Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh (Arabic: محمد حسين فضل الله‎) (also Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh) (November 16, 1935 – July 4, 2010) was a prominent Lebanese Twelver Shi'a marja.

From a Lebanese family, but born in Najaf, Iraq, Fadlallah studied Islamic sciences in Najaf before moving to Lebanon in 1952. In the following decades, he gave many lectures, engaged in intense scholarship, wrote dozens of books, founded several Islamic religious schools, and established the Mabarrat Association. Through the aforementioned association he established a public library, a women's cultural center, and a medical clinic.

Fadlallah was sometimes called the "spiritual mentor" of Hezbollah in the media, although this was disputed by other sources. He was also the target of several assassination attempts, including a car bombing in Beirut in 1985.

His death was followed by a huge turnout in Lebanon, visits by virtually all major political figures across the Lebanese spectrum (except for Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir), and statements of condolence from across the greater Middle East region (with a notable exception of Egypt); but it also led to controversy in the west and a denunciation in Israel.