Elisabeth Sepulveda
ID 235: Middle Eastern Studies
Professor Schillinger
12 May 2015
The Deconstructed Process of Constructing Morality
In the book, “Leisurely Islam”, Lara Deeb and Mona Harb seek to describe and define
life in the Dahiya—a suburb of Beirut—through an ethnographic approach, elucidating the ways
in which a largely-contained Muslim minority navigates the moral complexities of both their
own neighborhood and a larger, secularized periphery. Throughout the book, Deeb and Harb
highlight morality as their major theme, creating moral rubrics through which to view social,
political, and religious interactions in the region, while explicating strategies used by Dahiya’s
citizens to alleviate tensions between competing rubrics. Through clearly defining the process of
moral construction, the authors create space for readers to personally analyze and interpret the
moral climate in Dahiya, ultimately fostering a more informed perspective, responsive to the
relevant moral considerations that define the region.
As context, Dahiya is a predominantly Shi’a suburb south of Beirut, located on a
peninsula halfway up the Mediterranean. Although Beirut, as a whole, is roughly divided
between Muslims and Christians, following fragmentation from civil war, most Shia are
aggregated in the south, with Sunni in the West and Christians to the East. Essentially, the
religious segmentation creates a type of moral organization within the region, ordering the
diverse viewpoints inherent in a religious conglomerate. Dahiya itself is ruled by Hizbullah, the
Shia Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon. The suburb was appropriated
by Hizbullah in 1989, towards the end of the Lebanese civil war, and was initially marginalized
by Beirut’s city-dwellers through its stigma of being “poor, backward, illegal, fanatic, and
archaic” (48).
Once Hizbullah joined the Lebanese political system, following the signing of the Taif
agreement and end of the war, relations between Dahiya and Beirut improved, both from
reconstruction of the city and local representation in municipal elections—indicating increased
state involvement—as well as an economic boom leading to the Troika consensus, and
recognition of a three-way political system between Christians, Shia, and Sunni. Following the
Israeli war on Lebanon, the city-suburb dichotomy increased once again, and with the takeover
of the city by Hizbullah fighters, tensions between the two areas escalated. Within Dahiya,
Fadlallah is one of the most popular marjas in the area for his emphasis on personal
interpretation outside of the specific, clearly-defined standards, as well as his acknowledgment
that most decisions relate to societal values in the social rubric rather than questions of morality
inherent in the religious rubric (79).
It is this space of freedom that both speaks to Fadlallah’s popularity and captures the
attention of Deeb and Harb, establishing their central theme of morality. For the purpose of the
book, the authors first distinguish between ethics and morality, choosing the term “morality”
instead of ethics for its conveyed dichotomy of good and bad and right and wrong, as well as the
way it is socially constructed to determine broadly applicable values (16). While the nature of
morality itself creates a nebulous gray area for explanation and interpretation, the authors begin
their discussion through clarifying the parameters and defining morality as “The forms and acts
by which commitments are engaged and virtue accomplished - the practical judgments people
make about how to live their lives wisely and well, and, in the course of making them, do live
their lives, albeit in the face of numerous constraints” (Lambek 2000, 315). Following the
definition, in order to further make sense of issues related to morality, the authors establish three
different rubrics—or lenses—through which to organize the topic: social, political-sectarian, and
religious. Once the subject is defined and categories established, Deeb and Harb transition into a
discussion of the ways in which these categories practically function in Dahiya.
To describe the ways in which this morality functions in Dahiya, Deeb and Harb first
draw upon situations where morality is compromised in order to illuminate underlying reasons
behind acting from specific values. Specifically, they analyze examples where individual
interpretation, piety as progression, prioritization of rubrics, and geographic morality mapping
aid in maneuvering through undefined moral territory. Beginning with individual interpretation,
the authors emphasize the fact that an absence of state or party authority dictating moral codes
“has allowed a space to emerge where people—young and old alike—can fulfill simultaneous
and non-contradictory desires for morality and fun” ( 32). While this freedom may seem like a
license for unrestrained hedonism, it is tempered through a focus on “morally sound” intentions
and a sense of personal responsibility (157). Indeed, the freedom does not initiate a move
towards relativism, but rather a movement towards finding the best ideological fit in the face of
shifting realities. As the authors emphasize, “while people’s convictions are variable and minds
do change, they frequently change from one intractable stance to another. As opposed to living
with moral uncertainty, people tend to seek stable ground within this terrain of malleable
morality” (157). The pursuit of a stable and sure morality, then, is the foundation for moral
construction. Freedom of interpretation does not derive its allure from a potential lack of
accountability or its inherent flexibility, but rather, from the way it encompasses a number of
personal, social, and religious factors to create the most meaningful proposition of morality.
Following from malleable, personally-determined morality, another strategy for
reconciling tensions comes from the notion of piety as a progression. Because morality is not
fixed, it is viewed as a more dynamic progression—a journey rather than an instantaneous
arrival. Deeb and Harb say that, “in this way, moral flexibility could be accompanied by an
emphasis on the importance of ‘working on oneself’ to become the kind of person who makes
‘better’ choices….viewed by most youth as something that they could worry about later in life”
when they are “‘religiously committed enough’ to avoid certain cafes and activities” (156).
