculate conception of Jesus
and found its perfect humanistic nest in Lebanon.
Corm remained faithful to France until the last days of the French pres-
ence in Lebanon. With the years, most Lebanese francophiles became disillu-
sioned by France and its misconduct in the mandated regions, feeling that the
promises it had made to the Christian Lebanese, its devout allies, were not
158 REVIVING PHOENICIA

being kept. Corm, however, continued to believe that France should remain
in power in Lebanon, even at the price of the loss of independence. His al-
most blind admiration for France and its culture could be seen from his very
first public writings in La Revue Phénicienne and continued at the Lebanese
pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, where France received almost as much
attention as Lebanon itself. Corm did not view himself as a “Frenchman of
the Levant.” He was simply a Maronite Lebanese with enormous affection
for France, emanating from his French-Jesuit education, and he continued to
put his trust in France, believing that the Christian nature of Lebanon could
be maintained only with France’s physical presence there.
Corm found enthusiastic allies for his vision of a Western-oriented
Phoenicia-Lebanon in the image of the Zionist movement in Palestine. The
Zionist Archives in Jerusalem recount a fascinating story of the correspond-
ence between Corm, his friend Albert Naccache70 and Eliahu Epstein (Elath),
the head of the Arab section of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency.
Following the publication of La Montagne Inspirée, Epstein wrote a glowing
review in the Jewish press in Palestine, asserting that Zionism was one of the
factors that triggered the Phoenician awakening in Lebanon.71 Corm and
Epstein together sought to establish a “Palestine-Lebanon club” that would
gather Lebanese and Jewish scholars, convening in Beirut and Jerusalem, for
a series of lectures about the Judeo-Phoenician past and present.72 The vivid
correspondence between the two as to possible cultural cooperation contin-
ued through the 1930s, but it appears that none of their mutual cultural projects
materialized.73 When Corm was appointed to head the Lebanese pavilion at
the World’s Fair, he met in Beirut with the architect of the Jewish pavilion
and they exchanged the plans for their respective pavilions. Epstein, for his
part, sent Corm letters of introduction to carry with him to New York in order
to open doors for Corm among Jewish and Zionist sympathizers.74 This coop-
eration between Corm and leading Zionists in Palestine had, of course, a
clear political agenda. Yet, it also marked a certain cultural watershed that
Corm crossed. It mirrored the fact that, like Emile Eddé, Corm was willing to
depart from the eastern geographic and cultural sphere of the region and to
ally himself with Zionism, which was perceived not only as a political threat
but also as a cultural foreign transplant in the region. In this respect, Corm
held a minority position even among Maronites, such as Sa‘id ‘Aql who dis-
associated themselves from their Arab surroundings but still viewed Leba-
non as an integral part of the eastern tradition of the Middle East.
Charles Corm was not a politician nor was he a political philosopher, as
was Michel Chiha. He was a bohemian at heart, with a good sense for busi-
ness, which he abandoned so that he could immerse himself entirely in the
world of art that he loved so much. As an artist-cum-philanthropist he did not
have any constituency to which he had to appeal except for, perhaps, the
closely knit Beirut haute-bourgeoisie, who overall, even if some ridiculed his
Phoenicianism, still agreed with the cultural orientation to which he subscribed
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 159
for Lebanon. Despite the fact that he was the most outspoken francophone
Phoenician in Beirut, his Phoenician views had very little impact on the Leba-
nese society as a whole. Indeed, large segments of the Beirut population were
bilingual, but most still preferred to communicate in Arabic and elaborating
in French about the Phoenician identity limited the possibility of its dissemi-
nation. Even for the francophone, non-Maronite Beirutis who did read and
hear Corm’s Phoenician views, his clear Maronite stand hindered the diffu-
sion of his views to a larger audience. In this respect the Phoenician views of
Chiha, a non-Maronite whose roots were not planted in Mount Lebanon, were
easier to digest.

Michel Chiha, the Merchant Republic and the Lebanese Identity

Michel Chiha, the businessman, politician, thinker, journalist and poet, has
long been acknowledged as one of the major architects of the Lebanese con-
fessional and economic systems.75 His place of eminence in Lebanese poli-
tics and society makes him one of the key figures for this study. Chiha has
never been labeled as a fervent advocate of the Phoenician identity in Leba-
non in the same manner as Corm and Sa‘id ‘Aql, but his high standing in
Lebanese politics and in the upper-class milieu of Beirut made his views
about Lebanese identity far more influential than the ideas of the latter two.
He has been primarily identified as a supporter of the Mediterranean orienta-
tion of Lebanon, viewing it somewhat differently from the Phoenician iden-
tity. To the extent that this argument is valid — that Mediterraneanism is not
necessarily an integral part of Phoenicianism — Chiha’s Mediterranean views
were fused with a Phoenician flavor and his arguments for Lebanon’s Medi-
terranean orientation were often founded in Phoenician terminology.
Michel Chiha was born in Beirut in 1891, into a Chaldean Catholic family
that originated from Iraq. He acquired his primary and secondary education
in Jesuit establishments, most notably at USJ’s Jesuit College where he per-
fected his French and expanded his knowledge of European classic litera-
ture.76 French became his language and Europe his world of reference. As
discussed in Chapter II, Chiha spent the years of World War I in Egypt among
the Syro-Lebanese who had moved to the Nile Valley. His closest friends
from this three-year sojourn in Alexandria were Hector Klat, Yusuf al-Saouda
and his future brother-in-law Béchara al-Khoury.77 This point should not be
overlooked, for Klat and al-Saouda became, each in his own way, devout
Phoenicians. Chiha maintained a close friendship with Hector Klat although
the latter, upon his final return to Lebanon in 1932, aligned himself closely
with the Eddé camp, becoming the leader’s francophone secretary. The three
years Chiha spent with al-Khoury in Alexandria marked the beginning of a
forceful friendship between the two, a friendship that determined much in
Lebanese politics until well into the 1950s.
160 REVIVING PHOENICIA

In 1919, Chiha participated in Charles Corm’s literary circles and contrib-

uted articles to La Revue Phénicienne, emphasizing the Phoenician past of
Lebanon and the Mediterranean cultural orientation of all Lebanese. After
the institution of the French mandate in Syria, Chiha formed amicable ties
with the High Commission, facilitating his access to the upper echelons of
the French administration. In 1925 he was elected to the parliament, to a
minority seat, as a deputy from Beirut, and in 1926 he participated in the
commission charged with drafting the first constitution of Greater Lebanon.
In 1929, he retired from Parliament but remained extremely influential be-
hind the scenes, becoming the financial and ideological force behind the po-
litical ambitions of al-Khoury, by then his brother-in-law. In the bitter Eddé-
al-Khoury rivalry that dominated the Lebanese political scene from the mid-
1920s-1943, it was often Chiha — and not al-Khoury — who set the belliger-
ent tone against Eddé and his camp. Al-Khoury’s rise to presidency in No-
vember 1943 was Chiha’s victory no less than the new president’s.
In August 1934, Chiha began publishing the francophone daily Le Jour, a
journalistic response to L’Orient, the daily paper of Gabriel Khabbaz and
Georges Naccache.78 This was the heyday of the infamous rift in Lebanese
politics between the Eddé and al-Khoury camps. Naccache and Khabbaz,
who supported Emile Eddé, used their newspaper to denounce al-Khoury
and his camp. Naccache, the political analyst of L’Orient, assertively advo-
cated the non-Arab and Christian identity of Lebanon, attacking the enemies
of Lebanon: Syria, the Arab movement and the al-Khoury clan.79 Michel Chiha,
together with other al-Khoury cronies, joined forces and issued Le Jour in
response. Adjectives such as hypocritical, arrogant, demoniacal and foul
embellished Chiha’s attacks on Eddé in Le Jour, reflecting the personal char-
acter of the Eddé-al-Khoury rivalry.80
The two papers also differed on certain political issues, such as the rela-
tionship with France, the mandatory power, and the issue of the integrity of
the borders of Greater Lebanon. L’Orient, and for that matter Emile Eddé,
supported close ties with France and was willing to yield Muslim-dominated
territories to Syria, whereas Le Jour, and for that matter Béchara al-Khoury,
called for disengaging Lebanon from France’s bear hug and sanctified the
extended borders of Greater Lebanon. Yet, as far as Lebanon’s national iden-
tity was concerned, the two newspapers and the two camps did not seem to
differ much. Both agreed on the stand that Lebanon should retain its political
independence and its unique identity vis-à-vis Syria and the rest of Arab world.
They only differed on the means to achieve this end. L’Orient supported Chris-
tian isolationism whereas Le Jour advocated political integration in the re-
gion. Later analysis of the political rift in Lebanon from the mid-1920s-1945,
especially by al-Khoury and writers on his behalf, depicted Eddé as an advo-
cate of Christian non-Arab Lebanon and as an enemy of the Muslims and the
Arab world. Al-Khoury, on the other hand, was portrayed as the opposite —
a supporter of co-existence between the Lebanese communities and an oppo-
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 161
nent of the Christian Phoenician hallucinations.81 It is clear today that this
division was not entirely accurate. In fact, Eddé was the first to find Muslim
allies for his political ambitions and, thus, the first to lay the foundation for
the Maronite-Sunni cooperation that allowed the formation of the Lebanese
confessional system. The following words of Chiha, the chief thinker of the
al-Khoury camp, serve as the best illustration of the fact that the leading
personalities of the two camps viewed the identity of Lebanon fairly simi-
larly. The time is April 1935, when Lebanon was harshly divided between
supporters of the Phoenician and the Arab identities. Moreover, it was the eve
of the first free election campaign, which set the Lebanese political system
into unprecedented turbulence. A year earlier, Charles Corm began publish-
ing works in his Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, one of which was Chiha’s
book of poems, La Maison des Champs. Chiha’s point of departure is indeed
Corm’s poetic-nationalistic activity:

Les thèses en présence sont les suivantes: d’une part celle de la Revue
Phénicienne — dont le titre est un programme — qui se propose, en
propageant les ‘exploits glorieux des ancêtres,’ de favoriser une renais-
sance patriotique; d’autre part celle d’un jeune avocat syrien, [Edmond
Rabbath. A. k.] porte-parole d’une ‘certaine élite’ qui suit le mouvement
avec beaucoup d’intérêt où se mêle une vague inquiétude. Ce jeune
avocat (ou cette certaine élite) reproche à la Revue Phénicienne de tirer
de trop loin les sources de son nationalisme. A une conception du
patriotisme qu’il juge trop historique ou trop raciale, il oppose la con-
ception de Renan ou celle, plus récente, de Julien Benda [a famous
French essayist (1867-1956)], qui ne veut envisager la formation d’une
nation que dans la volonté des habitants d’être cette nation … Que le
principe du libanisme réside dans l’exaltation d’un passé glorieux ou
dans celle d’une toute abstraite volonté de cohésion, peu importe pour
nous. Nous optons pour les deux points de vue à la fois, ils ne nous
apparaissent que comme deux aspects d’une même pensée. En effet
l’exaltation du passé peut fort bien — consciemment ou non — aider
aux efforts de cohésion nationale. Surtout quand cette exaltation est
celle d’un passé assez lointain et assez grand (le passé phénicien par
exemple) pour que tous les Libanais actuels puissent s’y reconnaître
au-dessus de leurs différences de langue, de mœurs, de religion ou de
‘race.’ La Revue Phénicienne l’a fort bien compris qui proclame qu’en
ce cas … ‘la vérité historique repose sur des preuves plutôt morales
que matérielles.’ Ce qui signifie presque que pour elle, et en cette
circonstance, la fin justifie les moyens. Les Syriens devront admettre
que ces moyens ne sont que des manifestations de la fameuse volonté
d’être une nation.82
162 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Some interesting observations arise from Chiha’s words. First, the ideo-
logical political division he portrays is between Lebanon and Syria but not
within Lebanon, and he defends Lebanon’s integrity via Corm’s Phoenician
inclinations. Chiha refers to Syria as the main opposition to Phoenicianism
whereas Lebanon is depicted as one ideological camp. Second, Chiha under-
stands Phoenicianism in a functionally conceptual way. For him, it is irrel-
evant if the ancient Phoenicians were actually the genuine racial and cultural
forefathers of the modern Lebanese because the factual validity of national
myths is insignificant. What was important for Chiha was that these myths
fulfill their function as the adhesive material in the national formation of
Lebanon. In this respect, indeed, the end does justify the means; there may be
some factual flaws with the claim for Phoenician descent in Lebanon. These
flaws, however, do not reduce the strength of Phoenicianism as long as it
serves as the common denominator for all Lebanese, regardless of their faith.
Phoenicianism, according to Chiha, agrees with the national matrix set by
French thinker Ernest Renan in “Que’est-ce qu’une nation?” Renan’s famous
wording as to what a nation is, viewing it as a soul or a spiritual principle
constituted by two factors, the past and the present, corresponds well with
Phoenicianism in Lebanon, according to Chiha. “The worship of ancestors is
understandably justifiable,” wrote Renan in 1882, “since our ancestors have
made us what we are. A heroic past of great men, of glory […] that is the
social principle on which the national idea rests.”83 For Chiha, the Phoenicians
serve as the “heroic ancestors” about whom Renan wrote and they provide
the modern Lebanese nation with its historical foundation. The present, which,
Renan claimed, is “the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to
continue to value the heritage which all hold in common,”84 is the objective
for which the Phoenician past should be used in Lebanon.
Was Chiha, then, a Phoenician? After all, he clearly supported the
Phoenician past as the foundation of contemporary Lebanese nationalism.
And the ancient Phoenicians certainly played a significant role in the way
Chiha perceived Lebanese identity. Yet, unlike Corm, al-Saouda or ‘Aql,
Phoenicianism for Chiha was not the sole and ultimate identity the Lebanese
possessed. Supporting Phoenicianism was a conscious functional decision
on his part to find “a past remote enough and great enough” to serve as a
common denominator for all Lebanese. Chiha did not refer to any organic or
racial ties between the ancient Phoenicians and the modern Lebanese. Every
nation possesses “a rich legacy of remembrances,” wrote Renan, and so it is
that the historical memories of the Lebanese begin with the Phoenicians. Thus,
for Chiha in 1935, the Phoenicians were one facet, perhaps the most notable
one, of a long Lebanese national history, which made them the foundation of
the modern Lebanese identity, but not the only element therein. It is impor-
tant to keep in mind that Chiha wrote this essay from within the heart of the
Khoury camp and that he was not alone there to hold Phoenician views. Yusuf
al-Saouda, for example, the staunch Maronite-Phoenician nationalist, was
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 163
also a member of this camp, and an even more pronounced Phoenician than
Chiha.85
Chiha professed his views about the identity of Lebanon on other occasions
as well. In 1938-1939 he contributed several articles and poems to Aurore
Ougour’s remarkably francophile literary journal Phénicia. One of these arti-
cles was an essay from his series “Entretiens de Patrice,”86 which he first pub-
lished in 1919 in La Revue Phénicienne. Now, on the eve of World War II,
Chiha elaborated on the calm and soft Mediterranean civilization, of which
Lebanon was an integral part, as an alternative to the sinister and hostile winds
blowing from northern Europe. In the imaginary conversation between Chiha
and Patrice, the author bestows on Lebanon the enormous mission of saving
Europe through its Mediterranean personality. This mission, Chiha claims, can
be achieved despite the fact that Lebanon is a small country. It may be small,
he concludes, but even without getting started on its history, its geography is
vaster than that of Homer. Thus, past and present were interwoven in Chiha’s
words. The Mediterranean, which is omnipresent in Lebanon in all times and
eras, intertwined with Homer’s ancient Greece that served as an example of
the enormity of present-day Lebanon. One should remember, as discussed in
the Introduction, that Homer was “phoenicianized” by Victor Bérard. There is
no doubt in my mind that Chiha was not oblivious to this nuance. As for the
“mission” Lebanon carried, it became a key component in nationalist writings,
and we shall see below the impact of ‘Aql’s ideas on this mission.
“Entretiens de Patrice” clearly outlines the Mediterranean identity Chiha
subscribed for Lebanon and the weight he assigned to its geographical loca-
tion. Not a word about “our ancestors the Phoenicians” is uttered in this es-
say, yet its setting and terminology are undoubtedly “Phoenician.” The plat-
form Chiha used for this article was the Phoenician organ of the late 1930s,
Phénicia. Among the regular writers in this journal were Corm, Klat, Elie
Tyane and ‘Aql. Others included Alfred Naccache, Maurice Chéhab, Marie
Hadad, Edmond Saad, to name but some.87 A picture of an haut-relief, sculpted
by Youssef al-Hoyeck, depicting Europa, daughter of Agenor king of Tyre,
carried across the Mediterranean by Zeus incarnated as a bull, decorated the
front cover of the first eight issues of the journal. The message was unequivo-
cally clear. Most of the articles, essays and poems do not necessarily mention
the ancient Phoenicians or the Phoenician identity; the format and the atmos-
phere, however, clearly mirrored the francophone Beirut milieu that was over-
all in support of the non-Arab identity of Lebanon and willing to subscribe to
the Phoenician narrative. Ougour herself, the owner of Phénicia, was a daugh-
ter of the affluent Greek Orthodox Trad family. She was married to Joseph
Oughourlian,88 an Armenian businessman, who also wrote for the journal and
most likely financed its publication. Thus, collaboration between a Greek
Orthodox and an Armenian with the participation of Maronites, Greek Or-
thodox and Catholics produced Phénicia and reflected the wide support of
the Phoenician identity among the Christian haute-bourgeoisie in Beirut.
164 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Chiha’s participation in this journal, as a distinguished member of this class,

was only natural.
In the spring of 1942 Chiha gave a lecture at the Cercle de la jeunesse
catholique de Beyrouth, entitled Liban d’aujourd’hui, which was later pub-
lished as a book, becoming perhaps Chiha’s most famous pamphlet. The Cercle
was a club of graduates of Université Saint Joseph, and it was closed to non-
Catholics. This was in the midst of World War II, about a year before Leba-
non gained its political independence from France and before Béchara al-
Khoury and Riad al-Sulh agreed on the famous National Pact. In 1942, Leba-
non and the entire Middle East were at a political standstill, awaiting a reso-
lution on the European front. The issue of Lebanon’s cultural orientation,
however, continued to be a pressing question even in those tempestuous days.
This is how Chiha chose to start his lecture:

Le Liban d’aujourd’hui, vieux de cinq mille ans et davantage, ne s’étonne

plus lorsqu’on dit de lui qu’il est jeune. Il en a pris l’habitude. Par-là il
justifie son autre nom de Phénicie, s’il est vrai que ce nom est le même
que celui du phénix fabuleux, de l’oiseau au plumage de feu qui ne
mourait un instant que pour renaître de ses cendres. Et c’est aux Libanais,
mieux qu’aux Thébains issus du Phénicien Cadmus, que devrait
s’appliquer, de Sophocle, le début solennel d’Œdipe Roi: “Enfants du
vieux Cadmus, jeune postérité …” Pour ce Liban, né d’hier, d’après ce
qui se raconte, pour ce Liban tant de fois centenaire, c’est tout juste
l’âge de raison qu’on peut paraît-il revendiquer. Le sort a ces ironies.

As in previous instances, Chiha does not claim here that modern Lebanon
is the incarnation of ancient Phoenicia and that today’s Lebanese are direct
descendents of the inhabitants of the Phoenician city-states. The entire text,
however, is imbued with paragraphs such as the one above, referring to the
eternal existence of Lebanon as a viable cultural entity from the Phoenician
era to modern times. Thus, his entire argument regarding the country’s na-
tional identity is based on identical terminology and argument of the
Phoenician idea.
According to Chiha of 1942, one unbroken thread — geographical loca-
tion — conjoins the ancient Phoenicians with the modern Lebanese. The po-
sition of Lebanon as the meeting place of three continents and the interaction
between the Sea and the Mountain are the two constant factors that shaped
the cultural identity of Lebanon throughout the ages. This is the claim made
too by many other modern Phoenician-Lebanese as to their connection with
the ancient inhabitants of Lebanon and it is based on the works of Henri
Lammens, to whom Chiha constantly refers as the scholarly foundation for
his geo-political arguments.89 Chiha also follows Lammens’ theory of Leba-
non as a “land of refuge,” stating that due to its special geography Lebanon
has been a sanctuary for oppressed minorities since time immemorial.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 165
More than geography has defined the inhabitants of Lebanon in all times,
according to Chiha. Since the Phoenician era, he wrote, Lebanese have been
polyglots, using at least two or three languages, one local and one interna-
tional. This became the common refrain of Lebanese nationalists attempting
to answer Arab nationalists who had defined the Arab nation as any place
where Arabic is spoken and Islam is professed.90 Chiha stretched this argu-
ment even further, all the way to the Phoenician era, arguing that even before
the invention of the alphabet the ancient Phoenicians were multilingual and
the modern Lebanese were simply following the footsteps of their ancestors.
Recognizing the sensitivity of this argument, Chiha tried to mitigate it by
stating that Arabic is a very important language for Lebanon. But his under-
lying message — that Arabic is not the national language of Lebanon —
remains clear.91
On other occasions in Liban d’aujourd’hui, Chiha used Phoenician termi-
nology to support his arguments for the existence of a unique Lebanese na-
tional identity. Just as the ancient Phoenicians immigrated to the four corners
of the earth and founded colonies, of which the most notable was Carthage,
Chiha explained, modern Lebanese behave similarly: they immigrate and
found colonies, the most notable being the Lebanese community in Egypt.92
This argument was often used to try to explain and justify the enormous hu-
man drift that had left Lebanon since the beginning of the 19th century. It was
one of Lebanon’s greatest problems and by positing it in a historical context
it received a certain rationale and justification; we have already seen the way
Philip Hitti incorporated it as one of Lebanon’s national characteristics.
After establishing his argument as to the crucial importance of geography
in the formation of Lebanon’s national identity, and the characteristics of this
identity, Chiha advanced to define who the Lebanese were. He began by as-
serting the magnitude of the past in the national identity of the present. “The
past never dies,” Chiha paraphrased a French author. “Man can forget it, but
it remains within him. Whoever he is in any given epoch, man is the product
and the essence of all the anterior epochs.”93 The people who lived in Leba-
non fifty to twenty centuries ago would recognize in present-day Lebanese
their authentic posterity. Their blood, Chiha wrote, could not have completely
disappeared from Lebanon. Nevertheless, he believed that it was impossible
to know today what the racial composition of the Lebanese had been, and he
therefore disagreed with the theses that claimed that the Lebanese bore either
Semitic or Indo-European blood. Since the beginning of time, Lebanon had
experienced an unprecedented number of peoples and races who had tra-
versed its land and left their ethnic imprint. Thus, Chiha concluded, Lebanon
cannot be defined as Semitic, Indo-European, Arab or Phoenician. “The popu-
lation of Lebanon is simply Lebanese […] it is not more Phoenician than it is
Egyptian, Aegean, Assyrian, Median, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab […].
At the most, we say that the Lebanese identity is a Mediterranean variety,
probably the least decipherable.”94
166 REVIVING PHOENICIA

So, according to Chiha, Lebanon is part of the Mediterranean and its na-
tional identity is neither Arab nor Phoenician, but simply Mediterranean. What
did the “Mediterranean identity” mean for him personally? First and fore-
most it meant the geographical setting. It was the sea and its climate that from
antiquity dictated the national identity of all Mediterranean societies. Thus
Egypt, Lebanon, Greece, Italy, France and Spain share one common denomi-
nator that makes their cultural identities somewhat similar. The Mediterra-
nean for Chiha was also an exchange of cultures and ideas. It implied open-
ness to other streams of thought and, even more, to financial openness, which
since antiquity had made the Lebanese natural-born merchants. All these char-
acteristics connected the modern Mediterranean societies to their roots, far
away in the past, in the ancient civilizations of this age-old sea.
The Mediterranean basin also bestowed on Lebanon the connection with
the rest of the Latin world. Latin culture for Chiha was associated with warm
temperament and temperatures, as opposed to the cold Anglo-Saxon spirit
and weather of northern Europe. Latinism was not only a cultural temper but
also a religious association. Chiha himself was a Catholic, extremely influ-
enced by French Latin church, and the lecture, Liban d’aujourd’hui, was given
in front of a young Catholic audience. For this audience, Chiha was more
than a politician. He was a mentor who provided them an identity to cling to.
In this identity Chiha fused past and present, the former as an ancient sacred
past of a religious history, beginning with the passage of Jesus in Phoenicia,
and the latter as the Mediterranean which provided a continuous geo-politi-
cal and cultural link to Europe in the history of Lebanon. The Phoenicians,
the foundation, functioned as the past and the Mediterranean, the edifice, was
the present at any given moment in Lebanon’s history.95
The national identity Chiha prescribed for Lebanon was not a rigid ideol-
ogy, and his political philosophy was not as inflexible as that of other Leba-
nese nationalists, such as Charles Corm and Yusuf al-Saouda. Chiha con-
structed Lebanon’s identity in the image of the cosmopolitan atmosphere of
Beirut. This was the Levantine city of dozens of groups and sects, people
who spoke three languages and more, who conducted commercial ties equally
with the major Arab cities and with Marseille and Smyrna.96 Mount Lebanon
is omnipresent in Beirut. Its shadow, figuratively and literally, covers the city
at dawn. But its message of staunch Maronite nationalism was not part of the
city’s socio-economic reality. Thus, for example, as much as Charles Corm
was a product of Beirut more than of the Mountain, as a second generation
Maronite in the city, the ideology of the Mountain still hovered above his
national thought. Chiha, conversely, as a Catholic of Iraqi origin, was unre-
strained by the confined nationalism of the Mountain. Hence, the literary
images he used were related more to the Mediterranean Sea than to the Moun-
tain. His book of poems, La Maison des Champs, stands out among the works
published by Corm’s Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, for it lacks the im-
ages about the Mountain that are ubiquitous in the other books. The same
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 167
applies to Chiha’s “Entretiens de Patrice,” which is entirely oriented towards
the Sea and does not mention the Mountain, not even once. This, of course,
does not mean that Chiha ignored the Mountain. He named it the spine of the
Lebanese state,97 but mentally and emotionally Paris was closer to Chiha than
any age-old village hanging over the rocky cliffs of Mount Lebanon.
Despite the fact that Chiha was the leading personality in al-Khoury’s camp,
he did not see any ideological dilemma in his participation in the literary
activities of the Phoenician group that gathered around Charles Corm. Hence,
he published his poems with Corm, he contributed writings to Phénicia, and
he partook in the literary gatherings in Corm’s residence.98 At the same time,
Chiha was looking for a common denominator within Lebanon between its
different communities and between Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world.
He was first and foremost a businessman, a co-owner of one of the largest
financial establishments in Lebanon, the Chiha-Pharaoun Bank, and as such
he was fully aware of Lebanon’s inextricable financial ties with the Arab
countries. Having this point in mind, Chiha wrote extensively about the need
to form a regional economic and political association for the countries of the
Near East,99 viewing such an association as a potential market for Lebanon
and as a warranty for political stability in the region. He even attempted to
prescribe the Mediterranean identity to other Arab countries, such as Syria
and Egypt. In the 1950s, when the Arab countries were swept up by the wave
of pan-Arabism, he wrote against this tendency, begging them to look west-
wards to the Mediterranean basin and Europe, and not eastwards to Asia and
the Third World.100
Chiha was a great believer in the British liberal economy and he thought
Lebanon could best thrive in a laissez-faire financial system. He imagined
his country as a commercial passage between the Arab world and the West,
and the radicalization of the Arab world against the West upset him as much
as the creation of the State of Israel. Zionism disturbed him because it disor-
dered the socio-political system he prescribed for the region. Whereas Corm
and Albert Naccache regarded the Zionist movement as a potential ally for
the Christian camp in Lebanon, Chiha, who by all means was part of this
camp, regarded Zionism as a menace to his grandiose regional plans. One of
the steps Chiha took to achieve the financial goals he had assigned for Leba-
non was the foundation in 1943, along with other Lebanese businessmen, of
a financial club named “The New Phoenicians.” It was a group of Christian
Beirut entrepreneurs who aspired to return to what they had believed was a
laissez-faire economy practiced by the ancient Phoenicians, their spiritual
forefathers.101 Thus the appellation “Phoenician” was used simultaneously
by Chiha and Corm, who may have agreed on Lebanon’s cultural orientation,
but definitely differed on its integration in the Middle East and on the politi-
cal allies Lebanon should acquire in the region.
Although Chiha knew Arabic, he never expressed himself in this language.
Unlike his brother-in-law Béchara al-Khoury, who was known for his elo-
168 REVIVING PHOENICIA

quence in the “language of the dad,” Chiha’s means of communication re-

mained French throughout his public career. This fact, however, did not hinder
his views about the identity of Lebanon from being heard and acknowledged
by educated Muslim and pro-Arab Lebanese. A non-Maronite Christian with-
out power base in the Mountain, it was easier for other Lebanese to listen to
his views about the distinct non-Arab identity of Lebanon without fearing the
zealot Maronite nationalism that prevailed in Mount Lebanon.
In 1988, Kamal Salibi, the reputed historian of Lebanon, wrote a soul-
searching book, A House of Many Mansions, about the Lebanese order, try-
ing to locate the reasons for its disintegration. The book challenged many
historical “truths” that Salibi himself, as a Lebanese historian, helped to con-
struct before the civil war, as Lebanon was thought to be stepping into a
bright and promising future. One chapter in this book harshly criticizes the
Phoenician myth of origin, viewing it as historically fictitious and politically
destructive. Paradoxically perhaps, this critique is a good illustration of the
impact Michel Chiha left on Lebanese identity and of the Phoenician myth of
origin. Salibi recognized Chiha as the most intellectual and articulate mind
behind the Phoenician idea. Phoenicianism for Chiha, Salibi wrote, was an
impressionist rather than historical idea. He wanted to form Lebanon as “the
Phoenicia of the Middle East,” a bridge between the Arab East and the Euro-
pean West. Chiha, according to Salibi, considered the ancient Phoenician city-
state of Tyre as the prototype of modern Beirut,102 the “city-state” that was at
the center of Chiha’s political, social and ideological life.
Yet, after explaining the roots and content of the Phoenician myth and
bluntly condemning its validity, Salibi then remarked that urban Lebanese
today, who live in the same cities as the ancient Phoenicians did, do not ap-
pear to be much different in character than their forefathers. What makes
them similar to the ancient Phoenicians, however, is geography and not his-
tory. “They live in the same cities along the same Mediterranean shore, and
work the same land under the same climate. Geography in some respects can
be as important as history.”103 One does not need to go far to notice that this is
exactly the way Michel Chiha described the Phoenician identity for Leba-
non. Indeed, he had not negated history as Salibi did, but geography for him
was still the most important link between the ancient Phoenicians and the
modern Lebanese. Chiha would probably agree with Salibi about the histori-
cal flaws in the Phoenician identity. But he would dismiss them as irrelevant.
Moreover, Salibi even wrote that, in a way, modern Lebanon emerged as a
resurrection of ancient Phoenicia by being a kind of a city-state. Beirut, actu-
ally annexed to the heart — to the Mountain — became the heart itself and
transformed into a modern city-state. This indeed was the Beirut of Chiha,
the city that had evolved to lead a state, the modern Lebanese state. Thus, on
the one hand, Salibi denounces Phoenicianism but, on the other, he recog-
nizes important aspects of the Phoenician myth as expressed by Chiha. Chiha
indeed imagined Beirut as a modern Phoenician city-state, granting it, and
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 169
not the Mountain, the leading role in the formation of modern Lebanon. All
of the above only demonstrates the magnitude of Chiha’s thoughts on the
national discourse in Lebanon. His views about the Lebanese national iden-
tity remained imprinted even among opponents of this identity. Thus, a per-
son such as Salibi who rebuked the historical validity of the Phoenician myth,
especially of the Maronite nationalism of the Mountain, approved, perhaps
unwittingly, the geographical legitimacy of the Phoenician identity, and the
magnitude of the city and not of the Mountain therein, exactly as Chiha ar-
ticulated.

