The Death of A Marja

The passing of Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah over the weekend marks the end of an era for Lebanese Shiism. What comes next, and who will attempt to fill his shoes as the leading marja (source of emulation), remains to be seen. However, it’s safe to assume that Iran, which never recognized Fadlallah’s marja status, will move in to try and fill the vacuum, signaling a critical shift for the next generation of Lebanese Shia.

Fadlallah’s story is, in many respects, that of modern Shiism in Lebanon and its transnational connections to Iraq and Iran. Born in Najaf in 1935 to a family that migrated there seven years earlier from the southern Lebanese village of Aynata, Fadlallah came to Lebanon in 1966, settling in Nabaa, in the eastern suburbs of Beirut – home to a substantial transplanted Shia population. There he established his association, which supervised a network of religious, social, charitable and educational institutions and clinics. It has now grown into a sizeable empire spanning the globe.

But back then Fadlallah was overshadowed by Imam Moussa Sadr, the Shia community’s most towering figure at the time. There are accounts that Fadlallah resented Sadr’s leadership ambitions and political agenda, and saw himself as the senior cleric in terms of religious education and rhetorical mastery, a theme that would resurface in his other relationships with some figures in the Iranian Islamic Revolution, such as Ali Khamenei.

And so, Fadlallah remained in the imam’s shadow, cultivating a parallel trend in the Shia community, in which he was acknowledged as the ranking authority. This included the Lebanese branch of the Dawa party (his involvement in which earned him an assassination attempt by the Iraqi Baath regime in 1980) and the Union of Muslim Students (formed by observant graduates of the Arab University of Beirut who flocked around Fadlallah and cooperated closely with Dawa), which would dissolve and become constituent elements of the emerging new group on the scene: Hezbollah.

Sadr’s removal from the scene in 1978 was instrumental for the advent of the new movement, and for Fadlallah’s rise from the shadows, although he maintained an ambiguity about his ties to the Party of God. The ambitious Fadlallah sought wider latitude and independence, especially vis-à-vis Hezbollah’s backers in Iran. For although Sadr was no longer around, Fadlallah now had to contend with a new imposing figure, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the powerful new reality of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

This at once set limits but also presented him with opportunities to channel his aspirations, by riding the wave of the so-called al-hala al-islamiyya (the Islamist milieu of the Shia community) in Lebanon – the umbrella term for Islamist activists and groups in that orbit – but also by staying relevant to Shia not particularly sympathetic to Iranian claims of leadership. Fadlallah saw himself as an equal of the ranking ayatollahs in Iran, not a mere client.

Regardless of his public dissociation from Hezbollah, his systematized theological pronouncements on the use of violence (including his justification of Hezbollah’s attacks against the US in Lebanon), his status as a foremost spokesman for the Islamist milieu, as well as his calls for altering Lebanon’s political system at the time earned him a notoriety that endured till his death. Meanwhile, some of his more controversial scholarship in Shia doctrine also earned him animosity and rebuke in the religious circles in Najaf. In one recent case, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Sistani refused to meet with Fadlallah in Beirut as a result.

Despite his bid for autonomy, and the resources from his social networks that would help make that bid viable, the purposeful Fadlallah nevertheless had to deal with the Iranian demand for compliance, not to mention the cadres of young clerics that Teheran cultivated in Lebanon precisely to undermine senior clerics of the Lebanese Shia establishment.

Things came to a head in 1985-86, as Fadlallah clashed with one of Hezbollah’s chief Iranian architects, Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, over how to pursue an Islamic order in Lebanon. Fadlallah agreed with the Iranians on the objective, but disagreed over the rush in seeking implementation.

Fadlallah explained his position in numerous interviews, including one in al-Shira’ in 1986: “I am not saying that there are no objective conditions to work towards establishing an Islamic state. I am saying that there are no objective conditions to implement the Islamic state right now in Lebanon. Otherwise, what are we doing then? We are working to prepare the scene for that.”

In many respects, this is arguably what became Hezbollah’s current position on the issue. Still, Fadlallah was publicly chastised and shut out by Teheran and its clients in Lebanon.

Another brush with Teheran came after Khomeini’s death. A much lower-ranking cleric, Ali Khamenei, was chosen to become the Supreme Leader (Rahbar), but there was disagreement on the marjaiyya. The Iranians excluded leading authorities like Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf from a list of possible marjas, and did not even consider Fadlallah. Still, there was little enthusiasm for Khamenei assuming the role, so he devised a concoction: He would not seek the position for believers inside Iran, but would do so for Shia abroad.

Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, accepted Khamenei’s marjaiyya, but Fadlallah never did, and as recently as 2009, he is quoted as saying: “My opinion is that I don't see the Guardianship of the Jurist as the definitive Islamic regime.”

Tensions with Khamenei translated to tensions with Hezbollah, as well as public coolness with Nasrallah, who had the charisma but not the learning to match Fadlallah. In 2004, Hezbollah members reportedly broke into a mosque in Fadlallah’s network and plastered posters of Khamenei. Also, former Dawa members in Hezbollah, and suspected Fadlallah followers, were viewed with suspicion and even fired from certain jobs in the party’s institutions (as in the case of a Manar TV director back in 2003). Some even claim that the bias against Fadlallah followers is what led the Iranians to pass on Naim Qassem for the leadership of Hezbollah in the early 90s, which went instead to Khamenei’s protégé, Nasrallah.

Nasrallah reconciled with Fadlallah after the 2006 war, as he needed to project total communal unity and to maintain his grip on the Shia, who had just been devastated by the war. Fadlallah’s institutions were also badly damaged, and he may have received financial help from Hezbollah in this process of reconciliation, arguably at some cost to his independence.

Fadlallah achieved a major accomplishment for Lebanese Shiism in becoming a marja with transnational reach, not based out of Qom or Najaf. Now once again, there’s a void in the marjaiyya, and the race is on to fill that gap he left behind. In his eulogy, Nasrallah called Fadlallah a “wise guide [murshid],” which could be taken as a nod to Fadlallah’s old role with Hezbollah members. But Nasrallah is likely seeking to co-opt Fadlallah’s legacy to Hezbollah’s benefit, even as the party’s press release made no reference to Fadlallah as a marja.

The aging Sistani, who commands the widest following among Shia, is likely to pick up many of Fadlallah’s former emulators, but it is unclear who will be able to step into Fadlallah’s shoes and maintain his vast network. That is, someone with sufficient stature and who is also not a client of Iran. Since the late 1970s, the Iranians have been cultivating a whole cadre of loyal clerics, such as Khamenei’s representative, Mohammad Yazbeck. We may soon witness the rewards of this policy, and Khamenei might yet get the last laugh.

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.