Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh (also Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh; Arabic was a prominent Lebanese Twelver marja.

From a Lebanese family, but born in Najaf, Iraq, Fadlallah studied Islamic sciences 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 was also the target of several assassination attempts, including a car bombing in Beirut in 1985.

His death was followed by a huge turnout in Lebanon, visits by virtually all major political figures across the Lebanese spectrum (except for Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir), and statements of condolence from across the greater Middle East region (with a notable exception of Egypt); but it also led to controversy in the west and a denunciation in Israel.


Early life
Fadl-Allāh was born in the Iraqi Shia shrine city of Najaf on 16 November 1935. 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.

Education
Fadl-Allāh 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 Ajroumiah 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. Fadl-Allāh 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.

Return to Lebanon
After 21 years of studying under the prominent teachers of the Najaf religious university he concluded his studies in 1966 and returned to Lebanon. He had already visited Lebanon in 1952 where he recited a poem eulogizing Muhsin Al-Amin at his funeral.
In 1966 Fadl-Allāh received an invitation from a group who had established a society called ”Usrat Ataakhi” (The family of Fraternity) 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 Fadl-Allāh began his work, by organising cultural seminars and delivering religious speeches that discussed social issues as well.
Nevertheless, Fadl-Allāh’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.

Assassination attempts
Further information: 1985 Beirut car bombing
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 (200 kg) 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." It also "devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut suburb. but Fadl-Allāh escaped injury. One of his bodyguards at the time was Imad Mughniyeh, who was later assassinated in a car-bombing in February 2008.

According to Bob Woodward, CIA director William Casey was involved in the attack, which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia. Former Lebanese warlord and statesman late Elie Hobeika was accused as one of those likely responsible for the actual operation.

During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli warplanes bombed his two-story house in Beirut's southern Haret Hreik neighborhood. Fadlallah was not at home at the time of the bombing, which reduced the house to rubble.

Hezbollah connection
He has been variously attributed by the media as being the spiritual leader of Hezbollah. Al Manar said he had at least "inspired the leaders" of the group. 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. Although other sources such as noted journalist Robert Fisk also refuted such claims that he was affiliated with the group.
Views
He supported the Iranian Islamic Revolution. In his sermons, he called for armed resistance to the Israeli occupations of Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, along with opposition to the existence of Israel. He held relatively liberal views on the status of women.
U.S. foreign policy
He has asked for a boycott of American products.

All American and Israeli goods and products should be boycotted in a way that undermines American and Israeli interests so as to act as deterrence to their war against Muslims and Islam that is being waged under the pretense of fighting terrorism.
This boycott should become an overwhelming trend that makes these two states feel that their economies are in a real and actual danger.

In November 2007, Fadlallah accused the United States of trying to sabotage the election in Lebanon: "The insanity of the U.S. president and its administration is reflected in Lebanon by their ambassador pressuring the Lebanese people and preventing them from reaching an agreement over the presidential election.

Though he welcomed the election of Barack Obama as the American president, the following year he expressed disappointment with Obama's lack of progress in the Middle East peace process saying he appeared to have no plan to bring peace to the region.

9/11 criticism
Despite his criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, he condemned the September 11 attacks in the United States as acts of terrorism.

Israel
Fadlallah has made statements in favour of suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. In a 2002 interview with The Daily Telegraph Fadlallah said:

I was not the one who launched the idea of so-called suicide bombings, but I have certainly argued in favour of them… the Palestinians] are in a state of war with Israel. They are not aiming to kill civilians but, in war, civilians do get killed...There is no other way for the Palestinians to push back those mountains, apart from martyrdom operations.

His support for suicide bombings against Israel were based on the grounds that the latter uses advanced weaponry; it was also claimed that he wished that the state of Israel would cease to exist.

Following the Mercaz HaRav massacre, Fadlallah called the attack "heroic." Western sources also cite his favour for suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. Fadlallah explained the religious basis for suicide attacks in an interview with Daily Star.

In September 2009, Fadlallah issued a fatwa banning normalisation of ties with Israel. He also objected to any territorial settlement, saying "the entire land of Palestine within its historical borders is one Arab-Islamic country and no one has right to spare on inch of it. Another English translation (from the Arabic in Al Akhbar) was given in The Daily Middle East Reporter.

Islamic governance
Despite his ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Fadlallah distanced himself from the Ayatollah Khomeini's legacy of Veleyat-e Faqih as theocratic rule by Islamic clerics was said to argue that "no Shia religious leader, not even Khomeini… has a monopoly on the truth. He also first endorsed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani rather than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the marja for Shia in matters of religion, before claiming the role for himself. In an 2009 interview, Fadlallah said that he does not believe wilayat al-faqih has a role in modern Lebanon.

Women
Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah was known for his relatively liberal views on women, whom he sees as equal to men. He believed that women have just as much of a responsibility towards society as men do, and women should be role models for both men and women. Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah also believed that women have the same exact ability as men to fight their inner weaknesses. He saw the hijab as something that makes a man see a woman not as a sex object, but instead as a human being. He believes that women should cover their entire body except for their face and hands, and that they should avoid wearing excessive makeup when they go out in public.

Fadlallah also issued a fatwa on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women that supports the right of a woman to defend herself against any act of violence whether social or physical. The fatwa reaffirms the rights of women, both at their workplace and at home, and states that Islam forbids men from exercising any form of violence against women and forbids men from depriving women of their legal rights. In his words "physical violence in which women are beaten, proves that these men are weak, for only the weak are in need of unjust violence". He also issued fatwas forbidding female circumcision and honour killings.

Abortion
He was opposed to abortion in most cases; however, when the women is in an abnormal amount of danger by the pregnancy, he believed it was permissible.

Amman Message
He was one of the Ulama signatories of the Amman Message, which gives a broad foundation for defining Muslim orthodoxy.

Controversial views regarding Shia doctrine
Fadlallah held controversial views regarding Shia doctrine, as espoused in some of his works and speeches. He also issued many fatwas and opinions that courted controversy, for which he was not supported by other eminent Shia scholars, including a representative of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani.

Source: Wikipedia.org