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The recent visit of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Lebanon has constituted a particularly bright episode of a long history of ties between Iran and Lebanon over the last few centuries. Cultural, commercial and political relations between Iran and Lebanon go back to antiquity. The first important historical episode dates back to the Achaemenid Empire, which ruled the Phoenician coast and its hinterland for two centuries between 539 and 332 B.C. The Persian rulers allowed the Phoenician city-states of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos a greater degree of autonomy than their other dominions and both sides benefited: the empire provided a huge market for the Phoenician traders and as a result the cities flourished.
When the Safavi state was established in Iran and Shiism became its official religion, Lebanese Shiite scholars from Jabal Amil, the hill-country that lies in land from Sayda and Tyre in southern Lebanon, migrated to Iran to reinforce those from Persia. One of them was Ali ibn Abd al Ali al Karaki (1465-1533). He was invited to Persia by the ruler Ismail and was given by the latter and his successor Tahmasb official functions and endowments. His son Abd al Ali was also given recognition as the chief mujtahid of his age.
Another important scholar in the Persian court was Abd al-Samad al Harithi al Jubai (1512-1576), who became Shaykh al Islam in Qazvin, Tahmasb´s place of residence, and Herat. His son Bahaeddin Muhammad, known as Shaykh al-Bahai, who was born in Baalbek and taken to the Persian Empire by his father when he was very young, wrote important treaties in Persian on many subjects: poetry, mathematics, astronomy, a famous anthology, the Kashkul, and a work on fiqh. Another scholar was Hussain ibn Muhammad al-Musawi, who was Shaykh al-Islam in Mashhad and taught in the shrine of the Imam al-Rida (Reza). All these Lebanese scholars actively spread Shiite teachings among Iranian students and played a visible role in Persian religious, cultural and political affairs.
The contacts between Lebanese and Iranian scholars living in Iran, especially in Qom, remained intact for centuries. In the 20th century, a remarkable religious scholar and leader, Musa Sadr, also served to this cause. He was born in Qom in 1928. His great-great-grandfather, Salih ibn Muhammad Sharafeddin, a high-ranking scholar was born in Shhour, a village near Tyre. Sadr studied in Qom. His years in the seminary coincided with the nationalist movement in Iran that brought Mohammad Mossaddeq to the premiership in 1951. He was not immune to the passions and excitement of the political struggles of those years. He became a scholar and cooperated with Ayatollah Hussein Borujerdi, one of the greatest clerics of that time. In 1955, Sadr made his first trip to Lebanon. In 1959, he returned to this country to try to improve the lot of Shiite people. He became head of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council. Everywhere he went he asked for help for the poor of southern Lebanon.
In 1973, Sadr started to speak publicly against the Shah Reza Pahlavi´s pro-Israeli policies and accused him of undermining the Arab oil boycott that followed the October war. The Shah was then the most important ally of Israel in the Middle East and continued to supply the Zionist entity with oil. The Shah´s regime stripped Sadr of his Iranian citizenship by refusing to renew his Iranian passport. On 23 August 1978, he published an article in Le Monde in which he attacked the Shah´s dictatorship and praised Imam Ruhollah Khomeini and his movement. Some days after, he disappeared in Libya.
The Iranian ruler strengthened his links with Israel and the then chief of his political police, the Savak, Brigadier General Teimur Bakhtiar met the Israeli ambassador in Paris in September 1957 and Mossad chief Isser Harel in Rome in October. During those meetings, Bakhtiar offered Iranian cooperation in the fight against the Arab nationalism and especially against Gamal Abdel Nasser, then President of Egypt and leader of this trend. From that time on, the Shah´s regime and Israel exchanged intelligence on Egyptian activities in the Arab world and participated in some joint operations. In Lebanon, the Shah supported pro-West forces, such as President Camille Chamoun and the Kataeb Party.
However, Lebanon, due to its open politics, became one of the world centers of the Iranian anti-Shah opposition, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the students of Imam Khomeini, Sayyed Ali Akbar Mohtashami, left Najaf, in Iraq, for Beirut in 1972. Lebanon had become a very attractive country for Shiite scholars after the Baathist coup in Iraq in 1968, which created a hostile atmosphere for Muslims, especially for Shiites. In Lebanon, Mohtashami started to publish the monthly magazine “15 Khordad” (the day of the 1963 uprising), which was distributed among Iranian Muslim students in Europe and the United States.
Imam Khomeini, who was already the spiritual guide of Iranian Muslims, paid attention to Lebanon. On 11 October 1972, he issued a declaration in which he called on all Muslims, especially the Lebanese, to support the struggle against the Zionist entity. With this declaration he denounced the conspiracies of the agents of imperialism, who were spreading anti-Palestinian propaganda with the aim of separating Lebanese Muslim groups from the Palestinian fighters and expelling the latter ones from strategically important locations. On 22 January 1977, he called on Muslims to mobilize to help victims of the Lebanese civil war and authorized his followers to spend a part of the tithes due to him on relief work.
THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION AND LEBANON
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