The complicated legacy of Hassan Nasrallah in the Middle East

Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader has sparked mixed reactions across the region.

“The master of the resistance, the righteous servant, has passed away,” read the official announcement from Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based, Iran-backed militant group, confirming the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by an Israeli airstrike on 27 September. Although supporters of the group are mourning his loss, and analysts are bracing for Iran and Israel’s response, the reaction to Nasrallah’s demise is being celebrated in large parts of the region, due to his long history of terror and treachery.

Even within Lebanon, Hezbollah has always been viewed with unease, having become a state within a state while operating with relative impunity. Indeed, it has always been closer to Tehran than Beirut, operating as an unofficial paramilitary for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It is that relationship with Iran, coupled with Hezbollah being a Shia movement, which has inhibited the group’s ability to cultivate strong support among the region’s dominant Sunni populations. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq when al-Qaeda launched a vicious sectarian conflict, Sunni-Shia hostilities became ever more pronounced in the Levant, further hindering Hezbollah’s standing.

During the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Sunni clerics wondered whom to support. One of Saudi Arabia’s most widely respected senior scholars at the time, Abdullah ibn Jibrin, was clear: supporting Hezbollah was forbidden. “It is not permissible to support this rejectionist party […] and it is not permissible to pray for them,” he declared in a fatwa. His reasoning was that Hezbollah’s beliefs made them heretics, preventing “authentic” Muslims from supporting them. As a distinguished cleric in Saudi Arabia’s “Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research” and “Council of Senior Scholars,” he had a wide following beyond the country’s borders, which meant that his fatwa provoked an uproar.

Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, one of Lebanon’s most celebrated Sunni clerics, took a different approach. “I read with great pain the fatwa of our beloved Sheikh,” he wrote in response. “The battle against the Zionist enemy is the battle of all Islam, and the battle of the whole [Islamic] nation.” His remarks revealed the more pragmatic approach of scholars who prioritised fighting Israel; for them, points of difference with the Shia were minor and were a distraction from this much bigger goal. “I hope that this will reach our beloved Sheikh Abdullah ibn Jibrin,” Mawlawi wrote. “Muslims must… face their enemies in one row as God commanded.”

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, then the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood with a huge global following, decided to also argue for a suspension of sectarian hostilities. “It is the duty of Muslims around the world to support the Lebanese resistance,” he said. It was a hugely significant moment. Not only had Hezbollah capitalised on the groundswell of anti-Western sentiment following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but it had also effectively enlisted the support of the Muslim Brotherhood, radical Sunni Islam’s oldest and largest movement.

This unified support would not last. When the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Hezbollah entered the conflict in support of President Bashar al-Assad, helping his forces brutalise the opposition. The fact Assad and his allies were torturing their opponents was hardly unique; the region is, sadly, littered with authoritarians who routinely crush any form of opposition in the most draconian ways. What made Hezbollah’s involvement so egregious was the distinctly sectarian way in which they did so. Assad deliberately mischaracterized the uprising as a Sunni insurrection led by the Muslim Brotherhood, in order to scare the country’s Shia (and their heterodox offshoot, the Alawite) population on whom he relies for support. His supporters revelled in their brutality, filming their atrocities before uploading them to social media.

Video after video revealed that a brutal sectarian conflict was underway as Sunni protesters were routinely insulted. For example, videos emerged of men being made to prostrate to pictures of Assad while being asked, “Where is Allah?” In another, a man being beaten to death is repeatedly taunted with the question, “Are you ready to meet Aisha?” (This is a reference to one of the Prophet Mohammed’s wives who is held in high esteem by Sunnis, but who is reviled by Shias.) This type of footage was not uncommon and sparked furious uproar among Sunni clerics who now came to regard the Syrian conflict as a battle for the future of Islam itself.

Mawlawi died just as the Syrian uprising began, but Qaradawi was around to witness the horror in full. Following the Battle of al-Qusayr in 2013 where Hezbollah played a major role in helping Assad push back the rebels, Qaradawi had enough. Speaking from the pulpit of his mosque in Qatar, Qaradawi deliberately misnamed Hezbollah (whose name means: party of Allah) as “Hezb al-shaytan” (meaning: party of Satan), while denouncing their sectarianism. He apologised to the Saudi scholars whom he had previously criticised, stating that he was wrong to have previously advocated for a rapprochement with Hezbollah.

As the Syrian war proceeded, Hezbollah only became more partisan. They supported Assad fully as he employed increasingly desperate tactics to reclaim lost territories, including besieging and starving opposition held areas. In Zabadani and Madaya, for example, 65 people are believed to have died from starvation or malnutrition in 2016, after Hezbollah participated in months-long siege under Assad’s “starve or surrender” policy. (After Nasrallah’s death, Assad described him as “immortal”.) Meanwhile, within Lebanon, Hezbollah killed critics with impunity, and operated in Tehran’s, rather than Beirut’s, best interests.

This is why Idlib – the last redoubt of the Syrian revolution – erupted in joy at the news of Nasrallah’s demise on 27 September. Hadi Abdullah, a Syrian journalist, uploaded a video of the celebrations to social media the night he was killed. “These people were displaced by Hezbollah and their children killed,” he wrote of the people celebrating. “They have the right to be happy, even if just a little, after 14 years of oppression.”