Ideology of Hezbollah - Shi'a Islamism

Shi'a Islamism

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Hezbollah's original 1985 manifesto reads:

We are the sons of the ummah (Muslim community) – the party of God (Hizb Allah) the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran. There the vanguard succeeded to lay down the bases of a Muslim state which plays a central role in the world. We obey the orders of one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist) who fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. …We are an umma linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principles laid down by the light of an overall political conception defined by the leading jurist. …As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation.

Hezbollah was largely formed with the aid of the Ayatollah Khomeini's followers in the early eighties in order to spread Islamic revolution and follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi'a ideology (“Willayat Al-Faqih”) developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Although Hezbollah believes in one-person-one-vote system and disagree with the multi-confessional quotas under the Ta'if Accord, it does not intend to force a one-person-one-vote system onto the country’s Christians.

Hezbollah views its conflict with Israel and the Jewish people as religiously motivated. The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict to them is a repeat of the negative interactions between the Jews of medieval Arabia and Muhammad and the early umma described in the Koran and other classical Islamic texts. God, according Hezbollah theology, cursed all Jews as blasphemers damned for all time and throughout history. Hezbollah (as well as the political/religious leaders of Iran) believe that the destruction of Israel will bring about the "reappearance of the Imam (the Shiite Islamic Messiah)." These issues exist independently of Israeli treatment of Palestinians or even the existence of the State of Israel, although Hezbollah has strong objections to these more earthly matters as well. It is on theological grounds, therefore, that Hezbollah cannot reconcile itself with a Jewish state in the Middle East.