Sa‘id Aql, Arabophones and Maronite Nationalism

This chapter has been primarily preoccupied thus far with Phoenicianism and
its francophone manifestations. After all, until the mid-1930s, the most promi-
nent advocates of the Phoenician identity were Lebanese who graduated from
French schools, most notably USJ, and who wrote poetry, prose and essays in
French about this identity. Despite this francophone prevalence, it should be
recalled that from the outset Arabic was also used as a means of expounding
on the Phoenician past of Lebanon (and prior to 1920, of geographical Syria
as well). We have already seen examples in the journals al-Muqtataf and al-
Hilal, as well as in the works of Henri Lammens who published as many
studies in Arabic as in French. The comprehensive study from 1918, Lubnan;
Mabhiith ‘Ilmiyya wa-Ijtima‘iyya, sponsored by Isma‘il Haqqi Bey, was also
an Arabic manifestation of a distinct Lebanese identity starting with the
Phoenician era. There were other seminal individual demonstrations of
Phoenicianism in Arabic, such as the history textbook Mukhtasar Tarikh
Lubnan104 [The Concise History of Lebanon] that clearly elaborated on the
uninterrupted historical chain from ancient Phoenicia to the Mutasarrifiyya
in Lebanon. One should not forget Na‘um Mukarzal who, although he mas-
tered and even taught French in Jesuit establishments, still wrote in Arabic in
his daily paper, al-Hoda, about the non-Arab identity of Syria and Lebanon.
Thus, even before public education struck roots in Lebanon and more and
more Lebanese children studied in state schools in Arabic about their
Phoenician forefathers, there were a fair number of Lebanese who used Ara-
bic, and not French, to elaborate on their Phoenician heritage. These mani-
festations were not necessarily expressions of a distinct Phoenician, non-Arab,
Lebanese identity, but they provided the foundation of what was yet to come
around World War I and culminate with the establishment of Greater Leba-
non in 1920.
Yusuf al-Saouda was one of the first persons to explicitly record in Arabic
about Phoenicianism as an expression of a unique and independent identity
of all Lebanese, separated from Arab or Syrian collective identities.105 In
mandatory Lebanon he became a second-rate politician with close ties to
170 REVIVING PHOENICIA

right personalities, such as al-Khoury, the Maronite Patriarch Antoine ‘Arida

and Habib Pasha al-Sa‘d, with whom he had familial ties through the mar-
riage of al-Sa‘d’s niece.106 By the 1960s, al-Saouda became identified as one
of the prime advocates of and speakers on the Maronite nationalism of the
Mountain. He published several works supporting Phoenicianism not only as
a geo-political and cultural identity, but also as a racial distinction for Leba-
non.107 As noted earlier, al-Saouda acquired his primary education at the
Maronite Madrasat al-Hikma and his secondary and higher education at Jesuit
establishments in Beirut and in Alexandria. Despite this educational back-
ground (identical to that of Na‘um Mukarzal and many other Maronites),
from the outset of his public career al-Saouda wrote all his books in Arabic
rather than French. He was born and raised in Bikfaya, twenty-five kilometers
north east of Beirut, and felt more comfortable among the arabophone major-
ity of Lebanon than among the small francophone milieu who lived in the
affluent Ashrafiyyeh neighborhood in East Beirut. Already in 1922, he re-
jected the inclusion of French as an official language, asserting that Arabic
should be Lebanon’s sole official language.108 Al-Saouda opposed the French
mandate in general, and demanded complete independence for Lebanon, a
stand that marked him as a francophobe by the French authorities.109 He ar-
gued that the only people to benefit from making French a Lebanese official
language would be the francophone Beirutis, whereas the rest of the Leba-
nese population, who had not mastered French that well, would only be dis-
advantaged by such a policy. Thus, at the same time that Charles Corm and
his associates were elaborating in French about the Phoenician identity, first
for geographical Syria and from April 1919 for Greater Lebanon, al-Saouda
was writing in Arabic about the same identity, prescribing it exclusively for
Lebanon in its extended borders. From 1916, this was the formal view of the
Alliance libanaise in Egypt, which publicly called for the establishment of
Greater Lebanon as an independent state — in opposition to the opinion of
most intellectual Christian Lebanese who were still advocating a greater Syr-
ian federation and including Lebanon therein.
Al-Saouda’s Arabic tendencies at the time are also curious as so many of
his compatriots, especially those in Alexandria, were publishing books in
French about their desired political solution for Lebanon. Evidently, the phe-
nomenon of mastering and cherishing Arabic, on the one hand, and disap-
proving of Arabs and Arab culture, on the other, became one of the most
enigmatic issues within Lebanese society. Na‘um Mukarzal, for example,
was persistent about the non-Arab identity of Lebanon but, at the same time,
he insisted that only Arabic would be the formal language of his country of
origin.110 Fouad Afram al-Bustani wrote most of his books in Arabic, includ-
ing an Arabic dictionary, taught Arabic and Arab history at USJ before be-
coming the first president of the newly-founded Lebanese University, and
still rejected any cultural ties between Lebanon and the Arab world. Even
during the heyday of francophonism in Lebanon in the 1930s-1940s, most
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 171
Lebanese preferred to read and converse in Arabic.111 It is also clear that many
of the Lebanese “non-Arab” arabophones were not born and raised in Beirut,
or at least were not part of the francophone haute-bourgeoisie and its ideol-
ogy. Outside of Beirut, Arabic was still the one and only dominant spoken
language, functioning as an inseparable part of the social tissue of the Leba-
nese society. There were cities and villages that were influenced more than
other locales by French (and, to a much lesser extent, English), especially if a
foreign school were located nearby, thus having a more direct impact on the
local population. But Arabic remained the leading language even in the
Maronite villages of the Mountain, where Lebanese separatist nationalism
was preached.112 And it was from this reality that al-Saouda emerged, to-
gether with Mukarzal, al-Bustani, Anis Freiha and, of course, Sa‘id ‘Aql,
who will occupy the remainder of this section.
We have already seen that Phoenicianism in Lebanon was mainly expressed
through poetry and prose, remarkably influenced by French literature. The
francophone Lebanese, who were educated in French establishments for so
many years, were exposed to the finest and latest expressions of French cul-
ture. They frequently alluded to writers such as Charles Baudelaire, Victor
Hugo, Edmond Rostand, Paul Valéry and so forth, and to French literary
schools, particularly Romanticism and Symbolism,113 referring to them as
their sources of inspiration. Poetry in Arabic, introspecting on the magnifi-
cence of Lebanon and its imposing history, was composed in Lebanon long
before Charles Corm and his circles began versifying in French. Khalil Mutran,
‘Isa ’Iskandar al-Ma‘luf, Rashid Nakhla, Shibly al-Malat and others wrote
about the splendor of Lebanon when Corm and Chiha were still toddlers in
Beirut.114 These writers and poets, however, were still composing in tradi-
tional forms and patterns and the inspiration of world’s literature on their
writings was limited. A new generation of Arabic writers had to rise, writers
who were exposed to French education but still clung to Arabic, and allowed
these French influences to infiltrate their verse-writing. This indeed occurred
around the mid-1930s, especially with the appearance of Sa‘id ‘Aql onto the
literary scene. Thus, just as francophone Phoenician poetry became associ-
ated with French schools of literature, especially Romanticism, the same oc-
curred with the French-inspired arabophone literature that used primarily
French symbolism to glorify the ancient history and landscape of Lebanon.
‘Aql was, and still is, one of the most important Arabic poets of the 20th
century, and equally, one of the most controversial personalities in the politi-
cal and literary circles in Lebanon.115 Born in 1912 in Zahle, the capital of the
Biqa‘ region, his father was a long-time Zahliote and his mother, Adele Yazbek,
came from Bikfaya. He studied at the Oriental College of the Frères Maristes
in Zahle and divided his formative years between Zahleh and Bikfaya. He
became known to the Lebanese public as a literary figure in the early 1930s,
following the publication of his articles in various journals, particularly his
first work, Bint Yftah, a tragic play focusing on the biblical story of Jephthah
172 REVIVING PHOENICIA

and his daughter. The play highlighted his interest in ancient Biblical eras as
a source of inspiration for his writing. Around this time ‘Aql briefly flirted
with the political views of Antun Sa‘adeh and the PPS. Sa‘adeh’s party was
especially appealing to educated Lebanese who were not part of the Beirut
francophone circles. Students from AUB were among Sa‘adeh’s first recruits,
but there were also others — such as ‘Aql, Salah Labaki, Jean Jalkh,116 Yusuf
Yazbek — who were attracted to the idea of a secular, non-confessional, uni-
fied Syria, founded on five millennia of historical experience.117 This part of
‘Aql’s biography is very vague, for it seems that he himself made all efforts
to cast mist on these days.118 What is clear is that by 1935, ‘Aql had already
abandoned the PPS and departed on an independent and very successful liter-
ary life, marked by innovative ideas about literature and about the cultural
and linguistic interaction between East and West. That year, he translated to
Arabic parts of La Montagne Inspirée and published them in the Jesuit liter-
ary journal al-Mashriq,119 making Corm’s epic accessible for readers of Ara-
bic as well.
The publication of the first four books in Corm’s Éditions de la revue
phénicienne120 was an important event in Lebanese national and literary cir-
cles. It provoked enthusiastic responses and led to a series of reviews of the
four books. ‘Aql himself, a rising star in Lebanese literature, reviewed these
books in al-Mashriq which reflected the fact that already then, in 1934, he
was preoccupied by the problem of the Lebanese national language, an issue
that engaged him throughout his career. These were the questions that per-
turbed ‘Aql’s mind in his critique:

[…] Is the Western spring more effective in Lebanese poetic capacity

than the Arab spring? Is Lebanon a perplexed country, but still prefers
to be oriented towards the west? Is it true that there is a western spirit
and an eastern spirit separated from each other? Or, conversely, is it
true that Arabic is a higher tool than French in the poetry of the per-
petual human spirit? Have some of our Francophone poets realized that,
until recently, their Arabic colleagues remained obscured in issues such
as innovation, veracity, examination of deep philosophical questions,
description of human spirit and the eulogy of the nation? Should we
hope, following our French poets, to open a new road to the lines of the
world’s poets? Are we located now, following the humanistic sections
of La Montagne Inspirée, at the heart of the human literature? These
questions echoed in me as I read Corm, Chiha and their colleagues
Tyane and Klat.121

‘Aql continued to state that in the last century, Arabic poetry had been
disconnected from the world’s poetic currents. It was only with the Lebanese
who learned foreign languages that novel influences were introduced into
Lebanese poetry. He recognized the success of the francophone poets and
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 173
their contribution to the openness of Lebanese poetry to world’s currents, but
he disagreed with those who claimed that this success was a result of the use
of French language rather than Arabic. This was an audacious lie against
Arabic, he exclaimed, because Arabic was just as good a language, if not
better, for the composition of poetry. Besides, the achievements of these Leba-
nese francophone poets indicate that poetry is neither Eastern nor Western,
for it has one spirit that can be expressed in any language. World literature,
‘Aql proclaimed, is not about a Frenchman describing Lebanon or a Leba-
nese depicting France. World literature is above time and place, it deals with
a description of the spirit; and the spirit is one in the entire world. Arabic,
therefore, can and should be used the same way that French was used by
Corm and his friends, to ask philosophical questions, to express new innova-
tions and to extol the nation — the Lebanese nation, of course.
Although ‘Aql wrote about the universality of poetry and the irrelevance
of the kind of language in which one composes poems, his words were clearly
a defense of Arabic, as a competent and creative language for literary writ-
ing. We have seen how sensitive this issue was in the 1930s in Lebanon.
Amin al-Rihani, for example, criticized Corm more for the fact that he did
not write verse in Arabic than for the Phoenician content of his poems. Simi-
larly, Taqi al-Din al-Sulh dedicated a large portion of his review of La
Montagne Inspirée to the fact that Corm refused to write in Arabic, and in the
following chapter we shall see similar reactions from other adversaries of
Phoenicianism. The Beirut that, in the 19th century, produced the most promi-
nent Arabic revivalists also generated in the 20th century the strongest non-
Arabic movement within the Arab world, and the above quote by ‘Aql should
be understood in this context. In his writing in Arabic, ‘Aql made an un-
equivocal statement that this language was good enough for the composition
of modern (nationalist) literature and that it was also a flexible language which,
with the right pen in hand, welcomed linguistic innovations. He demonstrated
this in 1937 in Al-Majdaliyya [The Magdalene] and again in 1944, with the
publication of his tragic play, Qadmus (Cadmus). He also illustrated in Cadmus
that Arabic could be “expropriated” from its Arab-Islamic context and used
to extol a Christian national movement, which refused to be related to its
Arab-Muslim neighbors. When Cadmus was published, ‘Aql was already
toying, along with other Lebanese poets such as Rushdi Ma‘luf, with making
colloquial Arabic-Lebanese into the formal national language of Lebanon
and its prime instrument of literary expression.122 This effort reached its cli-
max in the 1960s; in the 1940s it was only in its seminal stage. Cadmus,
however, was written in a highly literary Arabic, often with unusual gram-
matical configurations, befitting the reputation of ‘Aql as an innovative lan-
guage genius.
‘Aql wrote numerous times about the distinct identity of Lebanon, par-
ticularly in the 1950s-1960s,123 but Cadmus was undoubtedly his most distin-
guished Phoenician masterpiece, perhaps the most original Phoenician liter-
174 REVIVING PHOENICIA

ary piece ever written in Lebanon. Following its release, he was designated
the “architect of Lebanism” and the “soul of Lebanon,” becoming the phi-
losopher and teacher of Lebanese nationalism. “Lebanism,” he preached,
implied that Lebanon was Lebanese (neither Arab nor Syrian nor any other
designation), with a clear, explicit and remarkably unique identity — an iden-
tity that carries an unequivocal civilizing mission to the world — that, from
antiquity to modernity, has survived the vicissitudes of history. According to
‘Aql’s Lebanism, for 6,000 years Lebanon has been a “land of light” (balad
al-ish‘a‘ or Liban lumineux), radiating its lofty civilization to the rest of the
world. There were other Lebanese who spoke in similar terms about Leba-
nese nationalism,124 but ‘Aql cast into this theory his literary talent and idi-
osyncratic personality, making it practically his own possession. He began
working on Cadmus in 1937, when Lebanon was at the height of the struggle
over its cultural and national identity, and it is clear that this tragedy was his
response and contribution to this debate that pulled Lebanon into competing
cultural and national trajectories. Its publication in 1944 coincided with the
first anniversary of the November 1943 events and the recognition of Leba-
non as an independent, sovereign state with an “Arab face.” It was also the
year in which the Arab League was formed and into which Lebanon was
admitted, a move that stirred many waves within Lebanon, especially among
some Christians who absolutely opposed this move.125
The prime purpose of Cadmus was to extol Lebanese nationalism and to
elaborate on the mission Lebanon had been carrying to the world. It con-
tained a didactic message for all Lebanese, attempting to fire their national
sentiments by teaching them about what ‘Aql believed that civilizing mission
was. In case the reader did not understand this message within the plot of the
tragedy itself, ‘Aql provided an introduction that explained it in plain but
powerful words. Its main theme is that Lebanon is an undiminished home-
land and the Lebanese are an irrefutable nation, not because of some unique
geo-political and ethnic features, but rather because of the distinct spiritual
mission Lebanon has borne since the Phoenician era and even before. This
mission is embodied in Lebanon as the last capital of truth and tranquility in
a world of violence and ignorance (note that this was during World War II).
“What is Lebanon? When was it formed and why? What announces it?” ‘Aql
asks in the introduction, and responds:

A community of people who live on the eastern shore of the Mediterra-

nean, in an exceptional setting that is neither territorial boundaries, eth-
nic lineage, phonetic uniformity, nor unity of any history. Rather, it is a
conglomerate of efforts in an ascending road from the ignorance of the
material to the conscience of reason. Our nation is not a nation in the
political sense […]. By nation we mean a community of capable, illu-
minated, loving people and we declare that even if Lebanon was not
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 175
like that in absolute terms, it is still oriented, more than any other coun-
try, towards this direction.126

After explaining that Lebanon is a nation not because of conventional

Machiavellian socio-political requirements, such as borders and ethnic simi-
larities, but rather because of its spirit, ‘Aql moved to outline the capable,
illuminated and loving characteristics that made Lebanon a “nation of truth.”
The Lebanese are a calm and humanistic people, searching for wisdom and
addressing the uncorrupted truth in the world. All these characteristics are
only highlighted against the atrocities and narrow-mindedness which the na-
tions of the world experience these days. Why and how have we, Lebanese,
become like this, ‘Aql asks again and immediately replies. It was in Sidon
where the first step towards human intelligence was taken. There, in this an-
cient Phoenician city, man challenged destiny for the first time, using his
intelligence to create and then defy fate. After Sidon, there were three other
“intellectual foci” that led to the development of human intelligence and civi-
lization. In Jerusalem, Christianity, which meant love, universality and truth,
was conceived. In Antioch, this truth was cloaked in Christian dogmas. In
Damascus, the fourth focus of intellectual development, a political organiza-
tion in the shape of the Arab Caliphate took advantage of human develop-
ment and, for the first time, created an immense political structure based on
“the flame of belief.” Thus, these four points of convergence — the crux of
human intelligence — were based on the first and prime human experience,
which began with the Phoenician innovations that defied blind fate. To
strengthen this point ‘Aql provided a teleological historical description of the
development of human intelligence:

From Sidon proceeds a colony to Egypt, founding the most beautiful

quarter of Memphis, where a movement of thought provides the educa-
tion of Moses, the hero of the unity of God. Furthermore, an occupa-
tion proceeds to the land of the Greeks, building the city of Thebes, the
mother of Athens. And when the star shines on Rome of the order —
the heir of Athens of the logic — two of our four cities are opened for
Athens and Rome: Athens influences Antioch through Tarsus, and Rome
influences Damascus through Byzantine and Beirut. From the nerve of
Damascus, Andalusian Cordoba is born, becoming the world’s intel-
lectual capital between the years of 800-1000 AD. At that moment,
Antioch is completely relocated into Rome of the order, transforming it
into Rome of the spirit. From the former, the latter and from Athens,
modern Europe is formed, to which we have ceaselessly been attached
in the last two centuries through Paris, the spiritual capital of the world
and the depositor of its unique intellectual inheritance.
176 REVIVING PHOENICIA

This engaging and historically-arguable description provides some very

interesting insights into ‘Aql’s mind. Lebanon, for him, was the capital of the
world’s intelligence because it was the ancient Lebanese who planted the
seed of human reason and who bestowed monotheism on the world. All of
Western civilization emanates from this seed. More than anything else, this
patrimony, expressed in wisdom, reason, love and serenity, granted Lebanon
its national identity and national validity. Not ethnicity, natural borders or
geographic composition, but rather national temper is the one and only im-
portant component that makes Lebanon a “nation of the truth.” The introduc-
tion of Cadmus concludes with the following paragraph that summarizes the
idea of a Liban lumineux and its civilizing mission to the world:

Out of a powerful luminous and generous heritage, we have thrived at

the gates of Asia, in this extension of the patrimony of Europe, a nation
of the truth: and we, its people, have publicly declared in the face of the
West — that mixture of light and war — that we carry a mission to it,
allaying some of its recklessness, enriching its activity and directing its
vision far beyond immediate profit. A mission of six thousand years of
patience, contemplation, disdain for the material, altruism, aspiration
upwards and the consideration of spontaneity before consciousness, a
unique mission to the world is vested on us to ‘Lebanonize’ the world.127

It is difficult to overlook the French scent of this mission civilisatrice ‘Aql

prescribed for Lebanon. After all, it is not far from the grandiose and preten-
tious mission the colonial circles in France believed French culture carried
for the rest of the world. For ‘Aql, just as for these colonial circles, the civi-
lizing mission was intertwined with Christian faith as the highest expression
of a lofty civilization. Yet, whereas France indeed had the power to try to
Gallicize the world (even if it ultimately failed), Lebanon barely managed to
contain itself and its inhabitants in one political framework. This, though, did
not hinder ‘Aql and others from writing about the civilizing mission of Leba-
non to the world.128
The tragedy Cadmus is an exemplary illustration of the role of national
thinkers, such as ‘Aql, in the awakening of ancient (sometimes fictitious)
heroes, to remind and teach their nations of their proud and lofty national
identity. Many national writers preceded ‘Aql and others followed, awaken-
ing ancient heroes from the abysses of oblivion to serve as emulating models
for their respective nations.129 Heroes, such as Cadmus, are taken from what
is perceived to be the Golden Age of the nation — in the case of Lebanon, the
early Phoenician era. These heroes symbolize “a golden age of heroism and
glory which, like a shining beacon, furnishes a model for communal regen-
eration”130 wrote Anthony Smith. They serve as a point of comparison with
the present and assist the nation to reconstruct its ethnic history. In this sense,
Cadmus is not much different from, say, Hannibal, Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni or
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 177
Yusuf al-Karam. All three were depicted by the Lebanese national movement
as heroes of an immortal nation. Cadmus simply preceded them and allowed
‘Aql to locate the roots of the Lebanese nation in a time period that even
predated the events of the Hebrew Bible. Through Cadmus, ‘Aql wanted to
place Lebanon in a specific historical sequence, to direct the Lebanese to
behave according to his political beliefs about Lebanon and its place in the
Middle East and, finally, he wanted to entertain the reader with a story of a
Lebanese hero, perhaps the first Lebanese strongman, a refined form of a
Qabaday.131
Greek mythology recounts the following story of Cadmus and his sister
Europa. The young daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre, was playing at the
water’s edge of the Mediterranean when Zeus fell in love with her. He as-
sumed the form of a white bull and lured her to climb onto his back. Once
seated, the bull-Zeus reared to his feet and bounced into the waves, carrying
Europa with him to the southern coast of Crete. Zeus succeeded in convinc-
ing her of his love and as an expression of his affection he named the conti-
nent to which he carried her after his new love. Europa’s three brothers,
Cadmus, Phoenix and Cilix, set out to find their missing sister. Soon, Cilix
and Phoenix stopped their search and founded, respectively, Cilicia and
Phoenicia. Cadmus, the most persistent of the three, asked the advice of the
oracle of Delphi who suggested that he stop searching, follow a sacred cow
and settle down where the cow halts. Cadmus finally settled in Boeotia and
founded the city of Thebes. There, he fought and killed a dragon that tried to
prevent him from sacrificing the sacred cow to the gods. With the advice of
Athene, Cadmus sowed the teeth of the dragon in the ground and from these
warriors sprang forth, fighting each other until only five survived. These were
the five founders of the city of Thebes. Europa and Cadmus are never reu-
nited in Greek mythology. They have two separate story-lines. In ancient
Greece, Cadmus was considered a divine and important figure. The Greeks
ascribed to him the discovery of casting metal and the importation of the
alphabet. Europa’s place in Greek mythology was less significant. It is told
that Zeus left her in Crete, but not before she bore him three sons. She later
married Asterius, the King of Crete, and that is, in fact, the last reference to
her. Thus, her role in Greek mythology is primarily related to Zeus and his
relationships with mortal women, of whom Europa was but one.
Four characters feature in ‘Aql’s tragedy: Cadmus, Europa, Mira their
governess, and a blind Greek fortuneteller who symbolizes inevitable fate.
Mira serves as the axle of the plot, representing the spirit of the nation. She
(how else — a female as a symbol of the nation, Lebanon)132 also serves as
the inner patriotic voice that resides within Europa and Cadmus. She carries
the knowledge about the loftiness of Lebanon illustrated by the characters of
the two siblings. Whenever Europa doubts the sublime mission she bears
from the land of truth, it is Mira who reminds her where she came from and
what her message is to the world. The play opens with a discussion between
178 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Europa and Mira. The two are in Greece, after being carried there by Zeus.
Europa laments her solitude and her longing for Lebanon. Throughout the
play she is torn between her love for Zeus and her love and loyalty to her
homeland and her people. Mira, the voice of Lebanon, supports Europa and
reminds her of the mission she, as a daughter of Sidon, carries to the conti-
nent that will bear her name. In the meantime, Cadmus crosses the seas, search-
ing for his sister. Zeus, fearing that Cadmus might take Europa back to Leba-
non, leaves a dragon at the doorstep of Europa to watch after his beloved
wife. The dragon, of course, embodies the opposite characteristics of the ones
Cadmus bears. The man represents wisdom, tolerance and integrity, whereas
the beast stands for ignorance, intolerance and malignancy. Europa, knowing
about Cadmus’s efforts to retrieve her, fears lest the dragon fight and slay her
dearest brother. Through Mira and the blind fortuneteller, Europa tries to dis-
suade Cadmus from coming to rescue her, but to no avail; fate is stronger
than any other power. Cadmus does fight and triumph over the dragon and
after this violent struggle, he sets out to save Europa, only to discover that
she has already died. Cadmus is filled with agony and sorrow, yet the mission
of Lebanon to the world is completed. With her death, Europa resolves the
internal struggle between her love for Zeus and her loyalty to Lebanon, with
which she was grappling. Her message of love from Lebanon to the world is
transmitted. Cadmus himself remains in Greece and builds cities and civili-
zations with the assistance of Sidonite seafarers and the giants that sprang
from the dragon’s teeth. Thus, his mission of wisdom is also completed.
More than the plot, it is the underlying message that grants Cadmus its
major appeal.133 As ‘Aql explicitly explained in the introduction, the main
idea behind Cadmus was to justify Lebanon’s legitimacy as a viable home-
land (watan) and the Lebanese as a viable nation (umma). Responding to
those who deny Lebanon’s viability, the tragedy Cadmus concentrates on the
legitimacy of Lebanon and its merit over the nations of the world. ‘Aql lets
Mira exclaim it directly:
We shall endure! Whether they like it or not,
Then, withstand, Lebanon, there is no weakness in you!
We shall endure! There has to be truth on earth,
And there is no truth unless we endure!134

The two leading protagonists, Cadmus and Europa, symbolize two com-
plementary missions Lebanon conveys to the cradle of humanity. Cadmus
bears the message of wisdom and Europa the message of love. “Send me
tomorrow as a letter of love,” says Mira in the name of Europa, “from my
country the earth opens up in mercy.”135 Later, Europa declares again her
mission:

I am my country, and Lebanon is a pledge!

Not a cedar and not a mountain and not a water,
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 179
My nation is love, there is no hatred in love
And it is light, it does not go astray: and hard work,
And a hand creating beauty, and wisdom
Do not say: “my nation” and assail the world,
We are a support to human beings and its people!136

‘Aql then allows Mira to define Cadmus’s role again: “Cadmus arrived [in
Greece] to them, to these ages with writing, with knowledge, and tomorrow
they will learn that on the ships we carried the guidance to the world.”137
Elsewhere Cadmus himself describes Lebanon’s strength to the blind
fortuneteller. Reading the future and fearing the fall of Greece, the fortuneteller
asks Cadmus to return to Lebanon. But Cadmus is unwilling to do so before
his mission for Lebanon is completed:

I said that we shall embark boldly in sea and land,

We lead conquests after conquests
And from the small land we search the earth
We scatter our villages in all shores
We challenge the world, nations and tribes
And build — everywhere we yearn — a Lebanon.138

Just as Charles Corm did in La Montagne Inspirée, ‘Aql too ties the
Phoenician legacy to the world with Christianity. Already in the introduction,
referring to the truth Lebanon has been carrying to the West since the time of
the ancient Phoenicians, ‘Aql explicitly writes:

[…] we know that truth is strength (Qudra, which can also mean om-
nipotence of God. A.K.) and that truth is light and that truth is love. And
we know that strength cannot be strength without light and love, and the
same for the light without the other two, and the same for love. It has
already been said: truth is one, and added - the one is the Trinity.139

Throughout the play Cadmus it is clear that the messages Europa and
Cadmus carry to the West are strength, knowledge (light) and love, and these
three attributes, according to ‘Aql, reflect, in fact, the three dimensions of the
Christian Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity, then,
‘Aql explains, was manifested in Lebanon, the land of luminosity, fifteen
centuries before the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The Father
— strength — is the Godhead of the Trinity; the Son — knowledge — is
Cadmus; and the Holy Spirit — Europa — is love, God’s greatest gift. It
could even be said that the death of Europa represents the death of Jesus.
Both personages carried a message of love and compassion to humanity and
both sacrificed themselves for the benefit of their followers. From this per-
spective, Europa’s death is actually not tragic but victorious. Similar to the
180 REVIVING PHOENICIA

mission of Jesus to humanity, Europa transported the Lebanese Eastern spirit

of love and beauty to Europe, the land of war and hatred. Thus, despite Europa’s
death, Cadmus actually tells the story of the triumph of Lebanon and its spirit,
for just as Jesus was resurrected, so was Europa through her spirit that con-
tinued to live in the continent that since then has born her name.
Like Corm and Chiha, ‘Aql also believed that Christianity was an insepa-
rable part of the Lebanese identity. Even when he spoke about Lebanon for
all Lebanese, Muslim and Christian, he always used Christian terminology to
elucidate this identity.140 He shared with Corm the belief that monotheism
was a result of a Lebanese-Phoenician effort no less than a Hebraic-Jewish
endeavor.141 ‘Aql believed and preached, as did Corm, that the spirit of Chris-
tianity hovered above the shores, hillsides and valleys of Lebanon long be-
fore the birth of Jesus. For these two Lebanese nationalists this spirit meant
wisdom, peace-searching, universality, and beauty, all residing within Chris-
tianity-cum-Lebanon. Of course, Corm and ‘Aql did not contrive the link
between Christianity and the Lebanese identity ex nihilo. Since the 1840s,
the Maronite church taught the idea that Lebanism was tied to Christianity, a
view that was only strengthened with time and led, finally, to the formation
of Greater Lebanon, justified by this very connection. The Lebanist idea, as
formulated by ‘Aql, the Kata’ib and other Lebanese Christian nationalists,
was actually a novel variant of this old Maronite Lebanism. ‘Aql simply took
this idea and extended it to the beginning of human history, where, already
then, he claimed, Lebanon and the Christian spirit were synonymous.
Sa‘id ‘Aql came from an entirely different social background than that of
Charles Corm and Michel Chiha. As a Zahliote who always referred to this
city as his home, he was removed from the francophones of Beirut. He re-
ferred to Corm with great admiration, viewing him as a true Lebanese pa-
triot,142 but he shared neither with Corm nor with Chiha the comfort the two
exhibited within Beirut’s French circles. True, perhaps even more than the
other two, ‘Aql was influenced by French literary schools, especially the
writings of Paul Valéry and other French symbolists, to whom he constantly
referred as his major source of inspiration.143 Yet, he clearly felt more at home
in Lebanon, in general, and in Zahle, in particular, than in any other Western
city, Paris included. Thus, whereas Chiha dedicated a section of his poetry
book to Paris144 and Corm often referred to this city with great affection and
admiration,145 ‘Aql’s main focus was always anchored in Lebanon. The French
language, which he perfectly mastered,146 functioned as an instrument for
him, but never occupied his heart as it did for Chiha and Corm. Zahle, his
city, was even more predominantly Christian than Beirut, but its location in
the Biqa‘, a primarily Muslim region, midway between Beirut and Damas-
cus, shaped the identity of its inhabitants and made them highly conscious of
their Christian faith and at the same time equally aware of the wide geo-
graphic region in which they lived and to which they belonged. The city had
always taken great pride in the number of Arabic poets it has produced147 and
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 181
probably ‘Aql’s love, virtuosity, and authority of Arabic emanates from this
Zahliote tradition.
Another facet in ‘Aql’s social background was the village of Bikfaya, his
mother’s birthplace and where ‘Aql himself spent part of his adolescence and
where later he also wrote Cadmus.148 This village has been at the center of
Christian life in Mount Lebanon for over two centuries. It was the capital of
the Christian Qa’imaqamiyya in 1845-1860, and it has also been the home of
some of the leading Maronite families, most notably the Gemayyels, the found-
ers and leaders of the Lebanese Kata’ib. The social origins of the Kata’ib are
not the subject of this study, yet it is clear that ‘Aql, al-Saouda, another son of
Bikfaya, and the Gemayyels were products of Lebanon of the Mountain more
than Lebanon of the City. Although they spoke about Lebanism as a supra-
confessional framework, it was apparent that Maronite nationalism was their
prime motive and concern. This nationalism was rooted in the Maronite ex-
perience in the Mountain far more than either the cosmopolitan city of Chiha,
the affluent Greek Orthodox families from the “Quartier Sursock,” the Sunni
haut-bourgeois families or, to a certain extent, even Maronites who made
Beirut their home, such as the Eddés and the Corms.
Sa‘id ‘Aql has doubtlessly been the strongest arabophone voice in Leba-
non supporting the existence of a viable Lebanese nation, unrelated in any
aspect to its Arab neighbors. Nevertheless, when it came to his views about
Zionism and a Jewish state in Palestine, he unconditionally rejected both,
believing that the Palestinians deserved their own state and that the Zionist
movement was threatening the integrity of Lebanon.149 In the 1970s, when
‘Aql became one of the chief ideologues of the Lebanese Forces, he radically
changed his views, becoming a strong supporter of the cooperation with Is-
rael against the Palestinian presence in Lebanon. In the 1940s, however, and
especially after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, ‘Aql expressed
very strong views against Israel’s right to exist at the expense of an Arab
Palestine. He shared this view with Chiha, though for different reasons, and
he entirely disagreed with Corm on this point. It is an interesting issue, for as
a Maronite and a staunch Phoenician, ‘Aql was closer to Corm than he was to
Chiha, but we can see, yet again, that belonging to one confessional group or
another does not necessarily determine one’s political views in Lebanon. Al-
though ‘Aql rejected any national and ethnic ties with the Arab world, in his
manners, language and social worldviews he was still part of the human map
of the region and a Jewish Western state was a foreign transplant for him, an
intruder in an Eastern region. Corm, on the other hand, sat on the fence, with
one leg in the West and the other in the East. Like Emile Eddé, Albert Naccache
and others, Corm was able to view a Jewish state as a political and cultural
partner of Lebanon, a conception with which ‘Aql could not have agreed, at
least not before the Lebanese order disintegrated in front of his eyes and, like
many other of his compatriots, he had to reevaluate his worldview and adjust
it to the changing and painful reality.
182 REVIVING PHOENICIA

The differences between ‘Aql, Corm and Chiha surface also in the issue of
the national language of Lebanon. In a world of fervent nationalism where
language played a decisive role in the definition of numerous national collec-
tives, notably Arab nationalism, many Lebanese felt the need to find a solu-
tion to the seeming contradiction between their use of Arabic and their asser-
tion that they were not part of the Arab world. We have already seen the way
Chiha and Corm solved this dissonance. The former, followed by many Leba-
nese, asserted that Lebanon has always spoken one local language and one
international language, and today these were Arabic and French; the latter
wrote that the Lebanese national language resided in the heart of all Leba-
nese and it was, therefore, irrelevant what language was used, because, ut-
tered from Lebanese lips, all languages were, in fact, Phoenician languages.
‘Aql, conversely, remained faithful to Arabic, but almost from the outset of
his literary career he aspired to form a Lebanese language, based on collo-
quial Arabic Lebanese inscribed in Latin letters according to a simplified
system he himself created. There was no coincidence in the fact that such an
initiative came from a Phoenician, non-Arab, Lebanese such as ‘Aql. The
same phenomenon occurred in Egypt when, in 1926, at the height of the
Pharaonic wave, Salama Musa, one of the leading Egyptians promoting the
Pharaonic identity, called for the latinization of the Arabic characters and the
use of colloquial Egyptian as the country’s national language.150 The power
of Arabic as a unifying factor for all Arabic speakers was an issue with which
any centrifugal force within the Arab world had to grapple. Arabic was never
just another national language. It was an adhesive material, tying together
tens of millions of people “from the ocean to the gulf,” especially in the 20th
century as a result of the mass diffusion of literature, journalism, art and
ideological streams through the use of what Benedict Anderson called “print
capitalism.” ‘Aql’s major effort to transform colloquial Lebanese into his
country’s national language reached its peak in the 1960s, some two decades
after it began. Other Christian Lebanese poets and thinkers, such as Rushdi
Ma‘luf, Salah Labaki and later Anis Freiha, shared these views. Although
each of them spoke eloquent French, they preferred to write and create in
Arabic, their prime language. Barring any religious restrictions about this
language as Christians, they shared innovative and reforming ideas about
Arabic151 — ideas that many Muslims found difficult to bear. Despite the
almost inseparable tie between Arabic and Islam these writers did not see any
contradiction between the use of Arabic, on the one hand, and the belief, on
the other, that Lebanon holds a unique national identity, unrelated to the Ar-
abs, with roots that can be traced back at least 3,000 years to the ancient
Lebanese — the Phoenicians.
Sa‘id ‘Aql was the spearhead in a literary movement that gathered steam
in the late-1930s-1940s. He led a group of thinkers who, using French liter-
ary schools, wrote in Arabic about their love for their country, extolling its
countryside, people and ancient history. They were not necessarily labeled
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 183
“Phoenician” by their allies and foes, but in their poetry they often referred to
the Phoenician past of Lebanon. In doing so, they spread the Phoenician mes-
sage in Lebanese society to corners otherwise neglected. Salah Labaki, for
example, who, was briefly the deputy of Antun Sa‘adeh and the minister of
propaganda of the PPS, was a very important literary figure in the 1930s-
1940s. In 1944, he published his book Min A‘amaq al-Jabal [From the Depth
of the Mountain].152 It is a collection of legendary stories from Greek and
Phoenician mythologies, perhaps the most eloquent Arabic attempt to recount
mythological stories related to ancient Phoenicia-Lebanon. César Gemayyel,
the renowned Lebanese painter, embellished the book with his drawings, dem-
onstrating, again, that one did not have to be marked a Phoenician in order to
take a role in a Phoenician literary enterprise. Another example is Rushdi
Ma‘luf, a poet, teacher and journalist, who published in 1944 a book of po-
etry entitled Awwal al-Rabi‘ [The Beginning of Spring]. An introduction by
‘Aql opens the book, detailing Lebanon’s civilizing mission to the world.
The first poem is entitled Biladi [My Country] and is dedicated to ‘Aql and
Charles Corm, recognizing their patriotic eminence.153 The poem recounts,
yet again, the contribution of Lebanon to Western civilization since Europa,
the daughter of Lebanon, crossed the seas and settled in the continent to which
she gave her name.
When the young Sa‘id ‘Aql came to the literary and nationalistic Leba-
nese fore, Michel Chiha and Charles Corm were already in their late forties,
after more than two decades of intensive political, literary and commercial
lives. Corm and Chiha belonged to the generation that made the dream of a
Christian Lebanon a reality. But ‘Aql’s writings were no less fervently na-
tionalistic — perhaps even more so than the writings of Lebanese national-
ists in Corm’s generation. Corm, ‘Aql and Chiha have been among the strong-
est voices that advocated the Phoenician orientation of Lebanon, each in his
own way, and together they spread this Phoenicianism to most corners of the
Christian population of Lebanon in the City and on the Mountain. There were
hardly any Muslim Phoenician preachers in Lebanon, but the message of this
trio also reached parts of the Muslim population, particularly the Sunnis from
Beirut, with whom the Maronites shared many political and financial inter-
ests. By the 1940s there were already Muslim Beirutis expressing mitigated
Phoenician views — a subject I shall explore in the concluding chapter of
this study.

