From Empire to Nation

By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar | Architect, Teacher, President of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon and Head of External Relations of the Syriac Union Party in Lebanon

In the Levant, Islam took root in the major Mediterranean coastal cities — Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli, Tartus, and Latakia. Surrounded by Christian and Jewish hill communities or overshadowed by dominant Christian mountain ranges, these urban populations never felt isolated. Instead, they saw themselves as fully integrated into the vast, structured realm of the Sunni empire. From that perspective, the Levantine hinterland appeared little more than a peripheral and insignificant countryside.

The Caliphates

Since the arrival of Arab forces led by Umar ibn al-Khattab in 636, successive dynasties reinforced the dominant territorial outlook of the coastal cities. Their inhabitants paid little attention to their immediate Levantine surroundings, focusing instead on the vast empire stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean.

In both their collective identity and legal framework, city dwellers did not belong to their local environment but to a caliphate that embodied their Muslim and Sunni identity, established by the Rashidun Caliphs (636–661). This imperial vision endured under the Umayyads (661–750) based in Damascus and the Abbasids (750–878) from Baghdad. Central authority later shifted to Cairo under Turkish dynasties such as the Tulunids (878–905) and the Ikhshidids (935–969). Despite their autonomy from the Abbasids, these dynasties maintained continuity through Arabic as the official language and Sunni Islam as the state religion.

In 969, the caliphate passed to the Fatimids (969–1071), the only non-Sunni dynasty, as they were Ismaili Shias. However, this period was brief, as Sunni Islam was soon reasserted under the Seljuk Turks (1071–1098).

The Frankish Period

It was only between 1098 and 1291, during the Frankish period, that the coastal cities of the Levant truly became part of the Levant. Having embraced Christianity once again, they reestablished ties with their Syriac-Maronite, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian hinterlands. These cities no longer belonged to the Arab-Muslim empire but to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of Antioch.

Nonetheless, this two-century span only deepened among the Sunni populations an existential longing to belong to a realm far greater than the Levant itself. They saw the territory as little more than a modest suburb of the thriving port cities — gateways to an infinite empire from which they continuously awaited both prosperity and salvation.

In fact, salvation once again came from the Sunnis. Another Turkish dynasty from Cairo liberated them from Levantine rule and restored them to the empire. These liberators were the Mamluks, who seized Haifa from the Christians in 1265, followed by Antioch in 1268. Tripoli, protected by its Maronite mountain, held out longer, but ultimately fell in 1289.

The Ottomans

The Mamluk sultanate ended in 1516, making way for a new Sunni authority: the Ottomans. For the inhabitants of the Levantine coastal cities, these conquerors were seen as new protectors — custodians of the caliphate with a new capital, Constantinople modern day Istanbul, continuing the legacy of Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad.

The Ottomans ruled for four centuries, cementing a strong sense of belonging to the imperial order among the residents of the Levantine ports. From Arabs to Turks, ethnicity mattered little compared to the central importance of the caliphate.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 marked a radical rupture, ushering in a period of identity and existential upheaval for the cities of the Levant. For the first time since the collapse of the Latin states, these cities found themselves absorbed into Levantine entities that severed their ties to imperial belonging.

The Sunnis of Tartus and Latakia were incorporated into an Alawite state. Those of Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre incorporated into a projected Jewish national homeland and those of Sidon, Beirut, and Tripoli into a Christian-led Lebanon.

Illusory Solutions

To make this new order viable for them, a mirage of illusory solutions was hastily imposed: the unification of an Arab Republic of Syria and Lebanon’s accession to a league of Arab-Muslim states. For Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, and the cities further south, the Palestinian cause would henceforth embody the frustrations of Levantine coastal populations, torn from their imperial caliphate.

Even more surprising was the alignment of the Shias of Jabal Amel and Baalbeck with this transnational logic, selectively drawing on the brief Fatimid period for historical legitimacy — despite being Twelvers, not Ismailis like the Fatimids or the few Shia and Druze villages that once dotted Keserwan in Mount Lebanon but have long since disappeared.

This cross-border megalomania proved destructive for its followers, Sunni and Shia alike. It destabilized the countries of the Levant, decimated their populations and intensified interethnic tensions.

Africa and the Persian Gulf

Meanwhile, the Sunnis of the Gulf countries, as well as those in Egypt and North Africa, enjoy relative stability because their national identities embrace the concept of borders. Their cities do not exist as enclaves sharply contrasting demographically or culturally with their surroundings. Their populations do not feel abandoned by their imperial capitals — Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad, or Istanbul. With the exception of Egypt’s Coptic community, these countries function as nation-states insofar as their populations’ identities align with that of the nation.

The Gulf countries’ inward turn — focused on wealth, prosperity, and ties to the West — marked the end of Pan-Arabism. Its collapse once again left the Sunnis of the Levant orphans. For many nostalgic for Ottoman rule, including not only Levantine Sunnis but also Druze and Maronite feudal elites, Pan-Arabism was the last vestige of empire. These feudal leaders owe their status, titles such as sheikh or beik, and privileges to the Ottoman Islamic empire they now bitterly mourn. They express this attachment by embracing Arab nationalism, a sentiment quickly echoed by a rising neo-feudalism.

The Era of Pan-Arabism

The Sunnis’ deep attachment to Arab nationalism, and to the Palestinian cause in particular, stems from that legacy. No longer confined to Palestine alone, the cause has come to embody their deepest anxieties, their sense of abandonment and their rupture from an imperial world and an organic identity.

Beyond its political dimension, the Palestinian cause ultimately reflects the profound unease of the Sunnis of Latakia, Tartus, Tripoli, Beirut, and Sidon — haunted by the fear of sharing the fate of those from Haifa, Acre, and Jaffa.

This fear helps explain the persistence and growing intensity of the cause in the cities of the Levant and the West, even as it has been overtaken, if not entirely abandoned, in Arab countries more at peace with themselves.

This ethno-political crisis calls for a visionary solution — but what form could it take? Neither the integration of the Alawite state into the Arab Republic, nor Lebanon’s membership in the Arab League and alignment with the Palestinian cause, has eased existential fears. On the contrary, these choices have often deepened the sense of insecurity, leading to conflict, sectarian violence and further waves of displacement and hardship.

This article was originally published by This Is Beirut on 20 July 2025. The original can be found here.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.