In the Shadow of Sectarianism delineates institutionalized and practiced sectarianism among the Shi`ites in Grand Liban during the French Mandate (1920–1946), exploring the legal and communal dimensions of sectarian formation. It tries to dispel the view that Lebanese sectarianism is a sign of archaic values or traditional socio-political arrangements. It presents state sectarianism and civil adjustments to it as an exercise in modern citizenry. In this respect, it raises important questions about the historiography of modern Lebanon and correctly challenges some of the scholarship on sectarianism. Notwithstanding, this study neglects to investigate the predicament of modernism and modern citizenry in Lebanon, which are critical to the understanding of state sectarianism. Weiss ends up directing us to look at the modern features of sectarianism and its resourcefulness, claiming that it allowed Lebanese Shi`ites to negotiate a better position for themselves vis-à-vis the state.

An integral part of the book deals with the personal status law and the Ja`fari courts. Weiss looks at a number of court cases to assess the relationship between law, sectarianism, and Shi`ite society. Some problems emerge at the conceptual and methodological levels. The percentage of court cases reflecting the functions of sectarianism (or at least those assumed to do so) and the reason for choosing them is unclear. Weiss gives the example of a Shi`ite woman who insisted that her marriage contract was issued on the basis of the Hanafi madhhab. Her husband, also a Shi`ite, insisted that the marriage contract followed the Ja`fari madhhab. The Ja`fari court declared, however, that a marriage contract is valid whether it was issued in a Sunnite or a Shi`ite court. It is unclear why Weiss considers the court's declaration an example of sectarian politics. He goes on to argue that the Ja`fari court's statement aimed to downplay sectarian difference (164–165). The court, however, was simply stating a legal fact, that is, all Islamic courts honor each others' marital contracts. Without knowing what the woman's legal assertions entailed for her marital status or talaq or nafaqa, one cannot make any insightful conclusions about this case. Weiss does not seem to know how this case ended or what its implications were.

Weiss sheds light on Munir `Usayran, an `Amili religious notable, and his commitment to the establishment of the Ja`fari courts in Grand Liban. It is unclear why `Usayran's career and outlook, however important they are, represent all the possible performances and “self-understandings” of the Shi`ites as sectarianized citizens. The book pays no heed to class distinctions, or to social or regional divisions, let alone the struggle over how the shari'a was to be codified by the Shi`ite mujtahids. This struggle was not tied to sectarianism but rather to the rise of the modern nation-state. Weiss' use of “agency” to understand how sectarianism is produced by Shi`ites as coerced colonial subjects and later as citizens of Lebanon is not always successful. He implies at times that the responsibility in defining the sectarian system was shared equally by the state, the Shi`ite religious bureaucrats, and those “from below.” At other times he asserts the obvious, namely, that the Shi'ites were neither victims of sectarianism nor opponents of it (231). Some of the examples he gives about the primacy of sectarian affiliations among “the Shi`ites” are supported by thin data or none. For one, Weiss claimed that neither anticolonialism nor peasant grievances against the French tobacco monopoly (Régie) were central to the 1936 uprising of Bint Jubayl. Weiss reduced the revolt to a sectarian act, neglecting to investigate the Tibi Conference, its demands or resolution.

The opponents of sectarianism in Lebanon are a mix, including secularists and non-secularists. Weiss does not seem to engage any of these groups directly or seriously. The overwhelming evidence for antisectarian currents among the `Amili Shi`ites reflected in Al-`Irfan did not make its way to this book. A disconcerting feature of the book's style is the well-monitored quotations from leftists such as Ahmad Baydun, who are made to stress the authenticity of sectarianism! Baydun's writings, in reality, emphasize the destructive facets of sectarian administrations that arose during the Civil War, jeopardizing the welfare and rights of same-sect members. He questioned the continued denial of “the bankruptcy of the sectarian formula” evident in the social processes created by the electoral laws (Baydun, Al-Jumhuriyya al-Mutaqattìa, 244). Similarly, Weiss' reference to matlabiyya originally delineated by Fawwaz Tarabulsi, a leftist, shows that he missed entirely the complicated relationship between sect and class implied by this term. Consequently, Weiss makes a standard observation that the Shi`ite demands in 1935–1936 were couched “in the language of the state” (200). Investing in the “language of the state” is hardly a revelation but how does it prove that the Bint Jubayl revolt was not anticolonial or shaped by economic grievances?

For Weiss, sectarianism is the sole basis for being Lebanese and being modern. Having argued that sectarianism is a modern feature, he then makes the unwarranted conclusion that sectarianism is the most essential and functional medium for Shi`ite representation. One finds, however, that the same Shi`ites who participate in sectarianism may consider the idea of sectarian balance an ignominy. Alternatives to sectarianism have not succeeded, but this does not prove that sectarianism is the truest or the most empowering basis for Lebanese Shi`ite identity.