References

1 About Charles Corm’s metamorphosis from businessman to “homme de lettres,”

see La Revue du Liban et L’Orient Méditerranéen, No. 37 (February 1934). See
also Chapter II, note 133.
2 La société des auteurs libanais de langue française included in its ranks many
francophone Lebanese novelists and poets who wrote about Lebanon and its
184 REVIVING PHOENICIA

ancient heritage. It was not a large circle of writers and they formed a sort of a
cohesive social class, as is reflected in their books of poetry; often they dedicated
poems to each other or alluded to poems written by their cohorts. The leading
names that recur in these organs are Corm, Hector Klat, Elie Tyane, Fouad Abi
Zayd, Michel Chiha, Michel Talhamé, Georges Schéhadé, Emile Cousa, Alfred
Naccache, Maurice Hajje, Jeanne Arcache, Amy Kher, Joseph Harfouche, Joseph
Ayrut, Eveline Bustros, Edmond Saad, Marie Haddad and Blanche Amoun; all
were Christian, all had mastered French as if they were indeed les Français du
Levant and all believed that Lebanon held a unique national and cultural character,
different from its Arab neighbors.
3 La Revue du Liban et L’Orient Méditerranéen, No. 40 (May 1934), p. 4; CZA
S25 10250, a report of Eliahu Epstein, October 1934. Epstein reports that the
name of the group that used to meet at Corm’s house was “The Young
Phoenicians.” I could not find any other reference to this name.
4 Youssef Hoyeck is considered to be the father of modern Lebanese sculpture.
One of his most famous works was the first monument in Place des Martyres, the
central square in Beirut. Halim al-Hajj was another renowned sculptor who tutored
many Lebanese art students. Al-Hajj and Hoyeck participated in the 1939 New
York World’s Fair, on which I shall elaborate below. For more on both, see the
British-Lebanese Association, Lebanon — The Artists View (London, 1989), p.
128. César Nammur, Al-Naht fi Lubnan [Sculpting in Lebanon] (Beirut, 1990),
pp. 87-95, pp. 108-113; Edouard Lahoud, L’Art Contemporain au Liban (New
York-Beirut: Near East Books Co., 1974), pp. 82-88.
5 Eliahu Elath, Mi-ba‘ad le-‘Arafel ha-Yamim [Through the Mist of Time]
(Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, 1989), pp. 185-186.
6 AD Nantes, Carton 622, Meyier to MAE September 6, 1938. In a report on the
inauguration ceremony of Radio Levant on September 31, 1938 Eddé gave a
speech, beginning with the Phoenician message Lebanon was still carrying to the
world. See also Eddé’s opening speech at the Syro-Lebanese pavilion of the
Exposition des Arts et des Techniques in Paris 1937, where he also elaborated on
Lebanon as the political and cultural descendent of ancient Phoenicia. AD Nantes,
Carton 461, no date. See too CZA S25 3500, a report of Eddé’s speech in Paris,
in the Israeli daily Davar July 10, 1937. See Béchara al-Khoury’s commentary
on Eddé’s speech at the Paris Exposition in Haqa’iq Lubnaniyya, p. 216.
7 Following the November 1943 events, the Zionist emissary in Beirut wrote that
“Corm is in a panic” as a result of Eddé’s fall, and that he is working with friends
to try and reverse the situation. CZA S25 5577 Tzadok to the Political Department
December 25, 1943, meetings with Ayyub Tabet, Charles Corm, Pierre Gemmayel
and Albert Naccache.
8 Amin al-Rihani, Qalb Lubnan [The Heart of Lebanon], sixth edition (Beirut: Dar
al-Kutub al-Lubnani, 1978), p. 244.
9 In La Revue du Liban, no. 58-59(March 1936), pp. 38-40, there are excerpts of
French journals that praised Corm and La Montagne Inspirée. About Corm’s
winning of the Edgar Allan Poe prize of the Maison de poésie de Paris, see MAE
Paris, Vol. 628, pp. 102-103, p. 108, au sujet de Charles Corm, May 24, 1935.
10 L’U (December 1935), p. 89.
11 Al-Rihani, Adab wa Fann (Literature and Art), (Beirut: Dar Rihani lil-Tiba‘a wa
al-Nashr, 1957), p. 106.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 185
12 As part of his travelogue on Mount Lebanon, al-Rihani described a meeting with
three well-educated Lebanese women who mastered French but preferred to
converse in Arabic because they were “proud Arab women from the heart of
Lebanon.” They informed al-Rihani that they loved Lebanon in the same
magnitude Corm cherished the country, but they were angry at him for using
French and not Arabic, the language of Lebanon. Despite their ire, al-Rihani
wrote, they were proud of Corm and they admired La Montagne Inspirée because
it extolled the country they treasured. Qalb Lubnan, p. 229.
13 Ibid, p. 247. At the same time, as we shall see in Chapter V, al-Rihani also respected
parts of Corm’s Phoenicianism. In the critique he wrote of La Montagne Inspirée,
he mainly reproached Corm on two related issues: the fact that Corm used French
as his means of expression and the unconditional love of France. The third cycle
of Corm’s epic which is in fact the Phoenician hymn of hymns, is positively
reviewed by al-Rihani. See Adab wa Fann, p. 109.
14 A reference to the last section in La Montagne Inspirée, the hymn to the Sun.
15 Qalb Lubnan, p. 271-272.
16 La Colline Inspirée was first published by Barrès in 1913 (Éditions Émile-Paul
frères). It tells the story of the three Baillard brothers, Quirin, François and their
leader and eldest brother Léopold, who, convinced of the power of Christianity
and the national importance of the region of Lorraine to French nationalism,
undertook the mission of buying the land and the ruins on the hills of Sion-
Vaudémont in Lorraine. Their objective was to establish a new church on the hill,
to raise the symbol of Lorraine and to strengthen Christian power. Léopold’s
dialogue with the forces of the hill preoccupies most of the plot of La Colline
Inspirée. The hill itself, of course, is a magical place with a lengthy and sacred
history. It served as sanctuary for pagan gods before it was Christianized. It radiates
enormous energy that feeds the brothers’ spirituality. For example, when a
hermaphrodite statue of the pagan religion is found in excavations on the site, it
fills Léopold with energy and understanding of the power of the old religion.
One does not need to imagine why this book of Barrès inspired Charles Corm so
much.
17 La Montagne Inspirée, p. 39.
18 Ibid, p. 42
19 Corm uses the term “suffète,” the word used in Carthage for “judge,” which is
similar to the Hebrew biblical term “shofet,” a magistrate and a political and
spiritual leader.
20 La Montagne Inspirée, p. 44.
21 Ibid, p. 53.
22 Ibid, p. 61.
23 New Testament, Matthew, 15, 21-28. Marcus, 7, 24-30.
24 La Montagne Inspirée, p. 45.
25 Ibid, p. 57.
26 Usually this theory refers to “El” who was the prime god in the Canaanite pantheon
and with the development of monotheism became the proper pronoun of the “one
and unique God.” The fact that Corm chose to relate to Ba‘al is interesting, for in
the Bible, Ba‘al is notorious for being an abhorred deity against whom the prophets
fought ferociously.
27 Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, p. 189.
186 REVIVING PHOENICIA

28 Ibid, p. 188.
29 La Montagne Inspirée, p. 75.
30 The name Adonis is known only in Greek texts. It is derived from the Semitic
word Adon or Adoni (my Lord). This Greek-Phoenician god was one of the major
sources of pride for the modern Phoenicians, for it symbolized the fact that the
Greeks borrowed from their forefathers not only the alphabet, but also some
cultural customs, such as the worshiping of Phoenician deities. See the following
demonstrations of Lebanese fascination with the cult of Adonis: Habib Thabit,
‘Ashtarut wa Adunis: Malhama Shi‘riya (Beirut: Dar Majallat al-Adib, 1948)
and Adra Hoda, Étude Mythique, le Mythe d’Adonis : Culte et Interprétation
(Beirut: Librarie Orientale, 1986).
31 See many references to the Adonis River in the writings of French travelers, as
collected in Jean-Claude Berchet, Le Voyage en Orient, fourth edition (Turin,
Italy: R. Laffont, 1997), pp. 709-801.
32 La Montagne Inspirée, p. 76.
33 Ibid.
34 A reference to the only six standing columns at the site of the Temple of Jupiter
in Balbeck.
35 La Montagne Inspirée, p. 84.
36 Ibid, p. 85.
37 Ibid, p. 83.
38 Ibid, p. 92.
39 Ibid, p. 98.
40 Ibid, p. 99.
41 Ibid, p. 101.
42 Ibid, p. 103.
43 Ibid, p. 105.
44 Ibid, p. 106.
45 Al-Ma‘rid, no. 1022 (July 4, 1934).
46 “Jabal al-Tajalli” [The Mountain of Transfiguration (of Christ)], Ibid, p. 9-10.
47 “Al-Jabal al-Mulham, Muharrir al-Arwa‘” [The Inspired Mountain, the Deliverer
of Wonders], pp. 4-8.
48 It seems there were no hard feelings in Beirut between supporters and opponents
of Corm’s views. Shortly after the publication of La Montagne Inspirée, Corm
invited arabophone authors to participate in a new literary association aiming at
“strengthening the solidarity between writers in Lebanon.” Among the participants
were the Muslims Jamil Bayhum and Taqi al-Din al-Sulh and the Druze Khalil
Taqi al-Din. The Christian members included Buturs and Salma Sa’igh, Ibrahim
Munzar, Habib Thabit, Ilyas Abu Shabka, Karam Malham Karam, Fu’ad Afram
al-Bustani, and Amin Nakhla. La Revue du Liban, No. 40 (May 1934), p. 4
49 Corm’s speeches at this congress can be found in Études (January 5, 1936), pp.
74-83; and al-Mashriq (January-March, 1936), pp. 94-103. Not coincidentally, I
believe, both were Jesuit journals that took the effort to publish the words of
Corm. Corm reiterated the same ideas in a speech he gave at the Institut
International de Coopération Intellectuelle, quoted in La Revue du Liban et l’Orient
Méditerranéen, 60 (May 1936), pp. 8-9.
50 In “The Vow of Lebanon” Corm refers once to Muhammad and Islam as
contributors to the Mediterranean humanism, but it seems little more than paying
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 187
lip service to the Arab delegates from Egypt and North Africa who attended the
congress. The message of his lecture is unambiguously and decisively Christian.
51 For general books on the fair see Helen A. Harrison, Dawn of a New Day; The
New York World’s Fair, 1939-40 (New York: Queens Museum; New York
University Press, 1980); Larry Zim, Mel Lerner, Herbert Rolfes, The World of
Tomorrow; The 1939 New York World’s Fair (New York: Harper & Row, 1988);
See also Official Guide Book, New York World’s Fair 1939 (New York: Exposition
Publications, 1939).
52 AD Nantes, Carton 1442, French Ambassador to the USA, St. Quentin to Georges
Bonnet, MAE, July 20, 1939. In his report to the Quai d’Orsay, the French
ambassador described a small incident related to Corm’s speech. He reported
that Corm read his speech in English and referred to France only in the context of
USJ. After returning to his seat, the ambassador continued, Corm realized that he
had not said a word about the French government. He, therefore, stood up again
and this time improvised in French, thanking the French government and the
High Commission, reiterating the familiar words about the Franco-Lebanese
friendship. On this incident, see also al-Hoda, July 17, 1939.
53 The fair itself was designed with the motto of progress and futurism. Yet, past,
present and future were inseparably intertwined in its paths and pavilions. One of
the most spectacular and photogenic monuments that garnished the fairgrounds
was a huge sculpture of the Greek-Phoenician myth of Europa, daughter of Agenor
King of Tyre, carried across the sea by Zeus who had assumed the form of a
white bull. No doubt Charles Corm wandered around the plazas and pavilions of
the Fair filled with pride over the magnitude, the central location and the attention
given to Europa his great-great-great legendary matriarch.
54 AD Nantes, Carton 946, a report of a session of the Chamber of Deputies,
November 21, 1938.
55 AD Nantes, Carton 946, a report of a session of the Chamber of Deputies, March
30, 1939. ‘Abdallah al-Yafi was a member of the National bloc of Emile Eddé.
He acquired his secondary education at USJ and his law degree in Paris. This
may explain why he, as a Sunni leader with strong Arab conviction, still supported
Corm’s patriotism. On Yafi’s political views, see AD Nantes, Carton 1365, rapport
sur les partis politiques au Liban, December 17, 1942. p. 17. On his activity as an
Arab nationalist in his student days in Paris, see MAE Paris, Vol. 381, pp. 61-71,
Syrian students in France.
56 CZA S25 1511, The Diary of Bernard Joseph November 6, 1938. Joseph wrote
that Eliahu Epstein met with Corm while he was engaged in preparing the Lebanese
pavilion. “The entire character of [the] exhibits,” he wrote, “will be such as to
stress the Phoenician past of the Lebanon. They have been very careful to avoid
creating the impression that they are Arabs.” About the cooperation between Corm
and the planner of the Jewish Palestinian pavilion see below in this chapter. See
also Laura Zittrein-Eizenberg, My Enemy’s Enemy (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1994), p. 132.
57 AD Nantes, Carton 924, a report of Charles Corm, “Exposition Mondiale de
New York 1939.”
58 In the historiographical struggle over the identity of Lebanon, the Lebanism of
Karam was confronted with attempts to demonstrate that he was first and foremost
an Arab and the revolt he led was a popular Arab uprising. See Sarkis Abu Zaid,
188 REVIVING PHOENICIA

‘Urubat Yusuf Karam [The Arabism of Yusuf Karam] (Beirut: Dar Ab‘ad lil-
Tiba‘a wa al-Nashr, 1997).
59 Corm’s book, L’Art Phénicien (Beirut: Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 1940),
is in fact a collection of these sketches accompanied by glowing explanations as
to what was Phoenician art. This art, for Corm, was closely associated with faith.
It is “first and foremost profoundly human. It is also receptive, comprehensive
and liberal. Open to all forms of beauty it accepts them with plenty of sympathy
as seriousness, and it gives them an accent of gravity, quasi-religious, that does
not exist in any art of its epoch. No other object of art gives us the feeling we get
in front of certain Phoenician steles. It furnishes a sense of being in front of a
man, an honest man that believes in God, a honest man that respects himself and
at the same time respects the God that governs him.” Ibid, p. XIII.
60 Blanche ‘Ammoun (who married a French army officer who had served in Beirut)
was the first Lebanese woman to graduate from the Law Faculty of USJ, though
she never practiced law. Instead, she focused on painting and literature. She
published an illustrated children’s book, Histoire du Liban (Beirut: Éditions “Le
Jour”, 1937), recounting Lebanon’s history through the Phoenician narrative from
the Stone Age to the arrival of the French in 1918.
61 Faroukh contributed three paintings, one of the Khalifa Mu‘awiyya in Lebanon
and the other two depicting societal Lebanese games.
62 Marie Haddad was a Lebanese artist who resided primarily in Paris and became
a symbol of Oriental exoticism in the city. She published a book, Les Heures
Libanais (Beirut, 1937), with Corm’s Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, depicting
romantic images from Mount Lebanon.
63 The list of participants and their works can be found in AD Nantes, Carton 924,
Corm to Abdallah Bey Beyhum, October 23, 1940. Biographical notes about
most participants can be found in the following books: Michel Fani, Dictionnaire
de la Peinture au Liban (Paris: Escalier, 1998); Nammur, Al-Naht fi Lubnan; and
Edouard Lahoud, L’Art Contemporain au Liban.
64 Delahalle, “Pour l’embellissement de Beyrouth,” La Revue du Liban, 60 (May
1936), p. 20.
65 Delahalle, “L’architecture, élément du bonheur,” Phénicia (October, 1937), pp.
5-12.
66 Jean Dodelle was the editor in chief of La Syrie, the journal of French journalist
Georges Vayssié, who was an ardent supporter of Christian Westerm-oriented
Lebanon. Vayssié was very active in the artistic community in Beirut. Like Corm
and Eddé, he also cooperated with Zionist emissaries in Beirut and often wrote
sympathetic articles about the Zionist-Jewish enterprise in Palestine. CZA S25
3143, a report by Eliahu Epstein of a visit of Vayssié in Palestine in 1936, no
date. CZA S25 4552 II, Eliahu Sasson to Vayssié, May 28, 1934.
67 Boneville occupied senior Jesuit positions in and out of Beirut. He was the director
of the Cercle de la jeunesse catholique in Beirut, the rector of USJ (1927-1930),
the head of the Jesuit Order in Lyon (1930-1936), in charge of the Jesuit mission
in Syria (1936-1937) and of the entire Near East (1937-1939). His participation
in the planning of the pavilion demonstrates the close ties Corm maintained with
the highest echelons of the Jesuit order in Beirut. On Bonneville, see Henri Jalabert,
Jésuites au Proche-Orient (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1987), pp. 238-239.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 189
68 CZA S25 4549, Epstein to Corm, June 4, 1940; AD Nantes, Carton 1442 Corm to
Gabriel Puaux, the French High Commissioner, May 17, 1940.
69 Corm stretched the connection between the Phoenicians and Christianity in all
possible ways. In his L’Art Phénicien he wrote that standing in front of the steles
of Phoenician gods, one senses that “the god of our ancestors” did not possess the
cruelty and the monstrous power of the gods of their neighbors. Moreover,
Phoenician religious art already prefigured the purest representations of the
Christian art of the Middle Ages. L’Art Phénicien, p. XV.
70 According to Epstein, Naccache was married to a Jewish woman whom he met
in his studies in Switzerland. Epstein, “Ha-Tziyonut ha-Fenikit bi-Levanon”
[Phoenician Zionism in Lebanon] Cathedra, 35(1985), pp. 109-124
71 “There can be but little doubt that one of the factors which inspired the new
Phoenician aspirations was the Zionist movement which has encouraged them to
dream of reviving their own culture and traditions.” Epstein, The Palestine Post,
February 24, 1935.
72 CZA S25 3143, Epstein to Corm, October 24, 1934; Epstein to Corm, October
31, 1934. Corm suggested As‘ad Yunis and Amin al-Rihani as possible lecturers
who could come to Jerusalem.
73 One of these unrealized projects was related to Nahum Slouschz, a Jewish scholar
who wrote extensively about the ancient Phoenicians. Slouschz helped lay the
foundation for the historical thesis of the ancient Phoenicians as Hebrews. This
theory attributed the achievements of the Phoenicians to the Hebrew civilization
and viewed Carthage, for example, as a Hebrew colony. This very unique historical
Geschichtebild was embraced by certain Zionist Revisionists and later was fully
adopted by the Canaanite movement in the Yishuv in Palestine. Corm sent Slouschz
his La Montagne Inspirée and issues of Phénicia, and Slouschz was supposed to
arrive in Beirut for a series of lectures. However, for unclear reasons, Slouschz’s
trip never materialized. CZA S25 5581, Corm to Slouschz, February 27, 1938;
Corm to Epstein, February 23, 1938; Epstein to Slouschz, March 22, 1938. Epstein
to Shertok, no date. On another occasion Epstein tried to accelerate the publication
of Slouschz’s book, Otzar ha-Ketovot ha-Fenikiyot [Lexicon of Phoenician
Inscriptions], so that Slouschz could distribute it in Lebanon. CZA S25 4549,
Gardon to Epstein, June 17, 1940; Epstein to M. Gardon, July 7, 1940.
74 CZA S25 3500 Epstein to Corm, December 15, 1938; Epstein to Corm, November
14, 1938; Epstein to Corm, February 7, 1939; S25 5581, Epstein to Corm,
November 14, 1938; Epstein to Haim Greenberg, May 5, 1939. Greenberg was
one of the organizers of the Palestine Pavilion at the World’s Fair. Epstein asked
him to assist Corm in establishing connections with Jewish and Zionist
sympathizers and to use Corm to establish relations with Lebanese immigrants in
New York, so that together they could work against their mutual enemy — the
pan-Arab movement. Epstein added in the letter that moral support in this respect
was given to Corm by Emile Eddé, the Lebanese president, “who is one of our
closest friends.”
75 On Michel Chiha, see Fawaz Traboulsi, Identités et Solidarités Croisées dans les
Conflits du Liban Contemporain (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Paris, 1993), pp.
298-299; Traboulsi, Silat bila Wasl: Mishal Shiha wa al-aydiyulujiyya al-
Lubnaniyya [Michel Chiha and the Lebanese ideology] (Beirut: Riyad al-Rayyis
190 REVIVING PHOENICIA

lil-Kutub wa al-Nashr, 1999); Jean Salem, Introduction à la Pensée Politique de

Michel Chiha (Beirut: Samir, 1970); Khalil Ramiz Sarkis, Sawt al-Gha’ib [The
Voice of the Absent] (Beirut: Al-Nadwa al-Lubnaniyya, 1956); Eveline Bustros,
Evocations (Beirut: Éditions du cénacle libanais, 1956), especially the introduction
by Hector Klat.
76 Chiha spent six years at Saint Joseph College (1900-1906), taking classes in the
Oriental Seminar of USJ. Jesuit Archives, Vanves, RPO 44. Louis Cheikho,
Souvenir des Noces d’Or de l’USJ de Beyrouth (Beirut: Imprimerie catholique,
1925).
77 Béchara al-Khoury, Haqa’iq Lubnaniyya, (Beirut: Awraq Lubnaniyya, 1961), pp.
78-85; Hector Klat, Feuilles Mortes, p. 86, p. 110. Yusuf al-Saouda, Fi Sabil al-
Istiqlal, pp. 373-380.
78 Zamir, Lebanon’s Quest, pp. 158-159.
79 See, for example, MAE Paris, Vol. 526, Review of the press, July 17-24, 1932,
pp.148-149; September 24-28, 1932, pp. 180-181; November, 20-27, 1932, pp.
222-225. In order to preserve Lebanon’s Christian nature Naccache was willing
to secede Muslim-dominated territories to Syria in exchange for the transfer of
Syrian Christians into Lebanon. See AD Nantes, Carton 411, extracts of L’Orient,
August 26, 1931; September 10-12, 1931; September 17, 1931.
80 Zamir, Lebanon’s Quest, p. 158.
81 Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Lebanon (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1965), pp. 171-174. Michael C. Hudson, The Precarious Republic (New York:
Random House, 1968), pp. 264-273. Iskandar al-Riyashi, Ru’asa Lubnan kama
‘Araftuhum, pp. 61-77; compare with pp. 123-160.
82 Le Jour, April 24, 1935, Quoted in Sélim Abou, Le Bilinguisme Arabe-Français
au Liban, p. 356.
83 Ernest Renan, “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?” in John Hutchinson and Anthony D.
Smith (eds.), Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 17-18.
84 Ibid.
85 On Yusuf al-Saouda’s ties with al-Khoury see Zamir, Lebanon’s Quest, p. 67, p.
75; Béchara al-Khoury, Haqa’iq Lubnaniyya, p. 74, p. 78.
86 “Entretiens de Patrice,” Phénicia, 4 (April, 1938), pp. 1-5, as discussed in Chapter
II.
87 Even Edmond Rabbath contributed articles to Phénicia. This reflects the
ideological flexibility that prevailed in those days. One could be a supporter of
the Syrian-Arab national movement and simultaneously write for a Lebanese-
Phoenician journal.
88 Aurore shortened her married name to Ougour. I suspect she did so because in
the 1930s, an Armenian last name in Beirut would somewhat diminish her social
class. Working at the daily La Syrie, she became known as the first woman
journalist in Lebanon. AD Nantes, Carton 909, “Enquête sur la presse de langue
française dans le Proche Orient,” Nouvelles Littéraires, August 17, 1935. The
francophone social circles continued to remain similar. Georges Vayssié, the owner
and editor of La Syrie and a vocal supporter of Phoenician, Western-oriented
Lebanon, employed Aurore Trad-Aughourlian, who, three years later, published
her own Phoenician journal and provided another stage for the francophone circles
of Beirut to expound their views about Lebanon.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 191
89 Ibid, pp. 28-30, p. 39, pp. 42-43.
90 Perhaps the most serious attempt to consolidate this idea into a well-established
theory and to incorporate it into the national identity of Lebanon was made by
Sélim Abou, the Maronite-born Jesuit from USJ, in his Le Bilinguisme Arabe-
Français au Liban. This book was a very serious undertaking and still contains a
mine of information about the francophone and literary circles in Lebanon. But
its underlying agenda — support of the distinct non-Arab identity of Lebanon - is
clear.
91 Chiha’s realistic worldview surfaces in this context when he states that, unlike the
Zionist movement, Lebanon should not try and revive the ancient Phoenician
language. There were a few calls by Lebanese ultra-nationalists to revive the ancient
tongue, and as we shall see below Sa‘id ‘Aql actually tried to turn the Lebanese
vernacular into the official national language. Most likely Chiha reacted to these
attempts. Ibid, p. 53.
92 Liban d’aujourd’hui, p. 12. Chiha actually compares the Phoenician colony of
Carthage with the Lebanese immigrant community in Egypt.
93 Ibid, p. 22.
94 Ibid, p. 44. As Chiha himself attests, this is in fact a paraphrase of Lammens’
words about the identity of Syria, arguing that Syria is simply Syrian, no more no
less.
95 Ibid, p. 47.
96 “To be a Levantine is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to
either; to be able to go through the external forms which indicate the possession
of a certain nationality, religion or culture, without actually possessing it.” See
more of this illuminating and somewhat bleak definition of Levantinism in Albert
Hourani, Syria and Lebanon; A Political Essay (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1946), pp. 70-72.
97 Liban d’aujourd’hui, p. 13.
98 CZA S25 10255, a report by Eliahu Epstein about a meeting with Albert Naccache
and Corm who informed him about literary gatherings they conduct in Corm’s
domicile with the participation of other Lebanese francophiles, Chiha included.
99 Chiha insisted on using the term “Near East” instead of “Middle East.” For him
the Near East implied geographical and cultural affinity to the Mediterranean
and to Europe, whereas the Middle East was a wider definition, which included
central Asia. Lebanon, according to him, along with Syria, Egypt and Palestine
belonged to the Near East more than to the Middle East. Michel Chiha, Variations
sur la Mode Méditerranéenne (Beirut: Fondation Chiha, 1994), pp. 199-201.
100 Ibid, pp. 75-76; 99-100; 196-198; 202-204; 230-232.
101 United States National Archives, Scattered Beirut Regional Files, 1930. See also
Carolyn L. Gates, The Merchant Republic of Lebanon (London: I. B. Tauris,
1998), pp. 82ff.
102 This was the city of Hiram, King of Tyre that incurred the famous prophecy of
Ezekiel 27-28.
103 Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, p. 178.
104 Lahd Sa‘b Khatir, Mukhtasar Tarikh Lubnan [The Concise History of Lebanon]
(Beirut: Al-Matba‘a al-‘Ilmiyya, 1914), especially pp. 9-53.
105 See al-Saouda’s book, Fi Sabil Lubnan, p. 15.
192 REVIVING PHOENICIA

106 MAE Paris, Vol. 500, p. 86, biographical notes on al-Saouda, no date.
107 See especially his Tarikh Lubnan al-Hadari [The Cultural History of Lebanon]
(Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1972), pp. 13-127.
108 MAE Paris, Vol. 127, p. 257, Yusuf al-Saouda, “Note sur le nouveau statut du
Liban,” Alexandria, May 21, 1922.
109 AD Nantes, Carton 930, Renseignements, December 1924; AD Nantes, Carton
907, Notice sur la presse, no date.
110 See Chapter II, note 88.
111 AD Nantes, Carton 906, Notice sur la presse, 1929. A table of the diffusion of
newspapers in Syria and Lebanon. In 1929, three French dailies were published
in Beirut, with a circulation of 7,450, in comparison to twelve dailies in Arabic
with a circulation of 18,000. These numbers give a strong indication to the fact
that Arabic was the preferred language, even in Beirut in the heyday of
francophonism.
112 Sélim Abou, in his 1962 Le Bilinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban, p. 92, recorded
that in the rural areas of Lebanon, twenty percent of the adult population and
thirty-six percent of students were bilingual. The figures are certainly high, yet it
is clear that Arabic continued to be the dominant language. The Lebanese Kata’ib,
for example, the most powerful movement born from within the tradition of the
Mountain, used Arabic as its prime language to attract the Maronite masses, despite
the fact that its leaders were French-educated.
113 The impact of French Romanticism and Symbolism on Lebanese poetry and prose
have been the center of many literary studies. See, for example, Salah Labaki, Al-
Tayyarat al-Adabiyya al-Haditha fi Lubnan, Lubnan al-Sha‘ir [Modern Literary
Currents in Lebanon] (Cairo: Jam‘iat al-Duwal al-‘Arabiya ; Ma‘had al-Dirasat
al-‘Arabiya al-‘Aliya 1954); Umayya Hamdan, Al-Ramziyya wa al-Rumantiqiyya
fi al-Shi‘r al-Lubnani [Symbolism and Romanticism in Lebanon] (Baghdad: al-
Dar al-Wataniya lil-Tawzi‘ wa al-I‘lan, 1981).
114 See their writing and others about Lebanon in Jamil Jabr, Lubnan fi Rawa‘i
aqlamihi [Lebanon According to Its Distinguished Pens] (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-
Kathulikiya, 1964).
115 Biographical information about Sa‘id ‘Aql can be found in Jean Durtal, Saïd Akl,
un Grand Poète Libanais (Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines, 1970); Naji Salim
Nasr, Sa‘id ‘Aql, Faylasufan [Said ‘Aql, a Philosopher] (Beirut: N.J. Nasr, 1980).
116 Jalkh was one of the contributors to La Revue Phénicienne (January 1919), pp.
13-14.
117 AD Nantes, Carton 2395, Sûreté générale, information no. 266, January 22, 1936,
a list of activists of the PPS.
118 In his al-Sira‘ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri, p. 61, Sa‘adeh wrote about ‘Aql’s short
membership in the PPS. He argued that Bint Yftah was not Syrian enough for,
among other things, it dealt with what Sa‘adeh believed was a Jewish story rather
than a proud national Syrian story. Sa‘adeh also claimed that it was he who gave
‘Aql the idea to write about Cadmus, a true Syrian hero.
119 Al-Mashriq (January-March 1936), pp. 33-36; (July-September 1936), pp. 354-
350.
120 Charles Corm, La Montagne Inspirée; Michel Chiha, La Maison des Champs;
Elie Tyane, Le Château Merveilleux, Hector Klat. Le Cèdre et le Lys.
 THREE PHOENICIAN CURRENTS 193
121 “Al-Shi‘r al-Lubnani bi-al-lugha al-faransawiyya” [Lebanese Poetry in French
Language] Al-Mashriq (July-September, 1935), pp. 381-393.
122 L’Orient, June 10, 1945; June 24, 1945, an interview with the Lebanese poet
Khalil Mutran who mentions the experiments of ‘Aql to write in colloquial
Lebanese, and cautions the latter about these attempts.
123 See, especially, Lubnan, In Haka [Lebanon, If It Could Speak] (Beirut, 1960). A
collection of essays on the beauty, the nature, the people and history of Lebanon
with numerous allusions to the ancient Phoenicians.
124 Already in 1919, Corm described Lebanon as a land of light juxtaposed against
the darkness of the Arab civilization. See Chapter II, note 154.
125 See, for example, the pamphlet of Yusuf al-Saouda who wrote against Lebanon’s
membership in the Arab League. Étude Juridique sur le Protocole d’Alexandrie
(Beirut, November, 1944); see also Correspondance d’Orient, 511(March 1945),
p. 31.
126 Cadmus, p. 13
127 Ibid, p. 24-25.
128 See also the words of Pierre al-Gemayyel about the civilizing mission of Lebanon
as quoted in John Entelis, Pluralism and Party Transformation in Lebanon; al-
Kata’ib (Leiden: Brill, 1974), p. 77-78.
129 See, for example, the book of the Zionist Revisionist leader Ze‘ev Jabotinsky,
Shimshon [Samson], which shares marked similarities with ‘Aql’s Cadmus.
130 Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nation, p. 200.
131 On the Qabadayat, one of the most important Lebanese “institutions,” see Michael
Gilsenan, Lords of the Lebanese Marches; Violence and Narrative in an Arab
Society (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996). In Zahleh, ‘Aql’s city, the Qabadayat and
their fantastic stories of strength and wit have always been one of the identifying
marks of the local population. See in Alixa Naff, A Social History of Zahle, pp.
109-137.
132 Compare with Beth Baron, “Nationalist Iconography: Egypt as a Woman,” in
Jankowski and Gershoni (eds.), Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East,
pp. 105-124.
133 Salah Labaki also noted in Lubnan al-Sha‘ir, p. 205, that the power of Cadmus
lies more in the nationalistic content than in its literary form.
134 Cadmus, p. 127.
135 Ibid, p. 36
136 Ibid, pp. 116-117.
137 Ibid, p. 38.
138 Ibid, pp. 70-71.
139 Ibid, p. 18.
140 Joseph Sokhn, Les Auteurs Libanais Contemporains (Beirut: Société d’impression
et d’édition libanaise, 1972), pp. 25-26; Jean Durtal, Saïd Akl, pp. 75-77.
141 See the prayer of Mira to the One God in Cadmus, p. 144-146.
142 “Al-Shi‘r al-Lubnani bi-al-Lugha al-Faransawiyya,” p. 384.
143 See the short-lived literary review Renaissance, no. 4 (August 31, 1945). The
entire issue is dedicated to the French symbolist poet Paul Valéry. ‘Aql introduces
and concludes this issue which also includes an article by Hector Klat. See also
l’Orient, June 3, 1945, a report about a lecture ‘Aql gave in Arabic about Thomas
194 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Aquinas, Pascal and Paul Valéry and the physicality and meta-physicality in their
work.
144 La Maison de Champs, pp. 28-33.
145 See an interview with Corm in La Revue du Liban, no. 58-59 (March 1936).
146 ‘Aql wrote two books of poetry in French, L’Or Est Poèmes (Beirut: Éditions
Naddaf, 1981), and Sagèsse de Phénicie (Beirut: Dergham, 1999). In 1937, he
contributed two poems in French to the first two issues of Phénicia. On a few
other occasions he wrote in French, but in general the vast majority of his writings
is either in literary Arabic or in colloquial Lebanese.
147 Joseph Sayegh, Le Phénomène Poético-Social dans le vallée de Zahleh (Ph.D.
Dissertation, University of Paris), 1964.
148 Jean Durtal, Saïd Akl, p. 37.
149 Sa‘id ‘Aql, Mushkilat al-Nukhba fi al-Sharq [The Problem of the Elite in the
East] (Beirut: Dar al-Kashshaf, 1954), pp. 14-35. See also Naji Salim Nasr, Sa‘id
‘Aql, Faylasufan (Beirut: [s.n.], 1980), pp. 157-158.
150 Sélim Abou, Le Bilinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban, p. 258.
151 See, for example, Anis Furayha, Tabsit Qawa‘id al-‘Arabiyya [Simplification of
the Rules of Arabic] (Beirut: al-Jami‘a al-Amirkiya, 1952).
152 Salah Labaki, Min A‘amaq al-Jabal (Beirut: Dar al-Makshuf, 1945). See also his
Urjuhat al-Qamar [The Moon’s Cradle] (Beirut: Dar Rihani, 1955 [1938]), pp.
46-54.
153 Awwal al-Rabi‘ (Beirut, 1944), pp. 17-23.
 5

The Adversaries

Sometime ago, a wave of Pharaonism flooded Egypt trying to engulf it.

Almost at the same time another wave attempted to mark Lebanon with
a Phoenician imprint. Those who preached these two sophisms were
liars. Personally, I declare that Lebanon, Syria and Egypt are Arab and
they form the core of the Arab countries. We live and we die for Arabism.
Gébran Tuéni1

Opposition to the concept that the Lebanese were descendants of the ancient
Phoenicians crystallized only when the Christian Lebanese national move-
ment became identified with the Phoenician idea. This occurred only around
World War I and it is, therefore, difficult to find expressions against
Phoenicianism before 1914. Naturally, the most vociferous opposition came
from the Muslim population, which thoroughly opposed the formation of
Greater Lebanon as an independent entity, let alone as a Christian non-Arab
state. It can be said without doubt that the overwhelming majority of the
Sunnis, Shi‘is and Druze abhorred the view that their newly-founded state
was a mere political and cultural continuum of the ancient Phoenician city-
states and that they were actually the children of a civilization utterly foreign
to them. Only following the “arabization” of the Phoenicians were intellec-
tual Muslims willing to incorporate the idea into the Lebanese national narra-
tive. This process was supported by the thesis that all ancient civilizations of
the Near East originated from the Arabian Peninsula and all of them were of
Semitic-Arabic descent.
Among the Christian communities, opinions varied. The Maronites, Greek
Catholics, and other smaller Uniate communities generally supported the for-
mation of Greater Lebanon and endorsed the historical narrative of the Leba-
nese nation beginning with the ancient Phoenicians. There were, neverthe-
less, Maronites who publicly denounced the Phoenician idea. We have al-
ready encountered the Maronite journalist Ibrahim Salim al-Najjar who re-
jected the Phoenician claims made by the Lebanese delegation to the Ver-
sailles Peace Conference in 1919, and we shall discuss below the views of
196 REVIVING PHOENICIA

another Maronite, Amin al-Rihani, who called for the inclusion of Lebanon
into a larger Arab political unit.
The Greek Orthodox community was divided, too, over the Phoenician
idea. On the one hand, the vast majority of Greek Orthodox throughout the
Middle East supported and even led the pan-Arab movement, and in Leba-
non many Greek Orthodox supported Antun Sa‘adeh and his Parti populaire
syrien (PPS). On the other hand, there were Greek Orthodox families in Bei-
rut who were part and parcel of the Lebanese upper middle class, and for
them Greater Lebanon represented a financial blessing. They supported the
Lebanist idea, intermarried with other Christian haut-bourgeois families, and
formed a cohesive social class that was the spine of the Lebanese state. The
Sursuks, the Trads and the Dabbas’ were part of this class, and they endorsed
Greater Lebanon with the Phoenician historical narrative.2 Hector Klat was a
Greek Orthodox and we have already seen his Phoenician enthusiasm. Charles
Malik was also Greek Orthodox and a devout supporter of Western-oriented
Lebanon-Phoenicia. In general, Lebanese society and politics are character-
ized by intra-communal cleavages just as much as by inter-communal dy-
namics and it would, therefore, be erroneous to label all of the Christian com-
munities in Lebanon as supporters of this or that camp; we have already seen
that even among the Muslims in Lebanon, there were some cracks in the
opposition to the Phoenician idea.
Nor were the French unanimous in their opinions about the Phoenician-
Lebanese historical narrative. The French Mission laïque aspired to provide
an alternative to the Jesuit domination in Syria and Lebanon and to the pro-
Christian policy of France. As part of this stand they rejected the Phoenician
narrative, seeing it as another negative factor contributing to the political and
cultural cleavages in the mandatory territories. In April 1919, the head of the
Mission laïque attacked the Phoenician tendencies of the Maronites and the
Greek Catholics in Beirut and protested against the pro-Christian policy of
France in Syria.3 The Mission laïque continued to hold similar ideas after the
formation of Greater Lebanon. At a gathering of L’association syrienne arabe,
the Syrian club in Paris, Gabriel Besnard, the General Secretary of the Mis-
sion laïque, called for a more balanced French policy in Syria and vehe-
mently attacked the Jesuit domination in the mandatory territories.4 These
opinions of the Mission laïque were, of course, in a minority among the French
and, to a large extent, directed more towards the Jesuits than towards the
Lebanese themselves. The animosity between the two missions and their po-
larized worldviews continued to exist throughout the mandate period, often
erupting in exchanges of verbal insults.5
In the sections to follow I shall elaborate on several opponents of the
Phoenician myth of origin in Lebanon. I examine these adversaries through
the ideological writing of a spectrum of authors: the pan-Arab Muslims Rashid
Rida and (the Druze) Shekib Arslan; the pan-Arab Christians Edmond Rabbath
and Qonstantine Zurayk; the Maronite Lebanese author Amin al-Rihani; the
 THE ADVERSARIES 197
Muslim Lebanese writer and politician Muhammad Jamil Bayhum; and the
leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party Antun Sa‘adeh. These personali-
ties provide a wide range of views and opinions, which not only disclose
their own beliefs, but also tell us more about the weight and content
Phoenicianism possessed in its formative years from the turn of the 20th cen-
tury to the 1950s.

