This thesis looks into the ways in which religion influenced the civil war in Lebanon. The basis for the analysis of religious influence is taken from several theoretical publications dealing with the general ways in which religion influences politics and international relations. Based on those theories, the thesis examines the influence of religion on the civil war in three parts. First, it examines the effect of religion on the identity of the participants in the war. Second, it shows to what extend religion was used as a source of legitimacy by those participants. Third, it ascertains whether religion encouraged the internationalization of the civil war. At the end, religion is compared with the other factors which explain the outbreak, the process and the nature of the civil war in Lebanon.

The Tanzimat period had been an era of political change and transformation for the Ottoman Empire as it introduced many new new tools in political arena, particularly to reach centralization and the whole period is widely debated in many successful studies. However, the implementation of the Tanzimat reforms in specific provinces are generally ignored. Similarly, 19th century civil turmoil in the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire had been a subject that discussed frequently. However, in many studies the events are generally discussed only as a religious conflict between Muslims and Druzes rather than a reflection of a complex system of political and socio-economic factors. In this context, the role of the Tanzimat reforms are generally ignored. This study aims to adress these two points at the same time. First it focuses on the specific implementation of the Tanzimat reforms in Lebanon rather than the promised aspects of the package. It details how the reforms were implemented, why it was implemented in that specific form, what were the complaints and the results. Second, it tries to understand the civil war in Lebanon in terms of a complex web of state-society relations. It puts the state at the center of analysis and shows how the implementation of the reforms effected the factors that led to the civil war and its different dimensions.