Abstract

The modern Lebanon lies at the crossroads of Western constitutionalism and Middle Eastern history. This article is aimed to describe how Islamic culture, Christian sensibility and European Nations' models gathered, giving life to a State that keeps a strict relationship with all of them. The Ottoman legacy can be seen in the personal status rule, which accords every religion its proper law; religious minorities gave Lebanon a highly independent spirit; the French colonization brought the Republican form. This very peculiar constitutional balance has granted a very uncertain equilibrium, which often undergoes deep crisis like the ones described in the work.