Sayyid (pronounced [ˈsæjjɪd], or [ˈsæjjed], Arabic: سيد‎; meaning Mister; plural Sadah Arabic: سادة‎, Sādah) is an honorific title, it denotes males accepted as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husain ibn Ali, sons of the prophet's daughter Fatima Zahra and his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib.^[1]

Daughters of sayyids are given the titles Sayyida, Alawiyah, Syarifah, or Sharifah. Children of a Sayyida mother but a non-Sayyid father cannot be attributed the title of Sayyid, however they may claim the title Mirza for males or Mirziya for females. Sayyids are by definition a branch of the tribe of Banu Hashim, a clan from the tribe of Quraish that traces its lineage to Adnan and thence to the Prophet Ismael.

In the Arab world, it is the equivalent of the English word "liege-lord" or "master" when referring to a descendant of Muhammad, as in Sayyid John Smith.^[2] This is the reason the word sidi (from the contracted form sayyidī, 'my liege') is used in the Moroccan dialect of Arabic.^[3]

References[link]

Hasan Nasrallah (born August 31, 1960; Arabic: حسن نصرالله‎)^[1] became the third Secretary General of the Lebanese political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the previous leader, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992.^[2] Hezbollah is regarded as a legitimate resistance movement and political party throughout much of the Arab and Muslim worlds,^[3] but is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the Netherlands, Israel, and Canada. The group's military wing by itself is designated a proscribed terrorist group by the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia.^[4][5]

Personal life[link]

Hasan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children in Bourj Hammoud, Matn District (an eastern suburb of Beirut) on August 31, 1960 .^[2] His father, Abdul Karim, was born in Bazouriyeh, a village in Jabal Amel (South Republic of Lebanon) located near Tyre to Iranian grandparents. Although his family was not particularly religious, Hasan was interested in theological studies. He attended an-Najah school and later a public school in Sin el Fil (Christian area) Beirut.

In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War forced the family to move to their ancestral home in Bassouriyeh,^[2][6] where Nasrallah completed his secondary education at the public school of Sour (Tyre). Here he joined the Amal Movement, a Lebanese Shi'a political group.^[2][6]

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.^[7] Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had Sadr executed in 1980. After a period of Islamic study in Najaf, Iraq, Nasrallah returned to Republic of Lebanon in 1978 when Iraq expelled hundreds of Lebanese religious pupils. 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.

Nasrallah joined Hezbollah after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.^[8] He became noted for his sharp and fiery sermons. In 1987, Hasan Nasrallah traveled to a seminary in Qom, Iran to further his religious studies. He went back to Lebanon in 1989.

Despite his ongoing commitment to Hezbollah, in 1989 Nasrallah resumed his efforts to become a religious jurist by returning 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 prayers and praises, rather it is a divine message that was designed for humanity, and it can answer any question man might ask concerning his general and personal life. Islam is a religion designed for a society that can revolt and build a community.”^[9]

In 1991, Abbas al-Musawi became secretary general of Hezbollah and Nasrallah returned to Lebanon. Nasrallah replaced Musawi as Hezbollah's leader after the latter was killed with his wife and young child by the Israelis.^[2][10] Nasrallah lived in South Beirut with his wife Fatimah Yasin (who comes from the Lebanese village of Al-Abbasiyah)^[6] and five children: Muhammad Hadi (d. 1997), Muhammad Jawaad, Zainab, Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Mahdi. In September 1997, his eldest son Muhammad Hadi, was killed in battle with Israeli soldiers, after a Navy commando unit operation in which 13 Israeli soldiers were killed^[11] in Jabal al-Rafei in the South of Lebanon.^[6]

Leadership of Hezbollah[link]

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after the Israelis assassinated the previous leader, Musawi in 1992.^[2][6] During Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah acquired rockets with a longer range, which allowed them to strike at northern Israel despite the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. In 1993 Israel carried out Operation Accountability. Much Lebanese infrastructure was destroyed during the operation, which Israel claimed was successful. An agreement was eventually reached whereby, Israel ended its attacks in Lebanon and Hezbollah agreed to stop attacks on northern Israel.

