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Intellectuals and Political Power in Social Movements: The Parallel Paths of Fadlallah and Hizbullah

2014; Routledge; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13530194.2014.878509

1469-3542

Adham Saouli,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

AbstractThis article examines the intellectual impact of Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) on Hizbullah's political behaviour. Many depicted Fadlallah as the ‘spiritual guide’ and ‘oracle’ of Hizbullah, while others accentuated his socio-political independence and the potential he represented as an ‘alternative’ to Hizbullah and Iran. This study argues that Fadlallah directly influenced Hizbullah's political worldviews, but the Islamic movement's socialisation in Lebanon, its dependence on Iran and its war with Israel have led it to pursue a separate path from Fadlallah. But despite the separation, the Ayatollah shared a common world vision with Hizbullah and the Islamic Republic, and would not have formed an alternative. The article is divided into two sections. The first examines the socio-political origins of Fadlallah and Hizbullah as an intellectual and a political movement, respectively, and conceptualises the discursive and political fields that motivate the behaviour of the two actors. The second section assesses the impact of Fadlallah's ideas on Hizbullah by focusing on three main themes: (1) Islamic liberation and resistance against injustice; (2) the Islamic state and Lebanon; and (3) Wilayat al-Faqih and Islamic Iran. AcknowledgementsI thank Hussein Abdulsater, Ewan Stein and an anonymous reviewer for their useful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this article. Any shortcomings remain mine alone.Notes 1 Max Weber, ‘The Social Psychology of World Religions’, in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), p. 280. 2 Michaelle Browers, ‘Fadlallah and the Passing of Lebanon's Last Najafi Generation’, Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 5(1) (2012), pp. 29–30. 3 Martin Kramer, ‘The Oracle of Hizbullah: Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah’, in R. Scott Appleby (ed.), Spokesmen of the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 83–181. 4 Jamal Sankari, Fadlallah: The Making of a Radical Shi'ite Leader (London: Saqi, 2005), pp. 198, 237. 5 Browers, ‘Fadlallah’; Hilal Khashan, ‘The Religious and Political Impact of Sayyid M.H. Fadlallah on Arab Shi'ism’, Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 3(4) (Winter 2010), pp. 427–441; Sankari, Fadlallah. 6 David Schenker, ‘Passing of Shiite Cleric Fadlallah Spells Trouble for Lebanon’, Christian Science Monitor, 9 July 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0709/Passing-of-Shiite-cleric-Fadlallah-spells-trouble-for-Lebanon. David Kenner argues that ‘US officials failed to appreciate the areas where their interests and Fadlallah's overlapped, both in isolating Iran and reducing the appeal of fundamentalism within Lebanon’ (‘The Sheikh Who Got Away’, Foreign Policy, 6 July 2010, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/07/06/the_sheikh_who_got_away?page = 0,0, accessed 22 July 2013). For a similar view, see also ‘He Tried to Calm Things Down’, The Economist, 10 July 2010, p. 48. 7 Sankari, Fadlallah, p. 200. 8 For Nasrallah's eulogy, see http://www.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid = 17446&cid = 128#.UdxvlD7uWFc, accessed 13 July 2013. Naim Qassem, Hizbullah's Vice Secretary General, eulogised him a year later as a ‘father, teacher, and educator’. For the eulogy, see http://www.yahosein.com/vb/showthread.php?t = 155619, accessed 13 July 2013. 9 I take a cultural environment to mean ‘the socially and culturally available array of symbols and meaning from which [social] movements can draw’. For a discussion, see Rhys H. Williams, ‘The Cultural Contexts of Collective Action: Constraints, Opportunities, and the Symbolic Life of Social Movements’, in David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule and Haspeter Kriesi (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2004). Quote on p. 96, emphasis in the original. For a discussion of a ‘cultural structure’ in reference to state composition in the Arab world, see Adham Saouli, The Arab State: Dilemmas of Late Formation (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), pp. 15–28. 10 See, for example, H.E. Chehabi (ed.), Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years (London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2006). 