On November 11, 1982, the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) military headquarters in the occupied Lebanese city of Tyre was destroyed by a human bomb. The eight-storey building crumpled under the impact of the blast and 141 people died. It was a massive blow to Israeli occupation in Lebanon, delivered by Ahmad Qassir, a seventeen-year-old boy.  Ahmad, it was later discovered, was part of a secret group of Shia resistance fighters, inspired by the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and determined to expel Israeli forces from Lebanon. In the coming years these fighters would organize themselves into a cohesive organization, with both military and social goals, and a strict code of honor. The world would then come to recognize, fear and respect them as members of Hizbollah. 

The Hizbollah of 1999 is an organization in transition. It is different in many ways from the Hizbollah that announced its charter to the world in 1983. Gone from the agenda are goals of establishing an Islamic republic in Lebanon, of destroying the ‘Zionist entity’ (Israel) and of recapturing all of Palestine. The power of the bullet has come to terms with the power of the ballot. The party has moved on, so to say, from enforcing the will of God to understanding the will of His people. The basic, underlying constant over the last 15 years has been the organization’s roots, which still lie in the loyal Shia majority of Lebanon. 

Therefore, at the very outset, it is imperative to first understand some basic characteristics of the development of Shia fundamentalism in Lebanon, in order to examine the past, present and the possible future of the Hizbollah. 

The Shia community in Lebanon was, for many years, a deprived community.  It was allowed little representation in the running of government, and there was a lower share of government spending in Shia community areas for schools, hospitals and roads. In 1955, for instance, only 3.6% of the top bureaucrats in Lebanon were Shia.  While small sections of the Shia society were wealthy landowners or migrants who made money in oil-rich countries, the larger sections were trapped in underdevelopment. The Israeli invasions through south Lebanon in 1978, and again in 1982, further ruined the situation by forcing poor Shia families to flee to Beirut where they were reduced to a slum life. It is in these miserable conditions that the Lebanese Shia started forming the roots for fundamentalist thought.

It should be mentioned that the Lebanese Shia community in itself was, in the years previous to the Lebanese civil war, largely transnational, identifying with Holy Shia cities such as Najaf , Karbala and Qom. Shia clerics and opinion leaders studied theology at schools in Iraq alongside exiled radical Iranian revolutionary clerics such as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Indeed, there was a rich, common history of fundamentalist thought between a certain section of the Lebanese and Iranian Shia that went back many years. 

These strong ties dated back to the sixteenth century when the Safavids established Shi’ism as the official religion of the Persian Empire, thereby leading to extensive family ties and personal bonds between the Lebanese Shia of Jabal Amil (South Lebanon) and the Shia in Iran. Prominent Shia clerics in Lebanon often collaborated in religious matters with the clerics of Iran - for instance, Sheikh Ragheb Harb, a south Lebanese cleric and one of the founding members of Hizbollah, helped Muhammad Baqer al-Sadr draft the constitution of Iran after the 1979 revolution. 

Thus, the collaborative spirit among the Shia clerics of Iran and Lebanon was fostered by their ties formed in Shia religious academies outside their home countries. Islam in itself does not recognize the distinction between nationalities, thereby leading to the phenomenon of pan-Islamism. The Shia tradition narrows the differences further by advocating the need to recognize an opinion leader on Shia affairs. Before, and during, the years of the Lebanese civil war the aspiring Shia clergy of Lebanese society went to study at the religious academies in Southern Iraq, notably Najaf and Karbala, where many of them met and studied under the guidance of Ayatollah Ruhollah al-Khomeini. Khomeini was advocating a revolutionary brand of Shia Islam that sought to govern Muslim populated territories under Islamic law, enforced and enacted by Shia clergy. The graduates from these academies went on to form Islamic fundamentalist movements such as the al-Dawa al-Islamiya in Iraq, the Lebanese al-Dawa and the Association of Muslim Uluma in Lebanon. 

