Senior Lebanese Shiite cleric Fadlallah dies at 75

Fadlallah, known for his staunch anti-American stance, was instrumental in the rise of Lebanon’s Shiites in the past decades and had a strong following among Shiite communities both in Lebanon and his native Iraq.

He was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing Dawa Party and was believed to be its religious guide until the last days of his life. He was described in the 1980s as a spiritual leader of the Lebanese Hezbullah -- a claim both he and the group denied.

Fadlallah’s spokesman Hani Abdullah confirmed his death to journalists gathered outside Behman hospital Sunday, where the ayatollah was being treated. He said a detailed announcement would be made at a press conference later.

Outside the hospital and at the Al-Hassanayn mosque in Beirut’s suburb of Haret Hreik, where Fadlallah gave religion lessons and Friday sermons, black banners were being hung up in a sign of mourning. Scores of Fadlallah’s supporters, including women, wept openly. Fadlallah’s Al-Bashaer radio station and Hezbullah’s Al-Manar TV station broadcast Quranic verses as news of his death broke. Fadlallah was in hospital for the past two weeks but his condition deteriorated on Friday when complications from a liver problem led to an internal hemorrhage.

For long, the cleric suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure. In Nov. 2009, he underwent a minor procedure measuring blood flow to the heart and three months later was taken to hospital for a medical checkup.

A grandfatherly figure, Fadlallah was known for his courageous fatwas, or religious edits -- including one that gave women the right to hit back their husbands if they attacked them. The cleric also called for boycotting American and Israeli products.

He also issued an edict banning smoking and another saying the Baghdad government has no right to “legitimize” the presence of foreign troops but should call for an imminent and unconditional withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Although Fadlallah supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, he distanced himself from the key principle advocated by its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which placed the Iranian cleric as a supreme, undisputed spiritual leader for the world’s Shiites.

Among his followers are many of Iraq’s Shiite leaders, including al-Maliki.

Fadlallah, was born in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, in 1935, but his family is originally from the southern Lebanese village of Ainata. He lived in Najaf for many years and was considered among the top clergymen there. His title is a “sayyed,” reflecting a claims that he is a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter Fatima and her husband Imam Ali, revered by Shiites as a saint.

[FACTBOX]

Fierce critic of US Mideast policy

* A fierce critic of US policy in the Middle East and its alliance with Israel, Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein first praised US President Barack Obama for showing “sincerity” when he said the United States was not at war with Islam. However he later criticized the US administration, saying it had deluded Arabs and Muslims into believing it would chart a course away from the policies of former President George W. Bush. He was once a classmate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

* Fadlallah was a supporter of Iran’s Islamic revolution and the spiritual leader of the Hezbullah movement when it was formed in 1982. His anti-Israeli rhetoric and calls for resisting Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and the Palestinian territories prompted assassination attempts against him, including a 1985 car bomb that killed 80 people in southern Beirut. US news reports said the attack was carried out by a US-trained Lebanese intelligence unit after a series of attacks on US targets in Lebanon.

* He distanced himself from the abduction of Westerners by militant groups in Lebanon during the 1980s, saying he was against kidnappings and repeatedly called for their release.

* Known in Shiite religious circles for having more moderate views, especially on women, than his conservative counterparts. He banned the Shiite practice of shedding blood during Ashura, when Shiites mourn the killing of Hussein, grandson of Prophet Mohammad.

* He also issued a fatwa, or religious opinion, against honor killings and said women who are abused by their husbands could hit their husbands in self-defense.

* He founded several religious schools and the Mabarrat Association, a center that provided social and medical services for the poor and built orphanages. A prolific writer, he wrote more than 40 books on Islam, politics and women, as well as many poems.