MADRID - His Eminence, the Lord of Resistance, faithful servant of God, has departed to be with his Creator as a glorious martyr. A brave, intrepid, wise, and visionary leader, filled with faith, he now joins the eternal caravan of luminous martyrs of Karbala, following the path of the prophets and the martyr imams.

With these words, Hezbollah confirmed the assassination of its Secretary-General, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, in the attack carried out Friday by the Israeli army in southern Beirut. 

In the statement, Hezbollah noted that Nasrallah had joined “his immortal martyr companions, whom he led for nearly 30 years, guiding them from victory to victory. Since assuming leadership of the Islamic Resistance in 1992, following the death of the previous martyr leader, until the liberation of Lebanon in 2000 and the great divine victory of 2006, in all battles of honor and sacrifice, including his steadfast support for Palestine, Gaza, and the oppressed Palestinian people.” 

The Lebanese group also extended its condolences to Nasrallah’s patient family, congratulating them for receiving “the highest of divine honors, the Medal of Imam Hussein (A.S.), achieving his deepest aspirations and the highest peaks of faith and pure devotion by becoming a martyr on the path to Jerusalem and Palestine.”

Hassan Nasrallah was born in 1960 in eastern Beirut, in an environment characterized by poverty and the marginalization of the Shia population. Several biographies point out that as a child, he would walk long distances to downtown Beirut to buy second-hand books on Islam and Islamic sciences. 

These same sources highlight that young Nasrallah was deeply drawn to the figure of Iranian cleric Musa al-Sadr, a key character for understanding the repoliticization of Shia Islam in Lebanon. Efforts to repoliticize the Shia community culminated in the creation of the Movement of the Dispossessed in 1974 and its military branch, Amal, in 1975. Many of the founders of Hezbollah had previously served in Amal. 

Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah was an intrepid and visionary leader.After the outbreak of civil war between Maronite Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, Nasrallah joined the Amal movement, actively participating in its militia. However, as the conflict progressed, Amal adopted an increasingly hostile stance toward the presence of Palestinian militias in the country. This was why, in 1982, just a few months after the Zionist invasion of Lebanon, Nasrallah left Amal due to his disagreements regarding the presence of Palestinian militias, which already indicated the vital importance that Palestine would have in the life and political thought of the Lebanese leader. 

The Israeli invasion was the catalyst for the birth of Hezbollah, as, in light of this event, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, with Iranian support, understood that the only option was to organize an armed resistance against Israeli troops and their local militias.

In this context, it is important to note that the damage inflicted on 80% of the villages in southern Lebanon, along with the near destruction of seven of them, greatly fueled the anger of the Shia community, as did the 19,000 deaths and 32,000 injuries caused by Israel.

When Nasrallah and other former members of Amal decided to establish a new movement that would become Hezbollah, they drew inspiration from the political Islam developed by Imam Khomeini, specifically the doctrine of Wilayat e Faqih, which forms the backbone of the Islamic Republic. This alliance around the doctrine of Wilayat e Faqih becomes the cornerstone of the relationship between Iran and Hezbollah, as Abdallah Safieddine, the Lebanese group's representative in Iran, points out: “We are united by our adherence to the principles of Wilayat e Faqih, as well as our struggle against common enemies.”

However, this adherence, along with the figure of the current faqih (Ayatollah Khamenei), does not imply subordination of the group to a national project. In fact, from the political perspective articulated around Wilayat e Faqih, Iran is not conceived in terms of a nation-state, but rather as the political home of Muslims. It aims to be a political-revolutionary Islamic model that lacks meaning within national frameworks; the Iranian Revolution project is, in this sense, an ummatic project, meaning it seeks to be a political reference for all Muslims. Therefore, the faqih is not seen solely as the leader of Iran but as an Islamic leader who represents the possibility of constructing an autonomous Muslim political identity.

In a speech in 2018, Nasrallah made it clear that it is political principles, not material and financial assistance, that create the bonds between the two, bonds that in no case indicate subordination. Nasrallah, who studied at a religious school in Najaf, the Shia holy city of Iraq, where the Imam had been exiled by the Pahlavi regime, shared the vision that the world is divided into a sort of permanent antagonism between the oppressed (mostazafin) and the oppressors (mostakberin). When Hezbollah published its founding manifesto in 1985, the defense of the oppressed against the oppressors was one of the pivotal points that defined the group's political horizon.

Nasrallah’s death must be viewed through Hezbollah’s commitment to martyrdom. Nasrallah, a renowned Islamic scholar, effective speaker, and competent organizer, gained leadership experience during the prolonged struggle against Israeli troops and their local allies in southern Lebanon. In 1992, he was elected the new secretary-general of the movement following the assassination of his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, by Israeli forces.

When Israel assassinated Musawi, the Zionist authorities, in a display of utter political ignorance, believed that the era of conflict with Hezbollah had come to an end. This political incapacity fails to recognize that resistance does not depend on individuals. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah were weakened by the martyrdom of their commanders; on the contrary, they have continued their path with even greater strength and determination.

In 2000, Hezbollah succeeded in forcing the Zionist troops to withdraw in a humiliating manner from southern Lebanon, which transformed Nasrallah into one of the most admired and respected figures, not only in the country but throughout the region and among the entire Islamic community, regardless of whether they were Sunni or Shia. This admiration reflects one of the influences of Imam Khomeini’s political vision, who always sought to build an Islamic unity that transcended differences.

In this regard, Hassan Nasrallah's words in a 2006 interview with Al Jazeera are noteworthy, where he stated, “We, Shia and Sunni, fight together against Israel.” This declaration underscores Imam Khomeini’s influence on Hezbollah, as the Imam developed a political practice aimed at bridging Sunni and Shia divides, a concept that Islamic scholars refer to as a “post-madhhabi” vision (where *madhhab* means school of thought in Arabic).

This pursuit of Islamic unity is vital to understanding the self-representation of the Islamic Republic as the political home for all Muslims, a great power capable of defending the entire Islamic community against Western attacks. The political will to defend Muslims, seen as the oppressed, against the colonial oppression of Zionism (backed by the United States) was crucial for understanding Hezbollah’s support for Palestine after Hamas launched its “Al Aqsa Flood” operation on October 7.

The death of Hassan Nasrallah, one of the architects of the Axis of Resistance, must be viewed through the lens of the Lebanese group’s commitment to martyrdom and the broader Shia Islamic vision. In this perspective, the mujahideen aspire, on one hand, to the rewards of the afterlife, while simultaneously striving to establish a just community through political struggle that embodies divine sovereignty in this world.

His death, much like the earlier ones of Musawi and the founder of Hamas in Gaza, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, does not signify the end of the Resistance. As previously mentioned, as long as there is Zionist colonial oppression, the anti-colonial resistance movement, characterized by its Islamic vision, will continue.