Abstract :
Almost ninety years have passed since the establishment of the Lebanese state,
but it still lacks a consensual and unifying historical narrative. The Druzes of
Lebanon, who claim to be the real founders of the historical Lebanese entity,
reject the Lebanese historiography elaborated by Christian historians as ideologically
motivated, sectarian and fabricated. Furthermore, they claimthat their
contribution to Lebanon’s history has been systematically minimized. The
Druze leader, Kamāl Junblāt˙
, was the first to raise public awareness of the
importance of rewriting Lebanon’s history, and the process of doing so has
gained momentum among Druze intellectuals since the 1980s. This article
discusses the efforts of the Druze intelligentsia to cultivate a historical narrative
that presents an alternative towhat they call the “Maronite narrative”; it focuses
predominantly on the Emirate’s history during the Middle Ages and the
reciprocal relations between the Druze political experience within modern
Lebanon and the intellectual formulation of their narrative.