However, after a short pause, hostilities resumed. In 1996 Israel launched Operation Grapes of Wrath, blocking important Lebanese harbour cities and bombing a Syrian military base. After 16 days of Israeli attacks in Lebanon, the Israeli–Lebanese Ceasefire Understanding was agreed upon. Again, Hezbollah agreed to stop rocket attacks in exchange for Israel halting its attacks. However, as in 1993, the peace did not last for long.

In Israel, it was increasingly debated whether the presence of Israeli forces in southern Lebanon was working, since it was clear that the 'security zone' could not stop Hezbollah rockets reaching into Israel. Some Israeli politicians argued that the conflict would only end if Israel withdrew from Lebanon. In 2000 Ehud Barak finally withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon. Following the Israeli withdrawal, the South Lebanon Army, which was supported by Israel, was quickly overrun by Hezbollah. Some SLA members escaped to Israel, but many were captured by Hezbollah. This success against Israel greatly increased Hezbollah's popularity within Lebanon and the Islamic world.^[2]

Consequently, Nasrallah is widely credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation of the South of Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party's political standing within Lebanon.^[12]

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 many bodies, including that of his son, being returned to Lebanon. The agreement was described across the Arab world as a magnificent victory for Hezbollah, and Nasrallah was personally praised for achieving these gains.^[13]

A December article in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat stated that command of the organization's military wing was transferred from Nasrallah to his deputy, Na'im Qasim in August 2007.^[14] Hezbollah denied this suggestion, declaring it an attempt to "weaken the popularity" of the movement.^[15]

National compact with Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun[link]

Nasrallah negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding with the Free Patriotic Movement headed by Michel Aoun, the former premier and a Maronite Christian. Aoun described the ten-point compact in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published on July 31, 2006. A key point is that Hezbollah agreed to disarm upon the return of its prisoners and the occupied Shebaa Farms. It also agreed to the pardon and return of fugitive South Lebanon Army (SLA) members. The Free Patriotic Movement in turn agreed to work for reform of the confessional electoral system of the Parliament of Lebanon and move it in the direction of one man, one vote. Aoun made the point that the political process was in effect disarming Hezbollah without any loss in lives from unnecessary wars.^[16] Critics of this agreement say that is not very clear concerning the disarmament, and that it served to strengthen Hezbollah internally, giving it a non-Shiite cover inside.

2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict[link]

A sign in Nabatieh reads "The Divine Victory"

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Israeli bombardments seeking Hezbollah targets caused damage in many parts of Beirut, especially the poorer and largely Shiite South Beirut, which is controlled by Hezbollah. On August 3, 2006, Hasan Nasrallah vowed to strike Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israel's bombardment of Lebanon's capital. "If you hit Beirut, the Islamic resistance will hit Tel Aviv and is able to do that with God's help," Nasrallah said in a televised address. He added that Hezbollah forces were inflicting heavy casualties on Israeli ground troops.^[17]

During the conflict, Nasrallah came under intense criticism from pro-Western Arab regimes, including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned on July 14 of the risk of "the region being dragged into adventurism that does not serve Arab interests," while the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal called the Hezbollah attacks "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." He went further, saying, "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them."^[18]

Nasrallah also came under intense criticism from some in Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of the Republic of Lebanon and the most prominent leader of the Druze community, spoke out quite forcefully: "Great, so he's a hero. But I'd like to challenge this heroism of his. I have the right to challenge it, because my country is in flames. Besides, we did not agree..."^[19] Jumblatt is also quoted as saying: "He is willing to let the Lebanese capital burn while he haggles over terms of surrender."