11 Yitzhak Nakash, Reaching for Power: The Shi'a in the Modern Arab World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). 12 A social movement involves ‘sustained challenges to power-holders in the name of one or more populations living under the jurisdiction of those power-holders by means of public displays dramatizing those populations' worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment’. For a detailed discussion see Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 182. 13 See the article by Rachel Feder in this volume. 14 Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1993). 15 Contentious politics ‘involves interactions in which actors make claims bearing on someone else's interests, in which governments appear as targets, initiators of claims, or third parties. Contentious politics thus brings together three familiar features of social life: contention, collective action, and politics’. See Charles Tilly, Contentious Performances (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 5. 16 Michiel Baud and Rosanne Rutten, ‘Introduction’, in Michiel Baud and Rosanne Rutten (eds), Popular Intellectuals and Social Movements: Framing Protest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 8. 17 David A. Snow, ‘Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields’, in Snow, Soule and Kriesi, The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, p. 402. 18 Snow and Benford, quoted in Snow, ‘Framing Processes’, p. 384. 19 See Shamseddine's biography at http://shamseddine.com/ar/?page_id = 259 (accessed 15 August 2013). 20 Ruhullah Khomeini, Al-Hukuma al-Islimiyya (Beirut: Dar al-Quds, 1978). 21 See Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (New York: State University of New York, 1996). 22 Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa [Islam and the Logic of Power] (Beirut: Dar al-Malak, 2003), pp. 12–13. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes from Arabic sources are of my own translation. 23 In the sociology of intellectuals there are three categories: a class-bound or organic intellectual, which is tied to and speaks on behalf of a social class according to the Gramscian perspective; a classless intellectual, Karl Mannheim and Max Weber's idea that intellectuals are neither attached to social classes nor are they a class on their own, but rather intellectuals are relatively autonomous; and finally the approach that believes that intellectuals constitute a class of their own that seeks to present the interests of society as a whole. For a discussion, see Charles Kurzman and Lynn Owens, ‘The Sociology of Intellectuals’, Annual Review of Sociology, 28 (August 2002), pp. 63–90. 24 As Weber observes, it is not ‘that the specific nature of religion is a simple “function” of the social situation of the stratum which appears as its characteristic bearer’. Rather, despite the socio-political influences, any religious reinterpretation has origins in religious sources; ‘such reinterpretations adjust the revelations to the needs of the religious community’. See Weber, ‘The Social Psychology of World Religions’, pp. 269–270. 25 ‘While seekers of pure knowledge have a “calling” to pursue the truth’, argues Sadri, ‘intellectuals are committed to a “mission” to the masses’. Ahmad Sadri, Max Weber's Sociology of Intellectuals (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 108–111. 26 As Sankari observes, ‘It was anathema to the majority of Shi'i mujtahids to establish or join modern political parties with their separate structural organization, distinct mode of activity and partisan loyalty’. It was ‘a serious departure from the traditional mujtahid-laymen network, and undermined the undisputed authority of the grand juriconults’. Sankari, Fadlallah, pp. 71, 76. Qassem reiterates this point about Shamseddine, who always stressed that his is at ‘one distance from all [political] factions’ Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: almanhag..altagruba..almustaqbal [Hizbullah: Doctrine, History and the Future] (Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 2008), p. 21. 27 Sankari, Fadlallah, p. 161. 28 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 13. 29 Abu-Rabi, Intellectual Origins, pp. 224, 239. 30 Saouli, The Arab State, pp. 15–28. 31 Qassem, Hizbullah: almanhag..altagruba..almustaqbal [Hizbullah: Doctrine, History and the Future], p. 22. 32 Qassem adds that these groups invited Fadlallah to play a central role in the nascent party, but he refused. Qassem, Hizbullah, p. 22. 