However, it should be noted that in the years prior to the formation of the Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia did not have a fundamentalist Shia political organization. In the absence of a Shia party, the disaffected Lebanese Shia, especially the youth, jumped into the political process by joining the Lebanese left, particularly the Communists, the Nasserites, the Ba’ath or the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which were all largely secular or pan-Arabic in nature. 

The first successful attempt in recent history to mobilize the Lebanese Shia into a distinct politically conscious community was made by Imam Musa al-Sadr. It should be noted that al-Sadr was invited to be the religious leader of the Shia in Lebanon in 1959. He was not born in Lebanon, but in Qom, Iran, and had studied theology in Najaf, Iraq. However, al-Sadr’s family could be traced back across many generations to south Lebanon, therefore he was welcomed by the Shia of Lebanon as one of their own. In 1974 al-Sadr made the Shia a political force under the banner of Harakat al-Mahroumeen (the Movement of the Dispossessed), which, in 1975, developed into a Shia militia called Afwaj al-Mugawama al-Lubnaniya (Lebanese Resistance Detachments), popularly known by the acronym Amal (hope). 

It has been argued by scholars that al-Sadr had no real desire to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon through an Islamic revolution - his views were seen to be more in tune with Iranian Islamic modernist Ali Shariati, rather than revolutionary fundamentalists such as Ayatollah Khomeini.  However, al-Sadr did seek to establish political equality for the Shia who became, by the 1970s, the largest ethnic group in a pluralist Lebanon. Al-Sadr also bestowed upon his followers a distinct Shia consciousness, having established in 1967 a Higher Islamic Shia Council in Lebanon (Majlis al-Shii al-Aala), thereby separating his followers from the theological organization of the Sunni Lebanese establishment. 

Amal was widely popular among the Shia community, especially in the South where there was a crises of insecurity and poverty. Since 1968 Palestinian guerrillas had been using South Lebanon as a base to attack Israel. Lebanon became the center of guerrilla activity when, in 1970, the Palestine Liberation Organization spearheaded by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, failed to organize an uprising against King Hussein of Jordan. As a result of this, King Hussein, who had offered asylum to Palestinian refugees within Jordan, retaliated by forcibly ousting the trouble-making PLO guerillas out of Jordanian refugee camps. These guerillas, and their families, subsequently fled and found refuge in south Lebanon. 

Given Lebanon’s large Arab and Muslim population (mostly Sunnis who enjoyed political power and supported the largely Sunni factions of the Palestinian resistance), the Lebanese government was in a bind on how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who settled in south Lebanon. While the Muslim (mostly Sunni) section of the government was overwhelmingly in support of allowing the Palestinians to stay, the Christians (mostly Maronite) were afraid that Palestinian bases in Lebanon would draw Israeli attacks. This, however, was not their only fear. Palestinians had also started forming a state within a state in Lebanon, arming and training the local communities in the south. When the confrontation between the PLO and Israel started wreaking havoc in south Lebanon, the Lebanese government was caught in a split between the Sunni and Maronite political powerhouses. They could not order the Lebanese army to contain the Palestinians as the multi-faith Armed forces would probably split into factions on the question of curbing Palestinian activities to benefit Israel. As the political deadlock in Lebanese government continued, the Shia of the south had to deal with increasing PLO interference in their daily lives and also a barrage of attacks from the Israeli defense forces, which indiscriminately targeted southern villages to ‘deter’ Palestinian activity.

Al-Sadr organized a political forum on behalf of the Shia to call upon the Lebanese government and demand security from Israeli raids, demand improvements in living conditions in Shia sectors, demand better representation for the Shia in the government and also to demand higher Shia recruitment into government sector jobs. Al-Sadr’s leadership drew on Shia extremism and often used religious parallels to draw the community into action. He invoked Imam Hussein’s martyrdom to fire up his followers, and was able to draw thousands to his meetings and protest marches. By 1975 the Amal had become a force to reckon with, having drawn sizeable portions of the Shia back into its folds from other political groups and organizations. 