Following the cease-fire, which Nasrallah and Hezbollah declared a great victory, came what is known as the "Green Flood" (Al-sayl al-akhdhar), according to Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri. "This refers to the massive amounts of U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among all the citizens that were effected from the war in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon."^[20]

In a TV interview aired on Lebanon's New TV station, Sunday, 27 August, 2006, Nasrallah said that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war: "We do not think, even one percent, that the capture led to a war at this time and of this magnitude. I'm convinced and sure that this war was planned and that the capture of these hostages was just their excuse to start their pre-planned war, but if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."^[21][22]

Views on international politics[link]

Pre-2000 Israeli occupation of Lebanon[link]

• "If we are to expel the Israeli occupation from our country, how do we do this? We noticed what happened in Palestine, in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, in the Golan, in the Sinai. We reached a conclusion that we cannot rely on the Arab League states, nor on the United Nations .... The only way that we have is to take up arms and fight the occupation forces."^[23]

On Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict[link]

• In an interview with The Washington Post, in 2000, Nasrallah said "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called 'Israel.' I consider its presence both unjust and unlawful. That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle."^[24]

• On May 26, 2000, after the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon Hasan Nassrallah said: "I tell you: this "Israel" that owns nuclear weapons and the strongest air force in this region is more fragile than a spiderweb".^[25][26]

• In 2006 Nasrallah said "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel". ^[27]

• Despite declaring "death to Israel" in his public appearances, Nasrallah said in an interview to The New Yorker, "At the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on."^[28] When asked whether he was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, he said he would not sabotage what is a "Palestinian matter", but that until such a settlement is reached, he will continue to encourage Palestinian resistance.^[29]

• On November 30, 2009, while reading the party's new political manifesto, Hasan Nasrallah declared "Our problem with [the Israelis] is not that they are Jews, but that they are occupiers who are raping our land and holy places."^[30]

• In a television interview ^[31]on 17 April 2012, Nasrallah said that Israel “is and will be an illegal state… It was established on the basis of occupying the lands of others.” He added, “If I occupy your house by force it doesn't become mine in 50 or 100 years.” While “Hezbollah does not want to kill anyone”, the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he argued, was to establish a democratic state on Palestinian land where Muslims, Jews and Christians live in peace but that the US “won't let people listen to Hezbollah.”

On the September 11, 2001 attacks and the United States[link]

• "What do the people who worked in those two World Trade Center towers, along with thousands of employees, women and men, have to do with war that is taking place in the Middle East? ? ... Therefore we condemned this act—and any similar act we condemn. ... I said nothing about the Pentagon, meaning we remain silent. We neither favored nor opposed that act .... Well, of course, the method of Osama bin Laden, and the fashion of bin Laden, we do not endorse them. And many of the operations that they have carried out, we condemned them very clearly."^[23]

2011 Arab World uprisings[link]

• In a 2011 televized speech, Nasrallah voiced support for the popular uprisings which took place in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain; he was more outspoken towards the Bahraini issue, expressing strong support for the popular movements, a feat which fueled tensions between Lebanon and Bahrain. However, he stopped support for these uprisings when they reached his allies in Damascus. Nasrallah has praised the stated reform process in Syria and said that the country faces attempts at destabilization by outside powers such as the United States ^[32] and from armed groups threatening the Syrian people and government. ^[33] He has also noted what he says is the general popularity of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad among the Syrian people as a whole. ^[34]

2012 Syrian Crisis[link]

In a television interview aired on 17 April 2012^[35] Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad since Syria had supported resistance in Lebanon and “hasn't backed down in the face of Israeli and American pressure.” Nasrallah said Assad’s regime had also “served the Palestinian cause very well.” This is why Hezbollah supported the so-called Arab Spring in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and elsewhere, but when it came to Syria, Hezbollah urged the opposition to engage in dialog with President Assad: “This is the first time I say this – We contacted […] the opposition to encourage them and to facilitate the process of dialogue with the regime. But they rejected dialogue,” he revealed. “Right from the beginning we have had a regime that is willing to undergo reforms and prepared for dialogue. On the other side you have an opposition which is not prepared for dialogue and it is not prepared to accept reforms. All it wants is to bring down the regime. This is a problem.”

