Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah - Death

Death

He had been hospitalized several times in the months before his death suffering from internal bleeding. His frailty was also a reason for his inability to deliver Friday sermons in the weeks preceding his death. Fadlallah's Media Office announced his death at Al-Hassanein Mosque in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hureik on July 4, 2010 at the age of 74. His office said the funeral was scheduled for July 6 at 13:30 p.m. leaving from his house to be buried in Al-Hasanein Mosque. His family members then started to receive condolences at the Hassanein mosque.

The day was also declared by Lebanon as a day of national mourning. The cabinet’s General Secretariat said all public institutions and administrations, headquarters of municipalities, private and public schools and universities would be closed. The Lebanese flag would be lowered to half-mast in public institutions and administration, and the headquarters of municipalities. Radio and television programmes would also be "adjusted in line with the painful occasion."

At his funeral his supporters carried his body around Shia neighbourhoods in southern Beirut. They then marched to the spot of his 1985 assassination attempt before returning to Imam Rida Mosque where he was laid to rest. Thousands of mourners gathered at the mosque for prayer services before the funeral procession. Delegations included representatives from Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Syria and Iran. Thousands of his followers also gathered outside his mosque in Haret Hreik. Al-Manar broadcast the funeral. They said that during his funeral thousands of his followers took part in his funeral, and told "his eminence for the last time their 'own secrets' and vowing to stay committed to his path. They told him that even if he has died, he will remain the ideal and the model for them, that even if he has died, his eminence 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." It also added that 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." It claimed that he "committed to the central cause, Palestine, calling to fight occupation through all possible means. His eminence 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. In his last moments before his death, Sayyed Fadlullah was still preoccupied with the cause. He was asking about the dawn prayers and telling his nurse that he wouldn't rest before Israel's vanishing."