Lebanese History Revisionism Thread

[ܐܵܠܘܼܟ̰ܵܐ]

As for the first, I wouldn't be surprised at all to be quite honest since our history is always embellished with nonsense added later on by different people. Why is it that the feudal families in Lebanon during the Ottoman times, always have "glorious roots" .. ? Some families claim they are descended from men who lived in the early Islamic period, others claim descend through Ghassanid kings and princes, others claim their ancestors were related to the Nabataeans. It's all a mishmash, now it might have some truth in it but we can't really just verify such claims. How on earth will you be able to verify your relation with a king who lived in the 3rd century CE .. ? It seems you have to go through some mental gymnastics and/or extreme hardship and get real evidence to eventually convince your self of it. Not that it's certainly false, but it's just way too perfect to be true.

Yeah, even my own family claimed noble roots to reach power. It was a common thing back then.

As for the second one, I disagree. Now sure, lots of people moved from modern-day Syria be it Christians or Muslims, and lots followed the Maronite church after their arrival and all, but the bulk of the Maronites were natives who converted upon the arrival of John Maron to Lebanon with his monks, and subsequently the local Christians (or non-Christians) followed their tradition and spread out from the north to mount Lebanon steadily through the ages.

This is the standard Leb Maronite theory.
But records show that (1) Fakhriddine 2 allowed a mass immigration from Syria to Lebanon in the 1600s. To appease Europe at the time as he wanted to win their favor. (2) St Maron himself was Syrian and seems to have had more influence in Syria. Syrian Alewites even curse him in weekly prayers for stealing their converts. While you find little to no references of him from Lebanese groups.

As for the fifth, I do agree to an extent. Phoenician culture started to decline during the advent of the Achaemenid conquest, and later on more during the Hellenic era, and so the traditions passed on since the times of the Phoenicians must be few, not pervasive. Genetically we're very close to them, and continuity with the Bronze Age Canaanites till present is evident through genetics.

What I should have said was that we're not uniquely caananite or Phoenician as Lebanese (genetically speaking) to make it our "Lebanese identity". It's more of a Levantine thing that is not limited to Lebanon. Yes, we are perhaps the closest. But the results of Syrians and Jordanians are impressive as well. And some matching the results of many Lebanese. It's very diluted.

As for the sixth one, I've no idea what to say. I mean, if they had "squinty eyes" then they must've had some East Asian admixture, but it's not found in Shias as evidenced through genetic samples from all Lebanese sects .. What a weird description. Do you have the link to the work?

No, I recall it from faint memory... I didn't read it from an original source but cited in another book. Not sure if it was within "Secret Sects of Syria". I'll have to look for it when I have time and post it here.