33 For example, the manifesto considered the Lebanese Phalange as ‘criminals’. For further analysis of Hizbullah's manifestos, see Joseph Alagha, Hizbullah's Documents: From the 1985 Manifesto to the 2009 Manifesto (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010). 34 August Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin: University of Texas, 1987). 35 As Sadri argues, the ‘intelligentsia will be found more willing than intellectuals to view ideas instrumentally’. The intelligentsia ‘consume’ and ‘disseminate’ ideas, but they do so for specific goals; they act as mediators between intellectuals and other social forces, Sadri, Max Weber's Sociology, pp. 69–70. Hizbullah's intelligentsia includes, but is not limited to, religious leaders of Hizbullah-controlled hawzas, presidents of religious and political studies centres (such as Sheikh Shafeek Jradi and Hassan Hoballah, respectively), Hizbullah officials (Sheikh Naim Qassem, Nawaf Moussawi, Hassan Fadlallah and Ali Fayad) and Hizbullah sympathisers (Qassem Qassir, Ahmad Majid, Talal Atrissi). 36 Qassem, Hizbullah, pp. 42–43. 37 Qassem, Hizbullah, p. 24. 38 Rula Jurdi Abisaab, ‘The Cleric as Organic Intellectual: Revolutionary Shi'ism in the Lebanese Hawzas’, in Chehabi, Distant Relations, p. 241. Abisaab adds that Hizbullah ‘brought more structure, discipline, and hierarchy to the hawzas with the aim of controlling who rise to the top on the basis of social demand and the overall benefit to Shi'a society’ (p. 250). 39 For example, Shamseddine believed that the religious seminaries should be politically neutral and refused the curricula of the Hizbullah-controlled hawzas. See Abisaab, ‘The Cleric as Organic Intellectual’, p. 252. 40 As Atrissi observes, Hizbullah's commemoration of Ashura ‘reached a high level of organisation to the extent that the movement has established schools to prepare Ashura reciters’. Moreover, it holds conferences to discuss Ashura's potential for social, religious and political mobilisation. See Talal Atrissi, Ashura: Ihya al-Taghir [Ashura: Reviving Change], in Shi'a fi Lubnan: min al tahmish ilal musharaka alfaila [The Shi'as of Lebanon: From Marginalisation to Active Participation] (Beirut: Dar Al Maarif, 2012), p. 344. 41 According to this reading, Hizbullah did not need to pass through an ‘application’ phase before it realised the limits of its ideology and consequently ‘moderate’ its behaviour. The idea that Hizbullah has ‘Lebanonised’ and became more ‘pragmatic’ after the Taif Accord, which ended the Lebanese war (1975–1990), underestimates the multi-layered identity of Hizbullah and it realist vision. For Hizbullah's political development and adaptation, see Judith Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005); Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2004). Regarding Hizbullah's identity construction, see Joseph Alagha, Hizbullah's Identity Construction (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011). 42 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 61. 43 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 264. Fadlallah is famous for continuously reiterating the following Quranic verse, which relates to this idea: ‘Lo! Allah changeth not the condition of a folk until they (first) change that which is in their hearts’, The Glorious Quran, trans. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (Beirut: Dar Al-Kitab Allubnani, 1970), p. 321. 44 Fadlallah builds on verses 5–6 in Surat Al-Kisas, and 39–40 in Surat al-Haj in the Quran. 45 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 68. 46 Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam [For Islam] (Beirut: Dar al-Malak, 2004), pp. 392–393. 47 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 332. 48 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, pp. 335–337. 49 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 335. 50 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 74. 51 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, pp. 80–82. 52 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, pp. 183–198. 53 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, pp. 51–90; see also Rola el-Husseini, ‘Resistance, Jihad, and Martyrdom in Contemporary Lebanese Shi'a Discourse’, Middle East Journal, 62(3) (2008), pp. 399–414. 54 After the Israeli invasion of 1982, Shamsedine called for ‘civil resistance’, an idea that would then fade away. 55 See the Open Letter in Hassan Fadlallah, Al-Khiyar al akhar: Hizbullah, assira alzatiya wal mawkef [The Alternative Choice: Hizbullah, a Stand and a Biography of the Organisation] (Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 1994), pp. 184–213. 