Nasrallah called for balance on the Syrian issue as “armed groups in Syria have killed very many civilians” although international blame is leveled solely at President Assad. He argued that several Arab & non-Arab states are arming and funding the rebels, while Al-Qaeda simply wants to turn Syria into a battle ground.

Nasrallah urged dialogue as the solution: “There is fighting in Syria – when one party retreats, the other will advance, it will go on as long as doors to dialogue are shut,” Nasrallah said that without it, "civil war is the only alternative." In his words "this is exactly what America and Israel want… Arab states are ready for tens of years of dialogue with Israel but won't have two months to try a political solution in Syria."

Views Attributed to Nasrallah[link]

• According to the pro-Israeli group CAMERA, Nasrallah stated that "The Lebanese refuse to give the Palestinians residing in Lebanon Lebanese citizenship, and we refuse their resettlement in Lebanon. There is Lebanese consensus on this...we thank God that we all agree on one clear and definite result; namely, that we reject the resettlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon."^[26] There is broad consensus in Lebanon against the permanent resettlement of Palestinians, due to fears that it could reignite Lebanon's civil war.^[36] Likewise, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon consistently favor right of return over Lebanese naturalization.^[37]

• Lebanese writer, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb quotes Hasan Nasrallah as saying, "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli."^[25] Charles Glass questions the attribution of the quote to Nasrallah, noting that both the footnote in Saad-Ghorayeb's book and her original dissertation instead attribute the quote to an interview she conducted with a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Parliament, Muhammad Fneish.^[38][39]

• According to Israeli military source Shaul Shay, Nasrallah has often made anti-Semitic statements that not only revile Israel as a state, but also the entire Jewish people, while using themes taken from classic and Muslim antisemitism.^[40] Two of the claims he makes are that:
  • In a 1998 speech marking the Day of Ashura, and published in what was Hasan Nasrallah's official website^[41][42][43] at that time, Nasrallah referred to Israel as "the state of the grandsons of apes and pigs – the Zionist Jews" and condemned them as "the murderers of the prophets."^[44][45][46] The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a pro-Israel media watchdog group, MEMRI, and Shaul Shai interpret this language as broadly antisemitic.^[26][44][46]
  • Nasrallah said in a speech delivered in Beirut and aired on Al-Manar TV on September 28, 2001: "What do the Jews want? They want security and money. Throughout history the Jews have been Allah's most cowardly and avaricious creatures. If you look all over the world, you will find no one more miserly or greedy than they are."^[40]

• According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Robert Satloff, in a speech carried during Ashura on April 9, 2000, Hasan Nasrallah said that: "The Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities. It is clear that the numbers they talk about are greatly exaggerated".^{[47][48][49][50]}

• Journalist Badih Chayban in an October 23, 2002 article in The Daily Star, wrote that Nasrallah said, "If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." Charles Glass believes that the quotation was likely a fabrication, citing other published accounts of Nasrallah's speech that had no reference to the anti-Semitic comment, and statements by the editor-in-chief of the Lebanese newspaper which published the quotes, that questioned both the translation and the "agenda of the translator."^[51] Glass also wrote that a Hezbollah spokeswoman, Wafa Hoteit, denied that Nasrallah made the statement.^[51]

• According to the US-Israeli organisation MEMRI, in a speech aired on Al-Manar and Al-Jazeera in 2006, Nasrallah expressed support for alleged Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy calling him a "great French philosopher" who "proved (sic) that this Holocaust is a myth".^[52]

