Hussein Assi
04/07/2010 Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohamad Hussein Fadlullah was not only a Muslim reference and authority but rather one of the most prominent contemporary religious authorities in the Islamic World.
His great experience in teaching jurisprudence as well as his constant monitoring of the latest trends and literature of the major religious schools have enabled him to launch his own school and to be followed by thousands of Muslim believers in Lebanon and the region.
But Sayyed Fadlullah was not only remarkable for his religious position and status. His eminence was in fact a remarkable intellectual who was described as the spiritual leader of the Resistance in Lebanon and the region.
The Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian cause, the US hegemony, patriotism and the State were always raised by Sayyed Fadlullah whether in his Friday sermons, lectures, writings, or speeches.
Sayyed Fadlullah issued different “fatwa”s calling to fight Israel and boycott American goods and ban normalizing of relations, and was a “true supporter” of Islamic unity all over his life.
JIHAD RELATED TO CONCEPT OF SELF-DEFENSE
For Sayyed Fadlullah, the concept of Resistance is related to the principle of Jihad in Islam. His eminence believes that Jihad in Islam is the fighting movement that aims at preventing the enemy from forcing its hegemony over the land and the people by means of violence that confiscates freedom, kills the people, usurps the wealths and prevents the people's rights in self-determination. Therefore, Jihad is confronting violence by means of violence and force by force, which makes it defensive at times and preventive at others.
In the light of this, Sayyed Fadlullah concludes that Jihad is no different than any human and civilized concept of self-defense. It expresses the innate human nature of self-defense, or preventing the others from building the ability for a sudden aggression. Islam meets in this with all human values of all civilizations, his eminence says.
However, Sayyed Fadlullah stresses that calling for Jihad is not a legalization of violence and force in different communities. His eminence believes that using force against the others in any other case is an illegal aggression, even if they are of different religion, race or other such differences. Indeed, Jihad in Islam is not using violence against the unbeliever, but against the fighting aggressor.
As a conclusion, Sayyed Fadlullah says that bombers who kill innocent people or those who explode car bombs, killing innocent women, children, elderly, and youth undermine the image of Islam and Muslims and give others a wrong idea about this tolerant religion and its followers.
ISLAMIC RESISTANCE LIBERATED LEBANON
According to Sayyed Fadlullah, if we read the history of the resistance, we see that the Islamic resistance was the only movement that played a decisive role in liberating Lebanon in 2000 and achieving victory in 2006.
In light of this, Sayyed Fadlullah couldn’t understand accusations of non-patriotism against the Resistance. In the face of these accusations, many question marks were raised: How could one be patriotic? Are those who liberated the homeland and sacrificed their best men unpatriotic? Who are the patriots then? Are they those who were - during and before the civil war - collaborating with Israel, at a time when Israeli leaders including (former Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon, were visiting Lebanon to prepare for an invasion and crush the Palestinian resistance in this small country?
Therefore, allegations that the Shiites are unpatriotic are groundless, Sayyed Fadlullah emphasizes. According to him, the Shiites in Lebanon believe and adhere to their Lebanese identity and give priority to Lebanon's interests; they even offered their victory over Israel to Lebanon as a whole and to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
SECTARIAN REGIME CREATED CHASM BETWEEN SECTS
As a caller for unity in general and Islamic unity in particular, Sayyed Fadlullah was of course against political sectarianism.
His eminence believes that Lebanon's sectarian regime created a chasm between the sects, through which international powers attempted to infiltrate. Moreover, the turmoil in Lebanon was a result of a political sectarian situation, coupled with a number of complications and troubles between certain sides. As a result, each sect sought the support of a certain foreign state to prevail over other sects.
Yet, Sayyed Fadlullah says that the Shiite Muslims were the only sect that did not allow any foreign state to penetrate to the Lebanese domestic arena. They were open to all sects. The experiences of Sayyed Moussa al-Sadr give the best evidence of this openness. He was open to all sects and founded the "Movement of the Deprived" which embraced people from all sects. For this reason, the Shiite sect, contrary to all sects, did not maintain any foreign affiliation with any state to achieve its own interests.
