The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon

by Fouad Ajami

Overview

In the summer of 1978, Musa al Sadr, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Shia sect in Lebanon, disappeared mysteriously while on a visit to Libya. As in the Shia myth of the "Hidden Imam," this modern-day Imam left his followers upholding his legacy and awaiting his return. Considered an outsider when he had arrived in Lebanon in 1959 from his native Iran, he gradually assumed the role of charismatic mullah, and was instrumental in transforming the Shia, a quiescent and downtrodden Islamic minority, into committed political activists.

What sort of person was Musa al Sadr? What beliefs in the Shia doctrine did his life embody? Where did he fit into the tangle of Lebanon's warring factions? What was behind his disappearance? In this fascinating and compelling narrative, Fouad Ajami resurrects the Shia's neglected history, both distant and recent, and interweaves the life and work of Musa al Sadr with the larger strands of the Shia past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801419102
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	05/15/1986
Series:	9/25/2008
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri professor in Middle East Studies and Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University.

What People are Saying About This

New York Times Book Review

Important and insightful.

From the Publisher

Fouad Ajami is both a Shiite from South Lebanon and an American political scientist. In this fascinating and illuminating book he combines the understanding and concern that are the birthright of the one with the acumen and integrity that are the aspiration of the other.

Editorial Reviews

The questions Ajami raises are likely to remain central; he is challenging some of the fundamental assumptions with which many Arab and Western students of Arab history and politics have worked in recent decades.

New Republic - Itamar Rabinovich

The Vanished Imam offers much more than a utilitarian account of recent developments in Lebanon. It takes the raw stuff of daily politics and turns it into a classic account of human achievement and strife. The details are localbut Mr. Ajami endows the story with a universal significance. His tale of the stranger who transforms a people and thenwhen his work is donereenacts its most sacred dramahas the literary power of a masterpiece.

Wall Street Journal - Daniel Pipes

Sayyid Musa al Sadr came to Lebanon in 1959 and disappeared during a visit to Libya in 1978. What begins as a narrow study of a relatively minor figure becomes a sensitive and probing analysis of current Middle Eastern society. Ajami elucidates, for the general reader as well as the specialist, a charismatic and enigmatic man, combining religious and political leadership in contemporary Lebanon, a country torn by religious and political conflicts. In portraying this striking individual, Ajami brilliantly illustrates the religious and social conservatism of the Shiite community. He avoids the facile characterization of fanatic and provides an understanding of the tensions building in the Shiite community before erupting into bloody civil war and fueling international terrorism. Highly recommended. Elizabeth R. Hayford, President, Assoc. Colls. of the Midwest, Chicago

Library Journal

"Important and insightful."—New York Times Book Review

"The questions Ajami raises are likely to remain central; he is challenging some of the fundamental assumptions with which many Arab and Western students of Arab history and politics have worked in recent decades."—Itamar Rabinovich, New Republic

"The Vanished Imam offers much more than a utilitarian account of recent developments in Lebanon. It takes the raw stuff of daily politics and turns it into a classic account of human achievement and strife. The details are local, but Mr. Ajami endows the story with a universal significance. His tale of the stranger who transforms a people and then, when his work is done, reenacts its most sacred drama, has the literary power of a masterpiece." –Daniel Pipes, Wall Street Journal

"Fouad Ajami is both a Shiite from South Lebanon and an American political scientist. In this fascinating and illuminating book he combines the understanding and concern that are the birthright of the one with the acumen and integrity that are the aspiration of the other."—Bernard Lewis

From the Publisher