The Ecumenical Frame: Rethinking Sectarianism and Coexistence in the Modern Middle East

At the Academy, Makdisi will work on his next book, under contract with the University of California Press, on the history of coexistence and sectarianism in the modern Middle East. It will provide historical perspective on the contemporary sectarian tragedy—including in several war-torn countries today: Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq—uncovering a complex but now obscured culture of coexistence in a region rich in religious diversity. Makdisi disputes two narratives that have dominated the regions’s story of diversity. The first idealizes coexistence and harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims; the second stresses a continuity of either latent or actual sectarian strife between allegedly antagonistic religious communities. Rather than assuming either sectarianism or coexistence, Makdisi plans to historicize both. Empires in the Middle East had long distinguished Muslim from non-Muslim, yet in the modern era—which celebrates the equality of all citizens—religion became a key component of a new political imagination. At what point was “sectarianism” first identified as a political problem? When and why was public office parceled out along sectarian lines as an expression of fairness? Why was this done in some parts of the Middle East but not in others? And when was “coexistence” first celebrated as a national value?