Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah

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

By the time of his birth, his father was already a Muslim scholar.

Fadlallah went first to a traditional school (Kuttāb) to learn the Quran and the basic skills of reading and writing.

He soon left and went to a more "modern" school that was established by the publisher Jamiat Muntada Al-Nasher where he remained for two years and studied in the third and fourth elementary classes.

At these schools he began studying the religious sciences at a very young age.

He started to read the Al-Ajurrumiyya when he was nine years old, and then he read Qatr al-Nada wa Bal Al-Sada (Ibn Hisham).

He completed Sutouh in which the student reads the book and listens to his teacher's explanation.

He also studied the Arabic language, logic and Jurisprudence, and did not need another teacher until he studied the second part of the course known as Kifayat at Usul which he studied with an Iranian teacher named Sheikh mujtaba Al-Linkarani.

He attended the so-called Bahth Al-Kharij in which the teacher does not restrict himself to a certain book but gives more or less free lectures.

Fadlallah published a minor periodical before going to Lebanon.

At the age of ten, he put out a handwritten literary journal with some of his friends.

Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (also Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh; محمد حسين فضل الله; 16 November 1935 – 4 July 2010) was a prominent twelver Shia cleric from a Lebanese family.

Fadlallah was born in the Iraqi Shia shrine city of Najaf on 16 November 1935.

Born in Najaf, Iraq, Fadlallah studied Islam in Najaf before moving to Lebanon in 1952.

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.

Through the aforementioned association, he established a public library, a women's cultural center, and a medical clinic.

Fadlallah was sometimes called the "spiritual mentor" of Hezbollah in the media, although this was disputed by other sources.

He had already visited Lebanon in 1952 where he recited a poem eulogizing Muhsin al Amin at his funeral.

After 21 years of studying under the prominent teachers of the Najaf religious university he concluded his studies in 1966 and returned to Lebanon.

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.

He agreed, especially as the conditions at Najaf impelled him to leave.

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

Nevertheless, Fadlallah's main concern was to continue to develop his academic work.

Thus he founded a religious school called the Islamic Sharia Institute in which several students enrolled who later became prominent religious scholars including Sheikh Ragib Harb.

He also established a public library, a women's cultural centre and a medical clinic.

When the Lebanese Civil War forced him to leave the area, he moved to the Southern Suburbs where he started to give priority to teaching and educating the people.

He used the mosque as his centre for holding daily prayers giving lessons in Qur'anic interpretation, as well as religious and moral speeches, especially on religious occasions such as Ashura.

He soon resumed his academic work and began to give daily lessons in Islamic principles, jurisprudence and morals.

It added that "From the pulpit of the Imam Rida mosque in the Bir al-Abd neighborhood, Sayyed Fadlullah's sermons gave shape to the political currents among mainly the Muslim Shiite sect [of Lebanon], from the latter half of the 1980s till the last days of his life."

Other sources, such as journalist Robert Fisk, also refuted such claims that he was affiliated with the group.

In 1982 Dawa unites with other Islamic Shia armed organizations (Islamic Amal, Islamic Jihad Organization, Jundallah) to found Hezbollah.

He has been variously attributed by the media as being the spiritual leader of Hezbollah.

Al Manar said he had "inspired the leaders" of the group.

He was also the target of several assassination attempts, including the 1985 Beirut car bombing.

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.

As one of the alleged leaders of Hezbollah, a status both he and the group denied he was the target of several assassination attempts, including the allegedly CIA-sponsored and funded 8 March 1985 Beirut car bombing that killed 80 people.

On 8 March 1985, a car bomb equivalent to 440 lb of dynamite exploded 9–45 metres from his house in Beirut, Lebanon.

The blast destroyed a 7-story apartment building and a cinema, killed 80 people and wounded 256.

The attack was timed to go off as worshippers were leaving Friday Prayers.

Most of the dead were girls and women who had been leaving the mosque, though the ferocity of the blast "burned babies in their beds," "killed a bride buying her trousseau," and "blew away three children as they walked home from the mosque."