Through postponing moral perfection to later in life--and temporarily absolving themselves of
moral responsibility—young people are relieved of the pressure to instantly attain their highest
ideal of morality, and therefore find a solution to a problematic situations.
A third strategy towards resolving disagreement is the prioritization of rubrics—meaning
that one rubric is identified as a closer approximation to a personal conception of morality, and
therefore should not be breached when two rubrics are in disagreement. The process of
prioritization, however, is distinct to each individual. The taboo of women smoking Argileh, for
example, supports the idea that “social propriety is most likely to trump religious rules when it
comes to ideas about female sexuality” (163). In an example contrasting two men—Rabi’ and
Mahmoud--Rabi’ works to maintain good relationships with friends through attending night
clubs, although it compromises his religious rubric, since he prioritizes the social over the
religious. Mahmoud, in contrast, “privileges his religious values over his social relationships”,
even, at times, verbally correcting behavior of others that threatens his values (146).
Additionally, some use external factors to prioritize a rubric in a given situation, for example
youths whose “compromise depended on either the extent to which a social event was viewed as
an obligation or the distance that the other person had traveled” (148). Prioritizing rubrics is then
a dynamic, situationally-dependent process, which, although not simple, creates a methodology
for identifying the best rubric—and resolving conflict—in a given situation.
A final strategy used by the people of Dahiya is that of geographic morality mapping,
properly navigating places and spaces—inevitably saturated with norms and values—in order to
avoid unnecessary friction. This proper navigation is the result of developed “urban
competencies”—“skills that people acquire through their experiences in/around the city that
allow them to make sense of the city’s multiple and complex codes as well as negotiate those
codes across and within neighborhood” (190). Reflecting the subjective nature of morality, these
competencies are equally unfixed, and vary with age, gender, income, political identity, and
conceptions of morality. Particularly, because Dahiya’s moral codes are regionally selfcontained, a developed competency helps the people retain their values while still expanding
their urban network. Developing competency is a process, however, learned through a “variety of
experiences in different neighborhoods” (191). During the developmental phase, leisure
geographies “will be in flux, varying between extremes of a confined territory and an expanded
urban network, a circumscribed encounter and an intense experiences of the city” (191).
Knowing, in advance, which locations and cafes are more accommodating to the moral values of
a given individual—ranging from serving alcohol to perspectives on public gender interactions—
creates space for Dahiya’s citizens to anticipate and respond to potential conflict before it forms.
While Deeb and Harb provide a heuristic for viewing and interpreting conceptions of
morality within Dahiya, they do so, not to encourage hasty classification of the people and
situations that they observe, but rather to frame the gray areas with greater clarity. Through
displaying multiple angles and diverse interpretations, they create space for the exceptions that
speak to the nuanced nature of constructing personal morality, even within a city that collectively
shares similar values. For example, when discussing a sense of belonging and security in the city,
they borrow from two conflicting female voices to describe the experience. Twenty-year-old
Rola says that, “in Dahiya, I am in my area, my neighborhood….I also go to downtown, but I
feel more constrained there. Here I feel freer in my movements” (182). In contrast, other women
describe Dahiya as inhibiting, a phenomena which Deeb and Hard describe as “an effect of the
gender differences in behavioral expectations….and the possibilities for surveillance by people
who might know you in places close to home” (189). Thus, the potential for moral rubrics to
clash can create different reactions and responses for each individual. For Rola, Dahiya’s
affirmation of moral standards creates a more open, accepting environment. For other women,
however, the moral norms imposed by the environment intensify their discomfort and inhibit the
full expression of their personal morality.
Ultimately, through highlighting conflicting experiences and different approaches
towards reconciling tensions, Deeb and Harb inhabit their role as sociologists in a way that
mirrors the moral situation in Dahiya. Just as the people of Dahiya are free to navigate moral
complexities within the defined standards and expectations shared by a common Shia
community, Deeb and Harb create space for the reader to personally interpret the moral situation
in Dahiya, while establishing moral rubrics to guide and inform the process. Additionally,
through including diverse personal examples, the authors serve as curators, attempting to fully
describe the concerns of the people in Dahiya through their authentic voices. While the
individuals in Dahiya, themselves, have likely not articulated specific moral rubrics, assuming
the examples and quotes are sufficiently representative, the rubrics seem to both accurately
reflect and clarify the moral situation in Dahiya. While not native Lebanese voices themselves,
the authors’ chosen anecdotes do not presume a cohesive understanding, but rather outline the
convoluted process behind arriving at a conclusion—both for the people of Dahiya, as they
construct personal conceptions of morality, as well as for outsiders seeking to develop their own
understanding of this process.
In a way, for Deeb and Harb, an informed perspective consists less of displaying the
knowns, and more of using the knowns to discern the unknowns—discovering what the gray area
is, how and why it came to be, and the ways in which individuals practically navigate this space
in their daily lives. This process is reflected through the book’s organization—first, through the
creation of moral rubrics, and finally, through describing the ways that individuals reconcile
conflicts and unknowns within these rubrics. Through an emphasis on the complex nature of
personal morality, the process of moral construction is not fully explained, but tactfully framed,
ultimately creating space for an informed and more accurate understanding of the interpretative
experiences faced by Shia Muslims in Dahiya.