Islamic Unification Movement
| Islamic Unification Movement حركة التوحيد الإسلامي |
|
|---|---|
| Participant in Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) | |
| Active | Until 1990 and 1991 - present |
| Groups | Lebanese Islamic Group, Islamic Labor Front |
| Leaders | Said Shaaban, Bilal Shaaban, Hashem Minqara |
| Headquarters | Bab al-Tabbaneh (Tripoli) |
| Strength | 1,000 fighters |
| Allies | Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah, Syrian Army |
| Opponents | Israel Defense Forces (IDF), South Lebanon Army (SLA), Arab Democratic Party (ADP), Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), Jammoul, Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), Baath Party, Syrian Army (formerly) |
The Islamic Unification Movement – IUM (Arabic: حركة التوحيد الإسلامي | Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami), also named Islamic Unity Movement or Mouvement de Unification Islamique (MUI) in French, but best known as Al-Tawhid, At-Tawhid, or Tawheed, is a Lebanese Sunni Muslim political party. It plays an active role in Lebanese internal politics since the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s.
The IUM was founded in Tripoli in 1982 from a splinter faction of the Lebanese Islamic Group led by Sheikh Said Shaaban, one of Lebanon’s Islamist movements’ few charismatic Sunni religious leaders. A hardliner who believed that force was a good solution in politics, the radical Shaaban broke away from the Islamic Group soon after the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in protest for that Party’s leadership decision of adopting a non-violent, moderate political line in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, the two organizations have always maintained a good relationship, especially with Sheikh Fathi Yakan, founder and Secretary-general of the Islamic Group.
At the height of its power in 1985, the IUM splintered, when dissident leaders Khalil Akkawi and Kanaan Naji left the Movement to set up their own groups, the Mosques’ Committee and the Islamic Committee. Involved in imposing an Islamic administration on Tripoli in the 1980s, these latter two groups formed together with the IUM an umbrella organization, Al-Liqa' al-Islami.
Known to be anti-Syrian in policy and Sunni Muslim in composition, the IUM’s ideological anti-western and anti-Communist views stemmed from the radical Sunni wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Consistent with these principles, Shaaban and its Movement ostensibly rejected Nationalism, sectarianism and democratic pluralism in favor of an Islamic rule that "absorbs and dissolves all social differences and unites them in one crucible". Shaaban sought ways to unite Sunnis and Shi'ites, for example by suggesting that the holy Qur'an and the Prophet's biography provide foundations on which all Muslim groups and sects can unite. Instead of arguing about sectarian representation in the parliament, he suggests that Muslims call for Islamic rule based on the Sharia, without which no government can be legitimate. As such, the IUM strongly opposed the Christian-dominated political order in Lebanon and deeply resented the Syrian military intervention of June 1976 in support of the Maronites who, Shaaban himself asserted, would have otherwise fled to Cyprus or Latin America.
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