Lebanon’s first cabinet was formed on 26 May 1926, headed by a prominent Christian statesman named Auguste Adib Pasha. Back then, the premiership was still not reserved for exclusively Sunni Muslims, nor was the presidency for Maronite Christians. In 1926, Lebanon’s president was Charles Dabbas, a Greek Orthodox Christian, and in 1932, a Sunni Muslim notable from Tripoli, Sheikh Mohammad al-Jisr, nominated himself for the Lebanese presidency.
Auguste Adib Pasha formed a seven-man cabinet composed of four Christians and one member representing the Sunni, Shiite, and Druze communities. The Shiite portfolio went to Ali Nusrat al-As’ad, who was named Minister of Agriculture. A prolific poet and respected legal adviser to the Lebanese Justice, he was also the son of a pasha whose family were the traditional leaders of Jabal Amil in southern Lebanon.
The leadership of the Shiite community was divided between the As’ads and other feudal landlords like the Husseinis and Usseirans, who did not differ much from traditional Sunni landowning families under the Ottomans. These Shiite notables never raised sectarian slogans during their election campaigns, banking on their Lebanese identity rather than a Shiite one. They considered themselves equal before the law with other Lebanese sects, enjoying political representation that reflected their numbers and geographic presence throughout the country.
When the Lebanese Army was formed, they joined their compatriots to enlist, going on to assume senior posts in the state, like speakership of the Lebanese parliament, starting in 1943. This active political engagement pre-dated independence and the years of the French Mandate, and under the Ottomans, a Shiite notable named Khalil al-As’ad became mutasarif of Nablus while his son Kamel was voted into the Ottoman Parliament in Istanbul.
Before the outbreak of World War I, they stood on both sides of the Arab-Ottoman conflict, notably via Abdul Karim Khalil, a frontline Shiite Arab nationalist who founded the Arab Literary Forum (Al-Muntada al-Adibi) in Istanbul, before he was executed by hanging in 1916 at the orders of Djemal Pasha, commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army in Syria.
None of the Shiites of that generation spoke of Shiite “victimisation,” which became a popular phrase in the 1960s after government spending poured into Beirut at the expense of Shiite villages in southern Lebanon. But it was not only the south that suffered from the gross imbalance in government spending; so did Tripoli, Sidon, and Tyre.
Coined as the “Switzerland of the East,” Beirut had become a magnet for government expenditure, as tourists flocked to the Lebanese capital from all four corners of the world, along with hefty Arab and foreign investments. This created a feeling of grave bitterness among the Shiites, who accused the central government of neglecting their towns and villages. And from this bitterness emerged the Movement of the Disposed (Haraket al-Mahroumeen) led by Iranian-born Lebanese cleric Musa al-Sadr in 1974. Later known as the Amal Movement, it was the mother organisation from which Hezbollah was born in 1984.
Frequent cooperation
Despite their theological differences, Lebanese Sunnis and Shiites cooperated frequently during their country’s recent history, although they differed on their view of the modern Lebanese state that was formed at the start of French rule in September 1920. The Muslims of Beirut, Tripoli, and Sidon wanted to remain part of Syria, whereas Maronite Christians fought for the independent status they had been given by the French, which meant they would always be a majority.
The official (and last) Lebanese census of 1932 put the country’s population at 875,252 citizens, 53% of whom were Christian, giving them the upper hand in all senior political, administrative, and judicial appointments. When President Émile Eddé was asked why Christians were so predominant in Lebanon, he famously replied: “Lebanon is a Christian country; let the Muslims go to Mecca.” A second unofficial census in 1956 put Lebanon’s population at an estimated 1.4 million: 286,000 Sunnis, 250,000 Shiites, and 424,000 Christians.
Different approaches
In their approach to establishing a modern Lebanese state, Shiites found themselves on the same page as the Maronites, preferring independence from Syria. Becoming a large majority in Lebanon was far more appealing than being a small minority in Syria.
In fact, most Lebanese were actually not satisfied with the final borders that they were left with at the end of World War I, and President Eddé famously penned a memorandum to the French Foreign Ministry, claiming that due to increasing numbers of Muslims, they were inching close to becoming equal with Lebanon’s Christians. That, he said, put Christian dominance at risk, suggesting an autonomous status for southern Lebanon to rid itself of its Shiites (the population of Southern Lebanon stood at 140,000 in the 1930s), something similar to the autonomy of the Druze and Alawite Mountains in Syria. He also suggested dividing the northern city of Tripoli and offering its Muslim population Syrian nationality rather than Lebanese.
Fixed representation
Shiite representation was fixed under the mandate at one minister per cabinet, with Shiite judge Ahmad al-Husseini becoming minister of public works in 1928, followed by Subhi Haydar as minister of finance until 1932. Haydar was a scion of a leading family in Baalbak, and while he was immersed in Lebanese politics, his father was active in the Syrian national movement in Damascus, helping draft Syria’s second charter in 1950. Another member of the Haydar family, Ibrahim, would assume the portfolios of health, posts, and telegraphs in the 1930s, also serving briefly on the country’s short-lived Council of Elders.
During the parliamentary elections of 1943, prominent Sunni statesman Riad al-Solh allied himself with his Shiite counterpart Ahmad al-As’ad, running on a joint list. And when parliament was inaugurated later that summer, another Sunni leader, Saeb Salam, made his Shiite colleague Sabri Hamadeh speaker of the Chamber, replacing the outgoing Christian speaker Petro Trad.
In his memoirs, future premier Salam claims that he nominated Hamadeh for the post because he was the longest-serving parliamentarian, not because he was a Shiite. And when Hamada’s term ended, two Shiites competed for the post of speaker: Beirut MP Rashid Baydoun and Ahmad al-As’ad. The former was only talked out of the race when a cross-confessional delegation headed by Salam visited his home, asking that he withdraw in favour of al-As’ad.
When forming his first cabinet in September 1943, Prime Minister al-Solh appointed celebrated Shiite statesman Adel Usseiran as minister of public works, trade, and industry. The two men were arrested together by the French that November, along with President Bechara El Khoury, for supporting constitutional amendments to eliminate French control of Lebanon. Also jailed were their Christian colleagues, Interior Minister Camille Chamoun and Foreign Minister Saleem Takla. Speaker Hamadeh called for an urgent parliamentary session, defying French bullets and bayonets, attended by Shiite MP Rashid Baydoun and Muslim MP Saeb Salam. Under Hamadeh’s chairmanship, they drew up the modern flag of Lebanon, omitting any symbolic reference to the French Mandate.
The National Pact of 1943
Before their arrest, President El Khoury and Prime Minister al-Solh drew up a gentleman's agreement known as the National Pact, laying the groundwork for power sharing in Lebanon as stated in Article 95 of the Constitution. The National Pact (Al-Mithaq al-Watani) was a spoken agreement, referred to in writing only in al-Solh’s cabinet statement on 7 October 1943. It stated that the Lebanese presidency would go to a Maronite Christian, the premiership to a Sunni, and the speakership of parliament to a Shiite. The pact also defined Lebanon as having an “Arab Face” and being part of the region’s Arab identity and struggles.
Every government has since upheld it and was only breached twice, first in 1946 with the naming of the Christian politician Habib Abou Chahla as parliament speaker. The second breach occurred during the civil war, when minutes before the end of his tenure, President Amine Gemayel appointed General Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, as prime minister. Lebanon suddenly found itself with two cabinets: one led by Aoun and another by the legitimate Sunni premier, Salim al-Hoss.