Arab-Muslims: Rashid Rida and Shekib Arslan

The Mission laïque was not the first to recognize the connection between
Phoenicianism and Christian Lebanese national aspirations. Rashid Rida was
perhaps the first to be aware of the association between separatist Lebanese
notions and the Phoenician narrative.6 A Muslim from Qalamun, a village
next to Tripoli, living in Egypt since 1897, Rida was well acquainted with the
political activity of the Syrians and the Lebanese in the Nile Valley. In 1914,
before Phoenicianism became solely identified with the Lebanese national
movement, he wrote in his journal al-Manar against notions of non-Arab
identity in Syria and Lebanon. Attacking the aspirations of the Alliance
libanaise branches in Egypt and America to form a separate political entity in
Lebanon, Rida denounced their claims for a non-Arab identity. Using the
platforms of the Lebanese Revival of Na‘um Mukarzal in New York and the
Renaissance libanaise of Faris Najm in São Paulo as the basis of his assault,
he attacked their pretension of having Phoenician descent, affirming that

... It is a clear mistake, for many of the inhabitants of the Mountain

[Mount Lebanon, A.K.] know that they are of Arab descent, among
them its princes [umara] like the Bani Ma‘n, the Bani Shihab, the Amir
Fakhr al-Din, the Amir Bashir, Bani Arslan and other Druzes. The rest
descend from the Arab and the Phoenician lineage, but they have all
turned Arabs through the unity of language.7

National identity, according to Rida, was directly related to language. Many

of the Spaniards, for example, were of Arab descent, but they stopped speak-
ing Arabic and, therefore, were no longer considered Arabs. The Lebanese,
he concluded, dream about something that is beyond their capacity. They
want to depart from their “grandmother,” the Arab umma and their “mother,”
Syria itself.
Rashid Rida played a significant role in the political struggle over the fate
of Syria, from the Young Turk revolution in 1908 until his death in 1935. He
participated in the activities of various associations — the Party of Decen-
tralization before 1914, the Syrian Congress of 1920, and the Syro-Palestin-
ian delegation in Geneva in 1921, to mention a few. He always advocated the
establishment of an Islamic state, granting the Arabs the prime and leading
198 REVIVING PHOENICIA

role in this enterprise. Islamic religion and Arab ethnicity were intertwined in
his ideology. He often claimed to be a brother of the non-Muslim Arabs, but
he just as often spoke in derogatory terms against Arab Christians.8 There-
fore, in his struggle for the establishment of Greater Syria as an Arab-Islamic
state, Lebanon was definitely a disturbing hindrance to Rida. As a Christian
entity, claiming to have a non-Arab identity in the heart of the Arab Islamic
umma, which he aspired to establish, Lebanon was not easy to swallow.
The battle Rida conducted against separatist tendencies in the Arab world
did not begin with the Lebanese and their Phoenician inclinations. Although
he was a marginal figure in the Egyptian political arena, this did not prevent
him from expressing his opinions about internal Egyptian issues. He vehe-
mently rejected the attempts made by the Copts to prove their “Egyptian-
ness” through ties with ancient Pharaonic Egypt. By 1920, the majority of the
Egyptian national movements claimed to be “Pharaonic,” but in 1908, the
Copts were among the first to claim to be the descendants of the ancient
Egyptians. They were the real Egyptians, they asserted, unlike the Muslims
who only arrived in the Nile Valley in the 7th century.9 Rida, fighting for the
Arab-Islamic cause on all possible fronts, denounced these attempts of the
Copts to stress a Pharaonic, pre-Islamic, identity in Egypt.10
With time Rashid Rida honed his criticism against the Lebanese and the
Syrian national movements. He utterly opposed the idea of the establish-
ment of a Christian state in Lebanon and a secular Syrian state.11 He also
sharply criticized the French policy of divide and rule, blaming France for
promoting a pro-minority policy by encouraging the Christian denomina-
tions in the Levant to possess a separate and falsified national identity with a
distinct historical narrative.12 This idea, that the centrifugal forces against
Arab unity were a result of colonial schemes, was shared by most of the
adversaries of the separatist national movements in the Middle East, as we
shall see below.
In his attacks against the non-Arab separatist movements in the Middle
East, Rida constructed a historical narrative for the Arabs that preceded the
Phoenician or the Pharaonic narratives. Like many national thinkers, he cre-
ated a comprehensive romantic myth of origin with all the required elements:
descent, unity, occupation, golden age, dark age and rebirth. The Arabs, ac-
cording to him, were a more ancient nation than the Phoenicians and the
Egyptians. In fact, they inhabited these lands even before the ancient civiliza-
tions of Phoenicia and Egypt, from the point at which the entire region of
what is known today as the Middle East was ethnically Arab. Islamic faith, as
delivered to them by the Prophet Muhammad, was the glue that united them
and provided the strength to sweep over the Middle East, North Africa and
Spain. But then came separation and disunity, bringing upon them an era of
stagnation. It was now time, said Rida, for the Arabs, through their faith, to
recuperate and regain the strength emanating from their lofty and ancient
history that had even preceded the days of Muhammad.13
 THE ADVERSARIES 199
Rida was not the only opponent of the Lebanese national movement who
tried to expropriate the Phoenicians from the Lebanese historical narrative by
asserting that the Phoenicians were actually Arabs. Rida’s ally and friend to
the Arab-Islamic cause, Shekib Arslan, did the same. Arslan, a member of the
distinguished Druze family from Mount Lebanon, joined the Arab-Islamic
camp, and with Rida and others relentlessly worked to create the envisioned
Arab-Islamic state. He spent most of his time working on the European front
for the realization of his political aspirations. In one of his appeals to the
League of Nations against the mandate system, he spoke on the question of
Palestine, stating that smaller and more backward countries had received com-
plete independence and become members of the League of Nations:

We think that also Palestine deserves to become part of the League of

Nations; Palestine, the land of Christ, of the Phoenicians who invented
the alphabet and who were the best seafarers of their time; Palestine,
the cradle of the Arabs that had long ago occupied the world [...] this
population is considered inferior to the Blacks. It is unthinkable.14

Shekib Arslan did not, of course, consider himself a Phoenician. He only

used whatever historical ingredients he thought would advance his political
inclinations. Expressions about the ancient past of one’s nation/country pre-
vailed in every national movement, especially in front of a Western audience.
National speakers from the Middle East felt the need to demonstrate to the
West that their nation and culture contributed the most to Western civiliza-
tion. The Lebanese did so through the Phoenicians and Arslan did so as well,
using, in fact, the same claims made by the Lebanese national movement of
being a bridge between East and West, from antiquity to modernity:

The awakening of the oppressed and, above all, of the Arabs, will be a
beneficial event and the civilized world needs to welcome its arrival
with sympathy, because a people, who bestowed throughout their his-
tory glorious services to humanity can be but an element of peace and
of social undertaking at the present and in the future. This people’s
intermediary character between East and West makes its independence
the primordial reason for the equilibrium of the nations that covet to-
day the possession of the ways of the world. The Arabs need to retake
their historic role and all the nations should be interested in helping
them in this sacred work, in the best interest of civilization.15

It is no surprise that from a very early point the Arab-Islamic camp op-
posed the Lebanist idea and its historical Phoenician narrative. Rashid Rida’s
life in Egypt allowed him to observe up close the two most powerful centrifu-
gal forces in the Arab world, the Egyptian and the Lebanese national move-
ments. Phoenicianism, as advocated by the Alliance libanaise in Egypt and
200 REVIVING PHOENICIA

elsewhere, challenged Rida’s two-fold ideology of Islam and Arabism. Not

only was Phoenicianism advocated by Christians, but these Christians re-
jected their “Arab-ness” and adopted a new identity, tied to the West. In Rida’s
utopian Arab-Islamic state, Islamic law would prevail, granting the “People
of the Book” rights according to the Shari‘a [Islamic law], and this was ex-
actly what his Christian adversaries feared and wished to prevent.

Christian Arab Nationalists: Qonstantine Zurayk, Edmond Rabbath

and Amin al-Rihani

Interestingly, despite, or perhaps because of, the unequivocal opposition of

the Muslims to the Lebanese state and its non-Arab symbols, it was actually
Christian Syrians and Lebanese who predominantly wrote and deliberated
against the Phoenician myth of origin. Their arguments are engaging, be-
cause, though belonging to minority groups, they challenged the raison d’être
of Lebanon as an asylum for minorities. Two of the most vocal Christian
Arab nationalists who opposed the Lebanese national movement and its his-
torical narrative were Qonstantine Zurayk and Edmond Rabbath. They repre-
sent the views shared by many Arab nationalists in Syria in the 1930s, when
the Syrian national movement was gearing up its struggle against the French
mandate, and the debate in Lebanon over its cultural and political orientation
was reaching a crucial point.

Qonstantine K. Zurayk

Qonstantine K. Zurayk (Qustantin Zurayq) (1909-2001) was born into a Greek

Orthodox family in Damascus. He attended the primary and high schools of
the Greek Orthodox Church in the city. In 1926, just as Greater Lebanon
became a constitutional republic, he began studying at the American Univer-
sity in Beirut. After graduation in 1928, he pursued his higher education at
the University of Chicago and at Princeton University, receiving his Ph.D.
from the latter in 1930. He returned to AUB and began teaching medieval
history of the Middle East. Soon, he evolved into a respected professor with
strong secular Arab convictions, which befitted the general atmosphere of
the university. The AUB campus had been the center of anti-French and pro-
Syrian activity since the inception of the French mandate and Zurayk became
a political philosopher for many Arab students attending the university.16
In 1939, Zurayk published in Beirut one of his most famous works, al-
Wa‘i al-Qawmi [National Consciousness]. He noted in the introduction that
the book had been drafted with the purpose of clarifying and spreading the
national idea, so that it would become a basis for collective action by the
Arabs. Soon after its publication, the book was adopted by the Arab national
 THE ADVERSARIES 201
movement, providing an ideological platform that described Arab national-
ism and its tenets. Al-Wa‘i al-Qawmi was published two years after Antun
Sa‘adeh’s work, Nushu’ al-Umam [The Evolution of Nations], which caused
a stir in Syria by framing the idea of nationalism in a way opposed to the Arab
national movement. Sa‘adeh claimed that nationality was a combination of
geographical factors and human will. People and territory were the required
ingredients of nationalism, not religion or language. Zurayk answered Sa‘adeh
and other opponents of Arab nationalism in his book, claiming that it was
language, religion and history that were indispensable for the creation of a
nation. Therefore, equipped with all three, the Arabs were a full-fledged na-
tion.
According to Zurayk, since the end of the 19th century a socio-political
and cultural storm had been sweeping the Arab world, awaking it from its
state of dormancy. In order to complete the change the Arabs were in need of
a national philosophy (falsafa qawmiyya), which would form the spirit of
their national movement, define its direction and assign missions to its adher-
ents. The objective of National Consciousness was to provide this philoso-
phy. Zurayk gave critical roles to Islam and the Arabic language as the most
important components in the formation of the Arab national consciousness.
He saw no contradiction between his Christian faith and his acknowledge-
ment of the role of Islam in the formation of Arab nationalism. Unlike Rashid
Rida, Islam did not mean the establishment of an Islamic state for Zurayk.
Rather, he perceived Islam as an agent through which all Arabs live a rich
cultural life. Islam provides the Arabs a cultural solidarity that can be shared
by all Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims. Christian Arabs, therefore, share
this civilization with their Muslim brothers, and are an inseparable part of the
Arab nation.17
After a lengthy preoccupation with nationalism in general and Arab na-
tionalism in particular, Zurayk moved on to deal with the opponents of the
Arab national movement. Lebanon, his new home, was the focus of his criti-
cism. A full chapter in the book is dedicated to confronting the Lebanese-
Phoenician national movement. There is a struggle in Lebanon, Zurayk wrote,
between different national doctrines “creating a disturbed atmosphere and
dividing the people of our country [sic.].” Lebanon needs to clear up this
murky atmosphere and establish an appropriate national dogma, which would
unite all the people of Lebanon.18

Today in Lebanon there is a group that says: we are Phoenicians, we

are descended from this people that has inhabited Lebanon since time
immemorial, from where they departed to near and remote coasts, trad-
ing and colonizing. Yes! they say, indeed other peoples entered Leba-
non: Aramaeans, Arabs, Franks and others, but they all, including the
Arabs, consisted of a minority, which did not leave a memorable mark.
The Phoenician race remained firm, and it still is.19
202 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Among the adherents of Arabism (‘uruba) there are those who say: the
prevailing blood in Lebanon is Arab. The Arabs penetrated this country
in ancient times, thereafter they occupied it in the seventh century and
spread throughout the land until racially they controlled the country.
The Arab race (jins) absorbed the other races that had dominated the
country before. Thus Lebanon was painted with a new human color.20

These two groups, continued Zurayk, claim to have distinct and different
blood, Arab or Phoenician. In order to discover who the Lebanese really are
and what the color of their blood is, one needs to look at the different peoples
that have inhabited Lebanon since the beginning of time. Just before the be-
ginning of history, Zurayk wrote, Semitic peoples began entering the Fertile
Crescent. They inhabited the entire region from the Syrian coast to the Arab
Peninsula. The oldest known Semitic wave brought the Phoenicians to Leba-
non. After them came the Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Assyrians. Their
domination, however, was only political and they did not leave their ethnic
imprint on the land. The Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, all belonging
to the Aryan race, also occupied the land and did leave some ethnic mark on
the people of the region. Of all the peoples that inhabited the land, the
Aramaeans, also Semitic, came in the largest numbers and soon constituted
the majority.21 Then, in the 7th century, came the Arab invasion. But even
before that, Arabs began penetrating Lebanon and all the Syrian lands through
different avenues: commerce, warfare and peaceful settlement. It is no won-
der that Arabs settled in the Fertile Crescent. The borders between the desert
and the fertile lands have never been sealed. Arab settlement had an effect on
the entire region, not only on Lebanon. The occupation of the 7th century
carried with it a flood of people of the Arab race (‘unsur) who utterly changed
the human geography of the region.22 Three main facts, Zurayk concluded,
emerge from this quick survey. First, the inhabitants of this country do not
belong to one single people, but rather to various peoples and races. Second,
the majority of the peoples who inhabited the land were Semites: the
Phoenicians, the Aramaeans and the Arabs. In lesser numbers came the Aryan
race: Persians, Greeks, Romans, Franks, Turks and Mongols. Lastly, it is a
historical misjudgment to claim that the Arabs were an insignificant minority
in the formation of the human face of Lebanon.
In order to prove the point that the peoples who had resided in Lebanon
since time immemorial were ethnically similar to the Arabs, Zurayk turned to
racial theories that had dominated the fields of sociology and anthropology
since the late-19th century.23 Scholars, Zurayk explained, divide the human
race into three main groups: Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negroid. The major-
ity of the peoples that inhabited Lebanon throughout time have been mem-
bers of the Mediterranean sub-group of the Caucasian race. They shared the
same size of head, color of eyes and hair and blood composition.24 Given the
fact that race (jins) relies on biological, and not on geographic and cultural
 THE ADVERSARIES 203
factors, there is no difference between Arab blood and Phoenician blood.
They both belong to the same race, the Caucasian Semitic Mediterranean
race. Therefore, he continued, the question of identity in Lebanon should be
discussed in political, social and cultural realms and not in the racial realm.25
Besides, even if the Arabs and the Phoenicians belonged to two different
branches of the same race, or to two different races, does this prevent them
from integrating into one joint nation (qawmiyya), Zurayk asks rhetorically.
Nationality is not based on physical features, but rather on social, intellectual
and spiritual foundations. France is a model of national cohesiveness and
unity, although it is composed of three different branches of the Caucasian
race — Northern in the north, Alpine in the center and Mediterranean in the
south. In the case of Lebanon, the Phoenicians and the Arabs are from one
branch and one race, so why cannot they unite like the French did?26
Zurayk concluded his arguments with high-flown words:

Let us tear apart the veil of ‘race;’ and the ghost of ‘blood’ that block
the light from our thoughts and discussions. Let us look at the lan-
guage, the culture, the customs and the historical memories. Let us start
looking towards the future so that we form the kind of life we desire
[...]. It is not enough that a Lebanese should ask himself, ‘What is the
language which I inherited from my forefathers: Phoenician or Ara-
bic?’ But rather he should ask, ‘What is the language that I want and
that I am interested in speaking, and that I would embrace as an instru-
ment for my culture now and in the future?’ The Lebanese should not
torment his soul with the question, ‘What is my culture — Phoenician
or Arab?’ He should take a different path and ask a different question,
‘What direction do I want to take in my culture: the Phoenician or the
Arab one?’ And last, and here lies the essential question, ‘Where would
I find my best interest, and implement my ultimate goal — with the
creation of an independent Lebanon separate from the other Arab coun-
tries, or with the connection of Lebanon and the Arab world working
towards a shared national life?27

Several interesting points surface from Zurayk’s disapproval of the

Phoenician myth of origin in Lebanon. To begin with, he did not dismiss
Phoenicianism as a figment of the Lebanese imagination. He acknowledged
the historical validity of the existence of descendants of the ancient Phoenicians
in modern times. He simply believed that racially they were not different
from the Arabs because they belonged to the same racial family. Second,
Zurayk perceived national consciousness as a cultural phenomenon, shaped
by language and human history. Lebanon for him was, therefore, an integral
part of the Arab world. The argument made by some modern Phoenician-
Lebanese of belonging to a different ethnicity was invalid for him, because it
was not biology or geography that carved a nation, but rather historical expe-
204 REVIVING PHOENICIA

rience. These differences in perception of national consciousness lay at the

center of the ideological debate among Arab and Lebanese nationalists (Antun
Sa‘adeh included). The former referred to language (Arabic) and history (Is-
lamic civilization) as the two most important pillars of the Arab collective
identity; while the latter considered biology (a distinct Lebanese or Syrian
ethnicity) and geographical determinism (Lebanese are molded by the dis-
tinct topography of their land) as the most important pillars. In his lengthy
preoccupation with races and ethnicities, Zurayk actually made an attempt to
answer some of his Lebanese opponents with their own ethnic arguments that
claimed they possessed a different ethnic and racial identity than the Arabs.
Zurayk never mentioned, not even in a footnote, the fact that Phoenicianism
was identified with Christianity in Lebanon. Possibly because he gave a cru-
cial role to Islam as the most important pillar in shaping Arab national con-
sciousness, Lebanon as a Christian entity posed a problem for his argument.
How could Christian Lebanese join an Arab national movement so closely
identified with Islam? The whole raison d’être for the formation of Greater
Lebanon had been the establishment of a Christian entity where religion and
nationality were intertwined, just as Zurayk himself claimed, but for the Arab
national movement in which Islam played the adhesive role.
Last, but certainly not least, in using the French example of nationalism as
a model of emulation, Zurayk broke away from the conventional Arab na-
tional thought that looked to Germany as a model.28 Zurayk was addressing
the Lebanese national movement that saw French nationalism as its beau
idéal. Many Maronites, especially in the 1920s before the days of disillusion-
ment, looked at France as the pinnacle of perfection, and Zurayk, although a
student of the Anglo-Saxon school, referred to France and its national cohe-
siveness to demonstrate that even the guardian angel of Lebanon overcame
ethnic differences and formed a tenacious nation.
The fact that Qonstantine Zurayk dedicated a full chapter in a book about
Arab national consciousness to challenge the Phoenician myth in Lebanon
indicates, again, the importance of this myth in the Lebanese political and
cultural arenas in the 1930s. It reflects the fact that Phoenicianism was not a
marginal intellectual effort supported by a select group of people; it was a
symbol of the entire Lebanese national movement. It was the historical justi-
fication and foundation for the separate existence of a Lebanese ethnie.
When dealing with opposition to the Lebanist idea and its historical narra-
tive, the American University in Beirut automatically surfaces as a center of
Arab political activity. It became conventional wisdom that AUB always hosted
and nurtured pro-Arab activities and that within its walls, future leaders and
thinkers of the Arab world acquired their education. AUB, Zurayk’s academic
home, has been portrayed as the antithesis of USJ — the former, anglophone,
the latter francophone; one pro-Arab, the other anti-Arab.29 The French cer-
tainly contributed to this image of AUB. From the very beginning of their
mandate in Syria and Lebanon they looked on AUB with extreme suspicion,
 THE ADVERSARIES 205
considering it a center for anti-French activity.30 The Jesuits of USJ, who
basically managed Lebanon for its first twenty years, regarded the American
University as nothing less than a foe. AUB was not only anglophone, it was
also sacrilegiously Protestant. In French reports on political activity at AUB,
one can read about Arab student associations being active in Arab cultural
and political activity, to the immense displeasure of the French.31 Qonstantine
Zurayk, therefore, fit well in AUB with his Arab convictions.
AUB had another facet, which often tends to be overlooked. Philip Hitti,
whom we met previously, was a graduate of AUB. Despite the fact that his
educational background more closely resembled that of many Arab national-
ists, Hitti evolved to be one of the most important scholarly voices for the
distinct separatist identity in Lebanon. Similarly, Asad Rustum graduated from
AUB and, after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, returned
to teach history of the Middle East; we have already seen his role, too, in the
dissemination of the Phoenician idea in the educational system in Lebanon.
Charles Malik, a Greek Orthodox graduate and teacher at AUB, advocated,
wrote and extensively proclaimed his support of the Western orientation of
Lebanon-Phoenicia. Rushdi Ma‘luf was also a product of anglophone educa-
tion, notably AUB, and yet he joined the group of poets who congregated
around Sa‘id ‘Aql, composing verse about the ancient Phoenician past of
Lebanon. Furthermore, AUB, like USJ, not only provided higher education,
but also managed an entire schooling system from kindergarten on up. In its
schools, the history of Lebanon was taught in a manner similar to that used in
the rest of the schools in Lebanon, regarding the history of Lebanon as one
unit, beginning in antiquity with the Phoenicians and proceeding to other
eras, through to modernity and the formation of Greater Lebanon.32
It is apparent that AUB, although a clear pro-Arab center, also produced
“neo- Phoenicians;” at the same time, USJ, clearly a pro-Western, Christian,
non-Arab center, produced its own pro-Arab students, as the following ex-
ample of Edmond Rabbath illustrates.

Edmond Rabbath

Unlike Zurayk, Edmond Rabbath (1906-1991), a Syrian Catholic from Aleppo,

acquired his education in French establishments: USJ and the Sorbonne in
Paris, where he received his doctorate in law and political science.33 It is,
therefore, interesting to observe his political convictions, considering the fact
that both his origin as a Uniate and his French-Jesuit educational background
resembled the Lebanese whose political views he rejected.
Rabbath actually began his scholarly and political career supporting the
Syrian national idea, separate from Arab nationalism. When aged only nine-
teen he wrote the book Les Etats-Unis de la Syrie, endorsing the idea of a
Syrian nation, as professed by Henri Lammens. For the young Edmond
206 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Rabbath, the Syrians were a full-fledged nation.34 Muslim Syrians are not Ar-
abs; they had lived in Syria before the Arab occupation in the 7th century and
they simply adopted the religion of the occupier who brought to Syria a faith
and not a race. Therefore, Christians and Muslims shared the same Syrian
origin. Rabbath’s francophone Jesuit education surfaced when he used his
Jesuit teachers, Lammens and René Dussaud, to strengthen his arguments with
scholarly bases.35 These views corresponded well with Rabbath’s confessional
belonging as a Uniate from Aleppo. In Greater Lebanon most of the Uniate
communities were in full support of the Lebanist idea. In Syria before 1920,
they supported the formation of a non-Arab Syria,36 as advocated by Georges
Samné, another Uniate (Greek Catholic) from Damascus, and Chékri Ganem.
Twelve years later, Rabbath, older and more experienced not only in
academia but also in politics, expressed entirely different views. By 1937,
the Syrian national movement was far more developed and sophisticated than
it was in the mid-1920s. The Franco-Syrian agreement had recently been
ratified by the Syrian parliament. Rabbath, by then a deputy in the Syrian
parliament and an activist in the Syrian National Bloc, was one of the archi-
tects of this agreement, making him an important protagonist in this national
movement.37 Syrian nationalism perceived the Syrians as part of a larger Arab
world and Rabbath expressed his political views accordingly. In his Unité
Syrienne et Devenir Arabe, published in 1937, he stated clearly in the first
chapter, “La Syrie arabe:”

Il n’y a pas de nation syrienne. Il y a une nation arabe, produit de cet

agglomérat de peuples qui, jadis, forma l’Empire arabe [...] La nation
arabe prend conscience d’elle-même. Elle existe, en ce vingtième siècle,
sous des formes plus ou moins nettes, là ou l’arabe est parlé et l’Islam
professé.38

Language and religion, he claimed, form the Arab nation. The first Arab to
seed the “national sentiment,” as defined by Renan’s Qu’est-ce qu’une na-
tion? was the Prophet Muhammad.39 Syrian nationalism, as part of the larger
Arab nation is, therefore, psychologically and politically manifested only
through the Arab framework.40 These views of Rabbath were very similar to
the ideas of Qonstantine Zurayk who published his aforementioned book two
years after Rabbath’s Unité Syrienne. In the sub-chapter “Origin of Identity,”
Rabbath elaborated on the ethnic composition of the inhabitants of Syria.
Like Zurayk, he claimed that all the ancient peoples that had inhabited Syria
were Semites. More importantly, all Semites came from Arabia through waves
of migration and invasion. The Arab-Islamic invasion was simply the last
wave of Semitic migration to the region of Syria. Semites and Arabs are,
therefore, synonymous appellations. In reality all the ancient peoples, whether
Babylonians, Assyrians or Phoenicians, were “arabes par l’esprit qui les
concevait, arabes par les bras qui les élevaient.”41
 THE ADVERSARIES 207
Language, Rabbath maintained, had always been the national factor par
excellence.42 Since the Roman era, Arabic language had been dominant in the
Syrian countryside. There had been a continuous struggle between Arabo-
Semitic and Latin Roman races until the last years of the Byzantine Empire.
With the Arab conquest, the Roman-Latin culture was eliminated from every
single Syrian mountain and valley.43 This argument was a direct response by
Rabbath to the claims professed by some Lebanese concerning their cultural
Latin orientation. The poem by Michel Chiha, quoted in Chapter II, plainly
elaborates on this Latin culture of which Lebanon was part, as a result of its
Christian nature and its location in the Mediterranean basin. The fact that
Rabbath himself belonged to a community that had been latinized through its
“Unia” with Rome did not prevent him from stating these views that chal-
lenged the religious orientation of his own community.44
Knowing the French up close and challenging them as a Syrian national-
ist, Rabbath blamed the French mandate for generating the idea that the Chris-
tians were descendants of the ancient Phoenicians. He asked rhetorically
whether the Christians in Syria were Arabs or simply Arabic speakers, and
then answered:

Le Mandat a donné le jour à une théorie qui voit en eux, dans un but
politique, les descendants des hardis navigateurs de Sidon et de Tyr. Et
cependant, la tradition et les faits rejettent un phénicisme aussi
intéressé.45

This “Phoenicianism,” continued Rabbath, cannot vanquish traditions and

facts that attest to an unequivocal Arabism in Syria and Lebanon. The
Maronites in Mount Lebanon, although they have a distinct local identity, are
as Arab as the entire Syrian population. They came to Lebanon from Hamma,
an Arab region, and all attempts to link them to the Phoenicians or the Marada
are futile.
After completing the discussion on race and ethnicity in Syria, proving
that all Syrians were Arabs, Rabbath moved to confront the Lebanese na-
tional movement. A quarter of the book is occupied with his attempt to prove
the historical injustice in the formation of Greater Lebanon.46 As in the case
of Qonstantine Zurayk, the weight and volume Rabbath devoted to Leba-
non’s Phoenician proclivities demonstrate the significance of the Phoenician
myth in Lebanon. The chapter begins with a quote from La Montagne Inspirée,
indicting Charles Corm as Rabbath’s main adversary in this context:

Ah! dites-nous surtout les siècles magnifiques

Où nous eûmes, sans cesse, un cœur religieux;

Comment nos paysans, près de deux mille anées,

ont maintenu la Croix, au milieu des turbans,
208 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Depuis les mers de Chine aux Méditerranées,

Dans notre seul Liban.

Mon frère musulman, comprenez ma franchise:

Je suis le vrai Liban, sincère et pratiquant.47

Interestingly, although a devout Arab nationalist, Rabbath recognized the

distinct nature of the Lebanese case in the context of the Arab world. This
duality, claiming, on the one hand, that Lebanon is an inseparable part of the
Arab world and, on the other, recognizing its distinct features, is reflected
throughout this section of the book. Rabbath supported the idea of the exist-
ence of an autonomous region in Mount Lebanon — a foyer chrétien — as
had existed before 1914 and acknowledged its particular culture, different
from the rest of the Arab world. Historical and social facts, he averred, ena-
bled the existence of Lebanese patriotism, an existence that cannot be denied.
Nevertheless, this particularism had always lived side by side with Arab sen-
timents. Rabbath not only acknowledged that Lebanon had evolved to be-
come a distinct entity within the Arab world, but even more, he wrote, Leba-
non was culturally influenced by the Mediterranean and the ancient peoples
that inhabited this basin:

Liban s’imprègne de l’esprit occidental, pour produire en définitive ce

merveilleux mélange culturel, composé de substance arabe rajeunie par
l’Occident [...]. La mentalité et les mœurs ne tardent pas à subir
l’influence de ce renouveau. Plongeant d’ailleurs ses racines dans une
atmosphère méditerranéenne, puisant une partie de son inspiration dans
les antiques réminiscences phéniciennes, l’esprit de cette population
intelligente s’ouvrait aisément aux idées de l’Europe.48

Turning the Phoenician myth upside down, Rabbath claimed that an Arab
civilization with Western penchant had been formed in Lebanon. Lebanon,
for him, was an “advanced lighthouse of Arab culture in the Latin Mediterra-
nean.”49 It was an Oriental beacon of the Arab culture and not vice versa, as
Christian Lebanese believed. They viewed Lebanon as a Western lighthouse
in the East, the farthest extension of the West in an ignorant East.
The criticism of Rabbath’s and Zurayk’s of Lebanese independence and
the Phoenician narrative was similar in essence. Both dreamt of an Arab na-
tion founded on unity of language, history and religion (Islam). Rabbath,
however, gave more space to the existence of an autonomous Lebanese entity
in Mount Lebanon and recognized, unlike Zurayk, its particular culture, in-
fluenced by ancient civilizations and the Mediterranean basin. The reason for
this recognition derives, possibly, from his Syrian Catholic origin and his
Jesuit French education.50 Rabbath was a francophile at heart and his views
on nationalism were very close to French national thought.51 Looking at the
 THE ADVERSARIES 209
footnotes in the chapter on Lebanese independence, one can easily see that,
although an Arab nationalist, Rabbath’s francophone educational background
led him to draw on the exact same studies that the Lebanese-Phoenicians
used to prove their non-Arabness.52
In their own views, Rabbath and Zurayq represented mainstream Arab
nationalism of the 1920s and 1930s, as professed by many Arab Christians.
The question of who an Arab was had been dominant in the Middle East
since the end of the 19th century, and the political ramifications of the answer
to this complex question were critical in the 1920s-1930s. Christians had to
come to grips with the fact that Islam and Arab-ness were intertwined to a
point of almost complete congruity. It was clear to all that before the 7th
century, the ancient Near East was inhabited by mostly Christians, and that
these Christians, in one genealogical way or another, were descendents of the
ancient peoples who inhabited the region. The question that remained to be
answered was how these peoples were related to the Arabs from the Arabian
Peninsula. In answering this question, Rabbath and Zurayq followed the the-
sis supported by many Arabs. They saw the Arabian Peninsula as a human
well, from which human waves of Semites poured out around the Middle
East, the Arab-Islamic conquest being the most distinguished and notable
flow.53 The Phoenicians, according to this narrative, were Arabs through and
through, by their Semitic race and their origin from the shores of the Arab
(Persian) Gulf. It was a powerful thesis that later enabled Muslim Lebanese
to accept the Phoenicians as their Arab ancestors.54