WE DO ALL WANT A STRONG, CAPABLE AND WISE STATE
For those speaking about the statehood, Sayyed Fadlullah always had the appropriate answer: we do all want a strong, capable and wise state that protects its people, but the friends of the state and the friends of those in charge of the state, abstained from providing it with necessary weapons to face any future aggression by Israel, which continues to threaten to annihilate Lebanon from top to bottom.
According to Sayyed Fadlullah, establishing a just and strong state in Lebanon ought to be based on a number of rules whose features would crystallize once a comprehensive and transparent internal dialogue is initiated, especially over Zionist threats to Lebanon. Moreover, practical and realistic bases should be set to face this dangerous strategic threat. Such a transparent dialogue would produce the required elements of confidence that were missing at earlier stages.
Yet, according to his eminence, the concept of the state should be clarified: a true state should set a legitimate, legal, and rational limit for the movement of foreign ambassadors in Lebanon, in order to prevent them from interfering in internal affairs, causing damage to coexistence, and turning the parties against one another. Moreover, it would put an end to the direct tutelage, that has been lately practiced by the American embassy, by making US Ambassadors follow the regular diplomatic rules and channels, rejecting their interference, as well as that of other ambassadors, in the Lebanese internal affairs. This, Sayyed Fadlalluh adds, actually represents the primary basis on which we can establish the state, resulting in a true independence for the country and releasing it from the claws of the American tutelage and the like.
AMERICAN POLICY IS EVIL WITH NO GOOD ON IT
Sayyed Fadlullah’s rejection to the US ambassador’s conduct is not strange not only given the US flagrant interference in the Lebanese affairs but given his own views of the US policy in the region.
According to Sayyed Fadlullah, America, in its policy that aspires to impose hegemony on the world is evil with no good in it. This is explained by the US absolute support for the Israeli enemy in its wars against Muslims from Lebanon to Palestine.
In Iraq, the US policy also speaks for itself: part of the American war against Iraq serves Israeli interests for it prevents any power in the region with the ability to compete with Israel from building its strength. Iraq with its economic, human and scientific potential was prepared to assume this position, but the policies of the Iraqi dictator gave the Americans the chance they need to destroy all these potentials, Sayyed Fadlullah explains. Moreover, the US wants to put its hands, on the Iraqi oil as an advanced step towards taking control of all the oil and the resources of the world. It also seeks to circumvent and besiege any potential rival to its influence such as the European Union on Japan.
ALL AMERICAN AND ISRAELI GOODS SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED
Because America, that kills scores of Palestinians daily but with Israeli hands, will never think of the interests of the Iraqis, Arabs, or Muslims, Sayyed Fadlullah was famous for his call to boycott US and Israeli products.
According to his eminence, all American and Israeli goods and products should be boycotted in a way that undermines American and Israeli interests as a means of deterrence to their war against Muslims and Islam that is being waged under the pretense of fighting terrorism. This boycott should become an overwhelming trend that makes these two states feel that their economies are in a real and present danger.
SAYYED FADLULLAH’S SCHOOL… AN ETERNAL ONE
This report was an attempt to sum up Sayyed Fadlullah’s main views regarding the resistance, the US and Israeli threats and Lebanon.
In brief, it can be understood that Sayyed Fadlullah alongside his followers launched a school of beliefs and thoughts, a school that would always be committed to the main causes of Islam, from Jihad to Resistance, and face all foreign threats against the region.
With such views and such words, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohamad Hussein Fadlullah will remain a great man in the eyes of all those who had the chance to know him, and his views will continue to circulate from one generation to another…
Batoul Wehbe
04/07/2010 Dubbed by the media as the “Spiritual Leader” of the Islamic resistance “Hezbollah,” in Lebanon, Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlullah inspired the leaders for the resistance group, and served as a highly influential beacon of truth for all the oppressed peoples of the world.
