Sheikh Fadlallah

Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (also Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh; ar, محمد حسين فضل الله; 16 November 1935 – 4 July 2010) was a prominent twelver Shia cleric from a Lebanese family. Born in Najaf, Iraq, Fadlallah studied Islam in Najaf before moving to Lebanon in 1952. In the following decades, he gave many lectures, engaged in intense scholarship, wrote dozens of books, founded several Islamic religious schools, and established the ''Mabarrat Association''. Through the aforementioned association, he established a public library, a women's cultural center, and a medical clinic.

Fadlallah was sometimes called the "spiritual mentor" of Hezbollah in the media, although this was disputed by other sources. He was also the target of several assassination attempts, including the 1985 Beirut car bombing.

His death was followed by a huge turnout in Lebanon, visits by virtually all major political figures across the Lebanese spectrum, and statements of condolence from across the greater Middle East region; but it also led to controversy in the west and a denunciation in Israel.

Early life

Fadlallah was born in the Iraqi Shia shrine city of Najaf on 16 November 1935. His parents, Abdulraouf Fadlullah and al-Hajja Raoufa Hassan Bazzi, had migrated there from the village of 'Aynata in south Lebanon in 1928 to learn theology. By the time of his birth, his father was already a Muslim scholar.

Education

Fadlallah went first to a traditional school (Kuttāb) to learn the Quran and the basic skills of reading and writing. He soon left and went to a more "modern" school that was established by the publisher Jamiat Muntada Al-Nasher where he remained for two years and studied in the third and fourth elementary classes.

At these schools he began studying the religious sciences at a very young age. He started to read the Al-Ajurrumiyya when he was nine years old, and then he read Qatr al-Nada wa Bal Al-Sada (Ibn Hisham).

He completed Sutouh in which the student reads the book and listens to his teacher's explanation. He also studied the Arabic language, logic and Jurisprudence, and did not need another teacher until he studied the second part of the course known as Kifayat at Usul which he studied with an Iranian teacher named Sheikh mujtaba Al-Linkarani. He attended the so-called Bahth Al-Kharij in which the teacher does not restrict himself to a certain book but gives more or less free lectures. Fadlallah published a minor periodical before going to Lebanon. At the age of ten, he put out a handwritten literary journal with some of his friends.

Return to Lebanon

After 21 years of studying under the prominent teachers of the Najaf religious university he concluded his studies in 1966 and returned to Lebanon. He had already visited Lebanon in 1952 where he recited a poem eulogizing Muhsin al Amin at his funeral.

In 1966 Fadlallah received an invitation from a group who had established a society called "The family of Fraternity" (جمعية أسرة التآخي Jam'iyat Usrat at-Ta'akhi) to come and live with them in the area of Naba'a in Eastern Beirut. He agreed, especially as the conditions at Najaf impelled him to leave.

In Naba'a Fadlallah began his work, by organising cultural seminars and delivering religious speeches that discussed social issues as well.

Nevertheless, Fadlallah's main concern was to continue to develop his academic work. Thus he founded a religious school called the Islamic Sharia Institute in which several students enrolled who later became prominent religious scholars including Sheikh Ragib Harb. He also established a public library, a women's cultural centre and a medical clinic.

When the Lebanese Civil War forced him to leave the area, he moved to the Southern Suburbs where he started to give priority to teaching and educating the people. He used the mosque as his centre for holding daily prayers giving lessons in Qur'anic interpretation, as well as religious and moral speeches, especially on religious occasions such as Ashura. He soon resumed his academic work and began to give daily lessons in Islamic principles, jurisprudence and morals. In 1982 Dawa unites with other Islamic Shia armed organizations ( Islamic Amal, Islamic Jihad Organization, Jundallah and Imam Hussein suicide squad) to found Hezbollah.

Hezbollah connection

He has been variously attributed by the media as being the spiritual leader of Hezbollah. ''Al Manar'' said he had "inspired the leaders" of the group. It added that "From the pulpit of the Imam Rida mosque in the Bir al-Abd neighborhood, Sayyed Fadlullah's sermons gave shape to the political currents among mainly the Muslim Shiite sect f Lebanon from the latter half of the 1980s till the last days of his life." Other sources, such as journalist Robert Fisk, also refuted such claims that he was affiliated with the group.

Assassination attempts

As one of the alleged leaders of Hezbollah, a status both he and the group denied he was the target of several assassination attempts, including the allegedly CIA-sponsored and funded 8 March 1985 Beirut car bombing that killed 80 people.

On 8 March 1985, a car bomb equivalent to of dynamite exploded 9–45 metres from his house in Beirut, Lebanon. The blast destroyed a 7-story apartment building and a cinema, killed 80 people and wounded 256. The attack was timed to go off as worshippers were leaving Friday Prayers. Most of the dead were girls and women who had been leaving the mosque, though the ferocity of the blast "burned babies in their beds," "killed a bride buying her trousseau," and "blew away three children as they walked home from the mosque." It also "devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut suburb. but Fadlallah escaped injury.