Amin al-Rihani

Among the adversaries of the Phoenician myth of origin in Lebanon, Amin

al-Rihani was one of the most intriguing and interesting. Al-Rihani long ago
gained a reputation of being a devout Arab secularist, who fought for Arab
culture and Arab political unity in most of his literary and political activity.
His religious and social background seemingly should have made him a strong
supporter of the Lebanist idea, a staunch Maronite and a Phoenician at heart.
After all, this is exactly what happened to Na‘um Mukarzal, who was born
and raised in the same village where al-Rihani was born, where he spent the
first twelve years of his life, and to which he later returned after long years in
New York. Al-Rihani, nevertheless, developed an entirely different worldview
from Mukarzal about Maronitism, Lebanon and the Arab world, for reasons
that may require a psychologist rather than a historian to analyze.
Amin Faris al-Rihani was born in 1876 to a Maronite family in Freiké
(Furayka), a village in the Metn district, twenty kilometers north-east of Bei-
rut. In 1888, Amin accompanied his uncle to New York and began attending
regular American public schools. In 1897, he returned to Lebanon, the first of
many trips between Freiké and New York. Al-Rihani began writing short
210 REVIVING PHOENICIA

stories and articles in Arabic and English for various journals published by
Syro-Lebanese in America and in Beirut. Na‘um Mukarzal was the first to
publish his works in al-Hoda.55 When Mukarzal established the Lebanese
League of Revival in 1910, al-Rihani wrote a passionate article in Mir’at al-
Gharb, calling for all Lebanese in America to leave behind past disagree-
ments and join forces in the struggle for the homeland, Lebanon. Al-Rihani
demanded that the Lebanese community look at other communities in Egypt
and South America as examples of political action and emulate their devotion
for Lebanon.56
In May 1917, al-Rihani began collaborating with Ayyub Tabet57 to set up
the Syrian-Lebanese League of Liberation along with two other Lebanese
authors, Gebran Khalil Gebran and Mikha’il Nu‘aima. Tabet himself was an
atheist, who, like al-Rihani, strongly believed in the message of the French
Revolution.58 In 1908, inspired by the liberal winds drifting in from Istanbul
as a result of the Young Turk revolution, Tabet wrote an essay about the French
Revolution.59 Yet, unlike al-Rihani, he remained a devout francophile through-
out the mandate period. The civil principles of the French Revolution may
have been the bonding factor between the two, but it did not hold them to-
gether for long. Tabet was a strong believer in the non-Arab identity in Syria
and Lebanon and a pro-French politician.60 Al-Rihani held the exact opposite
convictions, and was ultimately labeled by the French as a firm francophobe.61
By 1922 a famous author and nicknamed “the Philosopher of Freiké,” al-
Rihani traveled through the Arab world for a year and a half. He published
articles and books concerning this trip, all calling for Arab political and cul-
tural unity. At the end of this long and famous journey, he permanently moved
to Freiké and left his village only to give lectures and defend the Arab cause.
Throughout his literary life, al-Rihani was considered an eminent author in
Arabic and English who defended Arabism in a very distinctive way. He was
a dedicated secular Arab who disliked all forms of organized religion. He
thus differed from Rabbath and Zurayk who acknowledged the role and im-
portance of Islam in the Arab collective identity. For the same reason, al-
Rihani disapproved of the Christian nature of Lebanon and regarded its reli-
gious leaders as a devastating factor for Lebanon.
Al-Rihani’s relations with Lebanon were ambivalent. His love and affec-
tion towards Lebanon and the scenery of his village, Freiké, can be easily
seen in his writings.62 He, nevertheless, did not confuse this empathy with his
strong Arab convictions and his belief that Lebanon belonged, culturally and
politically, to a larger Arab world. His ideas about the history of Syria and
Lebanon were very unique. In an environment where every nationalist looked
at the past in order to cling to some lofty pedigree, al-Rihani judged the entire
history of the region as a chain of calamities. In Al-Nakabat [The Calami-
ties]63 he elaborated this view in detail, criticizing the entire history of Syria.
He felt that the multitude of conquerors and migration waves were negative
factors in the history of the land. They all contributed to the numerous rites
 THE ADVERSARIES 211
and nationalities, which had torn the country apart. The Phoenicians, the
Assyrians, the Hittites, the Cannanites, the Nabateans, the Greeks, the Ro-
mans and the Arameans had, and still have, a degrading influence on the
social and national life of the Syrians, he claimed. It was time to admit that
even the Umayyads were not the perfect rulers, as we tend to refer to them
today. The Crusaders also received their share of his criticism. They were
oppressors who raped the land and its women.64 Al-Rihani concluded one of
the chapters saying: “Syria, you are my country, you are the Babel of the
nations, you are the Babel of religions.” Elsewhere he asked, “Is there any
wonder that there is no country like mine?” and answered, “My country —
the residence of tribalism (‘asabiyyat) and the cemetery of nationalism
(wataniyya).”65
An example of the ambivalent relations between al-Rihani and Lebanon
and the Phoenician narrative arises from his relationship with Charles Corm.
As noted in Chapter IV, following Corm’s publication of La Montagne Inspirée
in 1934, al-Rihani wrote a critique of the epic in al-Ma‘rid, the literary jour-
nal of Michel Zakkur.66 It is a review mixed with positive and negative re-
marks and references to his friendship with Corm. His major criticism of the
work was Corm’s unconditional love of France. This love was expressed par-
ticularly in the first part of the book, a long stanza praising the French arrival
in Lebanon at the end of WWI. Al-Rihani also disapproved of Corm’s at-
tempt to “phoenicianize” different emigrant Lebanese authors, including al-
Rihani himself, by attributing their talent and the drive to emigrate as inher-
ited characteristics from their ancestors, the ancient Phoenicians.67 Corm’s
Phoenician inclinations won some cynical commentary from al-Rihani. Good
for us, Lebanese, al-Rihani wrote sarcastically, that Corm found remnants of
our country in the distant corners of the Mediterranean basin.
Corm, according to al-Rihani, was “the living example of the misfortune
of poetry and nationality.” Writing in a foreign language made Corm a lonely
(farid) poet instead of a happy (sa‘id) poet, because he did not use Arabic, the
language of Lebanon. Referring to the ancient Phoenicians, al-Rihani wrote
that Corm’s diwan was “the Phoenician hymn of hymns,” although al-Rihani
was not sure if they deserved it. He was sure, however, that Lebanon de-
served all the love that had flowed from the pages of Charles Corm.68
Despite such criticism, al-Rihani did not judge La Montagne Inspirée en-
tirely negatively. He praised Corm for his exquisite descriptions of Leba-
non’s countryside and applauded his passion for Lebanon. This duality be-
tween the love of Lebanon and the strong conviction that Lebanon is part of
a larger national collective, as manifested in al-Rihani’s review of Corm’s
epic, surfaces also in al-Rihani’s book Qalb Lubnan, a travelogue he wrote
following a trip to Mount Lebanon in 1936. The travelogue again refers to the
friendship between al-Rihani and Corm. Al-Rihani dedicated the book to “my
friend Charles Corm,” and Corm joined him for a section of the trip. The
book not only includes descriptions of al-Rihani’s experiences in Mount Leba-
212 REVIVING PHOENICIA

non, but also contains a very interesting essay he wrote as an integral part of
the travelogue on the history of the ancient Phoenicians, indicating again the
importance of this past to the modern history of Lebanon.
The essay is a long and educated attempt by al-Rihani to put the history of
the Phoenician city-states in a new perspective. He called the Western histo-
rians who had been writing the history of Phoenicians the extremists (or ex-
aggerators) of Phoenicia (ghulat al-finiqiyya), stating that they overestimated
this people by attributing to them lofty characteristics and achievements. Al-
Rihani also criticized the indiscriminate use of two of the most important
texts of that period, those of Herodotus and Sanchuniathon. He claimed they
could not be taken at face value, because their descriptions had been found to
be erroneous. Herodotus and Sanchuniathon, along with the Bible, the writ-
ings of Josephus Flavius and the Assyrian annals, provided the most detailed
contemporary account of the Phoenician civilization. Herodotus described a
trip to the Phoenician coast in the 5th century BC and wrote about the origin
of the Phoenicians from the Persian Gulf. Sanchuniathon, the Beirut histo-
rian (segments of whose book, History of the Phoenicians, survived thanks
to the translation of Philo of Byblos in the 1st century AD) described the
Phoenician civilization as it existed around the 10th century BC. 69
Sanchuniathon and Herodotus should not be the basis of the study of Phoenicia,
al-Rihani asserted, because of the chain of translations and interpretations
that prevent us today from regarding these texts as genuine descriptions of
Phoenicia.70
Unlike other opponents of the Phoenician idea, al-Rihani did not discredit
the Phoenicians, nor did he insist that they were Arabs whose achievements
should be credited to the Arab civilization. He wrote about their accomplish-
ments with a sober eye, and when needed he challenged many of the “truths”
concerning their civilization. There is no shame in the fact that the Phoenicians
imitated other civilizations, he wrote, for it does not diminish the importance
of theirs. They did not invent the use of glass, nor were they the first to use
silk and cotton, as is often claimed. Al-Rihani dedicated a full chapter to
demonstrating that the Phoenicians did not even invent the alphabet. It was a
joint effort of the civilizations in the Fertile Crescent, an effort that lasted
from the beginning of the second millennium until 1400 BC. Archeologists
found signs of alphabet use in the Sinai desert and in Ras Shamra that pre-
ceded the Phoenicians. As admirable merchants, the ancient Phoenicians
needed the alphabet as a means of communication and they did perfect it.
They deserve all the credit for this deed, but they did not invent the alphabet
ex nihilo.71
Discussing the relationship between the Greeks and the Phoenicians, al-
Rihani challenged the Frenchman Victor Bérard, one of the most important
scholars to lay the foundation for the theory that it was the Phoenicians and
not the Greeks who civilized the Mediterranean basin from East to West. As
noted in the Introduction, Bérard used the Odyssey of Homer to prove his
 THE ADVERSARIES 213
argument that the Phoenicians not only brought their merchandise to Greece
on their boats, but that they also carried with them their civilization to intro-
duce to the Greeks, a theory that was embraced with excitement by Charles
Corm and the new Phoenicians. Through his criticism of Bérard, al-Rihani
challenged the crux of the Phoenician image of the past. He claimed that
there was no trace of Phoenician presence in Greece in the writings of other
Greek authors, such as Sophocles, Herodotus, Pericles and others. The Greeks
did borrow, but they did so from many Eastern civilizations — from the Egyp-
tians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians and the Phoenicians. They borrowed
from a civilization 2,500 years old, of which the Phoenicians were only one
small part.
Al-Rihani’s essay continues in the same vein and addresses many other
issues concerned with the civilization of the ancient Phoenicians. Reading
his work, the realization arises that it is not a rejection of the Phoenicians and
their civilization, but rather a more critical view thereof. Thus, in several
parts of the essay, al-Rihani has no difficulty in referring to Phoenicians as
“our forefathers” (’Ajdaduna). Sometimes even the writer himself fell into
the trap of Phoenician romanticism, for example when he wrote that the
Phoenicians had emigrated in the same manner as modern Lebanese emi-
grate today.72
What made al-Rihani develop his worldview? He studied at the village
school in Freiké until he emigrated to New York, and there he was cut off
from the Maronite educational track. By the time he began his literary life in
1898, he had already spent 10 years in America. There he developed a strong
belief in secularism, separation between religion and state, and in the civil
values of the French Revolution. When Syro-Lebanese associations were
formed in the second decade of the 20th century, he supported them because
he believed they called for the establishment of a civil, non-confessional so-
ciety. However, when the end result was the establishment of Lebanon, de-
fined as a Christian state, al-Rihani could no longer support its existence as
such.
Al-Rihani appreciated freedom of speech and religious liberty in America,
but the cultural life and American materialism did not appeal to him. His first
return visit to Freiké in 1897, and his numerous trips back and forth, were a
lengthy root-searching journey, seeking out his own cultural identity. The
culture al-Rihani favored upon his return to Lebanon was strongly Arab, the
antithesis of American Western culture, towards which he had mixed feel-
ings. Upon returning to Lebanon he had to re-learn Arabic, because as a child
in Freiké, he had learned primarily French and some colloquial Arabic. He
testified that his mother commonly used the terms Bedouin and A‘arabi (Arab
from the desert) to frighten him when he misbehaved.73 He immigrated to
America afraid of speaking Arabic and hating Arabs, lest a drop of their blood
flow in his veins. His attraction towards the Arabs and Arabic surfaced as a
result of several English books he read in New York about their civilization.74
214 REVIVING PHOENICIA

The contrast between American culture and the new culture he rediscovered
through these books was not easy for him to ignore.
Al-Rihani was a literary person and his preoccupation with Lebanon and
its past was manifested through literary essays. In a way, he spoke in the
same language of those who expressed the Phoenician idea in Lebanon: liter-
ary pieces exalting Lebanon, its people and its scenery. By doing so he did
not see any dissonance between writing about the Phoenicians, albeit with a
critical eye, and viewing Lebanon as an Arab country. This complexity is
expressed in his self-perception. “My personality,” al-Rihani testified, “con-
sists of several opposed and harmonious personalities. Religiously, this per-
sonality is of Ba‘al, Adonis, monotheistic, Christian, Muslim and Sufi [...].”75
His self-identity was similar to the identity he prescribed for Lebanon:

I am a born Lebanese, my language and nationality (qawmiyya) are

Arab, and in my veins flows Phoenician, Canaanite, Aramaic and
Chaldean blood. My heart is in Lebanon but my soul is in every Arab
country. Even if I were a Christian Maronite, I would still be part of the
rest of the sects and religions, which dissect this [Arab] nation. I be-
lieve there is no life for the Lebanese without the proximity to the Syr-
ian, and there is no life for the Syrian without the proximity to the Arab.
There is no life for the Arab without detesting the restraints of religions
and tribal fanaticism [...].76

The lengthy preoccupation with the Phoenician narrative of Lebanon by

Zurayk, Rabbath and al-Rihani reflects the fact that it was mainly Christian
Arabs who made the effort to write against the Lebanist idea. Lebanon as a
Christian entity was, ideologically, more problematic for them than for their
Arab Muslim counterparts in the Arab movement. Sati‘ al-Husri, for exam-
ple, gave little attention to the Phoenician narrative in Lebanon, although
there was no question that he unconditionally rejected these claims. Al-Husri,
the Arab national educator par excellence, had other, more important adver-
saries to challenge than the Lebanese national movement and its presumed
Phoenician ancestors. Egypt, which al-Husri considered the Piedmont of the
Arab nation, was his major concern; the Pharaonic tendencies in Egypt tor-
mented him far more than the neo-Phoenicians in Lebanon.77 He only re-
ferred to the Phoenician claims several times in passing, seeing it as a foreign
idea imported by the French.78
For Christian Arab thinkers who believed in the formation of an Arab state
where all citizens of all sects were equal, Lebanon (just like the Zionist move-
ment) was a disturbing factor. The way to challenge it was, at first, to defy the
historical and ethnic reasons for its separate existence. Rabbath, the Uniate,
was the most moderate of the above three adversaries. He actually recog-
nized the existence of a separate Christian entity in the restricted area of Mount
Lebanon. Hence, his mild criticism of the Phoenician narrative. Zurayk, the
 THE ADVERSARIES 215
Greek Orthodox and Arab national thinker, was more critical of the existence
of Lebanon and did not accept its historical narrative. Al-Rihani, the Maronite
and the devout secularist, was more complex in his criticism. Although he
shared with Rabbath and Zurayk the idea of a large Arab country united by
language and shared culture, he also recognized Lebanon’s Phoenician past,
albeit not in the way Corm did. The Phoenicians belonged to the ancient
history of the land, constituting one facet of its character. Rabbath and Zurayk
represented, more than al-Rihani, the mainstream opposition to Lebanon and
its Phoenician narrative. It was views such as those of al-Rihani, though, that
finally mitigated the opposition to the Phoenician idea in Lebanon.
Phoenicianism as a non-Arab identity did not become part of mainstream
Lebanon in the 1940s-1950s, but by normalizing the idea that Lebanon did
hold Phoenician features, albeit with Arab lineaments, it was possible for
many Lebanese, who at first utterly opposed the formation of Greater Leba-
non, to reconcile to some extent with a national historical narrative beginning
with the Phoenicians.

Antun Sa‘adeh and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party

Of all the adversaries discussed in this chapter, only one, Antun Sa‘adeh, led
an organized movement with a clear political agenda and a distinct historical
theory that challenged the Lebanese-Phoenician view of the past. His party,
the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (better known as the Parti populaire syrien,
or PPS), posed a major threat to the existence of Greater Lebanon from its
inception in 1932 until Sa‘adeh’s execution by the Lebanese government in
1949 and even after, during the 1950s-1960s. Not only did Sa‘adeh defy the
right of Lebanon to exist as an independent state, separate from Syria, but, as
we shall see, he often used arguments similar to those raised by Lebanese
nationalists to accommodate their own reasoning for the existence of Leba-
non as a viable national community.
When Sa‘adeh established the PPS, the idea of a greater Syrian, non-Arab
nation had been in existence for at least three decades. Already in 1904, Henri
Lammens wrote about the importance of the geographical composition of Syria,
highlighting the uniqueness of a Syrian nation circumscribed within the limits
of greater Syria, and utterly different from the Arab ethnicity.79 In fact, well
until April 1919, the Syrianism that Lammens professed was dominant among
intellectuals in geographical Syria, particularly in Beirut, more than Arabism
or Lebanism. As we have already noted in the first two chapters, Chékri Ganem,
Bulus Nujaym, Jacques Tabet, Georges Samné, Charles Corm, and many oth-
ers publicly expressed their desire to establish “la plus grande Syrie,” as a
secular non-Arab nation, granting Lebanon a leading role in its formation.
They based these aspirations on the scholarly works of Elisée Reclus, Henri
Lammens and other French scholars,80 who scientifically “proved” the exist-
216 REVIVING PHOENICIA

ence of a Syrian nation since time immemorial. For reasons already explained,
by the end of 1919 most of the Lebanese who supported the formation of a
greater Syrian state had modified their views and begun advocating the for-
mation of an independent Greater Lebanon. They nevertheless continued to
base their political beliefs on the same learned works of Lammens and his
peers. Thus, Syrian ideology as expressed by Sa‘adeh can be best understood
against the backdrop of this stream that existed in greater Syria long before
the establishment of the PPS and which was the foundation of Sa‘adeh’s Syr-
ian convictions. This is also the reason why Sa‘adeh’s ideology was appealing
to more than a few Lebanese at its inception. Simply put, Syrianism was not a
far-fetched ideology in the 1930s. Greater Lebanon had been in existence for
little more than a decade when Sa‘adeh established his party with enough
supporters for his doctrines in Lebanon. Sa‘id ‘Aql, for example, began his
literary career as a supporter and member of Sa‘adeh’s party.81 The flirtation
‘Aql conducted with the PPS did not last long, and by the mid-1930s he left
the party and departed on an individual path of literary and political activity.
Another Lebanese who was infatuated with the Syrianism of Sa‘adeh was
Salah Labaki. For a few years, Labaki was vice president of the PPS and in
charge of its propaganda. He ceaselessly called for the inclusion of Lebanon
into greater Syria and the formation of a Syrian, non-Arab, state.82 On March
1936, Labaki even participated in the Conference of the Coast as a representa-
tive of the PPS and together with prominent Muslim Lebanese leaders called
for the annexation of Lebanon to Syria.83 Like ‘Aql, by the end of 1936, Labaki
left the party to become a leading literary figure in Lebanon and, as we have
already seen, he wrote extensively about Lebanon using Phoenician symbols
to glorify the country. Seemingly, one might notice a contradiction between
Sa‘adeh’s ideology and the Lebanese idea, but in fact Lebanism was con-
ceived along with Syrianism and not in contradiction to it. Bulus Nujaym
comes to mind as the perfect example for this illusive incongruity. In 1908,
when he wrote La Question du Liban, solving the problem of Lebanon was in
his mind, but he thought this problem would be best resolved in the wider
context of a secular non-sectarian federated Greater Syria. Although Nujaym
of 1908 spoke about a Greater Lebanon in a Syrian federation, he was no less
a Lebanese nationalist. In 1919, once the Ottomans were out of the picture
and the Syrian national movement had been taken over by the Arab govern-
ment of Faysal, he no longer supported the formation of a greater Syrian fed-
eration. With this in mind, it is easier to understand how persons like ‘Aql, the
Lebanese nationalist par excellence, and Salah Labaki, both began their liter-
ary careers as members of the PPS.84 It is exactly for this reason that Sa‘adeh’s
opposition to Lebanon’s integrity was so threatening. More than al-Rihani,
Zurayk and Rabbath, Sa‘adeh was very clear and adamant about his disap-
proval of the narrative of Lebanese nationalism, i.e., the Phoenician myth of
origin. In A‘da’ al-‘Arab A‘da’ Lubnan [The Enemies of the Arabs, the En-
emies of Lebanon] he clearly stated:
 THE ADVERSARIES 217
There are those who claim, misleading the people, that the Lebanese
question is not a religious one, but rather a racial, social and historical
question. They justify this by affiliating the Lebanese with the
Phoenicians, distinguishing them from the rest of the Syrians, asserting
that the Lebanese have always been an independent country, and other
similar groundless arguments. The descent between the Lebanese and
the Phoenicians is baseless. Its falsity is proved by anthropological and
genealogical scientific facts. […] It is not Lebanon that derives its ori-
gin from the Phoenicians, but rather Syria!85

Clearly, Sa‘adeh’s disapproval of Phoenicianism emanated from its asso-

ciation with Lebanese Christian nationalism, which he rebuked. Lebanon’s
existence was based on a religious rationale and Phoenicianism was invalid
for him not so much because he thought it was fictitious, but more because he
believed these Phoenicians were actually Syrians and Syrianism was not a
religious identification. As we shall see below, this theme of utter rejection of
Phoenicianism in the Lebanese context and its embrace in the Syrian context
was a recurrent motif in his writings about the national identity of the two.
In 1947, two years before his swift overnight trial and execution by the
Lebanese government, Antun Sa‘adeh published the principles of the PPS in
a book entitled Kitab al-Ta‘alim al-Suriyya al-Qawmiyya al-Ijtima‘iyya [The
Syrian Social Nationalist Book of Teachings].86 The book is divided into two
parts: the first contains eight “fundamental principles” for the existence of a
Syrian nation and the second carries five additional “reform principles.” The
fourth principle in part one deals with the historical unity of the Syrian nation
and is summarized by Sa‘adeh as follows: “The Syrian umma is the unity of
the Syrian people, born out of a lengthy history going back to prehistoric
times.”87 A careful reading of this section of the book reveals that it was, in
fact, a direct response by Sa‘adeh to the political and cultural division in
Lebanon. Sa‘adeh referred to the two major political groups that divided Leba-
nese society, naming them the “Arab-Muslim” and “Phoenician-Christian”
camps. He began this fourth principle by demonstrating that he did not view
the Syrian nation as one pure racial stock but rather as an amalgam of races,
ethnicities and peoples that had lived in the Syrian land throughout history,
left their ethnic imprint, and added another component to the Syrian identity.
Thus he stated that the Syrian nation

constitutes the final outcome of a long history comprised of all nations

that have settled in these countries and mingled therein, from the Late
Stone Age, prior to the Chaldeans and Canaanites, down to the Amorites,
Aramaeans, Assyrians, Hittites, and Akkadians, all of whom eventu-
ally became one nation. Thus, we see that the principle of Syrian na-
tionality is not based upon common descent but upon the social and
natural unity of a mixture of stock.88
218 REVIVING PHOENICIA

The Phoenicians, for Sa‘adeh, were one more group of people that inhab-
ited Syria and assisted in the composition of the Syrian nation. Syria, he
believed, was no more Phoenician than it was Chaldean or Aramaean, al-
though, as we shall see below, in other writings he did attribute to the ancient
Phoenicians much credit for their contribution to humanity. Interestingly, re-
ferring to the Arabs in Syria, Sa‘adeh clearly stated that:

This [fourth] principle does not absolutely rule out that the Syrian na-
tion is one of the nations of the Arab world, or one of the Arab nations.
Similarly, the existence of the Syrian nation as an Arab nation does not
rule out that Syria is a full-fledged nation with rights to absolute self-
rule for itself and its watan, and, consequently, has a self-existing na-
tional cause, independent of any other cause.89

Neglecting this fundamental principle, explained Sa‘adeh, was the reason

for the religious rivalries that had divided Syria between Arab-Muslim incli-
nations and Christian-Phoenician propensities, that had torn apart the unity
of the nation and diminished its strength. Implementing this principle would
save Syria from the racial arrogance that characterized Syrian communal life
today. The Syrians who felt they were Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Arabs or
Crusaders could hold on to their beliefs as long as they followed this princi-
ple of national, social and egalitarian unity of rights and duties indistinguish-
able from blood or genealogical differences. This principle, Sa‘adeh con-
cluded, offers a synthesis between the thesis of Phoenician chauvinism and
the antithesis of Arab chauvinism, or vice versa. It allows us to think about
one Syrian nation, united in its history and geography.90
Similarly to Zurayk and Rabbath, Sa‘adeh divided Lebanon into two camps,
Phoenician and Arab. He knew well that Phoenicianism was directly related
to the Christian, Western-oriented camp in Lebanon and, therefore, he could
not agree with the arguments supporting the existence of a modern Phoenician
nation in the image of Greater Lebanon. His ardent secular worldview, on the
one hand, and the firm identification of Phoenicianism in the 1930s with the
francophones of Beirut, on the other, alienated Sa‘adeh from the social group
that advocated the francophone Phoenician idea. He strongly disliked the
Maronite hegemony in Lebanon for social and ideological reasons. Ideologi-
cally, he could not agree with the correlation the Maronites made between
religion and national sentiments. Socio-politically, the Maronite’s francophone
tendencies and their hegemony in Lebanon in general and in Beirut in par-
ticular was disturbing for Sa‘adeh. As a returning immigrant he was an out-
sider in Beirut without concrete contacts to any local power-base. He was not
part of the francophone circles, nor was he a member of the wealthy Greek
Orthodox families that dominated the financial life in the city. He found part-
time work in AUB as a German teacher — a marginal position that enabled
 THE ADVERSARIES 219
him to meet students and teach his ideology — but it did not introduce him to
any socio-political power in the city.
As part of Sa‘adeh’s attempt to appropriate the Phoenicians into his ideol-
ogy, he often referred to the ancient Phoenician-Syrians in his nationalistic
writing, almost always using parentheses for the word “Phoenician” next to
the synonymous term “Canaanite.” As noted in the Introduction, the ancient
Phoenicians did call themselves Canaanites, but the latter term was more
inclusive than the term Phoenician, for it included the entire land of Canaan,
which roughly corresponded with Sa‘adeh’s definition of geographical Syria.
In his most famous nationalistic pamphlet, Nushu’al-Umam [The Evolution
of Nations], Sa‘adeh granted the Canaanites with no less than the discovery
of nationalist sentiments.91 They were the first people who practiced patriot-
ism (mahabbat al-watan) and social cohesion in accordance with national
sentiment. Moreover, the Canaanite-Phoenicians, he claimed, brought into
being the civil state that later served as a model for the Greeks and the Ro-
mans. The Phoenicians, wrote Sa‘adeh, also founded other forms of govern-
ment such as the electoral monarchy and the democratic state. Thus, while
the neo-Phoenicians in Lebanon bestowed on their ancestors, the ancient
Phoenicians, the civilizing role of the ancient world; Sa‘adeh granted the
Syrians, as a whole, the same attributes. “It was they [the Syrians],” he wrote,
“who civilized the Greeks and laid the foundations of Mediterranean civili-
zation which the Greeks later joined.”92
The ancient Phoenicians, it seems, then, were a desired commodity not
only for the Lebanese national movement. Syrianism à la Sa‘adeh was just as
eager to incorporate them into its own national narrative. Yet, for Lebanese
nationalists such as Corm, ‘Aql and al-Saouda, Phoenicianism was the na-
tional identity of Lebanon, whereas for Sa‘adeh, the Phoenician past was one
facet, albeit glorious, of a lengthy historical experience of the entire Syrian
terrain. In a way, it was another variant of Phoenicianism, out of several, that
existed in Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s. It clarifies why ‘Aql and Labaki
found the ideology of the PPS so appealing at first, and why the poet Adonis
was also attracted to the party. It also helps explain why Sa‘adeh’s ideology
posed such a threat to the Lebanese national movement. It was the major
secular ideological alternative to Lebanese nationalism that provided a whole
worldview, from its perception of history to its understanding of contempo-
rary national conduct. Moreover, it came from within Lebanese society and
was based on existing political currents among many intellectuals who be-
lieved that the objectives for which Greater Lebanon was established could
actually best be met through the formation of a large secular Syrian nation. If
we strip Sa‘adeh’s ideology from its vociferous nature and fascist tendencies,
we would find, at the core, that it was not too far from the Lebanist idea, as
conceived in the first decade of the 20th century by liberal lay Lebanese such
as Bulus Nujaym and Philip and Farid al-Khazin, who sought to solve the
220 REVIVING PHOENICIA

problem of Lebanon by expanding its borders, but in a context of a Syrian

federation.

Muhammad Jamil Bayhum and Sunni Lebanese

It is impossible to conclude a discussion about the adversaries to the Phoenician

idea in Lebanon without referring to the largest opposition group. This was,
of course, the Sunni community, for years the second largest sect, which the
national pact of 1943 named a partner of the Maronites in the division of
political power in Lebanon. Muhammad Jamil Bayhum, the Beiruti Sunni
politician and writer, who lived through much of the era discussed in this
study, is a good representative of the Sunni bourgeoisie in Beirut. In his argu-
ments against the non-Arab identity of Lebanon Bayhum set the ground for
most of the arguments of the Muslim Lebanese and, therefore, he is an appro-
priate person to round out the discussion of the Phoenician adversaries.
Bayhum (1887-1978)93 was born into one of the wealthiest Sunni families in
Beirut. He acquired his education at the Ottoman Islamic College in the city94
and at the Mission Laïque School. As a member of this fortunate class, he
assumed leadership positions from an early stage of his political career. In
1916 he was a member of the municipal council of Beirut and in 1919-1920,
he participated in the short-lived government of Faysal in Damascus as a
delegate from Beirut — to mention two of his posts. Throughout the mandate
years he stood out as a staunch supporter of Arab unity, a devoted adversary
of the French mandate and a dedicated activist in various Islamic associa-
tions and clubs. With such a résumé there is no doubt that Bayhum opposed
the Phoenician idea on all levels: as an Arab, as a Muslim, and as a Lebanese,
once Lebanon became a fait accompli even for the Muslims.
In 1957, Bayhum published a book called Al-‘Uruba wa al-Shu‘ubiyyat
al-Haditha [Arabism and the New Shu‘ubiyyat].95 It contained discussions
with four distinguished personalities about Ibn Khaldun, Arab unity and its
contemporary adversaries. Bayhum opened the book with an introduction
containing a survey of the various modern Shu‘ubiyyat in the contemporary
Arab world. The educated and erudite writer did not choose this term acci-
dentally. The Shu‘ubiyya was a political and literary movement of non-Arabs
formed in the days of the ‘Abbasi Khalifa al-Mansur (754-775). It rejected
Arab superiority in the Caliphate and demanded equal rights for all Muslims,
regardless of their race. The movement aspired to gain recognition for the
rights and achievements of the non-Arab ethnicities and extolled the ancient
eastern civilizations of the Pharaohs, the Persians, the Indians, the Greeks
and the Romans. With time, the term Shu‘ubi evolved to denote a non-Arab
who objected to Arab pride and who supported separatist groups within the
Arab-Muslim world. In the 20th century another interpretation was added to
the term. Many non-conformist Arabs were now labeled as Shu‘ubis, from
 THE ADVERSARIES 221
leftist thinkers such as Sadik Jalal al-‘Azm to avant-garde Arab literary au-
thors such as the poet Adonis.96 For Bayhum, all modern separatist move-
ments in the Arab world were novel forms of Shu‘ubiyyat, especially in Egypt
and Lebanon where these movements had large groups of followers. The use
of this term by Bayhum was directly related to his Arab-Islamic world-view.
By using this familiar designation, he placed all separatist groups in a spe-
cific historical context. The Arabs, the originators of Islamic religion and
culture, fought in the past against anti-Arab tendencies and are still doing so
today. These patterns of history do not change.
According to Bayhum, the prime reason for the modern existence of the
Shu‘ubiyyat was Western imperialism that sought to facilitate the colonial
process through a policy of division and confusion in the Arab world. Bayhum
surveyed the various separatist movements, beginning with Pharaonicism in
Egypt, proceeding to Phoenicianism in Lebanon, to Syria, Iraq and other
movements in the Arab countries. France, for Bayhum, initiated the Shu‘ubiyya
in Lebanon with the help of the Jesuit missionaries. Books written by the
missionaries totally ignored the fact that Muslims, in addition to Christians,
had inhabited Lebanon.97 Bayhum condemned the French for using the Min-
istry of Education in the mandatory years in order to create a new curriculum
bare of the elements of Arab civilization. In 1926, he protested, the French
planned to designate the colloquial Arabic of Lebanon as a formal language
in the baccalauréat (General Certificate of Education), in order to cut Leba-
non off from its Arab neighbors.98 Some Lebanese, influenced by the French,
began writing Phoenician poetry and fiction, published Phoenician maga-
zines and established Phoenician literary and economic associations.99 These
new Phoenicians, he wrote, soon learned that the ancient Phoenicians were
actually Arabs who came to Lebanon from the Arab Gulf (definitely not the
Persian Gulf, Arab nationalists would argue). When they realized this fact
they no longer wished to be identified as Phoenicians. Thus, they created a
new Shu‘ubiyya, which they called Mediterreanianism. But it made no differ-
ence for Lebanon, because it was the same old Shu‘ubiyya simply with a new
disguise.100
Bayhum’s critique of the Phoenician narrative reflected the convictions
shared by Muslim opponents of Lebanese Christian nationalism. To begin
with, they all saw it as a product of French colonial misconduct rather than a
genuine desire of Lebanese Christian self-determination. Second, Muslim
opponents of the non-Arab orientation of Lebanon arabized the Phoenicians
through the theory that argued that all ancient peoples of the Near East origi-
nated from the Arabian Peninsula and, therefore, they were all Arabs.101 This
enabled them, on the one hand, to ridicule the “non-Arab” neo-Phoenicians
and, on the other, to accept the Phoenicians as a legitimate page in the history
of Lebanon without abandoning their Arab-ness. Thus, even Bayhum himself
could bluntly write: “the truth is that our first forefathers the Phoenicians
who were praised in poetry and prose and who were a source of pride for the
222 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Arabian Peninsula are worthy of all admiration and we cannot exaggerate

eulogizing them.”102 Third, Muslims held the view that the Mediterranean
began to be appealing to the Shu‘ubis in Lebanon once they realized that the
Phoenicians were actually Arabs. Not desiring to be associated with the Ar-
abs, these Shu‘ubis fabricated Mediterraneanism as their new identity. As I
have already elaborated in the previous chapters, Phoenicianism had walked
hand in hand with Mediterraneanism in Lebanon since its inception. One
facet of becoming a Phoenician in modern Lebanon was being part of the
Mediterranean basin rather than the Arab East. Charles Corm, the neo-
Phoenician par excellence, regarded the Mediterranean basin as an integral
part of Lebanese culture at least since the early 1930s and Michel Chiha wrote
already in 1919 that Lebanon is an inseparable part of the Latin Mediterra-
nean civilization. In the 1940s, the Mediterranean Sea began to be more com-
monly used to describe the special culture of Lebanon, not because of the
reason Bayhum provided, but more as a result of a process of normalization
of the Phoenician past and its symbols. One of these symbols was the Medi-
terranean, a term easier to digest than the Phoenicians.
Muhammad Jamil Bayhum was part of a generation of Muslim Sunnis
that had lived in Beirut through the last two decades of the Ottoman Empire,
witnessed the fall of the Ottoman system, supported the formation of an Arab-
Syrian state and fought against the separatist tendencies of Lebanon.
Phoenicianism for Bayhum was an utterly foreign concept, which he by no
means could accept. If we saw among Christian adversaries of the Lebanist
idea a sort of willingness to recognize, even to a minor extent, the Phoenicians
as a legitimate page in Lebanon’s history, then, in the case of Bayhum, there
was a total rejection of the idea. Phoenicianism, Pharaonicism, Syrianism à
la PPS, were all labeled by him as Shu‘ubiyyat, a phrase that touched a his-
torical chord and put the struggle over the identity of Lebanon into an Arab-
Islamic historical context.

From Rida to Bayhum to Rabbath to Zurayq to al-Rihani and to Sa‘adeh,

opposition to the Phoenician idea in Lebanon shared some common denomi-
nators. Had the six sat together in 1934 to discuss Charles Corm’s La Montagne
Inspirée, Bayhum, who socio-economically was closer to Corm than all six,
and Rida would presumably reject Corm’s epic from beginning to end. They
would defy Corm’s Christian, non-Arab Lebanon and ridicule the Phoenicians
as portrayed by the author. Sa‘adeh would join them in rejecting the Christian
foundation of Corm’s worldview but at the same time would disapprove any
religion as the base of any nation, Islam included. Zurayq and Rabbath would
probably call on Corm to think about the future, rather than the past, and to
consider Lebanon’s best interest today. They would understand Corm’s view,
but would, nevertheless, claim that Lebanon, even if it is culturally unique, is
still Arab with a local Mediterranean flavor. Al-Rihani would unduly praise
Lebanon’s countryside and people as portrayed in Corm’s epic, but would
 THE ADVERSARIES 223
disagree with Corm’s attempt to Phoenicianize every rock and tree in Leba-
non. Sa‘adeh would praise the sections of La Montagne Inspirée that extol
the Phoenicians, but would simply say that they were Syrians and not Leba-
nese. He would share with al-Rihani his disapproval of Corm’s use of French,
the language of the colonizer, rather than Arabic, the local language. All six
would converse in elevated Arabic and agree, with the exception of Sa‘adeh,
that al-Qurm (the accurate transliteration from Arabic) was clearly an Arab
who, had it not been for the French, would have recognized his Arab roots
and written about them, in Arabic, with the same poetic talent that he used to
praise the Phoenicians, his imaginary forefathers.

