Lebanon's largest ethnic community, the Muslim Shiites, held a major rally in the southern port city of Tyre last week amid reports of deep divisions that kept the top spiritual leader, Abdel Amir Kabalan, away from the meeting. Kabalan is acting president of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council, the highest religious authority in the 1.3 million-strong community. However, the community's top political leader, House Speaker Nabih Berri, attended the rally along with an estimated 250 political, social, professional and business personalities and dignitaries of the Shiite sect. The rally was hosted by the Shiite Mufti of Tyre Sheikh Ali al-Amin.

The rally came after signs of dissension and rebellion against the prevailing state of the community, including internal disagreements, rivalries and attempts at monopolizing leadership. There were also reports of dissension and rebellion within the ranks of one of the main Shiite movements, Amal, led by Berri. A report by the leftist and Shiite-owned daily Assafir on August 21, said some 150 Amal members in the Bekaa region had resigned from the movement in protest against the removal of party officials under Berri's extraordinary powers given to him by Amal's Central Committee to purge and reorganize the movement.

Two New Groups

Earlier reports said a new Shiite group was taking shape under the name of the "Shiite Muslim Elite Grouping," comprising prominent intellectual, professional and business figures to rival Amal and Hizbullah. The grouping held a big meeting last July at the home of a prominent Shiite, Dr. Mahmoud Hoda Ramadan in the mountain village of Souk al-Gharb. The meeting was attended by the cultural attache at the Iranian embassy, Mohammed Hassan Hashemi and some 400 personalities.

A statement issued at the end of the one-day meeting stressed the new grouping was not aimed against any of the existing Shiite parties, notably Amal and Hizbullah. "The grouping, whether in its aims, program or movement, is not in any way directed against Amal, Hizbullah or any other Shiite group. Its main aim is to increase the immunity of the citizen against ignorance and slavery to money... It is basically aimed at safeguarding personal and political liberties and not enslaving people with the power of money after humiliating and starving them," the statement said.

Earlier in August, Issam Abu Darwish, a prominent Shiite businessman who is close to Berri, proclaimed the rise of another new Shiite group called al-Kiyan (entity), according to reports in AS SAFIR and AL MUSTAQBAL. Abu Darwish, also a close friend of former President Amin Gemayel, made the announcement from his home in Musseileh, which is also Berri's residential town in the south. (MER, Aug. 2, 2004).

Attempt at Unifying ranks

Last week's rally in Tyre was ostensibly an attempt to unify Shiite ranks "in order to face the current and future challenges on the domestic and regional levels," a reference to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the hostilities in Iraq. But an in-depth report by Nassir al-Asaad in the Beirut daily Am Mustaqbal on Aug. 20 told of rivalries within the Shiite community itself. It said that Kabalan had boycotted the rally because he sensed "a deal" was in the works to exclude him from the Higher Shiite Council.

The report said that Amal's leader Berri believed that Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was more deserving and more qualified to be the president of the Higher Shiite Council. Why? Fadlallah is more knowledgeable religiously, and has a respectable stature in the Arab and Muslim world. He is also one of the top recognized Shiite authorities in the world. Furthermore, Fadlallah enjoys a degree of independence, especially from Iran "without being hostile to it. His presence at the top of the Shiite religious hierarchy in Lebanon constitutes a reassuring factor for other Islamic sects and confessions in the country."

Fluctuating Relations

On the Arab level, Al Mustaqbal said, Fadlallah is trusted by neighboring Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon. But Fadlallah's relations with Hizbullah have gone up and down over the years. At one time, he was recognized as the spiritual leader of Hizbullah. Then, relations were strained because Hizbullah owed its loyalty and allegiance to Iran's Supreme Leader Aytollah Ali Khamenei.

Fadlallah, a graduate and scholar from the Iraqi school of Najaf, the holiest Shiite city in the world, has had his quiet disagreements with Tehran over the Wilayat al-Faqih philosophy (whereby the supreme leader holds both religious and temporal powers). They also disagreed over which city is more important, Iraq's Najaf or Iran's Qom.

Al Mustaqbal reported that Kabalan "sensed a deal was in the making as a result of the growing rapport between Berri and Fadlallah," and he did not like it. "This may be the reason Kabalan boycotted the Tyre rally," the paper said. Furthermore, Kabalan's relations with the host of the rally, Ayatollah al-Amin, "are not that good."

In a related issue, a report by the Beirut liberal daily Al Balad on August 23 said Hizbullah activists had broken into a mosque controlled by the followers of Fadlallah in Bir Abed in Beirut's southern suburbs last Friday and raised pictures of Iran's Khamenei. The mosque's guard removed the pictures but Hizbullah activists put them up again. Fadlallah sources were quoted as saying that Hizbullah followers were upset by reports of a rapprochement between Berri and Fadlallah.