After exposing the history of Shiites throughout the Middle East in my first post and their struggle in Lebanon till the beginning of the 20th century in my second post , i will tackle now the role of the Shiites in the Lebanese War.

After being fought fiercly throughout the ages, the few feodal Shiites families who were leading the resistance were majorily eliminated, and the rest of the Shiite community had enrolled either in the Palestinian Resistance or in ideological and majorily leftist parties and groups.

Then came Moussa el Sadr, born and taught in Iran and inspired by the Islamic Revolution, and was able to unite the Shiites to a certain extent under his rule and worked on giving back the Shiites their religious role in Lebanon, and was very close to the people and understood their demands, things that bothered the Few traditionalist yet powerful Shiite leaders, but on the other term attracted the popular Shiite movement, those enrolled in conservative parties and others enrolled with the Leftist movements and the Palestinian Resistance.

When the Lebanese War started, Moussa el Sadr had strong ties with the Palestinians, however those ties were shaken when Palestinians discovered that El Sadr has been training an army for the Shiites (Amal) who was involved in several battles against Palestinians.
El Sadr tried to justify this force as necessary to protect the South from any Israeli invasion,and went on to claim that every civilian must carry a weapon and be prepared to defend his land at any time.

But that was a complete contradiction since Amal was involved in slaughtering Palestinians in several camps, and that caused a major friction between the two parties. El Sadr was kidnapped on his way to Lybia and has dissapeared since then. Palestinians are said to be responsible of his kidnapping but no evidence or whatsoever was found. That was in 1978 and El Sadr is probably dead by now but nothing can be sure.

Moussa el Sadr was among the leaders that helped starting the war in Lebanon. He was very closely linked to Ayatollah el Khomeini and religious figures in Iran who were fighting under the Islamic Revolution banner against Leftists and the Chah in Iran.
This reflected normally in Lebanon whereas Shiites fought against Palestinians backed mainly by leftist movements. In fact While Shiites were planning to topple the Lebanese regime to instaure their Islamic state, Leftists were planning on taking over the regime by applying secularism.

What did Moussa el Sadr really want?

Moussa el Sadr was very closely related to Ayatollah el Khomeini, they were even relatives and the son of Khomeini was married to El Sadr brother’s daughter, and both families were considered from the Nobles (Assyad) meaning direct descendants of The Prophet.

Sadr’s kidnapping occured only few days before the Khomeini Islamic Revolution.

This timing says a lot about the conspiracies that were taking place, mainly the Kissinger plan that few Palestinian leaders were backing (Arafat), who consisted of naturalizing the Palestinians in Lebanon to resolve Israel’s problems.

This naturalization is a major threat to the Shiites in the South and was unacceptable by Sadr as well as by Iran who wanted to protect the Shiite identity in the South, mainly in Jabal Amel.
Theories say that Sadr was the victim of that plot.

Sheikh Mehdi Chamseddine commented on this issue years ago, explaining how the Shiites were having serious worries about the naturalization, to an extent that all were asked to get armed and fight this plan, and it went as far as killing any Shiite who sells his land to a Palestinian.

Another ‘threatening’ quote from Sadr during a meeting with Abu Ammar leader of the Palestinian Resistance,” Only the Muslim believers will help The Palestinian Resistance in their struggle in Lebanon, if the Communists and nonbelievers rule, there will be a disaster … “.

El Sadr’s struggle against turning Lebanon into a secular state appeared in his reply to Kamal Jumblatt’s appeal on eliminating political confessionalism during the Aramoun Summit in the mid 70s, where he refused Kamal’s proposal.

Instead, after El Sadr dissapearing, Shiite higher council requested that powers be divided equally between the sects and refused abolishing the confessionalism.
Even Chamseddine who claimed Secularism is acceptable, was talking about a specific secularism only acceptable by Shiites.

In Summary, even though The Shiites failed to achieve their Islamic state similarly to Iran’s Islamic revolution, they were capable of beating the Pro-Palestinian Leftists movements who were trying to naturalize the Palestinians and abolish confessionalism, therefore threatening the Shiite identity and Lebanon’s identity as well.

While Khomeini prevailed in Iran, Moussa el Sadr paid the price dearly. However, the close ties between those two groups clearly shows how Shiites’ worries never included Lebanon’s fate at any time, but it was more a struggle to keep their dream of an Islamic state alive.

( to be continued …)