Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (Arabic: محمد حسين فضل الله, romanized: Muḥammad Ḥusayn Fadl Allāh; 16 November 1935 – 4 July 2010) was a prominent Lebanese-Iraqi Twelver Shia cleric.

In the following decades, he gave many lectures, engaged in intense scholarship, wrote dozens of books, founded several Islamic religious schools, and established the Mabarrat Association.

[3][4][5] His death was followed by a huge turnout in Lebanon, visits by virtually all major political figures across the Lebanese spectrum, and statements of condolence from across the greater Middle East region; but it also led to controversy in the West and a denunciation in Israel.

His parents, Abdulraouf Fadlullah and al-Hajja Raoufa Hassan Bazzi,[7] had migrated there from the village of 'Aynata in south Lebanon in 1928 to learn theology.

In 1966 Fadlallah received an invitation from a group who had established a society called "The family of Fraternity" (جمعية أسرة التآخي Jam'iyat Usrat at-Ta'akhi) to come and live with them in the area of Naba'a in Eastern Beirut.

[11] In Naba'a, Fadlallah began his work by organising cultural seminars and delivering religious speeches that discussed social issues as well.

His views then was against Western powers such as Israel and United States but also conservative Arab regimes, specially against the monarchy of Saudi Arabia that allegedly tried to murder him while also killing several innocent people.

[14] Many scholars and media in the Western and Arab world argued that Fadlallah was part of Hizbollah as they meant that the organization was heavily inspired by his ideas and guidance when they emerged and developed as a group.

Hizbollah has also rejected this statement, claiming that Ayatollah Khomeini was their source of spiritual and political guidance, especially with regards to their resistance against injustice and occupation from Western powers.

His ideas was inspired by religious thought but developed as a response to social and political struggles in the society and he believed in empowering Islamist movements.

[5] According to Bob Woodward, CIA director William Casey was involved in the attack, which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia.

"In his book Woodward portrays Casey as a wily and aggressive director who made the CIA his personal instrument of foreign policy.

[28] Fadlallah supported the Iranian Islamic Revolution in the beginning and criticized US and Israel for their policies in the Middle East which he often mentioned in his prayer sermons.

[29] When he died in 2010, Time magazine wrote about his contrarian stance: "Fadlallah had broken with Hizballah and the toxic legacy of his early edicts.

[41] He also objected to any territorial settlement, saying "the entire land of Palestine within its historical borders is one Arab-Islamic country and no one has right to spare on[e] inch of it.

It did not abandon its basic spiritual and moral principle when it made legal jihad, sanctioned war, and encouraged force to confront atheism and chaos.

He believes, like all of his peers in the Islamic seminary that women should cover their entire body except for their face and hands, and that they should avoid wearing excessive makeup when they go out in public.

Fadlalla argues that the West acts similarly and that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an example of how desperation justifies the use of weapons that are usually not considered normal in warfare.

[54] He also issued many fatwas and opinions that courted controversy, for which he was condemned and not supported by other eminent Islamic scholars.This including a representative of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani,[55] the office of Grand Ayatollah Mirza Jawad Tabrizi, in the holy city of Qom, released a statement that "“We desire to inform Momin brothers that Grand Ayatullah Sheikh Mirza Jawad Tabrezi considered this man ‘Dhaal Modhil’ (who go astray) till the last days of his life because of this man’s deviation from beliefs of Mazhabi Haqqa,” and "any help to or cooperation with him in publishing his writings is not legal with respect to Islam".

[56] He was also condemned by Grand Ayatollahs Bashir al-Najafi, Hossein Waheed Khorasani, Mohammad al-Husayni al-Shirazi, Sadiq Hussaini Shirazi and others.

Fadallah had suffered from severe illness weeks before his death and got eventually hospitalized due to internal bleeding that had lasted for days.

[57] At his funeral, his supporters carried his body around Shia neighbourhoods in southern Beirut, then marched to the spot of his 1985 assassination attempt before returning to Imam Rida Mosque, where he was laid to rest.

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.

Full Text with footnotes published in Appleby, R. Scott, Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders in the Middle East, pp.