Secular Coexistence in Lebanon

Examines the relationship between law, the secular, and the coexistence of Muslims and Christians in Lebanon

• Considers the coexistence of Christians and Muslims in Lebanon as a form of life
• Describes the interplay between law and religion, and between judicial processes and the religious
• Analyses the civil, criminal, ecclesiastical, and shari'a judicial processes and the ways in which they sustain the coexistence of Christians and Muslims
• Shows how the Lebanese legal arrangement constitutes the modes of belonging, forms of life, and dispassionate bodies on which coexistence depends

This book is a study of the coexistence of Christians and muslims in Lebanon. It considers coexistence as a historically and geographically specific arrangement and organising principle of a distinctly secular form of life. On the basis of ethnographic and archival field research in Lebanon, Raja Abillama shows that Lebanese law and civil, criminal and religious (shari'a and ecclesiastical) judicial processes converge to secure a place for muslims and Christians to articulate their legally intelligible religious difference and distinctiveness, to secure the religious in place, and to contain what cannot be made legally intelligible - namely, their religious passions. This book's holistic account of the interplay of law and religion in Lebanon is a contribution to debates surrounding sectarianism and secularism.