This article was first published in the International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996), 217-229. A. Nizar Hamzeh and R. Hrair Dekmejian A SUFI RESPONSE TO POLITICAL ISLAMISM: AL-AHBASH OF LEBANON The rise and spread of Islamist political movements have been topics of focal concern for scholars and analysts in recent decades. Since Richard Mitchell's seminal work on the Muslim Brotherhood, a plethora of writers have analyzed the attributes of both Sunni and Shi'a revivalist movements and the policies of Arab regimes and the West toward the Islamist phenomenon.1