The debate within the Shiite environment in Lebanon is not limited to the location of Hezbollah and its weapons or its relationship with Iran. Rather, according to a recent research reading, it extends to an older and more profound question related to the religious and political authority capable of speaking on behalf of the Shiites of Lebanon, in light of a long path that witnessed the emergence of Shiite clerics who put forward different visions about the doctrine of “Guardianship of the Jurist” and maintained their religious independence from Tehran.
According to an article by researcher Dr. Noah Rivin in the Israeli newspaper “Israel Hayom”, the common image in Israel of the Lebanese Shiite cleric is almost automatically linked to a religious figure affiliated with Hezbollah, after a close relationship has been established over the years in the public consciousness between religion, the party and Iran.
However, Raven believes that this picture hides a basic fact, which is that some of the most prominent intellectual objections to the vision represented by Hezbollah originally came from within the Lebanese Shiite religious establishment itself.
To understand the roots of this path, the author goes back to the founding of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council by Imam Musa al-Sadr in 1967, considering that its establishment constituted a turning point for the Shiites of Lebanon, as it provided them for the first time with an official institution that represented them within the Lebanese state.
But after the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr in 1978, and the rise of Hezbollah at a later stage, a broader conflict gradually emerged over who has the right to speak on behalf of the Shiites: Is it the Lebanese institutions for the sect, or a political and military movement also linked to the religious leadership in Iran?
Refn presents the experience of Sheikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams al-Din, who headed the Supreme Shiite Islamic Council until his death in 2001, as one of the most prominent milestones in this dispute.
She points out that Shams al-Din was not “anti-Hezbollah” in the direct sense of the word, but rather was a supporter of resistance to Israel. However, the importance of his experience, according to the article, was to present a Shiite vision centered around the state, citizenship, and Shiite affiliation to the countries in which they live.
The author believes that this vision constituted an important alternative to the Iranian doctrine of the “Guardianship of the Jurist,” which she says Hezbollah’s religious and political ideology is based on.
It also stops at the late Shiite authority, Mr. Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, one of the most prominent Shiite clerics in Lebanon, noting that he maintained a degree of religious independence from Iran and did not fully adopt the Iranian model of guardianship of the jurist.
According to the article, the mere existence of an independent Shiite religious authority showed that the environment closely linked to Hezbollah was not completely intellectually homogeneous.
In the subsequent generation, Raven says that the confrontation became more clear, citing Sheikh Ali Al-Amin, who served as the Jaafari Mufti in Tyre and Jabal Amel, and expressed positions opposing the Guardianship of the Jurist. He also criticized Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian war and linked Lebanese Shiites to the Iranian project.
It places alongside him Shiite clerics and thinkers, including Hani Fahs, who, according to the article, sought to establish a Shiite identity based on citizenship, pluralism, and coexistence within Lebanon.
Refn believes that the importance of these votes is not measured only by the size of the audience that it is able to mobilize, considering that Hezbollah does not exist as an armed political party only, but is also based on a system of religious legitimacy.
Hence, she adds that the issuance of criticism by a Shiite cleric touches a very sensitive point, because it not only challenges Hezbollah’s position as the most influential political force within the Shiite environment, but also affects the claim of its natural representation of the religious vision within this environment.
According to this reading, the dispute within the Lebanese Shiite community is not exclusively related to Hezbollah’s weapons or its relationship with Iran, but rather hides behind it a decades-long conflict over who has the authority to determine the path that the Shiite community in Lebanon should take.
The author concludes that the deeper question remains: Who has the right to define what the “Lebanese Shiite path” is, and who has the religious and political authority to speak on behalf of Lebanese Shiites?
Dr. Noah Raven is a researcher specializing in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Shiite theology. She is a research fellow at the Middle East and Central Asia Research Center at Ariel University. She also lectures on Middle East and Islamic affairs.
Thus, this reading places the dispute over Hezbollah in a context that goes beyond the direct political conflict, to an older debate within the Shiite environment itself regarding authority, identity, and the limits of the relationship between Lebanese affiliation and cross-border religious authority.