References

1 AD Nante, carton 1365, Rapport sur les partis politiques au Liban, p. 57, December
17, 1942.
2 Just three examples out of many: Aurore Trad was the owner and editor of the
Francophile journal Phénicia (1938-1939); Emile Eddé was married to Lody
Sursuk; Charles Dabbas had a French wife, both were part of the francophile
milieu to which the Corms, the ‘Amouns, the Eddés and so forth belonged. In
Beirut of July 1919, a delegation to the American King Crane Commission of the
city’s Greek Orthodox community supported the formation of independent Greater
Lebanon under the aegis of France. See Lisan al-Hal, July 9, 1919; Al-Hoda,
August 18, 1919.
3 MAE Paris, Vol. 103, p. 151. Rapport présenté au conseil d’administration de la
Mission laïque française par P. Deschamps, directeur-fondateur du Collège de
Beyrouth. February-April 1919.
4 MAE Paris, Vol. 398, p. 13. Réunion organisée par l’association syrienne arabe
de Paris, February 11, 1927. At the same gathering, Georges Samné gave a lecture
about Syria in history demonstrating the continuous significant role of Syria
through history. He used Elisée Reclus to demonstrate the geographical and
national unity of Greater Syria, stating that the division of Syria into small petty
states (including Lebanon) is not viable.
5 Jesuit Archives, Vanves. Fond Louis Jalabert, Paquet VII, Chemise GP. A report
of M. Besnard (General Secretary of the Mission Laïque), La Culture Française
en Orient, June 1934.
6 On Rashid Rida’s Arab-Islamic ideas, see Hourani, Arabic Thought, pp. 222-
244; C. Ernest Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press 1973), pp. 137-138.
7 Rashid Rida, “al-Jinsiyya al-Lubnaniyya wa Ghulu Talabiha,” [Lebanese
Nationality and its Exceeding Demands], al-Manar, Vol. 17 (1914), pp. 617-627.
Rida’s article provides another indication that Phoenicianism as an alternative
identity for the Lebanese was first expressed in the Americas.
8 Rashid Rida, al-Wahy al-Muhammady [The Revelation of Muhammad] (Beirut,
1987), pp. 22-25. See also Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 236.
9 Long before Egyptian territorial nationalism became identified with Pharaonicism,
Copts were nicknamed by their Muslim neighbors Jins Fara’auni (Pharaonic
race or genus Pharaonicus). See in S. H. Leeder, Modern Sons of the Pharaohs
224 REVIVING PHOENICIA

(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918), p. 312. See also Samir Seikaly, “Coptic
Communal Reform 1860-1914,” Middle East Studies, 6(1970), p. 269; and the
preface to Kyriakos Mikhail, Copts and Moslems (London: Smith & Elder, 1911),
p. viii, written by A. H. Sayce, a professor at Oxford University: “The genuine
Egyptians are the Christian Copts. They alone trace an unadulterated descent
from the race to whom the civilization and culture of the ancient world were so
largely due. Thanks to their religion, they have kept their blood pure from
admixture with semi-barbarous Arabs and savage Kurds [...].”
10 “Al-Muslimun wa al-Qubt” [The Muslims and the Copts], al-Manar, Vol. 11
(1908), pp. 338-347.
11 “Al-Mas’ala al-Suriyya wa al-Ahzab” [The Syrian Question and the Parties], al-
Manar, Vol. 21 (1919). “Al-Rahla al-Suriyya al-Thaniyya” [The Second Syrian
Journey], Vol. 26 (1921).
12 “Al-Thawra al-Suriyya wa al-Hukuma al-Faransiyya wa al-Tanazu‘ bayna al-
Sharq wa al-Gharb” [The Syrian Revolution, the French Government and the
Struggle between East and West], al-Manar, Vol. 26 (1925), pp. 699-712.
13 “Al-Shiqaq bayna al-‘Arab wa al-Muslimun” [The Disunity between the Arabs
and the Muslims] al-Manar, Vol. 34 (1935), pp. 782-786.
14 MAE Paris, Vol. 209, p. 85-86. Extract of an article in La Suisse, entitled: “La
Syrie et la Palestine devant la Société des Nations,” September 14, 1924.
15 “La Renaissance arabe,” La Nation Arabe (Geneva, 1930). The first issue of the
journal (edited by Shekib Arslan and Ihsan Bey al-Jabiri) of the Syro-Palestinian
delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva.
16 Information on Zurayk: George N. Atiyeh & Ibrahim M. Oweiss (eds.), Arab
Civilization; Studies in Honor of Qonstantine K. Zurayk (Albany, N.Y.: State
University of New York Press), pp. 1-38. See also Hourani, Arabic Thought, pp.
309-310.
17 Qostantin Zurayq, al-Wa‘i al-Qawmi [National Consciousness] (Beirut: Dar al-
Makshuf, 1939), p. 112.
18 Ibid, p. 97.
19 Ibid, p. 98.
20 Ibid, p. 98-99.
21 Ibid, pp. 100-101.
22 Ibid, p. 102.
23 See, for example, Carlos C. Closson, ‘The Hierarchy of European Races,’
American Journal of Sociology, 3, November 1897, pp. 314-327. On page 315 of
this research there is a lengthy bibliographical list of scientific studies on racial
hierarchy that dominated the field of sociology from the late-19th century. Zurayk
does not refer to specific studies, but it is evident that he draws on the same body
of works as appeared in Closson’s study.
24 The preoccupation with the racial physical features and their impact on human
behavior was very common in ethnological studies of the time. Compare with
Closson, Ibid, p. 316. See Antun Sa‘adeh’s engagement with the same subject,
Nushu’ al-Umam, pp. 34-35.
25 Al-Wa‘i al-Qawmi, p. 106.
26 Ibid, p. 107.
27 Ibid, p. 108-109.
 THE ADVERSARIES 225
28 Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism, 2nd Edition (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp.
127-138.
29 Munir Bashshur, The Role of Two Western Universities in the National Life of
Lebanon and the Middle East. A Comparative Study of the American University
in Beirut and the University of Saint Joseph (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of
Chicago, 1964). A more recent portrayal of the atmosphere in AUB can be found
in Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Pantheon Books,
1998), pp. 100-110.
30 AD Nantes, carton 390, Instruction publique, Service des renseignements, March
25, 1923.
31 See, for example, MAE Paris, Vol. 191, p. 116. Weigand to MAE, June 19, 1923,
a report on anti-French activity at AUB. According to the report, an Arab
association, Zahrat al-Adab [The Splendor of Literature], was formed at the
university. Its purpose was to fight French language and mores. The report stated
that association meetings took place at the university and students as well as
professors attended them.
32 AD Nantes, carton 137, Curriculum of the Elementary, Middle and High Schools
of the American Mission in Syria, Beirut, 1928. In 1927, the American Junior
College for Women was established by the American Presbyterian Mission,
adopting a Phoenician vessel as its logo. The Lebanese American University is
the latest incarnation of this college, still carrying the same Phoenician vessel as
its formal logo. See the web site http://www.lebanonlinks.com/le/uni.html.
33 Biographical information on Edmond Rabbath is taken from Who’s Who in
Lebanon (Beirut, 1963-1991); see also Hourani, Arabic Thought in Liberal Age,
pp. 310-311.
34 Rabbath, Les États Unis de la Syrie (Aleppo: October 1925), p. 4.
35 Ibid, p. 7.
36 See, for example, MAE Paris, Vol. 13, p. 221-224. The Greek Catholic Patriarch
Rahmani to MAE, June 10, 1919. Similar opinions were expressed by the
Armenian Catholics in Aleppo, in MAE Paris, Vol. 43, pp. 174-175. See also the
memorandum to the American Commission of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop
Cyrille Moghabghab, Le Grand Liban à la Conférence de la Paix (Oct. 1919,
Paris), in MAE Paris, Vol. 125.
37 Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1987), p. 464.
38 Rabbath, Unité Syrienne, p. 33
39 Ibid, p. 35. See the vehement Jesuit attack on Rabbath’s arguments in al-Bashir,
May 13, 1937.
40 Rabbath, Unité Syrienne, p. 40.
41 Ibid, p. 48.
42 Ibid, p. 79.
43 Ibid, p. 80. The idea that the Arab occupation put an end to the Latin-Semitic
rivalry, by injecting Semitic features to the Syrian population, was already
expressed by Bulus Nujaym in 1908 in La Question du Liban, pp. 7-10.
44 The formation of an eastern Catholic Church in the 17th century created a new
hybrid of a church that was disconnected from its historical eastern Orthodox
roots and found a new affiliation within the European Catholic Churches. The
226 REVIVING PHOENICIA

end result was that, lacking the historical bonds with Eastern Christianity, the
eastern Catholics were the most facile at adapting to the new winds from the
West and latinized, as indeed Michel Chiha wrote in Alexandria in the poem
quoted in Chapter II. About this process see Robert Haddad, Syrian Christians in
Muslim Society, pp. 49-58. There is no surprise in the fact that Chiha, the Chaldean
Catholic, ferociously challenged the pro-Arab beliefs of Rabbath the Syrian
Catholic. Parts of Chiha’s arguments against Rabbath were expounded upon in
Liban d’Aujourd’hui, discussed in Chapter III.
45 Rabbath, Unité Syrienne, p. 92
46
Ibid, pp. 110-199.
47 The quotation is taken from La Montagne Inspirée, p. 57, 61.
48 Rabbath, Unité Syrienne, p. 150
49 Ibid, p. 153.
50 Rabbath used Lammens to demonstrate the geographical and ethnic unity of greater
Syria. He ignored the fact that Lammens totally rejected the idea that the Syrians
were Arabs; see, for example, Ibid, pp. 198-199. Rabbath may have also forgotten
that twelve years earlier he used Lammens to demonstrate that Syria was Syrian
and not Arab.
51 Rabbath’s francophilism is expressed, for example, when he praises the ideas of
the French Revolution and the French national idea. He uses the term of Edgard
Quinet, the French thinker, and calls France “Christ des Nations.” Ibid, pp. 406-
407.
52 The bibliographical list includes the works of Bulus Nujaym, Farid al-Khazin,
Lamartine, Ernest Renan, René Ristelhuber, the Maronite Patriarch Monsignor
Arida, Henri Lammens, La Revue Phénicienne and more. See, Ibid, pp. 109-110.
53 Kenneth Cragg, The Arab Christian (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press,
1991), pp. 13-14; Hitti, History of the Arabs, pp. 3-13.
54 See, for example, Hassan Hallaq, Lubnan: Min al-‘Finiqiyya ila al-‘Uruba (Beirut:
al-Dar al-Jami‘iyya, 1993).
55 Al-Rihani’s first article in al-Hoda, “Tawhid al-Lugha al-‘Arabiyya fi al-Dawla
al-‘Uthmaniyya” [The Unity of the Arabic Language in the Ottoman Empire],
appeared on April 5, 1898, two months after the first issue of al-Hoda was
published.
56 “Ila al-Lubnaniyyin fi al-Mahjar” [To the Lebanese in the New World], Mir’at
al-Gharb, March 11, 1910, as quoted in Henri Melki, al-Sahafa al-‘Arabiyya,
pp. 191-195. The Maronite and Greek Orthodox communities in New York were
in disagreement over the leadership of the Syro-Lebanese community in the city.
This dispute was reflected in the two papers: the Maronites’ al-Hoda and the
Greek Orthodox Mir’at al-Gharb. It is, therefore, significant that al-Rihani used
Mukarzal’s rival paper to call for the unity of all Lebanese and support the political
activity of Mukarzal.
57 See a pamphlet written by Ayyub Tabet: Syria before the Peace Conference, in
MAE Paris, Vol. 46. The pamphlet explains that the Syrians, ethnically and
culturally, are not Arabs, but rather of Aramaic descent. There is no mention of
the Phoenicians. On the cooperation between al-Rihani and Tabet, see Tauber,
The Arab Movements in World War I, p. 226.
58 Al-Rihani’s famous essay on the French Revolution appeared in al-Hoda in 1902.
See Henri Melki, al-Sahafa al-‘Arabiyya, p. 58.
 THE ADVERSARIES 227
59 Tabet’s article about the French Revolution can be found in Ra’if Khury, Modern
Arab Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 295-208,
translated by Ihsan ‘Abbas from al-Fikr al-‘Arabi al-Hadith (Beirut: Dar al-
Makshuf, 1943).
60 The journal Correspondance d’Orient, No. 209 (March 15, 1919), quoted an
article by Tabet that first appeared in The Evening Sun, January 8, 1919, stating
that “despite the fact that the Syrians speak Arabic, they are almost exclusively
from Aramaic, Phoenician, Greek or Roman descent. Part of the population is
even from Frankish origins.” Tabet expressed the same views about the Lebanese
after the establishment of Greater Lebanon. See CZA S25 4549, Tuvia Arazi to
Political Department April 8, 1945, a report of a meeting with Ayyub Tabet in
which the latter elaborated about the Phoenician descent of the Lebanese and
explained to Arazi why he did not need to know Arabic.
61 MAE Paris, Vol. 627, p. 4. Haut Commissaire to MAE January 12, 1934.
Renseignement au sujet de Amin Rihani. The French authorities were about to
deport al-Rihani from Lebanon, had it not been for his American citizenship and
the intervention of the American consul in Beirut. This incident occurred following
a lecture al-Rihani gave at the Association de la solidarité littéraire on December
23, 1933 where he vehemently attacked all the enemies of the Arab cause: the
French mandate and its collaborators, the separatist movements in the Middle
East and the religious establishments in Lebanon. The speech begins with the
following sentence: “We have moved from the regime of Abdülhamid to the
regime of the admirers of Ba‘al [...].” The admirers of the Phoenician god were,
of course, the Lebanese government.
62 Especially in Qalb Lubnan [The Heart of Lebanon], written around 1936,
following a long trip al-Rihani took in Lebanon’s countryside, but published for
the first time in 1949, nine years after the author passed away.
63 Al-Nakabat, aw khulasat Tarikh Suriyya Mundhu al-‘Ahd al-Awwal ba‘d al-Tufan
ila ‘Ahd al-Jumhuriyya bi Lubnan [The Calamities, or a Summary of the History
of Syria Since the Days of the Flood to the Era of the Republic of Lebanon]
(Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-‘Ilmiya, 1928).
64 Ibid, pp. 58-59.
65 Ibid, pp. 6-7.
66 “Jabal al-Tajalli,” in al-Ma‘rid, July, 2, 1934. This article was reproduced in
Amin al-Rihani, Adab wa Fann [Literature and Art] (Beirut: Dar Rihani lil-Tiba‘a
wa al-Nashr, 1957), pp. 94-99.
67 See in La Montagne Inspirée, p. 67-68.
68 Al-Rihani, al-Ma‘rid, (July, 2, 1934), pp. 9-10.
69 Maria Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West, p. 22-24.
70 Qalb Lubnan, p. 548.
71 Ibid, pp. 568-577.
72 Qalb Lubnan, p. 591.
73 See the interesting introduction to his travelogue, Muluk al-‘Arab (Beirut, 1924),
especially pp. 4-6, where he describes the process through which he re-discovered
his Arab roots.
74 Al-Rihani mentions Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship; and Washington
Irving, The Alhambra.
228 REVIVING PHOENICIA

75 Amin al-Rihani, al-Rihaniyyat, as quoted in, Amin al-Rihani (Beirut: Itihad al-
Kutab al-Lubnaniyyin, 1988), p. 98.
76 Ibid, p. 92.
77 See, for example, al-Husri’s response to a lecture Taha Hussein gave in Iraq in
which he claimed that Egypt was culturally Pharaonic and not Arab. Hussein’s
lecture and Husri’s reaction can be found in AD Nantes, carton 407, Lescuyer to
MAE, December 9, 1938. Note de presse, December 12, 1938.
78 Sati‘ al-Husri, Nushu’ al-Fikra al-Qawmiyya [The Evolution of National Thought]
(Beirut: Matba‘at al-risala, 1951), p. 268; see also Sati‘ al-Husri, al-‘Uruba, Bayna
Du‘atiha wa Mu‘aradiha, [Arabism between Its Advocates and its Opponents]
(Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm lil-Malayin, 1951). This was an answer of al-Husri to a series
of articles in al-‘Amal, the Phalange journal: Al-Wahda al-‘Arabiyya Baynana
wa Bayna Faylasufiha al-‘Alama al-Husri [Arab Unity between Us and Its
Philosopher, the Savant al-Husri] July 23, to August 2, 1951.
79 Lammens, La Syrie et son Importance Géographique (Lourain, 1904).
80 Nujaym, in his book La Question du Liban, p. xi, p. 1, provides long lists of
primarily French scholars who established this theory. Lammens was, of course,
Belgian, but for all matters of convenience and in practice he was part of this
group of French scholars.
81 According to Jamil Sawaya, one of the founders of the PPS and a friend of Sa‘adeh,
Sa‘id ‘Aql wrote the party’s anthem set to the tune of Deutschland Deutschland,
über alles; see Kemal H. Karpat (ed.), Political and Social Thought in the
Contemporary Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 100. Sa‘adeh himself
referred to ‘Aql once in al-Sira‘ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri [The Intellectual Crisis
in Syrian Literature], 2nd edition (Beirut, 1947), pp. 60-63. He criticized Bint
Yaftah, the first long tragedy ‘Aql wrote, as not Syrian enough. It seems that ‘Aql
himself tried to erase this part of his biography. He did not republish Bint Yaftah,
which he wrote while a member of the PPS. See Yusuf al-Sumaily, al-Shi‘r al-
Lubnani, Itijahat wa madhahib [Lebanese Poetry, Directions and Schools] (Beirut,
1980), p. 124.
82 AD Nantes, carton 457, Meyrier to MAE, au sujet de PPS, July 10, 1936. Labaki
is mentioned as the ministre de la propagande of the PPS; carton 943, Salah
Labaki to the Haut Commissaire, March 2, 1936. In this letter Labaki calls on the
High Commissioner to include Lebanon in a larger Syrian framework, because
the Lebanese are tired of religious divisions. The majority of Lebanese would
like to be back to “la mère patrie” — Syria.
83 See the minutes of the Conference and the closing statement in Hassan Hallaq,
Mu’tamar al-Sahil wa al-Aqdiya al-Arba‘a, especially pp. 46, 54, 68-70.
84 It should be recalled that both ‘Aql and Labaki were non-Beiruti arabophones,
two factors that made their cooperation with Sa‘adeh easier. Although Sa‘adeh
did not consider language an essential ingredient in national consciousness, Arabic
for him was the language the Syrians should speak. He hated the French and
disliked the Lebanese francophiles, viewing them as collaborators with the
colonizing power. See in Sa‘adeh, A‘da’ al-‘Arab A’da’ Lubnan [The Enemies
of the Arabs, the Enemies of Lebanon] (Beirut, 1954), p. 120, p. 171, p. 173.
85 Ibid, pp. 55-56.
86 Sa‘adeh, Kitab al-Ta‘alim al-Suriyya al-Qawmiyya al-Ijtima‘iyya (Beirut, 1947).
87 Ibid, p. 17.
 THE ADVERSARIES 229
88 Kitab al-Ta’alim, p. 18. Translated by Karpat, Political and Social Thought, p.
60.
89 Kitab al-Ta‘alim, p. 23. Scholars who wrote about Sa‘adeh’s ideology exaggerated
their analysis of his dislike of the Arabs. It is true that he rejected the pan-Arab
movement, but it is just as true that he recognized the role and importance of
Arab culture in the composition of the Syrian nation.
90 Kitab al-Ta‘alim, pp. 23-24.
91 Ibid.
92 Karpat, Political and Social Thought, p. 61.
93 Information on Bayhum is taken from Hassan Hallaq, al-Mu’arikh al-‘Alama
Muhammad Jamil Bayhum [The Historian and the Savant Muhammad Jamil
Bayhum] (Beirut, 1980), and Who’s Who in Lebanon (Beirut, 1963-1976).
94 The Ottoman College was a greenhouse for Beirut Arabists, as indeed was
Bayhum. See Cleveland, Islam against the West, pp. 8-10.
95 Al-‘Uruba wa al-Shu‘ubiyyat al-Haditha (Beirut, 1957).
96 See Anwar al-Jundi, al-Shu‘ubiyya fi al-Adab al-‘Arabi al-Hadith [The-
Shu‘ubiyya in the Modern Arabic Literature] (Tripoli, Lebanon, 1987), p. 16, p.
68. Special place is given to Sa‘id ‘Aql as an Arch-Shu‘ubi, pp. 204-209. For
general information about the historical movement, see “Shu‘ubiyya,”
Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition, p. 345.
97 Bayhum uses as an example the Syrian Jesuit teacher Louis Cheikho and his
book, Udaba al-Qarn al-Tasi‘ ‘Ashar [The Authors of the Nineteenth Century],
in which no Muslim author is mentioned.
98 Lubnan bayna Musharriq wa Mugharrib [Lebanon between Eastern and Western
Orientations] (Beirut, 1969), pp. 118-123.
99 Bayhum did not mention specific names but I assume he referred to the Phoenician
literary group of Charles Corm and to the economic club of Michel Chiha and
Gabriel Menassa, “Les Nouveaux phéniciens.”
100 See Lubnan bayna Musharriq wa Mugharrib, especially pp. 17-18, where Bayhum
refers to a debate about the Phoenicians he conducted with “my friend Charles
Corm.” See also on p. 42, about a disagreement he had with Na‘um Mukarzal
over the Zionist movement in Palestine.
101 See a recent use of this view in Hassan Hallaq, Lubnan min al-Finiqiyya ila al-
‘Uruba (Beirut: Dar al-Jami‘iyya, 1993).
102 Bayhum, Lubnan bayna Musharriq wa Mugharrib, p. 19.
230 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Chronicle of a
Dream and Disillusionment

The ancient era is, undeniably, a source of legitimate pride. How could
the Lebanese be indifferent to the fact that their predecessors on this
land played a definitive role in the invention of the alphabet, for example,
or in the founding of dozens of cities around the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic? […] How could they forget, when they arrived in Europe,
that this continent bears, according to the beliefs of the ancient Greeks,
the name of a princess from Phoenicia?
But history, of course, does not stop in this glorious chapter. There was
Alexander, Rome, then Byzance […] then came the Muslim conquest,
that squarely brought the country into the sphere of Arab civilization.
[…] Lebanese from all faiths have been long considered the bearers of
Arab culture.
Amin Maalouf1

The three decades between Lebanon’s attainment of independence and the

eruption of the civil war tell a chronicle of a dream and its disillusionment.
The dream was the great promise of a pluralistic society, delicately balanced
between its multifaceted members. It foretold a prosperous country
distinctively different from others in the region that were plagued by social
and political upheavals. But the disillusionment became evident as Lebanese
society and state first frayed and then totally disintegrated. The “inter-sectarian
balance” proved to be unstable and the “bridge between East and West” could
not hold the internal and external socio-political tensions exerted on the newly
independent society. For a while, though, the Lebanese dream did seem to be
coming true, particularly in the 1950s-1960s. The Phoenician narrative was
part of that dream, and for some time it also seemed to be coming into its
own. Phoenicianism in the mid-20th century continued to develop along two
different trajectories. One saw Christian ultra-nationalists continuing to express
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 231
their vision of Lebanon as modern Phoenicia. Some, but by no means all,
also couched their views in non-Arab terms. The other trajectory took
Phoenician symbols and “language” into the national discourse of mainstream
Lebanese elites. Simultaneously, opposition to the Phoenician ideal continued
to exist mainly among Arab nationalists who opposed all forms of separatist
tendencies within the Arab world, Lebanese nationalism included.
Beirut continued to be the center of Phoenician writing both in French and
in Arabic. Les cahiers de l’Est, for example, first published in Beirut in 1945,
followed the pattern of literary francophone journals such as Phénicia and La
Revue du Liban. Its owner and editor, Camille Aboussouan, came from similar
social and cultural circles to Michel Chiha and Charles Corm.2 He opened his
journal to a range of voices, from Phoenician Lebanists such as Chiha, Corm
and Hector Klat to Arab nationalists such as Edmond Rabbath. Yet, as in
other francophone journals, readers did not need to extrapolate much about
the political and cultural orientation of Les cahiers de l’Est, which was
unequivocally Western-oriented, adorned with Phoenician poems and essays.3
Kamal Junblatt, who after 1958 would become one of the most outspoken
Arab nationalists in Lebanon, was among the frequent contributors.4 Even he
elaborated freely in those pages about the 5,000 years of Lebanese history
starting with the first Mediterranean navigators who invented the alphabet
and carried it across the seas.5 In 1949, the same year this article was written,
Junblatt also founded the Progressive Socialist Party, which championed the
idea of a secularized Lebanese state closely aligned with the Arab world. A
scion of a feudal Druze family, Junblatt was associated with Beirut’s haute-
bourgeoisie, possibly as a result of his francophone education.6 He therefore
participated in their cultural enterprises, such as Les cahiers, and more
importantly he took part in the activities of the Cénacle libanais, an intellectual
and cultural Lebanese club, to be discussed below.7
Beirut also continued to produce Arabic writers who were fascinated by
the Phoenician past of Lebanon and incorporated it into their essays, prose
and poetry, although by no means were they labeled “Phoenicians.” Roused
by Corm’s book of poetry, La montagne inspireé, a group of largely Muslim
writers established in 1951 a literary association named Usrat al-Jabal al-
Mulham [The Society of the Inspired Mountain]. Reflecting the mainstream
path that Phoenician expressions began to acquire, this literary group believed
that, on the one hand, Lebanese thought was tied to a Lebanese reality of
multiple cultures reverting back to Greek, Roman and Latin civilizations and,
on the other, Lebanon was also tied to the Arab reality and was an inseparable
part of the Arab-Islamic civilization.8
Arguably, the two most notable examples of this school are Yusuf al-Khal
and ‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id, better known by his pen name, Adonis. Already in the
1940s, al-Khal stood out among the Arabic writers of Lebanon and in 1945,
he published poems about the country’s ancient Phoenician history.9 The
newspaper l’Orient stated that this young Lebanese poet should be praised
232 REVIVING PHOENICIA

for his poetry about the ancient glorious days of Lebanon, especially in face
of the tendency to reject the preoccupation with Lebanon’s most distinguished
eras.10 Similarly, ‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id, by choosing the pen name Adonis, made
an explicit statement that his sources of inspiration reached as far back as
ancient Lebanon. Both al-Khal and Adonis viewed themselves as Arab poets,
but at the same time they also regarded the entire history of Lebanon and the
Middle East as their world of reference. It was an inevitable process that
began with the writings of Sa‘id ‘Aql, Salah Labaki, Rushdi Ma‘luf and others
and extended to wider circles of Arabic writers. Many years later Adonis
wrote in his semi-autobiography that as a young poet ‘Aql was his major
source of inspiration.11 But unlike ‘Aql, Adonis did not reject his Arab identity;
he composed verses about the ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and
yes, also Arabs, and pointed to the contribution of these civilizations to the
crystallization of a remarkable and unique Lebanese identity. As the founders
and editors of the renowned literary journal Shi‘r, the importance of Adonis
and al-Khal in the literary circles of the Arab world was considerable. Their
views about the region’s history, as a source of their literary creation, were
widely discussed by Arab social and political circles that had previously paid
little heed to the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, including the
Canaanite-Phoenicians. In his semi-autobiography, Adonis referred to three
different poetic schools that prevailed in Beirut in the 1940s and 1950s. The
first school focused on Arab nationalism and was marked by rigidity of the
theme and the poetic structure. The second was Marxist Communist poetry.
The third school was also preoccupied with nationalistic inclinations, but it
read the Arab heritage differently, including therein the cultural inheritance
of the Sumerian, Babylonian and Canaanite civilizations that preceded the
Arabs. Thus, claimed Adonis, Arabism was interpreted differently by this
school, unrelated to ethnicity or race but rather connected to language and
culture; it fused into Arabism the ancient, non-Arab, civilizations of the Near
East. This school did not view Arab civilization as a separate whole, existing
unto itself, but rather as a continuation of a cultural heritage 5,000 years old,
which needed to be acknowledged and eulogized.12
Biographically, Adonis was distant from the Phoenician circles of Corm,
Chiha, Klat and Naccache. He was a Syrian ‘Alawi who first arrived in Beirut
in 1956. Unlike the others, he began studying French at a relatively old age.
He was attracted to the PPS for its secular platform and its comprehensive
interpretation of the region’s history. He became an active member of the
party and, for that reason, was arrested and jailed. Upon arriving in Beirut, he
found a city that was engaged in numerous streams of politics and beliefs,
one of which was devoted to the Phoenician past of Lebanon. The arabophone
literary circles in the city embraced him and enabled his literary talent to
flourish. Despite the fact that he chose the Phoenician god, Adonis, as his
literary name, he was not a “Phoenician” like Corm and ‘Aql, although he
was often treated by Arab nationalists as if he were. The “republic of
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 233
merchants” was not his main preoccupation as it was for Chiha and for the
haute-bourgeoisie of Beirut for whom Phoenicianism was often tied to their
commercial interests. Neither was Adonis part of the Maronite nationalism
of the Mountain and its Phoenician manifestations as expressed by al-Saouda
and ‘Aql. Referencing the Canaanite-Phoenician past of Lebanon had deep
cultural implications for him, emanating from his belief that today’s civilization
could only be understood in the light of five millennia of human experience.
Beirut, accustomed to similar beliefs voiced by Antun Sa‘adeh and his
supporters or by Christian Lebanese nationalists, also had space for a cultural
interpretation of the Phoenician past that did not negate the Arab component
of the national identity of Lebanon.
With the exception of a “brief” civil war in 1958, which the Lebanese
discounted as a “mishap,” the 1950s-1960s appeared to be joyous times for
Lebanon. Its reputation as the Switzerland of the Middle East and Beirut’s as
a Levantine version of the City of Lights seemed well justified. Indeed, the
vision of Michel Chiha appeared to be fulfilled. In Beirut, one of the most
important intellectual clubs, the Cénacle libanais, was advocating Chiha’s
“Idea of Lebanon”13 as an open, liberal, Mediterranean society, with 6,000
years of history starting with its ancient inhabitants. Michel Asmar founded
the Cénacle libanais to provide an intellectual forum that could “bring together
every authentic Lebanese value, to make these values work together to
rediscover the essence of our country that reaches back six millennia but
whose identity has been hidden by long Ottoman rule and 25 years of
Mandate.”14 A leading and honorary participant in the Cénacle, Michel Chiha
and other Lebanese intellectuals, businessmen and economists, such as Gabriel
Menassa, Henri Pharaon and Alfred Kettaneh, utilized this forum to promote
a laissez faire economy and justified the country’s recent economic success
using Phoenician terminology. Dubbing themselves “The New Phoenicians,”
they claimed that Lebanese inherited their commercial talents from their
ancient forefathers who were no less than the first entrepreneurs in human
history.15 This Beirut-based elite, of which Chiha was no doubt the most
outstanding model, helped to establish both the “merchant republic of
Lebanon” and, what concerns us, its image — inward as well as out. A cursory
look at tourist books and photo albums of Lebanon in the 1950s-1960s,
compiled by Lebanese and non-Lebanese alike, exposes unambiguously the
image of Lebanon which this group communicated to the world.16 Likewise,
at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair Lebanon displayed itself in a manner
suspiciously similar to its exhibition 25 years earlier at the 1939 Fair.17 Charles
Corm, who died a year earlier, would have been proud to see New-Phoenicia
being displayed again in New York.
Perhaps there is no better event than the International Festival of Baalbeck
that represents this image. From 1955 until the eruption of the civil war in
1975 the Baalbeck annual festival was the country’s most important and
celebrated cultural undertaking, depicting Lebanon as a beautiful postcard,
234 REVIVING PHOENICIA

steeped in wealth, benevolence and cosmopolitanism. Yet, an astute observer

would also notice in the festival the “Lebanese paradox” of the era.18 Whereas
most of those patronizing the event traveled from Beirut in their luxurious
cars, dressed in their best robes and embellished with their most expensive
adornments, the residents of the town of Baalbeck, mostly Shi‘is and
overwhelmingly poor, were left out of the festivities. In order to facilitate the
arrival of the bourgeoisie to the festival the Beirut-Baalbeck road was improved
and paved. Thus, the festival, just like the wealth of Lebanon itself, was an
exclusive event enjoyed mainly by the Beirut elite. The event was held in the
temples of Jupiter and Bacchus at the archeological site of the ancient Roman
city Heliopolis. There was nothing formally Phoenician in this festival. In
fact, Arab singing, theater and dancing were an integral part of the festival’s
programs. Nevertheless, the cultural orientation which the organizers were
trying to depict for Lebanon was transparent. The event was always divided
into two sections, an international repertoire and a local, Lebanese one. And
each year, the festival committee produced a magnificent program that was
an event in and of itself.19 The programs generally followed Michel Chiha’s
vision of Lebanon: pieces by Charles Corm, Sa‘id ‘Aql, Hector Klat, Elie
Tyan, Georges Naccache, Adonis, the Mediterraneanist philosopher René
Habachi, Umar Fakhuri, Fouad Abi Zayd and numerous others embellished
these booklets, all unequivocally emphasizing the country’s 5,000-year-old
cultural mission, starting with the Phoenician endowment to humanity. Thus,
Phoenician and Arab symbols coexisted side by side in the Baalbeck festivals,
demonstrating the multifaceted nature of Lebanese society.
For those fortunate, affluent Lebanese who made the annual pilgrimage to
the Baalbeck Festival, the Phoenician ideal became the symbol of the Lebanese
success story. For Sélim Abou, then a young professor at USJ, Phoenicianism
was a symbol of Lebanon’s pluralism, of its liberal propensity and its triumph.
In his 1962 book, Le bilinguisme arabe-français au Liban, Abou dedicated
large segments of his work to explain the cultural meaning of the Phoenician
ideal. Phoenicianism, he stated, was born as an affirmation of the spirit of the
Lebanese people who, liberated from long years of servitude and reacquiring
their self-consciousness, passionately collected the privileged moments of
history where the traits of their personality lay. “Le Liban phénicien,” for
Abou:

c’est d’abord la continuité selon laquelle le cadre géographique et

historique a informé l’âme libanaise; c’est la multiplicité culturelle
libanaise, reculée dans le temps jusqu’au point où elle trouve le principe
de son unité dans l’image de cette race d’aventuriers, dont la vocation
était l’échange et la rencontre, le don et l’accueil, la médiation sous
toutes ses formes. Le paysage naturel développe des images de type
explicatif, des métaphores: la montagne-creuset, la mer carrefour, la
ville- phare, le village-foyer, etc. Le ‘Liban phénicien,’ c’est ensuite
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 235
l’appropriation subjective spontanée de la multiplicité originelle; c’est
le sujet libanais, tel que la continuité à travers les siècles des mêmes
gestes et des mêmes traditions l’a façonné, réceptacle de la dualité,
toujours déchiré entre deux mondes qui sont deux manières d’être, et
tirant de ce déchirement le contenu d’une affirmation de soi propre. Ici,
le paysage naturel devient le lieu de transfert de la dualité, il entre lui-
même dans une dialectique de l’opposition et de la synthèse: ce sont les
couples — devenus classiques dans la littérature libanaise — de la
montagne et de la mer, de la ville et du village, du couchant et de l’orient,
de l’ombre et de la lumière, en tant qu’ils sont chargés d’une signification
morale et spirituelle. Le ‘Liban phénicien,’ c’est enfin la dualité elle-
même, comme structure de base de l’âme libanaise, de ses tendances et
de ses appétits; c’est un dosage particulier de la sensorialité et de
l’intelligence, du cœur et de la raison, dont l’antinomie subsistante tente
sans cesse de se délivrer dans le mythe des métamorphoses, et en tous
cas s’y exprime. Ici le paysage naturel, presque toujours présent, tend à
la plasticité absolue. Il n’a plus de forme propre, mais celle qu’y insuffle
l’idée ou la vision. C’est aussi à cette limite que la correspondance des
écrivains libanais à leur paysage élémentaire délivre sa signification
globale.20