From the pulpit of the Imam Rida mosque in the Bir al-Abd neighborhood (Beirut’s southern suburb), Sayyed Fadlullah’s sermons gave shape to the political currents among mainly the Muslim Shiite sect, from the latter half of the 1980s till the last days of his life.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 was a watershed event for the Lebanese, mostly the Shiites living in the south, and the public career of Sayyed Fadlullah. The beginning of Hezbollah as an armed resistance movement dates back to that Israeli invasion.
“What martyrdom is greater than making yourself a human bomb detonating it among the enemy? What spiritualism is greater than this spiritualism in which a person loses all feeling of his body and life for the sake of his cause and mission?”
This quotation and many others fumed the flame of the resistance ideology.
He supported the ideals of Iran's Islamic Revolution and advocated the corresponding Islamic movement in Lebanon. 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 once said that the slogan "land for peace” was a betrayal of Palestinian blood and of the sacred cause of Palestine."
“Israel poses a great danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our modern nation, especially since it embraces a settlement-oriented and expansionist idea that it has already begun to apply in occupied Palestine and it is extending and expanding to build Greater Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile,” Sayyed Fadlullah said in one of his lectures.
Sayyed Fadlullah often explains that Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all Divine religions, however he always differentiated between a Jew anywhere in the world and another Jews who comes to Palestine and take part in the occupation of this Arab land.
“All of Palestine is a war zone and every Jew who unlawfully occupies a house or land belonging to a Palestinian is a legitimate target. There are no innocent Jews in Palestine. They kill many of our women, children, and elderly people. They destroy our homes. They confiscate our water and freedom.”
In an interview with Al-Manar TV on March 21, 2008, Sayyed Fadlullah stated:
“The Hebrew state is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary – 60 years since it plundered Palestine - in a festival, which will be attended by the countries of the world, most of which still support the Zionist state and consider the resistance movement to be terrorism. This is what led German Chancellor Merkel to visit that plundering country, which extorted and continues to extort Germany, using as a pretext the German Hitlerist-Nazi past, and the placing of the Jews in a holocaust. Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination.”
BOYCOTTING AMERICAN AND ISRAELI GOODS
There are also other kinds of resistance than the armed struggle. “Boycot” was the main weapon against the oppressors to press them economically. Sayyed Fadlullah played a major role in issuing a Fatwa to boycott Israeli as well as American goods.
"All American and Israeli goods and products should be boycotted in a way that undermines American and Israeli interests so as to act as deterrence to their war against Islam that is being waged under the pretext of fighting terrorism. This boycott should become an overwhelming trend that makes the US and Israel feel that their economies are in a real and present danger."
His viewed the American administration as an “arrogant state that supports the Zionist entity.”
“I have not found in the whole long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict even one neutral American position. America now is following a policy worse than that of the British and French colonials,” he said.
Sayyed Fadlullah was a main supporter of Iran’s Islamic regime and its struggle against global hegemony. He once stated that Iran was standing alone with the Palestinian people and supporting their struggle.
To show support to Iran's civilian nuclear program, he asked why the Bush Administration and his Western allies were mum on the possession of weapons of mass destruction by the Zionist regime. “Does the possession of nuclear weapons by the Zionist regime--a potential threat to the region--makes sense?” he asked.
In his latest meetings with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sayyed Fadlullah called for unity among the Lebanese to confront a psychological war with Israel, and stressed preparedness on all levels to prevent this enemy from making political gains.
The Grand Ayatollah also called for unity to ward off Israeli attempts to widen the gap among the Lebanese through accusations to the Hezbollah leadership and the party's arms of being the reason behind a possible large-scale war on Lebanon.
“Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlullah”
This name will always be remembered as the most important Shiite cleric to emerge in Lebanon and gain reverberation in the world. His theological and political influence has been profound and considerable not to the Shiite sect, but to Muslims and Christians as a whole.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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