56 In the Open Letter Hizbullah identifies its first goal as ‘Israel's complete withdrawal from Lebanon as an introduction to its total demise from existence’. Fadlallah, Al-Khiyar al akhar, p. 193. 57 Qassem, Hizbullah, pp. 52–53. 58 Qassem, Hizbullah, pp. 60–66. For further analysis of Hizbullah's perception of jihad, see Alagha, Hizbullah's Identity Construction, pp. 93–94; see also Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu'allah: Politics and Religion (London: Pluto Press, 2002), pp. 118–127. 59 Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, ‘Almoukawimoun al-Badrioun wa thaqafat al intisar al-Ilahi’ [The Badriyoun Resistance Fighters and the Culture of the Divine Victory], in Shafik Jaradi (ed.), al-Intisar al-Moukawem: Hawiyat al-intisar wa tadaiyatihi al-stratigia [Resistant Victory: The Identity of the Victory and its Strategic Implications] (Beirut: Islamic Centre for Cultural Studies, 2007), pp. 9–18. During the war, Fadlallah named the fighters ‘Badriyoun’, referring to the Battle of Badr between the Prophet and Quraish, while comparing it to Hizbullah's war with Israel. For Fadlallah, that battle imposed a new balance of power in the Arab peninsula after Quraish had dominated the scene as a power that could not be broken. Fadlallah discusses Badr long before 2006, see his Kitab al-Jihad, pp. 96–97. 60 Qassem, Hizbullah, pp. 52–54. 61 See Nasrallah's interview with Al-Mayadeen television station, aired on 14 August 2013. 62 For an analysis of how the war with Israel dictates restraint in Hizbullah's behaviour in Lebanon, see Adham Saouli, ‘Hizbullah in the Civilising Process: Anarchy, Self-Restraint and Violence’, Third World Quarterly, 32(5) (2011), pp. 925–942. 63 Hizbullah justifies its stand by arguing that Assad's call for political reform and dialogue with the opposition, and his support for resistance movements, makes him different from other Arab dictators. For Hizbullah's strategic dilemma and choice, see Adham Saouli, ‘Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Arab Uprisings: Structures, Threats, and Opportunities’, ORIENT, 54(2) (2013), pp. 37–44. 64 See Nawaf al-Moussawi's interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, aired on 4 July 2013. 65 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, p. 390. Qassem argues: ‘No committed Islamist, who believes in the Islamist ideology and Shari'a can but have the project of establishing an Islamic state as one of the natural expressions of his Islamic commitment’. Qassem, Hizbullah, p. 40. 66 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 267. 67 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, p. 188. 68 It is no coincidence that one of his biographers has portrayed him as a ‘radical pragmatist’. See Sankari, Fadlallah, p. 190. 69 ‘It is known that the Jihad in Mecca was one of da'wa; the aim was to ingrain the main principles of the new religion … to save people from the ignorance that dominated them, and from the rigidity of the mind … a Jihad, which God has considered to be the “Grand Jihad”’. See Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Kitab al-Jihad [The Book of Jihad] (Beirut: Dar al-Malak, 1998), pp. 112–113. 70 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, p. 376. 71 The background for this idea is found in the Quran: ‘Call unto the way of the Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and reason with them in the better way’. Sura XVI ‘The Bee’, in The Glorious Quran, trans. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (Beirut: Dar Al-Kitab Allubnani, 1970), p. 362. 72 Fadlallah, Kitab al-Jihad, p. 44. 73 It is important to mention, however, that Fadlallah was influenced by Sayyid Qutb's work. His book Tafsir Min Wahy al-Quran [Interpretation from the Quran's Revelation] (Beirut: Dar Al-Malak, 1998) is similar to Qutb's Fi Zilal al-Quran [In the Shade of the Quran] (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruk, 1974). I thank Hussein Abdulsater for pointing this out to me. 74 These discussions were particularly salient in Lebanon in the 1980s when the divided country was searching for a new political and constitutional arrangement. 75 Fadlallah considered Lebanon to be—or considered that it should be—‘an arena of dialogue’. See his various interviews collected in Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam. 76 Or what social movement theories conceptualise as structures of opportunities and constraints. These conditions either enable or constrain a political actor's ability to achieve its goals. Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires. 77 Fadlallah, Kitab al-Jihad, pp. 117–118. 78 Fadlallah, Kitab al-Jihad, pp. 55–63. 79 See the Open Letter in Hassan Fadlallah, Al-Khiyar al akhar: Hizbullah, assira alzatiya wal mawkef [The Alternative Choice: Hizbullah, a Stand and a Biography of the Organisation] (Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 1994), pp.186–88. 80 Writing in the mid-1990s, Hassan Fadlallah also reflects Ayatollah Fadlallah's gradualism when he states that Hizbullah's project in Lebanon is in its foundational phase, for it takes into consideration the Lebanese sectarian and political plurality which does not permit the successful establishment of an Islamic state. See Fadlallah, Al-Khiyar al akhar, pp. 90–91. 81 Amal is influenced by the religio-political school of Musa al-Sadr and Ayatollah Mohammad Shamseddine more than is Hizbullah. Accordingly, although both Hizbullah and Amal now share a similar view of the question of Lebanon as an entity, in the early 1980s they had varying views. See Saouli, ‘Hizbullah in the Civilising Process’. 82 For an analysis of Hizbullah's perception of the state and nation, see Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu'allah, pp. 59–80. 83 See his numerous interviews on the topic collected in Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, pp. 389–390. 84 Quoted in Sankari, Fadlallah, p. 239. 85 The 2009 manifesto can be found at http://www.moqawama.org/essaydetailsf.php?eid=16245&fid = 47, accessed on 11 February 2014. 86 Compare with Sankari, Fadlallah, p. 230. 87 Fadlallah, al-Islam wa mantiq al-quwa, p. 267. 88 Fadlallah argues that ‘Islamic government does not consist of a middle ages type of divine rule’. ‘‘The Islamic ruler' is not a despot; rather, he resorts to shura (consultation) from a position of responsibility’. Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, p. 31. 89 For Fadlallah's perception of Wilayat al-Faqih, see Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, pp. 11–49. 90 According to Shi'a-Islamic interpretation, the Prophet has conferred the Wilaya to his household (or Ahl al-bayt): first to ‘Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, and then to Ali's sons and grandsons, from one Imam to the other reaching the Twelfth Imam, the Imam Mahdi who went into occultation (Ghaiba). Shi'as believe that the Mahdi will return to save the oppressed and bring justice to the world. See Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, pp. 33, 5–38. 91 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, pp. 13–40. 92 Fadlallah, Min ajl al-Islam, p. 38. 93 For a discussion, see Sankari, Fadlallah, pp. 179–180. 94 Qassem, Hizbullah, p. 80. 95 Hizbullah's Open Letter of 1985 alludes to several features of Khomeini's political thought. It was addressed to the ‘downtrodden’, a Quranic concept, which as we saw was used by Fadlallah, but it is also salient in Khomeini's discourse. Unlike the 2009 manifesto, the Open Letter presents a globalist dimension to the movement: ‘We, the sons of Hizbullah's nation, whose vanguards God has given victory in Iran and which has established the nucleus of the world's central Islamic State’. For further analysis of Hizbullah's perception of Wilayat al-Faqih, see Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu'allah, pp. 64–68. 96 See, for example, Joseph Alagha, ‘Wilayat Al-Faqih and Hizbullah's Relations with Iran’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 10 (2010), http://www.lancs.ac.uk/jais/volume/docs/vol10/v10_02_Alagha_24-44.pdf, accessed 29 July 2013. 97 Fayez Qazzi, Min hassan nassrallah ila michel aoun: kiraa siyasiya li hizbulla [From Hassan Nassrallah Michel Aoun: A Political Reading of Hezbollah] (Beirut: Riad El-Rayes Books, 2009). 98 Fadlallah, Al-Khiyar al Akhar, pp. 41–43. 99 As such, for Qassem, ‘Hizbullah's behaviour constitutes a symbiosis of an Islamic approach and Lebanese citizenship’. Qassem, Hizbullah, p. 79.100 Nassrallah, quoted in Alagha, ‘Wilayat Al-Faqih’, p. 39.101 For an alternative view, see Alagha, ‘Wilayat Al-Faqih’.102 While Khamenei supported the nomination of the Iranian Ayatollah al-Araki, Fadlallah backed an Iraqi-based scholar, Ayatollah al-Sistani. But with the death of the former, and despite the opposition of a large segment of senior ‘ulama in Najaf and Qum, Khamenei ascended to become a Grand Ayatollah.103 Sankari, Fadlallah, pp. 256–258.104 Talib Aziz, ‘Fadlallah and the Remaking of the Marja'iya’, in Linda S. Walbridge, The Most Learned of the Shi'a:The Institution of the Marja‘ Taqlid (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 205–214.