• During the 2006 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah declared in a speech aired on Al-Manar TV and Al-Jazeera TV that: "If there had been a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwā against the renegade Salman Rushdie, this rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway and France would not have dared to do so. I am sure there are millions of Muslims who are ready to give their lives to defend our prophet's honour and we have to be ready to do anything for that."^[53][52]

• On February 24, 2012, in a speech in Nabi Sheet for the "remembrance of the fallen martyrs Abbas al-Musawi, Ragheb Harb, and Imad Mughniyah," Hasan Nasrallah said, "I say that the American administration and the American mentality lacks nothing from Satanism. But that kind of behavior and that kind of mistreatment of holy books [referring to the Quran burning incident in Afghanistan in February 2012^[54]] and prophets, and the prophets' sanctities, and others' sanctities; this behavior is Israeli and let us say it is Jewish, between quotation marks, - now they will say that this is anti-Semitism - [but] the Holy Quran told us about this people: how they attacked their prophets, and how they killed their prophets, and how they affronted their prophets, and how they affronted Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and how they affronted Mary, peace be upon her, and how they affronted Allah's great messenger Mohammad, May God exalt and bring peace upon him and his family. This [behavior] pattern about affronting holy books, and prophets, and messengers, and sanctities; this is their mentality, and maybe they want to push things more and more toward a religious war worldwide."^[55][56]

Alleged 2008 assassination attempt[link]

Almalaf, an Iraqi news source on 15, October 2008, quoted sources in Lebanon saying Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah had been poisoned the previous week and that he was saved by Iranian doctors who went to Lebanon to treat him. The sources told the paper that a particularly poisonous chemical substance was used against the Shi'a resistance leader. His medical condition was apparently critical for several days until Iranian doctors came and managed to save his life. Almalaf claimed that the sources believed it was highly likely that the poisoning was an Israeli assassination attempt.^[57]

Hezbollah denied that Nasrallah had been poisoned. Lebanese parliament member Al-Hajj Hassan, a member of Hezbollah, said: "This is a lie and a fabrication. It's true that I haven't seen Nasrallah this past week, but he's okay." The Iranian doctors arrived on Sunday at approximately 11:00 P.M., apparently on a special military flight. According to Almalaf officials considered flying Nasrallah to Iran for further treatment.

In September 1997 an Israeli Mossad team tried to assassinate Hamas political chief, Khaled Mashal by drizzling poison in his ear.^[58] The attempt failed, and two of the agents were captured while others took refuge in the Israeli embassy in Amman. Nasrallah's second-in-command Imad Mughniyah was assassinated in February 2008 in a Damascus bomb blast. Hezbollah accused Israel of responsibility for the explosion, although Israel denied responsibility for the act.^[59] Nasrallah's predecessor Abbas al Musawi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon in 1992.^[60]

Nasrallah's refutation of the attempt[link]

On October 25, 2008 in an interview with the Hezbollah owned Al-Manar channel, Nasrallah denied the assassination attempt, accusing the Israelis and Americans of fabricating the story and considering it as part of the ongoing psychological war against Hezbollah that aimed to imply that the party was suffering from internal disputes and assassination plots.^[61]

He also explained that "if research was done on the internet websites posting such unfounded information, it would reveal that they are all being run from that same dark room, and that their aim is to serve American-Israeli interests."

He added that at first the organization had considered denying the false information with a written message, "but when the news agencies began to publish it we decided to hold a televised interview, and here I am before you telling you I was not poisoned."^[62]

Nasrallah in popular culture[link]

Two popular songs were written about Nasrallah during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, with vastly different views of the Hezbollah leader: The Hawk of Lebanon in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Yalla Ya Nasrallah, against Nasrallah, in Israel. In 2007 Lebanese singer Alaa Zalzali composed a tribute song entitled Ya Nasrallah. Another popular song composed in tribute to him was by Lebanese Christian singer Julia Boutros, called "Ahebba'i" meaning "my loved ones", which was inspired by Nasrallah's words in a televised message he sent to Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon during the 2006 War.

References[link]