Abou did not refer to the Phoenician past as a reflection of the ethnic, non-
Arab origin of Lebanon, but rather as a demonstration of the country’s cultural
uniqueness and its multifaceted people. Writing from within the bastion of
Christian Lebanon — USJ — Abou’s writing reflected the view shared by
many Christian intellectuals in the 1960s about the nature of Lebanon and its
national identity. They believed that, give and take a few problems, their
Lebanon was realizing itself, and the Phoenician heritage was an integral part
of this realization. Christian writers produced a plethora of books about the
land’s history and identity, all focusing on Lebanon as a unique and pluralistic
society whose characteristics, even as an Arab country, were partly a result of
its Phoenician heritage.21 This vision was not restricted to those at the Jesuit
University but reached also the country’s first (and last) public institute for
higher education, the Lebanese University. Fouad Afram al-Bustani, a leading
Christian intellectual who supported the separatist Christian vision of Lebanon,
was the first president of the Lebanese University from its inception in
1951until 1970, and set its political and cultural orientation. The head of the
Department of Philosophy, Kamal Yusuf al-Hajj, was another Christian
intellectual who adamantly supported the vision of a Lebanese identity based
on its Phoenician heritage.22 Nor is there coincidence in the fact that, in 1966,
when the university’s Department of Geography began publishing a journal
of Lebanese geography, it entitled it Hannon, a common name in ancient
Carthage in general and, in particular, the name of the son the great Phoenician
military commander Hannibal. If this was not blatant enough demonstration
236 REVIVING PHOENICIA

of the journal’s political orientation, May Murr, a professor at the university

and one of the most avid neo-Phoenicians from the 1960s to this day, wrote
an introductory essay eulogizing the geographical determinism that molded
the Lebanese identity from the Phoenician era to the formation of Greater
Lebanon in 1920.23
As during the mandate years, fascination with the Phoenician past was not
only expressed through literature and in academia. The Lebanese lira coin,
for example, was decorated with a cedar tree and a Phoenician vessel. Lebanese
journals and newspapers often dedicated articles to archeological discoveries
of the country’s ancient eras. In some cases even esoteric subjects related to
the Phoenicians were published — a hairdresser who styled a Phoenician
haircut24 or a designer who produced Phoenician clothes.25 More importantly,
Lebanese artists, from sculptors to architects, used Phoenician symbols
liberally in their work. The great basilica of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa
is a case in point. Located just above the bay of Junieh, in the heartland of
Maronite Lebanon, the statue of Mary and its shrine have served as a symbol
of Christian presence and dominance in Lebanon since their construction in
1908. As a result of the popularity of the shrine it was decided in the 1960s to
build a larger place of worship at the same location. In 1970, Pierre el-Khoury,
one of Lebanon’s most distinguished architects, designed a new basilica. He
claimed his work was inspired by images of Phoenician triremes and the
Lebanese cedar tree, the two primary emblems of Lebanese separatism.26 In
addition, sculptors and painters such as Halim al-Hajj, Aref Rayes, Omar
Onsi and César Gemayel frequently drew on Phoenician symbols to create
their art.27
By the 1960s, the generation of neo-Phoenicians who were first to express
their vision of Lebanese nationalism in Phoenician terms had either reached
old age or passed away. Michel Chiha died in 1954, Charles Corm in 1963.
Hector Klat continued to publish poetry in French, eulogizing Lebanon until
his death in 1973. Yusuf al-Saouda, meanwhile, kept publishing books in
Arabic displaying his radical vision of Lebanon as neo-Phoenicia, utterly
unrelated culturally and ethnically to its Arab neighbors; he died in 1971.28
As recalled from Chapter II, from the time of the French mandate al-Saouda
was persistent in his radical interpretation of Phoenicianism. It is no wonder,
therefore, that during the civil war some Christian Lebanese who sought to
totally disassociate themselves from their Arab-Muslim neighbors used his
writings to base their claim for a non-Arab, if not anti-Arab, Lebanon.
Sai‘d Aql reached the apex of his literary career in the 1960s. ‘Aql pursued
his linguistic enterprise, which he started in the 1940s, to turn colloquial
Lebanese into the national language. He created his own 36 “‘Aqlien letters,”
based on Latin characters with diacritic marks which he invented, and used
this script to write and publish literary pieces in “Lebanese,” beginning with
the 1961 book of poetry, Yara.29 Writing poetry in colloquial Lebanese was
not novel, but ‘Aql’s venture had a clear political message. At the height of
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 237
Arab nationalism in general and Nasserism in particular, ‘Aql dared to defy
the most important pillar of Arab identity — Arabic language. “Arab linguistic
unity, a concept made by political consideration, is an illusion,”30 he stated.
Literary Arabic, for him, was a dead language, whereas the Lebanese dialect
was a living language, very different in grammar and syntax from Arabic.
Not surprisingly, ‘Aql’s “language” caused a stir. Arab nationalists saw it as
nothing less than an imperialist plot against Arab language and nations,
whereas some Christian Lebanese, such as the Maronite historian Jawad Bulus,
applauded it.31 ‘Aql continued this project through the 1960s. He translated
Lebanese and foreign literary pieces to this language and founded a special
publishing house for their printing and dissemination. On the eve of the civil
war, ‘Aql intended to launch a journal, entitled Melkart after the Carthaginian
king, totally dedicated to his Lebanese language. However, because of the
outbreak of the war, this journal did not materialize and ‘Aql, along with so
many compatriots, was plunged into the murky waters of war. Still, his
linguistic venture reflected, and attempted to resolve, the long-time conflict
between the idea of Lebanese separatist nationalism, on the one hand, and its
linguistic manifestation, on the other. ‘Aql, the “theoretician of Lebanism”
tried to achieve this by presenting a Lebanese national language with its own
sets of rules and historical, non-Arabic, roots. This enterprise remained
marginal within Lebanese literary circles and it ultimately failed. In some
manner, ‘Aql’s language and its demise represented in general the status of
Lebanese exclusive nationalism, its intellectual manifestations and its limited
circulation before 1975. In the 1960s, Lebanon as a society seemed to be
turning away, politically and culturally, from separatist streams of thought.
The regimes of President Fouad Chéhab and his successor Charles Helou
seemed to find the golden path between Lebanon’s belonging and attachment
to its Arab neighbors and its inherent separatist tendencies. In such a political
atmosphere, an exclusive historical narrative beginning with the ancient
Phoenicians could subside or at least be used without its negative political
weight, ready to be used again if and when the national identity and political
orientation of Lebanon were to be challenged.
Clear signs of internal unrest in Lebanon began surfacing after the 1967
War. Palestinian military activities and Israeli retaliation exacerbated the
delicate socio-political balance within Lebanese society. Not coincidentally,
the reaction of some Christians to this challenge was to revive the discussion
of the old, almost worn-out, debate over Lebanon’s identity. In July 1969,
amidst heavy clashes between Palestinian militias and the Lebanese army, a
group of Christian intellectuals gathered in a restaurant on the outskirts of
Bikfaya, the Phalange stronghold, to establish an “Association for the Revival
of the Phoenician Heritage in Lebanon.” They drafted a platform and an agenda
aimed at revitalizing interest in the ancient Phoenicians in order to remind
the Lebanese who they were and what their national and cultural legacy was.32
I suspect that none of their “revival” projects was accomplished. But more
238 REVIVING PHOENICIA

importantly, this association reflects the role Phoenicianism played in the

political struggle that began storming Lebanon in the late 1960s. As had
happened before, once the character of Lebanon was threatened,
Phoenicianism was taken “out of the attic” and reused to put Lebanon back
on the right track, at least in the eyes of the beholder.
If pluralism and cosmopolitanism dominated the Christian national
discourse in the 1950s and 1960s, then by the early 1970s separatism and
seclusion prevailed. By then, Université Saint Esprit de Kaslik (USEK),
founded in 1950 by the Lebanese Maronite Order, evolved to be a prime
center of Christian Lebanese national thinking and writing. Etienne Saqre,
the Rector from 1968-1974, was one of the key advocates of the political and
cultural orientation of the university. As of the late 1960s until the Civil War
broke out, USEK initiated the publication of several works focusing on
Lebanon’s national identity and the meaning of Lebanism.33
The Civil War radicalized all aspects of local life. Consequently, it also
exacerbated the process of reconstruction of communal boundaries within
Lebanese society. This process, which is ceaseless and an inseparable part of
human experience in general, is often intensified in cases of internal and
external violent struggles. Thus, to a large extent the Lebanese civil war
evolved to be a war over the redefinitions of the Lebanese collective identities.
Previously, Lebanese intellectuals could speak about their country as a
culturally pluralistic society, recognizing therein its multiple members.
However, after the outbreak of the war, this language was replaced by
terminology of absolutism of identities and communal boundaries. Thus,
teachers at USEK and other Christian intellectuals, such as Bulus, Malik, al-
Bustani, Honein and ‘Aql who, before the war, regarded the Phoenician past
as the foundation of pluralistic Lebanon and wished to use it as the historical
common denominator for all Lebanese, drastically changed their views. Some
of them became aligned with the Lebanese Forces. They became their leading
ideologues and took on the belligerent tone of the Christian camp with
historical deterministic justifications.34 Kaslik became a hothouse for their
views, which rendered the Phoenician claims as one of their prime arguments
for the existence of Christian Lebanese nationalism, thoroughly different from
the Arab-Muslim population of Lebanon, let alone the Palestinian refugees.
Not coincidentally, Maronite clergymen led this move. Etienne Saqre
established the Guardians of the Cedars in 1976, and very aggressively
advocated the Phoenician historical narrative as a solely Christian ideology.35
One of the prime works that made similar claims was written by another
Maronite priest, Butrus Daw. From 1977-1981 Daw published his weighty
work, Tarikh al-Mawarina, emphasizing the uninterrupted history of the
Maronites in Lebanon.36 He dedicated sections of his work to demonstrate
the autochthonous nature of the ancient inhabitants of Lebanon — the
Phoenicians — who, according to him, had converted to Christianity by the
4th century and a century later joined the Maronite Church. His writing
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 239
reflected Christian nationalism during the civil war at its peak. Lebanon, for
him, was an outright Christian, non-Arab entity. The history of the Maronites
was portrayed as a constant struggle against foreign occupiers, defending
their national rights. Other Maronite clergymen wrote in a similar tone about
the Maronite identity and the meaning of Lebanism.37 More than anything
else, these views demonstrated that Phoenicianism found its place anew within
the valleys and summits of Mount Lebanon. The vision of Lebanon, as
advocated by Daw and other Christian intellectuals who congregated around
Kaslik, differed from that of Chiha and the haute-bourgeoisie in Beirut. In a
way, Phoenicianism made its way up to the Mountain after long years of
residence in Beirut. The Mountain and its image of a closed, conservative
and obstinate society dominated the Christian discourse during the long fifteen
years of civil war. As is well known, there was no one Christian discourse
during the war. Christian sects, like other sects in Lebanon, were often
internally divided on political, familial, geographical and even ideological
lines. Intra-communal divisions have always been a prime factor in Lebanese
society, as have inter-communal rivalries. However, the idea of a unique
Christian experience in Lebanon was shared by the majority of the Maronite
and other Catholics sects. USEK, the Maronite Patriarchate and especially
the Maronite Order, and the Lebanese Forces supported to a large extent the
Christian vision of Lebanon as a separate entity with a historical narrative
starting with the ancient Phoenicians.
The Civil War terminated with the ultimate collapse of Christian Lebanese
nationalism. In fact, in hindsight, one could say that this Christian nationalism
sealed its fate already in 1920 with the formation of Greater Lebanon and the
annexation of non-Christian areas to the fledgling political entity. It took,
however, seventy more years before it weakened to the point of insignificance.
The Ta’if Accord (1989) not only brought the conclusion of the war but also
marginalized the socio-political forces within Lebanese society that advocated
for a distinct, non-Arab identity. Moreover, the text of the accord begins and
ends with assertions of the Arab-ness of Lebanon, implicitly declaring that
after lengthy years of civil war, Arabism triumphed and non-Arab tendencies
were defeated. The dominance of Syria in Lebanon and the rise of Hizballah
as a powerful political and social force only add to this sense of victory.
Hizballah, as an Islamist movement, defies in principle non-Islamic historical
narratives and could by no means accept any sort of discussion over a
Phoenician heritage. There is no doubt that the dominance of both Hizballah
and Syria in Lebanon since the early 1990s created an atmosphere which
encourages alignment with Arab-Islamic stances and suppresses other
narratives.
In defiance of Syria’s dominance and its Lebanese allies, supporters of
Michel ‘Aoun, the symbol of Lebanese Christian ultra-nationalists since 1990,
have used the Phoenician narrative to support their political demands for the
evacuation of Syrian forces from Lebanon and for an annulment of the Ta’if
240 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Accord.38 Similarly, when Pope John Paul II visited Lebanon in May 1997,
his hosts, led by the highest echelons of the Maronite clergy, used the most
visual Phoenician symbol to assert Christian presence in Lebanon. The Pope
gave a mass in front of hundreds of thousands Christian believers at Our
Lady of Lebanon Basilica at Harissa. On stage, behind the seat of the Pope,
the producers of the event constructed a large Phoenician vessel made out of
red and yellow flowers. Yellow represented the colors of the Vatican, whereas
red was the color that endowed the Phoenicians with their Greek appellation.
In front of the highest Lebanese dignitaries and in the presence of the Maronite
patriarch, Nasrallah Butrus Sfeir, the event sent a message of Maronite defiance
in the face of the post-civil war political reality.39
The marginalization of the separatist Christian political forces meant their
radical interpretation of the history of Lebanon was sidelined too. Yet, the
preoccupation with the ancient past of the land is far from ebbing. In Beirut
“classic” Phoenician texts continue to be published: Ernest Renan’s Mission
de Phénicie was reprinted by Editions terre du Liban in 1998; in 1996 Dar al-
Nahar reissued La revue phénicienne and Phénicia; and a biography of Charles
Corm was published in 1995 by the still active Éditions de la revue
phénicienne.40 In addition, in Lebanese immigrant communities across the
world Phoenicianism continues to flourish even more than in the homeland.41
It is much easier today to express unpopular views, such as adherence to
Phoenicianism, outside of Lebanon than inside. As in the early 20th century,
Christian Lebanese diasporas that wish to hold on to their Lebanese identity
tend cling to Phoenicianism. There are far more Christian Lebanese residing
outside of Lebanon today than there are at home. The Lebanon they left no
longer exists, at least not as they imagine it. What is left for them is to
romanticize over the imagined identity of Lebanon and its equally-imagined
desired future. The Phoenician narrative offers a romantic and nostalgic past,
a tool to challenge the present and a wishful vision for the future.
The ancient Phoenicians remain in the Lebanese national psyche simply
because they constitute an inseparable — and celebrated — chapter of the
chronicles of the land. To understand this, one need go only as far as the post-
war-renovated National Museum in Beirut, which focuses mainly on the
Phoenician, Greek and Roman eras and leaves a very small portion to Arab
and Islamic art. In addition, since 1993, following the major reconstruction
of Beirut, the central district has become the largest excavation site in the
world, unearthing the city’s multiple archeological layers including its
Canaanite-Phoenician precursor, Be’erot.42 Lebanese can now view, up close,
the first civilizations that built and settled their capital. Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafiq al-Hariri’s firm, Solidere, in charge of the reconstruction work,
has financed large parts of the excavations. He decided to name the part of
the project underway in the impoverished Shi‘i neighborhoods of south Beirut
Elisar, after the Phoenician queen who, legend has it, fled Tyre to establish
Carthage.43
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 241
As the slogan accompanying the gentrification project — “Beirut, the
Ancient City of the Future” — indicates, its vision is future-oriented, of course,
but it is rooted in the past, recovering the rich patrimony which the land’s
ancient inhabitants bequeathed to the modern Lebanese. Arabs by culture,
Arabs by language, but Lebanese through the unique history of the land on
which they reside as a less than cohesive national community.

References

1 Liban: l’Autre Rive (Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 1999), pp. 14-15.
2 Born in Beirut in 1919, Camille Aboussouan acquired his education in the Lazarist
college in ‘Aintoura and at USJ, becoming a devout francophone and a strong
advocate of the Phoenician identity in post-mandatory Lebanon. See, for example,
his ex-libris, a drawing of Europa carried by Zeus, in The Library of Camille
Aboussouan (London: Sotheby’s, 1993), p. 12.
3 See, for example, Bishara Tabbah, “Rôle de Béryte dans le fixation du ‘Corpus
Juris’ romain,” 1 (1945); Elie Tyane, “Poème du Liban,” 2 (1945); Yusuf al-
Saouda, “Colonies libanaises, émigration et immigration,” 3 (1945); Charles Corm,
“La symphonie de la lumière,” 4 (1945), pp. 57-77; Said ‘Aql, “Les fondements
historiques d’un humanisme libanais, le Liban et l’homme,” 4 (1945); Nagib
Dahdah, “Évolution de la nation libanaise,” 5 (1945).
4 See, for example, Kamal Jimblatt [sic.], Démocratie nouvelle no. 3, 1 series (1945),
p. 7; La démocratie mondiale et la paix, no. 1, 2 series (1947), p. 7; Visage moral
des druzes, n. 4-5, 2 series (1949), p. 158.
5 Kamal Jimblatt, Le Liban et le monde arabe,” no. 6, 2 series (1949), p. 86.
6 Junblatt completed his secondary education at the Lazarist College in ‘Aintoura
in 1937. He then traveled to the Sorbonne in Paris to study law. When World War
II broke out he returned to Lebanon and obtained his law degree from USJ. See
in Farid al-Khazen, Kamal Jumblatt, “The Uncrowned Druze Prince of the Left,”
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (April 1988), p. 179, especially note 4.
7 Kamal Junblatt, La Démocratie Économique (Beirut: Cénacle libanais, 1950);
La Démocratie Sociale (Beirut: Cénacle libanais, 1953).
8 Riad Fakhuri, “ Lubnan: al-Jam‘iyyat al-Adabiyya min al-In‘izaliyya ila al-
Taqaddumiyya,” [Lebanon: The Cultural Associations from Isolationsim to
Progressivism¸, Al-Sayad, April 25-May 2 (1974), p. 66.
9 Yusuf al-Khal, Al-A‘amal al-Shi‘iriyya al-Kamila, 1938-1968 [The Complete
Works of Poetry] (Beirut: 1973), pp. 71-116, especially the poems “Lubnan”
[Lebanon], “Biladi” [My Country], and “Shu‘a‘ al-Gharb” ˛The Ray of the West].
These were originally published in al-Khal’s first book of poetry, al-Hurriya
[Freedom] (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab, 1944).
10 L’Orient, May 20, 1945.
11 Adonis, Ha Anta Ayyuha al-Waqt [You there, O Time], (Beirut: Dar al-Adab,
1993), pp. 25-26.
12 Ibid, pp. 99-102; see also Shemuel Moreh, “Ha-Zeramim ha-Ra‘ayoniyyim ba-
Shirah ha-‘Aravit ha-Modernit,” [Ideological Trends in Modern Arab Poetry],
Hamizrah Hehadash, 19(1969), pp. 31-49.
242 REVIVING PHOENICIA

13 Nadim Shehadi, The Idea of Lebanon: Economy and State in the Cénacle libanais,
1946-1954 (Oxford: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1987).
14 Ibid, p. 14.
15 Carolyn L. Gates, The Merchant Republic of Lebanon (London: Centre for
Lebanese Studies and I. B. Tauris, 1998), p. 82.
16 See, for example, Colin, Thubron, The Hills of Adonis (London: Heinemann,
1968); Robert Boulanger, Lebanon (Paris: Hachette, 1955).
17 http://peace.expoarchive.com/6465/international/intpav25.shtml
18 Annie Tohme, “Le Festival de Baalbek au carrefour des paradoxes libanais d’avant
guerre,” in Hélène Sader et al. (eds.), Baalbek: Image and Monument; 1898-
1998 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998), p. 221.
19 See the different programs of the Baalbeck Festival. See also Les Riches Heures
du Festival (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1998).
20 Sélim Abou, Le Bilinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban, pp. 421-422.
21 See, for example, the works of Jawad Bulus, Tarikh Lubnan [The History of
Lebanon] (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1972); Les Peuples et les Civilisations du Proche-
Orient, especially Vol. 1-2 (Paris: Mouton & Cie, 1961-1968); Jean Salem, Le
peuple libanais (Beirut: Librairie Smir, 1968). See also the Sunni historian ‘Adil
Isma‘il, Le Liban; histoire d’un people (Beirut: Dar al-Makchouf, 1965).
22 Kamal Yusuf al-Hajj, Mujaz al-Falsafa al-Lubnaniyya [The Concise Philosophy
of Lebanon] (Juniyah: Matabi‘ al-Karim al-Hadithah, 1974), especially pp. 129-
166; al-Hajj, al-Falsafa al-Lubnaniyya al-Haditha: Muhadara [The Modern
Philosophy of Lebanon: A Lecture] (Beirut: Manshurat Dar al-Intilaq, 1964).
23 May Murr, “Réflexions sur le géographie du Liban,” Hannon, Vol. 1(1966).
24 Al-Hawadith, October 26, 1979.
25 Al-Sayyad, July 27-August 3, 1972.
26 See the brochure, Our Lady of Lebanon Shrine, year 2000. See also Pierre el-
Khoury, Pierre el-Khoury architecture, 1959-1999 (Beirut, Paris: Dar el-Nahar
and Moniteur, 2000), pp. 52-65.
27 See photos of their work and others in Edouard Lahoud, L’Art Contemporain au
Liban.
28 See, for example, his Tarikh Lubnan al-Hadari (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1972).
29 Yara (Beirut: Maktabat Antoine, 1961).
30 Al-Jarida, March 5, 1961. Quoted in Simon Jargy, “Vers une révolution dans les
lettres arabesø” Orient, Vol. V, no. 17 (1961), p. 311.
31 Ibid, p. 94.
32 Al-Hayyat, July 9, 1969; August 6, 1969.
33 Ab‘ad al-Qawmiyya al-Lubnaniyya [Lebanese National Dimensions] (Kaslik:
Jami‘at al-Ruh al-Qadis, 1970); Al-Baramij al-Lubnaniyya wa al-Tanshi’a al-
Wataniyya [Lebanese Programs and National Development] (Kaslik: Jami‘at al-
Ruh al-Qadis, 1971); Joseph Mouwanès, Les Éléments Structuraux de la
Personnalité Libanaise (Kaslik: Bibilothèque de l’Université Saint-Esprit, 1973).
34 Walid Phares, The Rise and Fall of Christian Lebanese Nationalism, p. 110. See
also Edward Hunein, ‘Ala Durub Lubnan [About the Paths of Lebanon] (Kaslik,
1979); Fouad Afram al-Bustani, Mawaqif Lubnaniyya [Lebanese Positions]
(Beirut: Manshurat al-Da’ira, 1982); “Al-Muqawama al-Lubnaniyya fi Shi‘r Sa‘id
‘Aql,” [Lebanese Resistance in the Poetry of Sa‘id ‘Aql], Al-Masira, 27 (April
25, 1983), pp. 42-43.
 A DREAM AND DISILLUSIONMENT 243
35 Al-Masira (April 13, 1984), pp. 16-19.
36 Butrus Daw, Tarikh al-Mawarina [History of the Maronites] (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar,
1977-1981).
37 See, for example, Michel ‘Uwayyet, Al-Mawarina: Min Hum wa-Madha Yuridun?
[The Maronites: Who are they and what do they want?] (Juniyeh 1987);
38 See the website of the Free Patriotic Movement of the supporters of General
Michel ‘Aoun, http://www.lebanon-world.org. See also the websites of the banned
Lebanese Forces and note their obsessive preoccupation with the Phoenician past:
http://www.lebaneseforces.org; http://www.lebanese-forces.org.
39 La Revue du Liban, 1945 (May 17-24, 1997), on-line edition. See also pictures of
the Phoenician vessel in the same article.
40 Jamil Jabar, Sharl al-Qurm, Sha‘ir al-Jabal al-Mulham [Charles Corm, the Poet
of the Inspired Mountain] (Beirut: Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 1995).
41 See some examples of Lebanese immigrants’ fascination with the Phoenicians:
John G. Moses, How the Lebanese Advanced Civilization (New York: Published
by the author, 1998). Peter Wadih Tayah, The Maronites: Roots and Identity
(Miami: Bet Moroon Publishers, 1987). Jim McKay, Phoenicia Farewell: Three
Generations of Lebanese Christians in Australia (Melbourne: Ashwood House
Academic, 1989).
42 Nasser Rabbat, “The Interplay of History and Archeology in Beirut,” in Peter
Rowe and Hashim Sarkis (eds.), Projecting Beirut (Munich: Prestel, 1998), p.
20.
43 Mona Harb el-Kak, “Transforming the Site of Dereliction into the Urban Culture
of Modernity: Beirut’s Southern Suburb and Elisar Project,” in Ibid, p. 176.
244 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Conclusion

“Of all cults,” wrote Ernest Renan in his classic text Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?,
“that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us
what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory, this is the social capital upon
which one bases a national idea.”
For Renan, shared language, religion, customs and geography may be
important ingredients for the formation of a nation, but they are, by far,
exceeded by the ultimate and most important element of national consciousness
which is “the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and
of having, in the future, [a shared] program to put into effect, or the fact of
having suffered, enjoyed and hoped together.”1 Yet, for Renan, by no means
does this past require an absolute or impeccable historical veracity. Forgetting
the actual past and reconstructing anew a historical narrative, drawing even
on historical errors, is an inseparable part of the process of the creation of a
nation. Only someone like Renan could have the courage — and the audacity
— to proclaim in the Sorbonne, one of France’s most sacred intellectual
shrines, such words of heresy against the eternal existence and perennial
genuineness of the nation.
Following Renan, it would not be an exaggeration to say that all national
communities have deliberately forgotten parts of their history and have
overstated or even fabricated other parts in the process of their national
creation. “The cult of the ancestors,” as Renan vividly put it, is that which
facilitates the formation and maintenance of any nation, and grants its members
a sense of belonging, allowing them to imagine themselves as part of a
historical collective rooted in a common and imposing past, and headed
towards a shared and auspicious future. The Middle East in general, and
Lebanon in particular, are no exception to this worldwide universal
phenomenon.
Phoenicianism was born as an attempt of a few intellectual Syro-Lebanese
to provide the wares of the “cult of the ancestors” in Syria and Lebanon at
least two decades before Arab nationalism became a challenging force in the
Middle East. World War I was the time when Phoenician expressions began
to be associated solely with Christians in Syria and Lebanon, and by its end
the entire movement for the formation of Greater Lebanon had been labeled
Phoenician. In 1920, there may have been a Lebanese state but a Lebanese
nation had not yet emerged. Lebanon may have had a body but, using Renan’s
metaphor, it still lacked a unifying soul for its inhabitants. At first,
Phoenicianism served as the “cult of the ancestors” for the majority of the
Christian population in Mount Lebanon and in Beirut, and it only provoked
the Muslim population which was coerced into this newly founded political
 CONCLUSION 245
entity. Yet within two decades, independent Greater Lebanon became a reality
even for the Muslim population which, led by Beirut’s Sunni upper class,
acquiesced to its existence. The “cult of the ancestors” did not cease; it only
changed course. Phoenicianism as the national, non-Arab, identity of Lebanon
continued to be articulated by a select group of Christians in Beirut and in the
Mountain. But at the same time, Phoenicianism for many non-Christians
evolved to denote the history of the land no less than the history of its people.
Some Muslim Lebanese who agreed with Lebanon’s independent existence,
justified by its distinct national — yet Arab — features, were willing to
incorporate the Phoenician past into their national narrative because, after
all, the ancient Phoenicians did dwell in the land and the history of Lebanon,
as the history of any other nation with self-pride, does begin in antiquity. And
if one wanted to scrutinize the people and not only the land, than it could be
easily proved that the Phoenicians, who, according to Arab nationalists,
undoubtedly came from Arabia, were actually of Arab descent. Thus, by the
1950s and 1960s two kinds of Phoenicianism existed and were thriving side
by side. One was the “cult of the ancestors,” as articulated by intellectuals
from Beirut who regarded the ancient Phoenicians as the forefathers of
cosmopolitan, liberal, open-minded Lebanon. The second was embedded in
the ideology of Christian Lebanese nationalism that continued to view Lebanon
as a Christian non-Arab bastion — a neo-Phoenicia — in a predominantly
Arab-Muslim region. In 1975, this kind of Phoenicianism became the dominant
ideology. The civil war radicalized all streams of thought and as a result liberal
Lebanon subsided, clearing the arena for radicals of all sorts.
There is no doubt that the French assisted in all possible means to
disseminate Phoenicianism in Lebanon; many Lebanese critics of the
Phoenician identity have bitterly noted this fact. Yet, it should be asked if, in
an era of national imagining, the Lebanese national movement actually needed
the French to come up with their own “cult of the ancestors” or was it an
inevitable process that would have occurred with or without French guidance?
As we have seen, the first local signs of interest in the ancient Phoenicians
began before France dominated education in Lebanon and before the Jesuits
took control of the country. The ancient Phoenicians were there for the
Lebanese (and the Syrian) national movement to be reclaimed from the abyss
of historical oblivion and to be used, just as were the Gauls for the French,
the Saxons for the English, the Pharaohs for the Egyptians, the Babylonians
for the Iraqis, and the Assyrians for the Syrians. As Renan, followed by
numerous scholars of nationalism, explained, the spirit of nationalism is
constituted by the past and the present, the past being “the common possession
of a rich legacy of memories.” Looking at the past, any national movement
would have taken the ancient Phoenicians, who created one of the most
impressive civilizations in the Near East, and incorporated them into its rich
legacy of memories; and it is entirely irrelevant whether these memories were
fabricated, as long as they were well-imagined.
246 REVIVING PHOENICIA

More than a movement, a party or an ideology, Phoenicianism developed

as a state of mind in the Lebanese national idea. It had leading thinkers and
scores of followers, but it did not develop as a systematic worldview with a
clear agenda. It was often exploited politically to mobilize certain groups
into political action. Yet culturally Phoenicianism had very little impact on
Lebanese society. Charles Corm named his second son Hiram, after the famous
Tyrian king, and truly believed that he, Charles, slept, ate, laughed, wrote,
did business and made love in the same spirit as his Phoenician ancestors. Yet
there were very few Lebanese, even passionate Phoenicians, who took this
identity as seriously as did Corm. There were a few “Phoenician” street names
in Beirut, and when Corm died a street in the Achrafiyyeh neighborhood was
named after him.2 Phoenician poetry, prose, painting and sculpture have been
produced since 1920 to this day, but, with the exception of the 1930s and the
1960s, it remained marginal within the general artistic production of the
country. Phoenicianism, then, remained a cult of the past but it had little
impact on modern Lebanon’s cultural present.

***

In 1988, when the cannons were still roaring and Lebanese were killing each
other in horrendous numbers, Kamal Salibi published his soul-searching book
A House of Many Mansions. In his conclusion, he wrote a statement antithetical
to Renan’s view regarding the role of fabricated history in national formation.
“For any people to develop and maintain a sense of political community,”
Salibi wrote, “it is necessary that they share a common vision of their past.”3
For communities with natural solidarity, Salibi continued, fictionalized history
can suffice for this purpose. However, such self-deception can only work in
communities confident of their unity and solidarity. Divided societies cannot
afford this imaginary luxury. To achieve solidarity these societies must “know
and understand the full truth of the past.” Lebanon, Salibi concludes, is a case
in point. As a politically divided society, Lebanon is condemned to know and
understand its past, if it seeks to survive. No political settlement could last
unless Lebanon came to terms with its history and adjusted to its veracities.
The Lebanese had to know exactly who they were, why and how they came
to be Lebanese. Otherwise they would continue to be so many tribes and fail
to overcome the cleavages that tear their society apart.
If the positivist vision of history “as it actually was,” is left aside, what
radiates from Salibi’s words is an engaging statement that argues succinctly
that Lebanon needs to reevaluate its history in order to survive as a national
community. And so, in A House of Many Mansions, Salibi, who, prior to
1975, was one of the prime historians to provide the Lebanese with their
[false?] national history, deconstructs this historiography, which he himself
helped to construct, and offers a new evaluation of the most important
foundation myths of Lebanon. He disputes the myth of the Emirate as the
precursor of modern Lebanon; he challenges the view of the Maronite
 CONCLUSION 247
community as a (Christian) rose among (Muslim) thorns; he contests the
theories of the Mountain as a refuge for minorities and as a distinct autonomous
region within the Ottoman Empire; and, finally, he also critically analyzes
the phenomenon of Phoenicianism in Lebanon, charging it as one of the most
faulty and historically groundless ideas conceived in Lebanon.
Can Lebanese today follow Salibi’s appeal and agree on a common history
that would reflect their desire to live in a cohesive national community? After
all, as Salibi himself remarked at the beginning of his book, paradoxically,
Lebanese of all sects came out of the war with “a strong sense of common
identity, albeit with some different nuances.”4 According to Salibi, the
construction of a common history is possible if, on the one hand, Christian
Lebanese reconcile with the Arab identity of Lebanon and, on the other, Muslim
Lebanese explain this identity in terms that do not alienate their Christian
compatriots, i.e., clearly separating between Arab and Muslim histories. What
Salibi fails to say is that one of the major reasons for the fighting during the
war was Lebanon’s identity. Thus, before reaching the point of drafting an
“accurate” common history for Lebanon, one first has to reconcile with the
war and its reasons, one of which was the disagreement over the “identity” of
Lebanon and its place within the Arab regional system. Unfortunately,
discussion of the war in today’s Lebanon is regarded as beyond the limits of
politesse. Even language itself has been manipulated to avoid a direct reckoning
with the past. When Lebanese mention the civil war at all, many refer to it as
“the events,” or “the war of the others.” Thus, the tenth anniversary of the end
of the war — an opportunity for evaluation of this horrendous war and its
consequences — passed almost unmentioned in Lebanon.
Since Kamal Salibi published his book in 1988, Lebanese historians have
worked tirelessly to reconstruct the history of Lebanon “as it actually was,”
at least in their eyes.5 Old habits die hard and indeed narratives are being
removed from history books only to be replaced by new ones, truth-telling
according to their writers and fictitious according to others. There is no better
arena that reflects the complexity of the issue than the Lebanese state education
system. In an attempt to construct an accepted unified historical narrative, the
1989 Ta’if Accord itself stipulated that “the curricula shall be reviewed and
developed in a manner that strengthens national belonging, fusion, spiritual
and cultural openness, and that unifies textbooks on the subjects of history
and national education.” In accordance with this clause, the Educational Center
for Research and Development initiated the composition of a new unified
history textbook. The plans for the publication of the book have caused a stir.
Lebanese educators have objected to the process of compiling the unified
history book, which they said would ignore much of the country’s history out
of fear of offending sectarian sensitivities. The same Educational Center is
also in charge of supervising textbooks used in state schools. In October 2001,
it decided to remove a page from an academic history book, A Window to the
Past, taught to public school students in the third grade. The president of the
Center, Nimr Freiha, also froze the teaching of the lesson until the book was
248 REVIVING PHOENICIA

amended the following year. This act followed a series of allegations from
politicians who accused the authors of comparing the Arab conquest to invasion
and occupation. Beirut Member of Parliament, Bassem Yammout, stated that
the authors disregarded Lebanon’s Arab identity. He complained of a sentence
that reads: “They all went, and Lebanon stayed,” in reference to Arabs being
an occupying power that passed through Lebanon. “It is true that Lebanon
stayed,” Yammout added, “but it remained an Arab country … a feature that
is prevalent today and stressed in the Taif Accord.”6 These examples
demonstrate that, unfortunately, not much has changed in this sphere in
Lebanon. Back in the 1930s the Ministry of Education made a similar attempt
by initiating the writing of a unified historical textbook. The book, written by
Asad Rustum and Fouad Afram al-Bustani, analyzed in Chapter III, evoked a
public stir and ultimately failed to provide Lebanon with a historical narrative
accepted by all.
The attempt to compose a unified narrative that would satisfy all parties in
Lebanon is probably doomed to fail, but more importantly, this initiative and
the reactions it drew reflect the complexity of reconciliation in post-war
Lebanon and the role that is attributed to the history of Lebanon in this process.
This was already understood by the drafters of the Ta’if accord. They were
aware of the fact that to a large extent the civil war was a battle over Lebanon’s
identity and its place within the Arab sphere. The accord, therefore, starts and
concludes with the following statements: “Lebanon is Arab in belonging and
identity,” and “Lebanon, with its Arab identity is tied to all the Arab countries
by true fraternal relations.” The accord is indeed the first official document
that bluntly states the national identity of Lebanon. But the preoccupation
with the Arabism of Lebanon in the Ta’if Accord is so intense that a reader of
the document may wonder if, by insisting on its Arab-ness, the drafters of the
accord actually emphasized the fact that for not a small number of Lebanese
the identity of their country is not crystal clear. There is no doubt that the
accord merits high praise for ending violence in Lebanon, but there is also no
doubt that it did not establish any mechanism for reconciliation. Its treatment
of the history and of the identity of Lebanon has not yet unearthed the reasons
for the long fifteen years of Lebanese internal destruction.
Lebanese have been preoccupied with their national identity since the
formation of Greater Lebanon in 1920. From Muhammad Jamil Bayhum’s
‘Urubat Lubnan to Hassan Hallaq, Min al-Finiqiyya ila al-‘Uruba and from
Yusuf al-Saouda’s Istiqlal Lubnan fi al-Tarikh to Sa‘id ‘Aql’s recent Sagesse
de Phénicie, the subject does not leave the forefront of the public sphere. An
example of this preoccupation is a recent exhibition entitled Liban l’Autre
Rive presented at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris from October 1998 to
May 1999. The exhibition recounted the story of Lebanon from pre-history
to modernity, drawing on its very rich annals. Conceived and realized by the
Institut du Monde Arabe and the Lebanese General Office of Antiquities, the
exhibition manifested the assertion (mixed with hope) that Lebanon has been
resurrected from the ashes of the civil war that tore its society apart. Notions
 CONCLUSION 249
of assurance and optimism are interlaced in the texts of the exhibition
catalogue, recognizing the multifarious nature of the history and society of
Lebanon. Thus, the Minister of Culture and Higher Education, Faouzi
Hobeiche, opened the catalogue asserting Lebanon’s attachment to its Arab-
ness and at the same time acknowledging its rich historical patrimony as
manifested in the archeological richness of the country. From the invention
of the first linear alphabet to the Arab cultural renaissance, the patrimony of
Lebanon, Hobeiche wrote, is presented in this exhibition. The celebrated
francophone author Amin Maalouf also wrote an introductory essay for the
catalogue. From the first sentence he acknowledged the fact that the exhibition
is in fact a manifestation of Lebanon’s national identity, as reflected from its
rich history. Countries, like people, Maalouf wrote, are often troubled by
their identity, especially when they experience dire crises that put into question
their very existence. How did they come to be, one day, a separate entity, they
ask? What distinguishes them from close as well as distant countries? Some
people, Maalouf continued, look for the most simplistic answer: it is this or
that religion, this or that language, or it is the ethnic appearance that provides
them their raison d’être. People, he wrote, manipulate history, lie and deceive
in order to find support for their political beliefs. The merit of this exhibition
is to demonstrate that Lebanon’s history, Maalouf added, cannot be reduced
to one epoch. Thus, the Phoenician era is a source of pride for all Lebanese.
But the history of Lebanon does not halt there. Rather it continues to other
pages of different eras, such as the Muslim conquest in the 7th century which
irreversibly connected Lebanon to the Arab civilization. An Arab past, Greek-
Roman past, Ottoman past, and Phoenician past — certainly, people in
Lebanon and elsewhere made them bones of contention, Maalouf wrote, as if
the names of these civilizations are only instruments or codes for contemporary
political quarrels. Indeed, every community finds certain eras more appealing
then others but the history of Lebanon as a whole does not belong to anyone.
It is characterized by diversity and not by clinging to this or that epoch. This
diversity is not a fable, because it is exactly within this subtle mélange that
the distinctiveness of Lebanon and its history reside. Thus, Maalouf actually
argues that, indeed, Lebanon is attached to the Arab world, but its history and
identity are comprised of thousands of years of long human experience. The
ancient history of the country and its people, therefore, is an inseparable
component of its identity, which, by its diversity is, in fact, the first model of
the Global Village. Interestingly enough, these views are not that different
from those expressed in the 1950s in Beirut by Muslim authors such as Adonis
or members of Usrat al-Jabal al-Mulham. These writers believed in the
Phoenician heritage of modern Lebanon, though, at the same time, they did
not abandon their Arab-ness for even a moment.

