Understanding Sectarianism: Ussama Makdisi on the History & Future of the Middle East's Gordian Knot

Summary

Ussama Makdisi argues that sectarianism in the modern Middle East should not be treated as an ancient, permanent conflict—especially not as a simple continuation of an original Sunni–Shia split. Sectarian violence, he says, arises in particular historical circumstances through interacting political, economic, ideological, and cultural forces. Describing it as timeless obscures both local agency and the role of outside powers, and can make contemporary conflicts seem inevitable or unrelated to present-day policies.

Main ideas

• Reject timeless explanations. Makdisi challenges media accounts that explain current violence as the recurrence of age-old religious hatred. He argues that religious identities matter, but they do not explain events on their own. Labels such as “Sunni” or “Shia” can flatten people’s multiple identities and substitute for historical analysis.
• Study sectarianism alongside pluralism. The history of religious conflict is also a history of communities living alongside one another. Makdisi rejects romantic accounts of harmonious coexistence, but says that the long history of shared life matters: it shows that today’s conflicts are not inevitable.
• Use the nineteenth century as a starting point. The breakdown of Ottoman imperial order, the spread of nationalism and citizenship, and European imperial intervention reshaped political life. These developments created new possibilities for equality and inclusion, as well as new forms of exclusion and conflict.
• Recognize the Ottoman system’s contradictions. The empire governed diverse religious and ethnic communities for centuries, but coexistence took place within an unequal system that privileged Muslim rule. Makdisi describes this as an “empire of difference,” rather than a modern, egalitarian order.
• Consider reforms and their consequences. Under pressure from internal crises and European powers, the Ottoman state introduced reforms that moved toward formal equality between Muslim and non-Muslim subjects. Makdisi highlights the 1839 and 1856 edicts, the abolition of the non-Muslim poll tax in 1855, the introduction of Ottoman citizenship in 1869, and constitutional recognition of equality in 1876. These changes challenged established arrangements but were not accompanied by uniform social or cultural preparation.
• Explain nineteenth-century violence through its context. Anti-Christian violence in Aleppo in 1850 and massacres in Damascus and Mount Lebanon in 1860 occurred amid political upheaval, reform, imperial intervention, and local tensions. Makdisi warns against treating these events as straightforward expressions of ancient religious hostility. In Aleppo, for example, an anti-conscription and anti-tax uprising that began among poorer Muslims was later described primarily as a sectarian riot, obscuring its class dimensions.
• Understand the dangers of sectarian political systems. After the 1860 violence, Ottoman and European authorities introduced political arrangements that allocated representation according to religious affiliation in places such as Mount Lebanon. Makdisi argues that these systems were imposed without popular consent and made religious communities into fixed political categories. They were different from a model based on equal, shared citizenship.
• Place these arrangements alongside competing models of political order. Makdisi contrasts sectarian power-sharing with ethnoreligious nationalism, which defines the state as belonging to one group and can leave others pressured to assimilate, leave, or be expelled. He presents the Ottoman sectarian arrangements as stopgap responses that did not resolve the larger pressures of nationalism and imperial rivalry.
• Trace the effects of Balkan nationalism and population displacement. As the Ottoman Empire lost territory in Europe, wars and expulsions dramatically changed its population. Makdisi argues that the shrinking empire became increasingly Muslim, contributing to Ottoman leaders’ efforts to form a militarized, predominantly Muslim nation-state. He places the Armenian Genocide within this transformation and the growing treatment of Armenians as an allegedly untrustworthy minority.
• Recognize a different trajectory in the Arab provinces. While the empire’s northern regions were increasingly shaped by ethnic nationalism and population displacement, the Arab Levant experienced a late nineteenth-century cultural revival, the Nahda. Makdisi emphasizes efforts by Arab Christians, Muslims, and Jews to imagine shared Arab, Syrian, and Ottoman identities. He does not portray this era as fully equal or free from conflict, but argues that political equality among Muslim and non-Muslim men became relatively accepted in parts of the region.
• Examine colonial rule and state-making after World War I. Makdisi argues that Britain and France did not simply inherit existing divisions: their policies helped create new political structures and intensify communal categories. He cites French partitioning in Syria and the creation of a Maronite-dominated Lebanon as examples. Colonial authorities also promoted institutions organized around religious communities while claiming to protect them.
• Treat Palestine as a major rupture in pluralist politics. Makdisi argues that British rule and the growth of political Zionism introduced an exclusive religious-national project into a multi-religious society. The 1948 expulsion of Palestinian Muslims and Christians, alongside the later displacement and loss of Jewish communities in Arab countries, dealt a severe blow to the idea of an inclusive Arab identity.
• Apply the same historical caution to present-day conflicts. Makdisi does not claim to explain the unfolding wars in Iraq, Syria, or elsewhere in detail. He stresses that much remains unknown about the actors, funding, and outside involvement. His central point is that current Sunni–Shia violence should be investigated through contemporary conditions—not presented as an ancient conflict that has simply resurfaced.

Analytical approach emphasized in the lecture

• Identify the specific time and place of a conflict rather than treating sectarianism as a constant.
• Examine the interaction of religion, class, economics, political authority, nationalism, and culture; avoid reducing an event to a single cause.
• Account for both local actors and external powers, without assuming that either alone explains everything.
• Ask how institutions and policies define, reinforce, or mobilize communal identities.
• Compare sectarian arrangements with other political models, including shared citizenship and ethnoreligious nationalism.
• Consider histories of coexistence as well as histories of discrimination and violence, without romanticizing either.
• Avoid treating militant movements such as ISIS as representatives of whole religious communities.

Speakers and sources featured

Speakers

• Ussama Makdisi — historian and lecturer.
• Opening introducer and event moderator — unnamed representatives associated with the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies; the moderator invited audience questions.
• Audience members — unnamed questioners during the Q&A.

Named people and sources referenced

• Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents — cited for the idea that seemingly small differences can become a basis for group hatred.
• Jeremy Bowen, BBC correspondent — cited as an example of media framing that presents Sunni–Shia rivalry as ancient and continuous.
• Karen Barkey — sociologist whose phrase “empire of difference” is used to characterize Ottoman rule.
• James Brant — British consul in Erzurum, quoted on European supervision of Ottoman reform.
• Rashid Khalidi — cited in the introduction as a source of praise for Makdisi’s historical work.
• Media and institutional sources mentioned in the introduction or lecture — the BBC, The Daily Star, the Middle East Journal, Publishers Weekly, the Middle East Studies Association, and the American Studies Association.