Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, leading Shi’ite cleric in Lebanon

July 05, 2010|Bassem Mroue and Zeina Karam, Associated Press

BEIRUT — The leading Shi’ite cleric in Lebanon and one of the sect’s most revered religious authorities, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, died yesterday after a long illness. He was 75.

Ayatollah Fadlallah’s doctor, Hashem Noureddine, told the Associated Press that the cleric, who had been hospitalized for the past two weeks with a liver problem, died from internal bleeding in his stomach.

Seen by some as a spiritual mentor to the Hezbollah militant movement and by others as a voice of pragmatism and religious moderation, Ayatollah Fadlallah enjoyed a following that stretched beyond Lebanon’s borders to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and as far as central Asia.

He played a key role in the rise to prominence of Lebanon’s Shi’ite community over the past 30 years, and was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing Dawa Party. He was believed to be the party’s religious guide until the last days of his life.

Known for his staunch anti-American views, he was described by Western media in the 1980s as a spiritual leader of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah — a claim both he and the group denied.

Ayatollah Fadlallah was born in Iraq in 1935 and lived in the country’s Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, where he was considered one of the leading clerics, until the age of 30. He then moved to Lebanon — his family hailed from the southern Lebanese village of Ainata — where he began lecturing on religion.

In the ensuing decades, he would prod Lebanon’s Shi’ites, who today make up a third of the country’s population of 4 million, to fight for their rights.

During Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, he was linked to Iranian-backed Shi’ite militants who kidnapped Westerners and bombed the US Embassy and Marine base in Lebanon, killing more than 260 Americans.

Western intelligence sources at the time said Ayatollah Fadlallah blessed the drivers of the vehicles used in the attack on the Marine barracks and a simultaneous bombing of French troops in Beirut, although the cleric repeatedly denied the assertion.

But Ayatollah Fadlallah argued that such acts were justifiable when the door to dialogue is locked shut. “When one fires a bullet at you, you cannot offer him roses,’’ he said.

With age, his views mellowed, and he lost much of his 1980s militancy. His sermons, once fiery diatribes denouncing American imperialism, took on a pragmatic tone as he urged dialogue among nations.

The stocky, gray-bearded cleric, with piercing brown eyes below his black turban, rejected being described in Western media as Hezbollah’s mentor. He insisted his relationship with the group was the same as with any other Shi’ite faction, but was simply more obvious because of his physical presence in Lebanon.