According to various historians, sectarianism in Lebanon is not simply an inherent phenomena between the various religious communities there. Rather, historians have argued that the origins of sectarianism lay at the intersection of nineteenth-century European colonialism and Ottoman modernization. The symbiosis of Ottoman modernization (through a variety of reforms) and indigenous traditions and practices became paramount in reshaping the political self-definition of each community along religious lines. The Ottoman reform movement launched in 1839 and the growing European presence in the Middle East subsequently led to the disintegration of the traditional Lebanese social order based on a hierarchy that bridged religious differences. Nineteenth-century Mount Lebanon was host to competing armies and ideologies and for totally contradictory interpretations of the meaning of reform (i.e. Ottoman or European). This fluidity over reform created the necessary conditions for sectarianism to rise as a reflection of fractured identities pulled between enticements and coercions of Ottoman and European power. As such, the Lebanese encounter with European colonization altered the meaning of religion in the multi-confessional society because it emphasized sectarian identity as the only viable marker of political reform and the only authentic basis for political claims. As such, during both Ottoman rule and later during the French Mandate, religious identities were deliberately mobilized for political and social reasons.