Hassan Nasrallah (August 31, 1990) Beirut, Lebanon, is the current and third Secretary General of the Lebanese Islamist party and paramilitary organization Hezbollah. Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the movement’s leader Abbas al-Musawi in 1992. Hezbollah’s military campaigns of the late 1990s were the main factors that led to the Israeli decision to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in 2000, thus ending 18 years of occupation. This move greatly increased Hezbollah’s popularity in Lebanon and across the Islamic countries.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children in East Beirut’s Bourj Hammoud neighborhood on August 31, 1960. His father, Abdul Karim, was born in Bazouriyeh, a village in Jabal Amel (South Lebanon) located near Tyre. Although his family was not particularly religious, Sayyed Hassan was interested in theological studies. He attended an-Najah school and later a public school in Sin el-Fil, Beirut.

In 1975, the civil war in Lebanon forced the family to move to their ancestral home in Bassouriyeh, where Hasan Nasrallah completed his secondary education at the public school of Sour (Tyre). Here he joined the Amal Movement, a Lebanese Shi’a political group.

Sayyed Nasrallah studied at the Shi’a seminary in the Beqaa Valley town of Baalbek. The school followed the teachings of Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who founded the Dawa movement in Najaf, Iraq during the early 1960s. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had Sadr executed in 1980. After a period of Islamic study in Najaf, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon in 1978 when Iraq expelled hundreds of Lebanese religious students. He studied and taught at the school of Amal’s leader Abbas al-Musawi, later being selected as Amal’s political delegate in Beqaa, and making him a member of the central political office.

Sayyed Nasrallah joined Hezbollah after the Israeli invasion in 1982. His fiery sermons drew the admiration of Shiite followers who joined Sayyed Nasrallah in organizing Hezbollah. In 1987, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah traveled to a seminary in Qom, Iran for religious studies. He returned to the war in Lebanon in 1989 and later that year, went back to Iran to represent Hezbollah.

In 1991, Musawi became secretary general of Hezbollah and Sayyed Nasrallah returned to Lebanon. Nasrallah replaced Musawi as Hezbollah’s leader after the latter was killed with his wife and child by Israeli forces. Nasrallah lived in South Beirut with his wife Fatimah Yasin (who comes from the Lebanese village of Al-Abbasiyah) and five children: Muhammad Haadi (d. 1997), Muhammad Jawaad, Zainab, Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Mahdi. In September 1997, his eldest son Muhammad Haadi was killed by Israeli forces in Jabal al-Rafei in southern Lebanon.

In the mid-1970s, Nasrallah moved to a Shiite Hawzah (Arabic for seminary) in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, completing the first stage of his studies in 1978. He was then forced to leave by the Iraqi authorities.

Despite his ongoing commitment to Hezbollah, in 1989 Nasrallah resumed his efforts to become a religious jurist by moving to the Iranian city of Qom to further his studies. Nasrallah believes that Islam holds the solution to the problems of any society, once saying, “With respect to us, briefly, Islam is not a simple religion including only praises and prayers, rather it is a divine message that was designed for humanity, and it can answer any question man might ask concerning his general and private life. Islam is a religion designed for a society that can revolt and build a state.”

Leadership of Hezbollah

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the movement’s leader Abbas al-Musawi in 1992. Hezbollah’s military campaigns of the late 1990s were the main factors that led to the Israeli decision to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in 2000, thus ending 18 years of occupation. This move greatly increased Hezbollah’s popularity in Lebanon and across the Islamic countries.

Consequently, Nasrallah is widely credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party’s political standing within Lebanon.

Nasrallah also played a major role in a complex prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners being freed and the dead body of his son with many more returning to Lebanon. The agreement was described across the Arab world as a great victory for Hezbollah with Nasrallah being personally praised for achieving these gains.

A December article in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported that command of the organization’s military wing was transferred from Nasrallah to his deputy, Na’im Qasim in August 2007. Hezbollah has refuted this claim, declaring it an attempt “weaken the popularity” of the movement.