BEIRUT - Sayyed Hassan was born in Beirut in 1960, and his lineage goes back to Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them). He was raised in a religiously committed environment and traveled to Najaf al-Ashraf, where he pursued his religious studies and studied under Sayyed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi, then continued his studies at the Hawza of Imam al-Muntadhar (peace be upon him).

In 1982, with the beginning of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he founded Hezbollah with his brothers, and after ten years of the founding and with the martyrdom of Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi as a result of an Israeli raid on his convoy, Sayyed Nasrallah was unanimously elected as Secretary General of the party in 1992.

Resistance operations escalated in quality and quantity, and Iranian support for the party increased significantly during his tenure as Secretary General and the Islamic Resistance liberated South Lebanon in 2000. In July 2006, the Zionist entity launched its fierce war against resistance and official Lebanon, and the resistance defeated it in a crushing way, striking it and causing it a clear loss.

Sayyed Hassan had the honor of establishing a weighty parliamentary bloc in the Lebanese parliament that was highly regarded, and it formed an organic alliance with the Amal Movement led by Nabih Berri, and together they won all the seats in the South, the Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburb without contest.

The prestige of the meeting

Sayyed Hassan, with his wisdom and prudence, was able to capture the hearts of millions and influence them. When you listen to his speeches, you find your heart attached to him as an inspiring leader, honest and devoted to his cause and his nation. When meeting him before he withdrew from public appearances for security reasons, he would captivate your heart with his distinctive charisma, exemplary character, and strong memory as a powerful and capable leader who knew what he wanted, how to reach what he wanted, and how to twist the arm of his Zionist enemy, terrify it, and control it to inscribe victory after victory.

You would feel his closeness, his love for you and for the people, his concern for their interests, and that they not suffer, and you would sense that he was passionately devoted to Imam Ali Khamenei and considered himself a soldier under the Wali. He was Husseini Sayyed, faithful to the blood, the covenant, and the guardianship, and close to all the mujahideen. Sayyed Hassan gained the respect of opponents and the love of friends and was imbued with the qualities and guidance of Ahl al-Bayt in all his movements and stillness.

Eloquence was his distinctive feature

The party’s popular support increased remarkably, and Sayyed Hassan enjoyed great popular backing and achieved tremendous victories over the Zionist enemy, liberated South Lebanon, repelled the brutal aggression in 2006, defeated the Takfiris in the barrens, and secured supply routes from Syria. Thus, he was an Islamic hero, a national leader, and a strong Arab statesman.

He spoke to people’s hearts, his words matched his deeds, and he became a beacon for resistance and a great symbol of national and Islamic dignity and pride. He offered his son Hadi to the ranks of the resistance, who was martyred in 1997, so that the resistance would remain proud and dignified.

His constant motto was: We shall pray in Jerusalem, Muslims in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Christians in the Church of the Nativity or the Holy Sepulchre. The foes thought they killed him, but a nation whose master is Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will never die.

His martyrdom and funeral

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was martyred on September 27, 2024, in an Israeli air raid on his headquarters in the southern suburb of Beirut, the Suburb of Dignity.

Five months after his martyrdom, a grand funeral was held for him at the Sports City in Beirut on Friday, February 23, 2025. It was a legendary funeral, unprecedented in Lebanon, with his deputy Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, and attended by representatives of 80 countries: Iran, Iraq, Yemen… The funeral gathered around one and a half million mourners, Arabs and foreigners, in an atmosphere of grief, pain, and overwhelming emotions, bidding him farewell.

This will remain the greatest and largest funeral engraved in the memory of future generations and a clear indication of the party’s ability to organize, to achieve remarkable success, and to continue the collective path of resistance—the path of dignity, honor, and pride.

Khaled Hussein is a Lebanese professor of nuclear physics.