Very few Lebanese question the Arab-ness of Lebanon today. Yet, as the
Parisian exhibition demonstrated, the ancient Phoenicians still hold an
important place in the historical annals of modern Lebanon. One need only
250 REVIVING PHOENICIA

look at the front cover of the exhibition catalogue: pictures of Phoenician

figurines, unearthed in Byblos, decorate this page (rather than pictures of an
ancient mosque, an Ottoman palace, or conversely a Crusader castle), leaving
no room for doubt that the ancient Phoenician patrimony to modern Lebanon,
although recuperating from long years of civil strife, is still very much alive.
Similarly, Marcel Khalife, one of the most important musicians in the Arab
world and a passionate advocate of Lebanon’s attachment to its Arab-ness,
saw no difficulty in composing music for a ballet named “Alisar Queen of
Carthage,” which told the escape story of the princess of Tyre to the most
important Phoenician colony.7 On the other — popular — side of the cultural
spectrum, the Phoenicians even entered the realm of Lebanese jokes. In a
“Top 16 list of why it’s great to be Lebanese,” circulating on the Internet, we
learn that “We are everything: Lebanese, Arab, Phoenician, Martian …”
Indeed, viewing Phoenicianism as an alternative identity to Arabism is
restricted to a small group in post-civil war Lebanon. Nevertheless, it is
apparent that the interest in the phenomenon of Phoenicianism is far from
subsiding. As discussed earlier, in Lebanese immigrant communities the
Phoenician identity still flourishes and Beirut itself continues to issue old and
new Phoenician works. Lebanon, rehabilitated after the civil war, is still
attempting to define its collective identity and the place of its distant and near
history therein. Although the “neo-Phoenicians” and most of their Christian
supporters, often ridiculed by their rivals, have been nudged off the central
stage of Lebanese society, the ancient Phoenicians are still there to be used as
a legitimate backdrop in the history of Lebanon and its people, demonstrating
that the long years of preoccupation with the ancient inhabitants of Lebanon
planted those Phoenicians deep in the heart of the much disputed Lebanese
national consciousness.

References

1 Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? Translated and annotated by Martin Thom in Homi

Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration (London, 1990), pp. 8-22.
7 “Al-Asma’ al-Jadida li-Shawari‘ Bayrut” [New Names to the Streets of Beirut],
Al-Hayyat, April 5, 1966.
3 Kamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988), pp. 216-
217.
4 Ibid, p. 2.
5 Elizabeth Picard, Lebanon: A Shattered Country, p. 1.
6 The Daily Star, 23.10.2001.
7 The ballet was performed in 1998 by the Lebanese Caracalla Dance Troupe. See/
listen to Khalifeh’s album Bisat al-Rih [Magic Carpet], Nagam Records, Inc.
1998.
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Newspapers, Journals and Periodicals

Al-Bashir (Beirut).
Davar (Jerusalem).
AL-Hilal (Cairo).
Al-Hoda (Philadelphia, New York).
Al-Manar (Cairo).
Al-Ma‘rid (Beirut).
Al-Mashriq (Beirut).
Al-Muqtataf (Beirut, Cairo).
L’Asie Arabe (Paris).
L’Asie Française (Paris).
Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves de l’USJ(Beirut).
Association amicale des Anciens Élèves des Pères Jésuites en Orient;
Alexandrie, Beyrouth, le Caire (Cairo).
Bulletin Annuel de l’Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves de l’USJ (Bei-
rut).
Bulletin de l’Association des Anciens Élèves de l’USJ (Beirut).
Bulletin de l’Union Économique de Syrie (Beirut).
Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth (Beirut).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 253
Les Cahiers de l’Est (Beirut).
Correspondance d’Orient (Paris).
Études (Paris).
Le Jour (Beirut).
Le Journal du Caire (Cairo).
Mélanges de l’Université Saint Joseph (Beirut).
La Nation Arabe (Geneva).
L’Orient (Beirut).
La Revue de Deux Mondes (Paris).
La Revue du Liban et l’Orient Méditerranéen. (Paris, 1928-1939).
La Revue du Liban et l’Orient Arabe. (Beirut, 1939-1945).
La Revue Phénicienne (Beirut).
La Voix du Liban (Paris).
The Palestine Post (Jerusalem).
Phénicia (Beirut).
Proche Orient, Revue Économique et Financière (Beirut).
SYRIA, Revue d’Art Oriental et d’Archéologie (Paris).
La Syrie (Beirut).

Dissertations and Theses

Bashshur, Munir. ‘The Role of Two Western Universities in the National Life
of Lebanon and the Middle East. A Comparative Study of the American
University in Beirut and the University of Saint Joseph.’ Ph.D. disserta-
tion, University of Chicago, 1964.
Bulus, Samawil. ‘Ha-Patriarch ha-Maroni Elias Butrus al-Howayyek ve-
Hakamat Medinat Levanon ha-Gadol’ [The Maronite Patriarch Elias Butrus
al-Howayyek and the Formation of Greater Lebanon]. MA. Thesis, Haifa
University, 1987.
Campbell, Robert Bell. ‘The Arabic Journal, Al-Mashriq: Its Beginning and
First Twenty-Five Years under the Editorship of Père Louis Cheikho, S.J.’
Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Michigan, 1972.
Dugast, Olivier. ‘Automobiles, chauffeurs et transports routiers en Syrie et
au Liban pendant la période mandataire.’ MA Thesis, Université de Rennes
II, No date.
Hakim-Dowek, Carol. ‘The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840-
1914.’ Ph.D. dissertation, St. Antony’s College, 1997.
Kearny, Helen McCready. ‘American Images of the Middle East, 1824-1924:
A Century of Antipathy.’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1976.
Kerr, David, A. ‘The Temporal Authority of the Maronite Patriarch, 1918-
1958: A Study in the Relationship of Religious and Secular Power.’ Ph.D.
dissertation, Oxford University, 1977.
Melki, Henri. ‘Al-Sahafa al-‘Arabiyya fi al-Mahjar wa ‘Alaqatuha bi-al-Adab
al-Mahjari’ [Arab Journalism in the New World and its Relations with
254 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Arab American Literature], Ph.D. dissertation. Georgetown University,

1972.
Naff, Alixa. ‘A Social History of Zahle, The Principal Market Town in Nine-
teenth Century Lebanon.’ Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA, 1972.
Sayegh, Joseph. ‘Le phenomène poético-social dans le vallée de Zahleh.’
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Paris, 1964.
Schreier-Zachs, Fruma. ‘From Communal to Territorial Identity: the Emer-
gence of the ‘Syrian Concept’ 1831-1881’ (Hebrew), Ph.D. dissertation,
Haifa University, 1997.
Traboulsi, Fawaz. ‘Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban
contemporain.’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Paris, 1993.

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 Index

Abbasids, 81, 220 America,

Abbé, Azar, 36-37 Syrian immigration to, 70-71, 100n;
‘Abdo, Jabbour Ibrahim, 156 U.S. Policy towards immigration, 71-
‘Abduh, Muhammad, 7 75; Attitudes towards Arabs and
Abdülhamid (Ottoman Sultan), 6, 40 Turks, 72-73, 101n; Lebanese clubs
Abi Zayd, Fouad, 234 in, 75, 197; Arrival of ancient
Abou Sélim, 191n, 234-235 Phoenicians to, 78
Aboussouan, Camille, 231 American Council on Education, 118-
AbuKhalil, As‘ad, 1 119
Achou, Emile, 84 American Protestant mission (See also
l’Action française, 121, 137n AUB and Syrian Protestant College),
Addada, Abdel-Wahab, 156 30, 39, 42, 75, 117, 225n
al-Adib, 130 American University of Beirut, 75, 76,
Adib, Auguste Pasha, 62-63, 75, 84, 85, 78, 112, 117, 171, 218;
90, 94, 97n as center of Arab Nationalism, 200,
Adonis (god), 131, 156, 186n, 214 205
Adonis (Ibrahim) River, 25, 146, 147, ‘Amoun, Blanche, 156, 188n
186n ‘Amoun, Charles, 156
Adonis (‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id), 221, 231- ‘Amoun, Iskandar, 7, 87
232, 234 ‘Amoun. Daoud, 61, 75, 86, 105n, 156
Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 7 Anderson, Benedict, 10, 11, 52n, 123,
Ahdab, Khair al-Din, 129 182
‘Alawites, 111, 133-134n, 232 Antioch, 175
‘Alayli, ‘Abdallah, 131-132 ‘Aoun, Michel, 239
Aleppo, 111, 112, 124, 205 ‘Aql, Sai‘d, 124, 129, 141, 151, 158, 162,
Alexandria, 40-41, 55, 57-70, 120, 159, 163, 169-183, 192n, 205, 216, 228n,
170 232, 233, 234, 248; and language,
Algeria, 172-173, 181, 236-237; and Israel,
Maronite immigration to, 29; French 181
colonial policy in, 13-15, 23 Arab, Emile, 90, 91
Alliance libanaise (Egypt), 34, 61-63, 70, Arab League, 132, 174
75, 83, 84, 170, 197, 199 Arabia, 81, 83, 131, 195, 202, 206, 209,
Altounian, Mardiros, 156 222, 245
270 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Arab government in Damascus (1918- Bayhum, Muhammad Jamil, 135n, 186n,

1920), 7, 36, 83-84, 86, 89, 93, 139n, 197, 220-223, 248
197, 216, 220 al-Bayrut, 118, 128
Arab identity in Lebanon, 81-82, 129- Beirut, 31, 45, 56, 57, 64, 67, 68, 75, 77,
133, 152, 156, 197-215, 220-223, 232, 79, 84, 85, 87-96, 111, 113, 120, 122,
239 123, 124, 127, 130, 132, 155, 156,
Arab nationalism (also pan-Arabism), 6- 157, 168, 173, 175, 180, 231
8, 116, 131, 167, 195, 196, 200-215, bourgeoisie class in, 57, 59, 60, 61,
231, 232, 237 69, 76, 81, 88, 109, 158-159, 159,
Arab-Syrian Congress (Paris 1913), 75, 163, 166, 171, 196, 218, 220, 232-
80-81 233, 245; ancient city of (Béryte), 66,
Aramaeans, 3, 83, 84, 201, 202, 211, 217, 67, 90
218 Bérard, Victor, 4, 144, 163, 212
Arcache, Chécri, 84, 107n Berbers, 13-14, 19n, 27, 29
Archeology, Besnard Gabriel, 120, 196
French policy towards, 21-23, 58, Bhamdoun, 80
123-124; Influence on Lebanese na- Bikfaya, 61, 170, 171, 181, 237
tionalism, 124-125; Excavations in The Biqa‘, 33, 45, 56, 73, 81-82, 144,
Phoenicia, 21-23, 122 171, 180
‘Arida Antoine, Monsignor, 139n, 170 Birmingham, Alabama, 73-74
Arslan, Shekib, 7 Black Athena, 4
l’Asie arabe, 86 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 22, 58, 96n
Asmar, Michel, 233 de Bonneville, Christophe, 156, 188n
l’Association nationale de la jeunesse Bounoure, Gabriel, 115
syriene, 88-89, 91-92 Britain, 8, 84, 111, 127, 167
l’Association syrienne arabe, 196 Bulus, Jawad, 237, 238
Assyria, 23, 24, 82, 165, 206, 211, 217 al-Bustani, Butrus, 7, 40, 44
Astarte, 147 al-Bustani, Fouad Afram, 117-118, 170,
‘Awad, Tawfiq, 139n, 154, 155 235, 248
al-Azhar university, 131 al-Bustani Najib, 41-42
‘Azm, Sadik, Jalal, 221 Byblos, 22, 124, 131, 147, 157
Byzantine, 114, 165, 175, 207
Ba‘al, 36-37, 122, 157, 185n, 214, 227n
Babylon, 23, 206, 232 Cadmus (god), 157, 177
Bacchus, 149 Cadmus: Epic by Sa‘id ‘Aql, 173-180
al-Bachir, 128 Caetani, Leon, 17n,
Balbeck, 146, 147-149 Les Cahiers de l’Est, 231
Balbeck international festival, 233-234 Cairo, 40-41, 55, 57- 61, 63, 68, 69, 75
Baroudy, Samia, 142 de Caix Robert, 27-28, 89, 112
Barrès, Maurice, 49n Canaan-Canaanites, 1, 2, 23, 35, 42, 211,
visit to the Levant, 24-25, 64, 147; in- 217, 219, 232
fluence on La Montagne Inspirée, Capitualtions Agreement, 22, 26
144, 185n Cardahi, Choucri, 60
Bashir II, 118, 155 Carthage, 22, 23, 118, 155, 165, 240
Baudelaire, Charles, 171 le Cénacle libanais, 233
 INDEX 271
Cercle de la jeunesse catholique de
Beyrouth, 142, 164 Da’irat al-Ma‘arif, 40, 41, 44
Chatterjee, Partha, 12 Dahdah, Najib, 128
Chéhab, Maurice, 124, 163 Damascus, 36, 42, 83, 84, 86, 87, 111,
Chéhab, Fouad, 237 123, 124, 126, 134n, 175, 180, 200,
Cheikho, Louis, 31, 34, 35, 54n, 63 206
Chiha, Michel, 84, 93, 94, 96n, 98n, 129, Darian, Monsignor, 69-70, 99n
236, 239, 141, 151, 153, 158, 171, Daw, Butrus, 238-239
172, 182, 234, 236; sojourn in Alex- Debbas, Charles, 80, 223n
andria, 60, 64-67, 159; contribution Decentralization party, 197
to la Revue Phénicienne, 90, 93-94, Deir al-Qamar, 62
107n; place in Lebanese society, 94, Delahalle, Romain, 156
159-160, 233; and Lebanese Nation- al-Dibs, Yusuf, 32, 75
alism, 159-169, 180 Dodelle, Jean, 156, 188n
la Colline Inspirée∫ See Barrès Maurice Douaihi, Saliba, 156
Comité central syrien, 69, 80, 82-84, 87, Druzes, 34, 57, 75, 111, 143, 155, 195,
89 199, 231
Comité libano-syrien, 69 Dugas, Charles, 125
Congress of the Coast and the Four Dis- Dunand, Maurice, 157
tricts, 128-129, 139n, 216 Dussaud René, 123, 206
Copts, 198, 223n
Corm, Charles, 63, 236, 64, 87-96, 108n, École de la Sagesse (Madrasat al-
122, 123, 124, 129, 160, 163, 166, Hikma), 61, 75, 76, 170
167, 170, 171, 180, 182, 183, 215, Eddé, Emile, 80, 95, 152, 153, 158, 181
232, 234, 236, 246 sojourn in Alexandria, 60, 67; rivalry
family background, 87-88; education, with Béchara al-Khoury, 67, 94, 115,
88, 95; Syrian inclinations, 88-89; 127, 160; friendship with Charles
noms de plumes, 89-93; as a business- Corm, 142; and the 1929 Public
man, 96, 141, 183n; friendship with School Crisis, 115; presidency of,
Amin al-Rihani, 142-143, 211-212; 122, 126-129; attitude towards
and Mediterraneanism, 152-153; and Phoenicianism, 142, 184n
language, 143, 144-145, 151-152, Egypt, 22, 118, 125, 127, 159, 166, 195,
182; La Montagne Inspirée, 87, 93, 199, 221
122, 141-153, 155, 158, 172, 173, Syrian and Lebanese immigration to,
179, 207-208, 211-212, 222-223, 231; 40, 57-61, 165; Syro-Lebanese jour-
La Revue Phénicienne, 83, 85, 87-96, nals in, 41-45; Syro-Lebanese com-
158, 160, 240, 161, 163 munities in, 57-70, 210; Egyptian na-
Corm, Daoud, 87, 90, 123 tionalism, 60-61, 214; Lebanese na-
Corm, Georges, 90 tionalism in, 6, 170; Rashid Rida in,
Corm, Jean, 90 197-198
Correspondance d’Orient, 83 Elections 1936 (presidential), 126-127
Coury, Georges, 156 Elections 1937 (parliamentary and mu-
Coussa, Emile, 90 nicipal), 127, 129
Cromer, Earl of, 59-60 Epstein (Elath) Eliahu, 106n, 158, 187n,
Crusades, 26, 86, 114-116, 118, 119, 123, 189n
125, 145, 154, 156, 201, 211
272 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Études, 112 Gellner, Ernest, 10

Europa, 157, 163, 177-180, 183 Gemayel, César, 156, 183, 236
Gemayel, Joseph, 90, 95
Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni, 5, 10, 57, 96n, Gemayel, Pierre, 128, 193n
117, 118, 132, 155, 176 Germany, 22, 24, 204
Fakhuri, ‘Umar, 109, 130, 132, 139n, 234 Ghasan, 82
Farroukh, Mustapha, 156 Ghazir, 30, 31, 62, 97
Faysal Ibn Hussayn, See: Arab govern- Ghousta, 87, 157
ment in Damascus de Gontaut-Biron, R. Comte, 88, 105n
Flaubert Gustave, Salammbô, 22, 49n, Gouraud, Henri, 27-28, 30, 55, 99n,
France, 166, 203, 204, 208, 210, 245 108n, 111-113, 134n
Syro-Lebanese in, 79-87; attitude to- Greece (ancient), 2-4, 5, 47, 113, 116,
wards Maronites, 26-29; rivalry with 118, 148, 152, 153, 154, 163, 166,
Britain, 89; and taking control over 177-180, 202, 213, 219, 231, 232
Syria, 79, 83; Franco-Lebanese treaty, Greek Catholics, 28, 61, 73, 74, 81, 82,
127; Franco-Syrian treaty, 127, 206 83, 84, 195, 196, 206
Franjiyyeh, Hamid, 154 Greek Orthodox, 41, 42, 61, 63, 82, 84,
Freiké, 75, 209, 210, 213 117, 129, 155, 163, 181, 195, 196,
French colonialism, 13-15, 111, 123, 131, 200, 205, 215, 218, 223n
198; La Guardia, Fiorello, 153
in North Africa, 13-15, 111; in Egypt, Guardians of the Cedars, 238
58-59; in Lebanon, 27-28, 31, 123-
124, 176, 221, 245; and Christianity, Habachi, René, 234
28-29 Haddad, Marie, 156, 163, 188n
French Mandate, 109-129, 157, 160, 196, al-Hajj, Halim, 142, 156, 184n, 236
199, 170, 200, 204, 207, 210, 220; al-Hajj, Kamal Yusuf, 235
transfer from Ottoman to French rule, Hakim-Dowek, Carol, 5
110-112; High Commission, 110-112, Halabi, Chafic, 151
120-121, 123, 127, 160; policy to- Hallaq, Hassan, 248
wards education, 110-119; policy to- Hannibal, 102n, 155, 176, 235
wards museums and archeology, 123- Hanotaux, Gabriel, 28-29
126; and Lebanese Francophiles, 91- Haqqi, Isma‘il Bey, 33, 35, 169
92, 142-143, 144, 157, 160, 211 al-Hariri, Rafiq, 1, 240,
French Revolution, 210, 213 Harissa (Basilica of Our Lady of Leba-
Frères Maristes, 171 non), 236
Front national libanais (of Yusuf al- Helou, Charles, 237
Saouda), 128, 139n Herodotus, 3, 213
de Freige, Jean Marquise, 107 Hijaz, 84, 88
Freiha, Anis, 182 al-Hilal, 41-44, 169
Freiha, Nimr, 247 Hitti, Philip, 75-79, 103n, 131, 132, 165,
205
Gabriel, Chucri, 156 Hittites, 211, 217
Ganem, Chékri, 7, 69, 79, 80, 84-85, 87, Hizballah, 239
89, 90, 91, 95, 102n, 206, 215 al-Hoda, 75-76, 210
Gebran, Khalil Gebran, 210 Hobeiche, Faouzi, 249
 INDEX 273
Homer, 163, 212 Kadicha valley, 146-147
Honein, Edward, 238 Karam Yusuf, 155, 177, 187n
al-Hoyeck, Youssef, 142, 156, 163, 184n Karameh, Anna, 69
Hoyek, Elias, 38, 85-86, 95, 144 Kata’ib – Phalanges, 127, 128, 180-181,
Hugo, Victor, 171 237
al-Husri, Sati‘, 133n, 214, 228n Kettaneh, Alfred, 233
Hussein, Taha, 228n Khabbaz, Gabriel, 160
Huvelin, Paul, 30, 107n Khairallah, Khairallah, 79
al-Khal, Yusuf, 231-232
Ibn Khaldun, 220 Khalid Tawfiq (Grand Mufti of Leba-
Iraq, 127, 159, 166, 221 non), 115
Islam and Muslims, 45, 55, 168, 180, 214 Khalife, Marcel, 250
as pillar of Arab nationalism, 6, 7, 43, al-Khazin, Philippe and Farid, 9, 56-57,
77, 165, 201, 206; in French colonial 96n, 219
policy, 14, 29, 112, 123; and Henri Kheir, Abdallah, 90
Lammens, 32; arrival in Lebanon and al-Khoury, Béchara, 132, 142, 152, 154,
Syria, 35, 42, 47, 78, 82, 230; attitude 155, 164
of Lebanese nationalists towards, 89, sojourn in Alexandria, 60, 64-65, 98n,
145, 146, 152, 153, 160, 161, 182, 159; relations with Michel Chiha,
236, 238, 239, 240; and Lebanese na- 159, 162, 167; rivalry with Emile
tionalism, 115, 183, 195, 196, 197- Eddé, 127, 155
200, 209, 216, 220-222, 231, 244, al-Khoury, Fouad, 90
245, 247; in school textbooks, 117, al-Khoury, Pierre, 236
173; at the New York World’s fair, King-Crane Commission, 84-85, 89, 90,
154-156; in Antun Sa‘adeh’s thought, 97n, 223n
217, 218 Klat, Hector, 90, 163, 172, 196, 231, 234,
Isma‘il, Khedive of Egypt, 58 236; in Alexandria, 63-65, 98n, 159
Israel, State of, 181, 237 Kseib, Khalil, 118
Istanbul, 56, 123
Italy, 3, 48, 166 Labaki, Salah, 139n, 172, 182-183, 216,
232
Jahiliyya, 113 Laissez-faire economy, 167
Jalabert, Louis, 31, 63, 105n, 134n Lammartine, 147
Jalkh, Jean, 90, 107n, 172 Lammens, Henri, 31, 51n, 169,
Jam‘iyyat Shams al-Birr, 41 and Syrian nationalism 32-33, 215;
Jerusalem, 126, 158, 175 influence on Lebanese nationalists 48,
Jesuit Order (See also USJ), 123 61, 63, 68, 69, 90, 91, 97n, 98n, 119,
establishment of, 26; domination in 124, 164, history textbooks of, 116,
Lebanon, 29-36, 110, 113, 142, 196; 134n; influence on Edmond Rabbath,
education, 29-30, 158, 159, 170, 208 205, 226n
Jesus, 2, 126, 146, 157, 166, 199 Language and Lebanese nationalism,
le Jour, 160 Jacques Tabet, 68; Na‘um Mukarzal,
Junblatt, Kamal, 231 76; importance of Arabic 129; Amin
Jupiter, 149 al-Rihani, 143, 211; Charles Corm,
144-145, 150-151; Michel Chiha,
274 REVIVING PHOENICIA

165, 167-168, Sa‘id ‘Aql, 169-173, Maurras, Charles, 94

237; comparison between thinkers, Mediterranean Sea and culture, 2-3, 47,
182; Rashid Rida, 197; Constantine 83, 88, 94, 125, 130, 174, 203, 207,
Zurayk, 201; Edmond Rabbath, 207; 208, 219, 231, 233
Muhammad Bayhum, 221; Antun Mediterraneanism, 152-153, 157, 159-
Sa‘adeh, 228n; Sélim Abou, 234 169, 221
Latinism, 67, 166, 207, 208, 226n Menassa, Gabriel, 233
Lavigerie Monsignor, 23 Mir’at al-Gharb, 210
Lazarist Order, 30, 46 Mission laïque, 106n, 120, 135n, 196,
League of Nations, 123, 199 197, 220
Lebanese Forces, 181, 238, 239 al-Malat Shibly, 171
Lebanese League of Revival (Na‘um La Montagne Inspirée: see Corm Charles
Mukarzal), 75 Morocco, 111, 134n
Lebanese National Museum, 69, 123- Moubarac, Ignace, Monsignor, 132
124, 240 Moubarak, Youakim, 33
Lebanese University, 117, 170, 235-236 Mouchahwar, Amin, 90, 94
Lebanist idea, 76, 78, 87, 94, 174, 180- Mount Lebanon, 55, 56, 57, 75, 81, 82,
181, 196, 199, 214, 216, 219, 222 88, 155, 197, 199, 207, 239, 244
Levenq, Gabriel, 61, 116, 119 and the ‘long peace,’ 44; as refuge of
Lortet, Louis, 23 minorities, 47, 164, 214; immigration
Louvre Museum, 23, 124 from, 70, 72; as a symbol of Leba-
Lyautey, Louis-Hubert, 13 nese nationalism, 92, 107n, 147, 150,
157, 159, 164, 166, 167, 168, 181,
Maalouf, Amin, 230, 249 208, Amin Rihani’s trip in 211
al-Ma‘luf, ‘Isa Inskandar, 34, 171 Mouterde, René, 116, 119, 125
Ma‘luf, Rushdi, 173, 182-183, 205, 232 Moutran, Nadra, 7, 81-82
Makhluf, Ibrahim and Emile, 131, 231 Muhammad (Prophet), 112, 113, 116,
Malik, Charles, 132, 196, 205, 238 198, 206
Mamluks, 114, 116, 119 Muhammad ‘Ali, 57, 58
Ma‘ni dynasty, 117, 119 Mukarzal, Na‘um, 75-76, 80, 102n, 169-
al-Manar, 197-198 170, 209-210
al-Marada, 82, 109, 207 al–Muqtataf, 41-42, 77, 169
Maronite, 61, 74, 142, 150, 155, 158, Murad, Nicholas, 36-37
161, 163, 195, 213 Murr, May, 236
church, 36-38, 132, 153, 180; patri- Musa, Salama, 182
arch, 128, 154; relations with France, Mutasarrifiyya, 5-6, 34, 35, 46, 95, 169
26-29; college in Rome, 26, 29, 30; Mutran, Khalil, 171
historiography, 36-38, 109; internal
political rivalries, 127, 209; national- Nabateans, 211
ism, 166, 168, 169-183, 207, 218, Naccache, Albert, 34, 51n, 90, 142, 156,
236-237, 245 158, 167, 181
Marseille, 21, 31 166 Naccache, Alfred, 90, 121-122, 138n,
Martin, Pierre, 32, 37 142, 163
Marun, Saint, 9 Naccache, Georges, 120-121, 136n, 160,
al-Mashriq (journal), 128, 172 234
 INDEX 275
al-Nahar, 128, 129 Phénicia (journal), 129, 156, 163, 167,
al-Nahda (literary movement), 7, 39-40, 231, 240
44, 118 Philistines, 2, 42
al-Najjar, Ibrahim Salim, 7, 86, 105n, 195 Piepape, Colonel, 111
Najm, Faris, 197 Pope, John Paul II, 240
Nakhla, Rashid, 171 Progressive Socialist Party, 231
National Pact, 13, 94, 115, 132, 164 Protestants, 39, 41, 45, 61, 80, 117
New Testament, 35
New York, 70, 75, 76, 88, 209-210, 213 Qa’imaqamiyya, 5, 181
New York World’s Fair 1939-1940, 153- Qalb Lubnan, 142, 211-212
157, 233 Quai d’Orsay, 70, 79, 112, 120
New York World’s Fair 1964-1965, 233
Nimr, Faris, 41, 103n, Rabbath, Edmond, 129, 196, 205-209,
Nu‘aima, Mikha’il, 210 214, 226n, 231
Nujaym, Bulus, 34, 45-48, 68, 90, 94, Race,
215, 216, 219 theories on, 71-74, 100n, 202, 224n;
Nushu’ al-Umam, 201, 219 in Lebanon, 35, 63, 68, 116, 165-166,
202-203; in Syria, 33, 42-43, 47, 72,
The Odyssey, 94, 212 74, 76, 77, 83, 217; Arab race, 42-43,
Onsi Omar, 236 47, 72-73, 68, 77, 83, 202, 206
l’Orient, 120-121, 128, 231 Radio Levant, 129-130
Ottoman Islamic College (Beirut), 220 Rayes, Aref, 236
Ottomanism, 6-8, 56 Reclus, Elisée, 8, 18n, 46, 101n, 104n,
Ottoman Empire, 26, 36, 38, 55, 72, 76, 215, 223n
79, 81, 111, 118, 222, 233 Règlement organique (organic law), 56,
Oughourlian, Joseph, 163 61, 62
Ougour, Aurore, 129, 163, 190n, 223n Renaissance libanaise (São Paulo), 197
Renan, Ernest, 21-22, 39, 240, 50n, 90,
Palestine, Palestinians, 127, 132, 158, 92-93, 122, 162, 206, 244, 246
181, 199, 237, 238 la Revue du Liban et l’Orient
Pan-Arabism: see Arab nationalism Méditerraneen, 131, 231
Paris, 46, 55, 56, 57, 69, 79-87, 112, 123, la Revue Phénicienne, See Corm Charles
167, 175, 180 Rida, Rashid, 7, 104n, 196-200, 201
Pharanonicism, 70, 182, 195, 198, 214, al-Rihani, Amin, 142-143, 152, 173,
221, 223-224n 185n, 195, 196, 209-215, 226n
Pharaon, Habib, 107n Roman Empire, 4, 5, 77, 90, 148-149,
Pharaon, Henri, 233 152, 154, 202, 207, 219, 231, 232
Phoenicians, Romanticism (literary school), 171
history of, 2-5, 212-213, 235; study Rome, 88, 118
of, 22; mythology of, 144-151, 177- Ronzavelle, Sébastian and Louis, 31
180; discovery of America, 78, 103n; Rostand, Edmond, 67, 98n, 171
origins of, 131-132, 152, 202; in Rustum, Asad, 117-118, 205, 248
school textbooks, 49n 110-119;
arabization of, 195, 197, 206, 209,
221, 245
276 REVIVING PHOENICIA

Sa‘adeh, Antun, 107n, 171, 172, 183, 170, 195, 221; and the Nahda, 39-44;
192n, 196, 204, 215-220, 222, 232- opposition to Lebanese separate ex-
233, istence, 34, 86, 115, 118, 127, 160,
al-Sa‘ad, Habib Pasha, 95, 107n, 170 162, 197- 215, 220-223; Syrian secu-
Saad, Edmond, 163 lar nationalism, 6-8, 68-69, 77-78, 81-
de Saint Quentin, René, 153 84, 88-89, 172, 205-206, 215-220,
Salammbô, see Flaubert Gustave 226n; Syrian Arab nationalism, 7-8,
Salhani, Antun, 34, 61 200-209; Christians in, 25; France in,
Salibi, Kamal, 103n, 168-169, 246-247 26-28, 30-31, 111-115, 122-123; Syr-
Salonika, 59 ian immigration to Egypt, 57-59, im-
Samné, Georges, 7, 69, 79, 102n, 103n, migration to America, 70-73;
104n, 206, 215, 223n historiography of, 32-33, 37; domi-
Sanchuniathon, 89 nance in Lebanon, 239
al-Saouda, Yusuf, 75, 76, 84, 85, 97n, Syria, 124
102n, 128, 132, 162, 166, 181, 236 Syrian identity, 7-8, 42-43, 215-220
in Alexandria, 61-63, 159, 169-170 Syrian National Bloc, 206
Saqre, Etienne, 238 Syrian Protestant College (see also
Sarkis, Ramiz, 129 AUB), 30, 35, 41, 45, 111, 123
Sarrail, Maurice, 121 Syrian Social Nationalist Party (Parti
Sarruf, Ya‘aqub, 41 Populaire Syrien), See Sa‘adeh
Sfeir, Maroun, 156 Antun,
Sfeir, Nasrallah, Butrus, 240 Syrian-Lebanese League of Liberation,
al-Shahbandar, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 85 210
Shakespeare, 90, 92-93 la Syrie, 156, 188n, 190n
Shekib, Arslan, 196, 199
al-Shartunui, Rashid al-Khuri, 32 Tabbah, Béchara, 60
Sidon, 67, 86, 124, 157, 178 Tabet, Ayyub, 80, 154, 210, 226n
Shi‘is, 115, 127, 143, 195, 240 Tabet, Georges, 106n
al-Shidyaq, Tannus, 39 Tabet, Ibrahim J., 90
Shihabi Dynasty, 117, 119 Tabet, Jacques, 83, 85, 90, 91, 95, 99n,
Shimlan, 75 108n, 215
Shu‘ubiyya, 220-221 sojourn in Alexandria, 60, 67-69; es-
Slouschz, Nahum, 189n tablishment of national museum, 69,
Smith, Anthony, 9-10, 147, 176 124; Lammens’ influence on, 98-99n
Smyrna, 59, 166 Ta’if Accord, 239, 247-248
Spain, 3, 166, 198 Talhamé, Michel, 90
al-Sulh, Riad, 132, 135n, 164 Tanzimat, 38
al-Sulh, Taki al-Din, 143, 173, 186n Taoutel, Ferdinand, 116
Sunnis, 61, 110, 115, 127, 130, 132, 143, Taqi al-Din, Khalil, 143, 186n
154, 155, 161, 181, 195, 220 de-Tarrazi, Philippe, 84, 90, 91, 124,
Suq al-Gharb, 75 138n
Sursock Alfred Mussa, 84, 99n Trad, Gabriel, 60
Symbolism (literary school), 171 Trad, Michel Namé, 84
Syria, 23, 29, 38, 45, 46, 47, 55, 56, 79, Trad, Pierre, 84
80, 85, 109, 111, 167, 169, 239, 169, Tresca, Louis, 125
 INDEX 277
Tripoli, 34, 63, 64, 67, 127, 197 al-Wa‘i al-Qawmi, 201-204
Tuéni, Gébran, 129, 154, 155 Weygand, Maxime,112
Tuéni, Michel, 84, 95, 108n World War I, 6, 7, 33, 36, 45, 48, 57, 60,
Tunisia, 3, 134n 64, 79, 80, 82, 88, 92, 111, 125, 159,
Tyane, Elie, 90, 91, 107n, 163, 172, 234 169, 195, 211
Tyre, 22, 35, 67, 86, 124, 157, 163, 168, World War II, 154, 163, 164, 174
177, 240
al-Yaffi Abdallah, 135n, 155
Ugarit, 5, 124 Yammout, Bassem, 248
Umayyad Dynasty, 81, 211 Yared, Gabriel, 60
Uniate Churches, 26, 46, 49n, 98n, 195, Yazbek, Adele, 171
205, 206, 215, 225n Yazbek, Yusuf, 139n, 172
Université de Lyon, 23, 30, 125 Young Turk revolution, 55, 56, 60, 79,
Université Saint Ésprit de Kaslik, 238 197, 210
Université Saint Joseph, 23, 30-36, 37, Yunis, As‘ad, 143, 152
88, 111, 164, 169, 205, 235
alumni association of, 121-122, 124; Zahle, 73, 81, 82, 171, 180
influence on Lebanese society, 112- Zakkur, Michel, 152, 211
113, 137n, 119-122, 129, 205; books Zamir, Meir, 36
by teachers of, 116-117; Oriental Fac- Zaydan, Jurji, 41-44
ulty, 31, 117, 121, 125 al-Zein Ahmad ‘Arif (al-‘Irfan), 44, 99n
Usrat al-Jabal al-Mulham, 231 Zeus, 157, 163, 177-180, 187n, 241n
Zionist movement, 78, 132, 158, 167,
Valéry, Paul, 171, 180 181, 214
Vatican, 26, 30 Zubaida Sami, 10
Venus, 147, 149, 156 Zurayk Qonstantine, 196, 200-205, 206,
Versailles Peace Conference, 11, 61, 75, 208, 214
80, 84-87, 88, 89, 195
Virgin Mary, 179, 236
Virolleaud, Charles, 124