Musa Sadr al-Din al-Sadr (Arabic: موسى صدر الدین الصدر; Persian: موسی صدرالدین صدر‎‎; 4 June 1928 – disappeared 31 August 1978) was a Lebanese-Iranian Shia Muslim cleric, politician and revolutionary In Lebanon.

[7] On 25 August 1978, Sadr and two companions, Sheikh Mohamad Yaacoub and Abbas Bader el-Dine [fr], departed for Libya to meet with government officials at the invitation of Muammar Gaddafi.

[4][page needed] His great-great-grandfather S. Salih b. Muhammad Sharafeddin, a high-ranking cleric, was born in Shhour, a village near Tyre, Lebanon.

[4][page needed] Sharafeddin's son, Sadreddin, left Najaf for Isfahan, which was then the most important centre of religious learning in Iran.

[7] Following the death of his father in 1953, he left Qom for Najaf to study theology under Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim and Abul Qasim Khui.

In 1959, Sadr founded a private high school which provided an alternative to the state educational system for "observant parents".

[4][page needed] Musa al-Sadr declined Ayatollah Broujerdi's request to go to Italy as his representative and instead left Qom for Najaf.

"[4][page needed] In 1967, Imam al-Sadr traveled to West Africa to get acquainted with the Lebanese community and inspect its affairs and worked to link them to their homeland.

[11] Al-Sadr, who became known as Imam Musa, quickly became one of the most prominent advocates for the Shia population of Lebanon, a group that was both economically and politically disadvantaged.

[12] "[Al-Sadr] worked tirelessly to improve the lot of his community – to give them a voice, to protect them from the ravages of war and inter communal strife," said Vali Nasr.

For the next four years, al-Sadr engaged the leadership of Syrian ‘Alawīs in an attempt to unify their political power with that of the Twelver Shia.

[16][17] He revived the Jami'at al-Birr wal-Ihsan charity, founded by S. Salih b. Muhammad Sharafeddin and gathered money for The Social Institute (al-Mu'assasa al-Ijtima'iyya), an orphanage in Tyre.

In 1964, Sadr started Burj al-Shimali Technical Institute, whose funding was provided by Shi'a benefactors, bank loans, and the Lebanese Ministry of Education.

[7] In 1974, he founded, with Hussein el-Husseini, the Movement of the Disinherited (Arabic: حركة المحرومين) to press for better economic and social conditions for the Shia.

[14] Sadr attempted to prevent the descent into violence that eventually led to the Lebanese Civil War by beginning a fast in a mosque in Beirut.

[7] During the war, he aligned himself with the Lebanese National Movement[18] and Movement of the Disinherited and in cooperation with Mostafa Chamran[19][page needed] developed an armed wing known as Afwāj al-Muqāwamat al-Lubnāniyyah (Arabic: أفواج المقاومة اللبنانية), better known as Amal (Arabic: أمل meaning "hope"[20]),[7] which assembled youth and educated generation of Husaynis and Mousawis families.

"[19][page needed] In addition, Sadr was instrumental in developing ties between Hafez al-Assad, then Syrian president, and the opponents of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran.

[25] His sister, Rabab al-Sadr, is a social activist who does charity work, and also a painter trained in Italy who earned a doctorate in philosophy,[32] her paradigm being influenced by Søren Kierkegaard.

[33]' Musa Sadr has been referred to by Fouad Ajami as a "towering figure in modern Shi'i political thought and praxis.

Standing at 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in),[35] scholar Fouad Ajami describes Sadr's charisma and magnetism as such: Lebanon has long been a country finicky about the looks, the aura, al-haiba of a leader.

He was a hit with women, who admired his looks and his elegance and were pleased that they did not have to scurry out of living rooms and meetings when he arrived, as they did with ulama of more conservative outlook.

[37]On 25 August 1978, Sadr and two companions, Sheikh Mohamad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Bader el-Dine [fr], departed for Libya to meet with government officials[3][38] at the invitation of Muammar Gaddafi.

[3][12] It is widely believed, at least by Lebanese Shia Muslims, that Gaddafi ordered Sadr's killing,[34] but differing motivations exist.

[39] However, supporters of the missing cleric pointed out that Sadr's baggage was found in a Tripoli hotel and there was no evidence of his arrival in Rome.

According to Taheri, Captain Saad would drive Sadr and his companions to the Janzur firing range, nine kilometres west of Tripoli and kill them.

Gaddafi's security chief General Mustafa Kharoubi then ordered "three of his agents to dress up as mullahs and take Alitalia flight 881 of 31 August to Rome, using the passports of Sadr and his two companions.

[45] Following the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Lebanon and Iran appealed to the Libyan rebels to investigate the fate of Musa Sadr.

[citation needed] According to a representative of Libya's National Transitional Council in Cairo, Gaddafi murdered Sadr after discussions about Shia beliefs.

[50] According to a former member of the Libyan intelligence, Sadr was beaten to death for daring to challenge Gaddafi at his house on matters of theology.