However, the moderate movement did not last. With increasingly clear signs of a coming civil war, al-Sadr armed his militia, Amal, to protect the interests of the Shia community. The war eventually broke out when the Maronite militia of the Phalange party lost their patience with the government’s indecision on the Palestinian question, and began street battles with the PLO and their local Muslim militia allies. This armed confrontation quickly escalated into a sectarian conflict and broke out as an all out civil war in Lebanon in 1975. 

As the war dragged on and put a heavy burden on the Shia community, al-Sadr decided to break with both, the Palestinians and Kamal Jumblatt’s Lebanese National Movement (LNM), and opted to back a Syrian sponsored peace initiative. Al-Sadr’s falling out with the LNM and the PLO had political repercussions that hurt him.   In 1978, five months after the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon, al-Sadr disappeared on an official visit to Libya. He was last seen on August 31, leaving his Tripoli hotel for a meeting with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddaffi. Gaddaffi subsequently claimed that al-Sadr had left and boarded a flight for Rome, but no one ever reported seeing al-Sadr again. 

Al-Sadr’s disappearance succeeded in firing up the Shia, especially with parallels drawn between him and the 12th Imam from ninth century Shia theology, who was widely believed to be the rightful leader of Islam and was expected to reappear on the Day of Judgement.  Nevertheless, the failure of al-Sadr’s successors to step in and match his martyr status led to the decline of Amal. In subsequent years the increasingly moderate and secular stance of the new Amal leader, Nabih Berri, would push radical Shia further towards the outskirts of the party and create the disillusionment in the ranks that split the organization to form, first, the Islamic Amal, and ultimately the Hizbollah.

The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in Middle East predates the Lebanese Shia fundamentalism and the rise of Hizbollah by more than fifty years. The pan-Islamic nature of revolutionary fundamentalism in the Middle East is not as much of an Islamic phenomenon as it is a reflections of the characteristics of state mismanagement and despotic misrule which was, and still is, common in the Middle Eastern states. One of the earliest organized Islamic fundamentalist movements in the region was the Ikhwan ul-Muslimeen (Islamic Brotherhood) movement that was launched in Egypt in 1928.

However, over the last two decades, the popularity and appeal of Islamic fundamentalism, or radical ‘Islamist’ groups has been increasing. "There are over 370 Islamist groups in the world," claims Nizar Hamzeh, Associate Professor of Political Science at the American University of Beirut,  "Of these only 175 groups are well known, with major groups spreading their memberships all over the world."

While each Islamist group may have ideals and political aims specific to its geographic and strategic concerns, Hamzeh asserts that "there are some common factors to explain the rise of Islamist groups in the Middle East." Hamzeh specializes in research on Islamic movements and argues that a number of factors have lead to the rise in fundamentalist groups among the major Muslim population states in the Middle East in particular, and around the world in general. 

These are - 

a. The Arab defeat at the hands of Israel - Hamzeh points out that Islamic fundamentalists used this defeat to criticize the secular leaders of the Middle Eastern states as weak and ineffective in protecting the Muslims from the Zionist threat.

b.  Failure of the national elite in achieving economic development - this has lead to the loss of face and credibility of the more secular and progressive social elite. 

c. Pervasion of political oppression in the Middle East states - the curbing of personal freedom further reinforces the idea of wrongful containment at the hands of a Godless state/leader.

d. Unequal distribution of wealth - while Islam may not have anything against personal wealth in particular, the religion is seen by many to be guided towards welfare ideals. As per these popular aspirations, an Islamic state must work towards the goal of providing a fair distribution of wealth and services within the Islamic community, especially if the wealth is derived from state resources. 

e. The disorienting psycho-cultural impact of Western civilization - traditional and historic prejudices, as far back as the crusades and as recent as the 1999 Israeli air raids reinforce the impression that a un-Islamic and non-Arab West conspires to poison and oppress Islamic populations to suit Western exploitative goals.

