Lebanese Shia Muslims (Arabic: المسلمون الشيعة اللبنانيون), historically and communally known as Matāwila (Arabic: متاولة, plural of متوالي mutawāli; pronounced as متوالي metouéle in Lebanese Arabic), are Lebanese people who are adherents of Shia Islam in Lebanon, which plays a major role alongside Lebanon's main Sunni, Maronite and Druze sects. Shiite Muslims in Lebanon are synonymous with Twelver Shi'ism and are distinguished from Alawites and Isma'ilis.

Today, Shiite Muslims constitute around 31.2% of the Lebanese population per the CIA's World Factbook. Under the terms of an unwritten agreement known as the National Pact between the various political and religious leaders of Lebanon, Shiites are the only sect eligible for the post of Speaker of Parliament.

Shi'i tradition traces the origins of the community in present-day Lebanon to Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, the prophet Muhammad's companion and a loyal associate of Ali, though modern historians largely dispute this. Information regarding Jabal Amel's population prior to the Muslim conquest is scant and insufficient. It is traditionally thought to have included a substantial tribal segment prior to the Muslim conquest represented by the tribe of Banu 'Āmila. According to Irfan Shahîd, the Banu 'Āmila formed part of the Nabataean foederati of the Romans, whose presence in the region dates back to Biblical times. According to 10th-century historian al-Tabari, they were also affiliates of the Ghassanids who supplied troops to the Byzantines. Galilee, which included a part of Jabal Amel, was inhabited by Christian and Jewish communities in the Byzantine period, divided along west and east respectively. Along the coast, Tyre was predominantly Christianized under the Byzantines with a minor survival of the pagan cult of Melqart up until the early Islamic period.

It seems Tripoli and Sidon were home to Shi'i elements as early as the 8th century. According to Friedman, a Shi'i convoy from Palestine reportedly visited and consulted the fifth Shia Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (c. 712–733) in Kufa. The Shi'i historian Al-Ya'qubi (before 897) alluded to the settlement of 'Āmila in Palestine, which Friedman identifies as a Shi'ite tribe at his time. During the early Islamic period, Jabal Amel and the adjacent areas likely hosted several disgruntled groups or communities that were susceptible to Twelver Shia doctrine, and a positive and inviting dialectical relationship between the theological construct of Imamism and its social milieu gave precedence to the Shiite possibility. According to Jaafar al-Muhajir, the beginning of the process can be traced right after the Hasan–Muawiya treaty in 661. Rula Abisaad and Yaron Friedman argue that Banu 'Āmila may have already been Shiites in the seventh century, and thus spread Shi'ism or Shi'i tendencies among the locals. According to William Harris, the 842 revolt in Palestine gave rare exposure to a Shia-minded population on the fringes of Mount Lebanon.

In Mount Lebanon, the Twelver Shiites of Kisrawan were geographically separate from Jabal Amel. According to Harris, it's possible that Shia tribespeople were present early in the Umayyad period or after the 759 Munaytra uprising, and would have been well-established in the area by 960. On the other hand, al-Muhajir argues that the community was established in the aftermath of the First Crusade (c. 1097–1099) and the fall of Tripoli in 1109, which triggered the city's depopulation of its Shia inhabitants.

In Syria, Aleppo, which figures in the scholastic heritage of Jabal Amel, had become fertile ground for Twelver Shi'ism under the reign of the Hamdanids (c. 944–991), and cultural and material interactions between Aleppo and Jabal Amel may have reinforced nascent local development of Twelver Shi'ism in the area prior to Isma'ili Fatimid ascent in Egypt (c. 969). Before Fatimid Ismaili da'wa took hold in Syria, cultural exchange between scholars in Jabal Amel and Iraq contributed to a mutual systematic observation of the Ja'fari school, which also continued after Fatimid demise. Among the early examples of 'Amili-Iraqi exchange is an elegy by Tyrian Shi'i poet 'Abd al-Muhsin al-Ṣūri (Arabic: عبد المحسن الصوري, c. 948–1028) in memory of Twelver theologian al-Shaykh al-Mufid (c. 948–1022). Sharif al-Murtada (c. 965–1044), the foremost Imami (Twelver) authority of his time based in Baghdad, composed a number of treatises known as the masā'il in response to legalistic inquiries he received from the ulama (jurists) of Sidon, Tripoli, and Tiberias. His son-in-law, Abu Ya'la al-Ja'fari (d. 1070), personally corresponded with Shi'i ulama of Sidon as well.

The Hamdanids also patronized Nusayri da'wah, a Twelver group belonging to the ghulat current of Imami Shi'ism, and members of the group were numerous in Jund al-Urdunn (which includes present-day southern Lebanon) at the time of Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi (c. 994–1064). Followers of the Nusayri dawah were reportedly present in Tyre, Tripoli, Sidon and Beirut along the coast; in the city of Tiberias in the Galilee, and in Banias in the Mt. Hermon-Golan region. Per Stefan Winter, Nusayri communities largely disappeared outside of Syria after the 12th century, and presumably melded into mainstream Imami Shi'ism.

In his book, Palestinian geographer al-Muqaddasī (c. 966-985) notes that Shi'i Muslims were present in Qadas, Tiberias, Amman and Nablus. Traveling through Tyre and Tripoli in 1047, Nasir Khusraw recorded in his Safarnama that most of the residents of the two cities were Shiite Muslims. According to Ibn al-Arabi of Seville (c. 1092–1095), the Palestinian littoral cities were home to sizable Shi'i communities. During his ten-year residence in Tyre, Ibn Asakir (c. 1106–1175), noted strong opposition to his views from some of the rafida in the city, a pejorative term denoting Shiites.