Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, 1935-2010

Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was a difficult man to pigeonhole, although many tried. From the early 1980s, he became, in the minds of many, synonymous with Hezbollah and was forever described as the group’s “spiritual leader” who had personally blessed the suicide bomber who blew up the United States Marines’ barracks at the Beirut airport in 1983. It was a tag that endured, even though Fadlallah eschewed a formal role within Hezbollah. The claim that he blessed the Marines’ barracks bomber has also been put down as a rumor deliberately circulated by Lebanese military intelligence during the presidency of Amin Gemayel to discredit the cleric. Fadlallah, despite being a leading advocate of an activist and modernist Islamism, tended toward dispensing guidance and advice and disdained the parochial obligations of running a political institution. Yet his teachings and writings served as an inspiration for Hezbollah’s founders and he continued to wield