Sayyed Fadlullah’s Contributions to the Civil Society and the Downtrodden

“We have to improve our education and gain more scientific knowledge. If we do not make the best of our time now, we will not be able to build our future or develop in the Future…”

With these words Sayyed Muhammed Hussein Fadlullah used to address people, especially the youths, to benefit from every single minute of their lives. For that reason, his eminence opened many religious and social institutions that were mainly founded with the contributions of many Muslim benefactors.

In 1966 Sayyed Fadlalluh received an invitation from a group of believers who had established a society called “Usrat Ataakhi” (The family of Fraternity) to live with them in the Nabba’a neighborhood in Eastern Beirut. There, he started organizing cultural seminars and delivering religious speeches that tackled various topics.

Sayyed Fadlullah’s main concern was to continue to develop his academic work. He founded a religious school called” The Islamic Sharia Institute” in which several students enrolled and later became prominent religious scholars including Martyr Sheikh Raghib Harb. He also established a public library, a women’s cultural center and a medical clinic.

When the Lebanese civil war (1975-1989) forced him to leave the area, he moved to Beirut’s southern suburb where his top priority was to teach and educate people in this historically abandoned part of the country. For Sayyed Fadlullah, the mosque was the place to pray, teach, preach, and mark religious occasions, like Ashoura.

He soon started to teach Islamic principles, jurisprudence, and morals at an academic level.

Sayyed Fadlullah has also founded a religious school in the Sayyeda Zainab neighborhood in the Syrian capital, Damascus, where he used to teach regularly.

In addition to academic and religious activities, Sayyed Fadlullah concentrated on helping the downtrodden in compliance with God’s saying in the holy Quran: “Restrain thyself along with those who cry unto their Lord at morn and evening, seeking His Countenance; and let not thine eyes overlook them, desiring the pomp of the life of the world; and obey not him whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance, who followeth his own lust and whose case hath been abandoned.” (S18:v28)

Sayyed Fadlullah shared the people’s grievances, and made great efforts to find solutions for their problems. With the advent of the Lebanese civil war and the escalation of the Zionist aggression, he recognized quite early the enormous magnitude of the social problems that had generated. People were being killed, displaced and unemployed. He made every possible effort and established orphanages and schools for the children of martyrs and the poor as well as people with special needs.

Thus, the Mabarrat (charitable institution) Association was established, and it soon became one of the greatest models in this field. The Mabarrat established orphanages and expanded others, and built social and medical centers as well as mosques:

The Orphanages:
– Imam Al-Khouie Orphanage (Beirut-Daouha)
– Imam Zein Al-Abidine (a.s.) Orphanage Biqaa (Hirmil).
– Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib (a.s.) Orphange, South Lebanon. (The Ma`roub-Sour road)
– Virgin Mary Orphange (a.s.) South Lebanon (Jiwaya).
– Al- Sayyida Khadija Al-Kubraa(a.s.) Orphange, Beirut (Bir-Hassan).
-The Zainab (a.s.) Orphange West Biqaa (Suh`mur) Under construction.
-The Imam Al-Hadi Institute For The Deaf and Blind.

Medical Centers.
1- Bah`man Hospital Beirut (Haret Hreik).
2- Al Sayyida Al-Zahra’(a.s.) Hospital South Lebanon (Al-Abbasyyah) Under construction.

Sayyed Fadlalluh Institution for Charity and Social Welfare provides aid for thousands of needy each year in the form of a monthly donation, per annum, or in the form of educational or medical aid. It helps about a 100 thousand people every year, and the value of its average yearly donations, over the last few years, amounted to around 6 billion Lebanese pounds ($4 million).

Sayyed Fadlullah went all the way to fight ignorance, sectarianism, and reactionism, using the mosques, first in Bir- al-Abed and then in Haret Hreik as schools to teach ethics, spread knowledge and call for action. He also gave lectures in many universities, schools, social and cultural clubs, in an effort to emphasize Islamic values among the youth and the nation as a whole.

His eminence also lectured on Islam in many countries including, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France India, Iran, Algeria. He participated in scores of Islamic and intellectual conferences around the world.

Schools
1- The Imam Al Khouie Orphanage Beirut (Dawha)
2- Imam Al-Baqir Secondary school Beka`a (Hirmil)
3- Imam Al-Jawad Secondary school Beka`a (Ali Nahri)
4- Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib school South lebanon (Ma`roub)
5- Imam Hassan Secondary school, Beirut (Ruwais)
6- Al-Mujtaba Secondary School, Beirut (Hay Al-Salum)
7- Imam Ja`afar As-Sadiq school South Lebanon (Jwaya)
8- Al-Kaouthar Secondary school Beirut (Bir Hassan)
9- Imam Hussein School, Beka`a (Suh`mour) under construction.

Vocational Schools
1- Ali Al-Akbar Vocational Institute Beirut (Doha)

Islamic Centers
1- The large Islamic Center, Beirut (Haret Hreik: Consists of the Al-Imamain Hassnian Mosque, the Zah`ra Hall and the Islamic Cultural Center.
2- Imam Hasan Askari Center Beka`aa’(Sira’in)
3- Imam Hussein Center-Beka`a(Jlala)
4- Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib center South Lebanon.(AL-Hawzah-Sour)
5- Ahl Al-Beit Mosque Beka`a’ (Rayak)
6- Imam Ja’afar Al-Sadiq Mosque Beka`a (Hirmill)
7- Ahl Al-Beit Center, North Lebanon (Tripoli)
8- Sayyida Zainab Mosque, Beka`a (Ba’albek)

Media and Information Centers
1- Al- Bashai’r Radio station.
2- Office of Information

Religious Colleges
1- Islamic Sharia Institute
2- Women’s Religious College
3- Sour (Tyre) Religious College
4- Al-Murtada Religious School (Damascus)

Worth mentioning, Sayyed Fadlullah succeeded in founding many institutions that have been helping many people around the country with the belief that these institutions would continue to achieve their sublime goals since they don’t depend on individuals… and the long journey keeps moving towards fulfilling these goals after Sayyed Fadlullah’s death.