Journalist Robin Wright quotes articles in ''The Washington Post'' and ''The New York Times'' as saying that according to the CIA, those responsible for the bombing were "Lebanese intelligence personnel and other foreigners" who had been "undergoing CIA training" but that "this was not our IAoperation and it was nothing we planned or knew about." "Alarmed U.S. officials subsequently canceled the covert training operation" in Lebanon, according to Wright.

According to Bob Woodward, CIA director William Casey was involved in the attack, which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia. "In his book Woodward portrays Casey as a wily and aggressive director who made the CIA his personal instrument of foreign policy. In early 1985 Woodward reports, Casey went "off the books" to enlist Saudi help in carrying out three covert operations. One was the attempted assassination of Sheik Fadlallah, who had been linked to the bombings in Beirut. After that plot failed, Woodward writes, the Saudis offered Fadlallah a $2 million bribe to cease his terrorist attacks. He accepted, and the attacks stopped. Woodward's account of the incident was denied last week by the Saudi press agency and by Fadlallah's office." Former Lebanese warlord and statesman late Elie Hobeika was accused as one of those likely responsible for the actual operation.

During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli warplanes bombed his two-story house in Beirut's southern Haret Hreik neighborhood. Fadlallah was not at home at the time of the bombing, which reduced the house to rubble.

Views

He supported the Iranian Islamic Revolution. In his sermons, he called for armed resistance to the Israeli occupations of Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, along with opposition to the existence of Israel.

He held relatively liberal views on the status of women. When he died in 2010, TIME magazine wrote about his contrarian stance:

"Fadlallah had broken with Hizballah and the toxic legacy of his early edicts. He criticized Iran's clerical rule, supported women's rights and insisted on dialogue with the West."

U.S. foreign policy

He has asked for a boycott of American products.

This boycott should become an overwhelming trend that makes these two states feel that their economies are in a real and actual danger.))

In November 2007, Fadlallah accused the United States of trying to sabotage the election in Lebanon: "The insanity of the U.S. president and its administration is reflected in Lebanon by their ambassador pressuring the Lebanese people and preventing them from reaching an agreement over the presidential election."

Though he welcomed the election of Barack Obama as the American president, the following year he expressed disappointment with Obama's lack of progress in the Middle East peace process saying he appeared to have no plan to bring peace to the region.

9/11 criticism

Despite his criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, he condemned the September 11 attacks in the United States as acts of terrorism.

Israel

Fadlallah made statements in favour of suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. In a 2002 interview with ''The Daily Telegraph,'' he said:

His support for suicide bombings against Israel were based on the grounds that the latter uses advanced weaponry; it was also claimed that he wished that the state of Israel would cease to exist.

Following the Mercaz HaRav massacre, Fadlallah called the attack "heroic." Western sources also cite his favour for suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. Fadlallah explained the religious basis for suicide attacks in an interview with '' Daily Star''.

In September 2009, Fadlallah issued a ''fatwa'' banning normalisation of ties with Israel. He also objected to any territorial settlement, saying "the entire land of Palestine within its historical borders is one Arab-Islamic country and no one has right to spare on inch of it." Another English translation (from the Arabic in ''Al Akhbar'') was given in ''The Daily Middle East Reporter''.Fadlallah Bans "Any Form of Normalization" with Israel
15 September 2009

Islamic governance

Despite his ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Fadlallah distanced himself from the Ayatollah Khomeini's legacy of Veleyat-e Faqih as theocratic rule by Islamic clerics was said to argue that "no Shia religious leader, not even Khomeini… has a monopoly on the truth." He also first endorsed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani rather than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the marja for Shia in matters of religion, before claiming the role for himself. In a 2009 interview, Fadlallah said that he did not believe wilayat al-faqih has a role in modern Lebanon.

Women

Fadlallah was known for his relatively liberal views on women, whom he sees as equal to men. He believed that women have just as much of a responsibility towards society as men do, and women should be role models for both men and women. Fadlallah also believed that women have the same exact ability as men to fight their inner weaknesses. He saw the hijab as something that makes a man see a woman not as a sex object, but instead as a human being. He believes, like all of his peers in the Islamic seminary that women should cover their entire body except for their face and hands, and that they should avoid wearing excessive makeup when they go out in public.

Fadlallah also issued a '' fatwa'' on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women that supports the right of a woman to defend herself against any act of violence whether ''social'' or ''physical''. The fatwa reaffirms the rights of women, both at their workplace and at home, and states that Islam forbids men from exercising any form of violence against women and forbids men from depriving women of their legal rights. In his words "physical violence in which women are beaten, proves that these men are weak, for only the weak are in need of unjust violence". He also issued ''fatwa''s forbidding female circumcision and honour killings.

Abortion

He was opposed to abortion in most cases; however, when the women is in an abnormal amount of danger by the pregnancy, he believed it was permissible.

Amman Message

He was one of the Ulama signatories of the Amman Message

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