Nevertheless, while all of these factors contributed to development and rise of fundamentalist movements across the Middle East, the Shia in Lebanon were not significant in their radical fundamentalist or Islamist beliefs till 1979. The unleashing of the Iranian revolution in 1979 strengthened the belief of the radical, fundamentalist Lebanese Shia in their own ability to construct a similar revolutionary and unified cadre on Lebanese soil. Indeed, when Imam Ruhollah Khomeini succeeded in ousting the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran, and formed an Islamic government, it prompted many Shia followers to seek the implementation of a similar Islamic self-rule in their own territories outside of Iran. Khomeini himself had long advocated Wilayat al-Faqih (government of the religious class under the authority of a supreme religious authority) or, in other words, an Islamic government overseen by clerics, for all Muslims. Moreover, Khomeini had, even in his years of exile, taken a keen interest in the Shia of Lebanon and regularly pointed towards the situation in Lebanon as one deserving the attention of his followers. 

The existing secular Lebanese Shia movement, Amal, had failed to address the post-1982 problems of Shia in South Lebanon, especially on the question of seeking the withdrawal of Israeli troops and a resolution to the civil war. Thus, the dissatisfied fundamentalist elements within Amal gravitated towards the idea of launching a Shia movement of Islamic resistance in Lebanon, with the ultimate aim of establishing an Islamic state in the region that would spread all the way to Jerusalem. 

At the time of the Israeli invasion in 1982, Lebanon’s leading Shia clerics were attending the annual Islamic conference in Tehran, where they were offered Iranian assistance. Soon the first contingent of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (the Pasdaran) was dispatched to Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley. Amal leader Nabih Berri’s decision to participate in the National Salvation Committee (which brokered the 17 May 1983 accord between Lebanon and Israel) further alienated his party from the Shia of the south because this agreement allowed Israel to retain a proxy militia in an area extending 30 miles inside Lebanon. The accord was sponsored by the United States, and Berri’s initial refusal to align with Syrian efforts to sabotage the agreement convinced Islamic fundamentalists that Berri’s Amal had, in effect, accepted U.S. mediation in Lebanon. 

Subsequently Berri rethought his position, especially after the Israeli backed President Amin Gemayel sought to take control of Amal influenced West Beirut, but by then the damage to Berri’s reputation had been done.

The movement to collect the disillusioned factions of the Amal and seek cooperation of other Shia militia, such as Hussein Musawi’s Islamic Amal, was spearheaded by the very clerics who had studied under Khomeini or alongside other Iranian and Iraqi fundamentalist Shia clergy in Najaf. They decided to model their goals along the Iranian Islamic Republic, and pledged their theological allegiance to Imam Ruhollah Khomeini. From here on, the planning and organizational aspects of the creation of Hizbollah were settled over long consultations with then Iranian Ambassador to Syria, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, at the embassy in Damascus, or directly with the Iranian Revolutionary Council in Tehran. 

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From - Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born With A Vengeance (NY: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 75.

Hizbollah ? Hizbollah, meaning party of God. The organization’s name is spelt differently in various publications, ranging from its most accurate Arabic root representation to a more western understanding of its pronunciation. This paper refers to the organization as Hizbollah ? as this is how the literature of the party spells it out in their own English language publications.

From - Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (NY: Routledge, 1997), p. 117.

From -  Magnus Ranstorp, Hizbollah in Lebanon (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 26.

From -  Magnus Ranstorp, Hizbollah in Lebanon (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 26.

From -  Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (NY: Routledge, 1997), p. 117.

From -  Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (NY: Columbia university Press, 1997), p. 11-14.

From -  Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (NY: Routledge, 1997), p. 117-118.

From -  Yair Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon: The Israeli-Syrian Deterrence Dialogue (MD: The John Hopkins university Press, 1987), pp. 7-9.

From -  Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (NY: Routledge, 1997), p. 118.

From -  Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (NY: Routledge, 1997), p. 119.

From -  Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (NY: Columbia university Press, 1997), p. 13.

From a personal interview with Professor Nizar Hamzeh, in Beirut, July 1999.

From -  Imam Khomeini, Islam and Revolution (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981).

From -  Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (NY: Columbia university Press, 1997), p. 50.

From -  Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (NY: Columbia university Press, 1997), pp. 47-49.