By Robert Inlakesh

Following the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Southern Beirut, the Lebanese Party’s Deputy Secretary General has emerged as its public face and voice.

Since that time, there has been a lot of misinterpreting of his words in order to make the resistance group appear weak and on the verge of collapse. So who is Sheikh Naim Qassem and what has been his message?

Naim bin Muhammad Naim Qasim, more well-known as Sheikh Naim Qassem, was born in 1953, in the Basta al-Tahta area of Beirut, Lebanon, to a Shia Muslim family originating from the village of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon. 

In 1970, he joined the Faculty of Education at the Lebanese University, where he studied Chemistry in the French language and obtained a Bachelor’s Degree. During this time he had also begun teaching young students at a local Mosque, at the age of only 18. Sheikh Qassem would then go on to teach in public schools for 6 years and in 1977 received a Master’s Degree from the same University he had previously studied at.

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As for his religious education. He studied Islam under the supervision of the most prominent Shia scholars in Lebanon, notably Abbas al-Musawi, Hassan Tarrad, and Ali al-Amin. In addition to this, he received external research lessons in jurisprudence and principles from one of the most well-renowned Shia leaders, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah.

During his time at the Lebanese University, Sheikh Naim Qassem also helped found the Lebanese Union of Muslim Students. In addition to this, he was the leader of the Islamic Religious Education Association, between 1974 to 1988.

In 1974, he also became one of the first members of the Amal movement, after its founding by Musa al-Sadr, having attended meetings between al-Sadr and leading Islamic figures in the lead-up to the organization’s founding. 

In the Amal movement, which would emerge as the first Shia resistance group in Lebanon, he held the positions of a Deputy Central Cultural official, a member of the movement’s leadership council and an official of culture and doctrine. In the year 1980, Sheikh Qassem resigned from his role in the Amal movement and decided to continue his religious education, while also teaching at different Mosques in Beirut.

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Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, spearheaded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, he eventually decided to become involved in Islamic Committees which helped efforts in the media sphere.

After Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982, during which around 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese were murdered, Sheikh Naim Qassem was present at meetings between the Islamic Committees and played a role in helping the formation of Hezbollah.

Lebanese Hezbollah was founded in 1982 but officially launched in 1985 – the same year Israel declared its occupation of southern Lebanon – for which Sheikh Qassem served as a member of the group’s Shura Council for three sessions, before moving up the ranks of the organization.

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He was then appointed as the Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah in 1991, making him not only a founding member of the resistance group but also a central religious figure with decades of experience in his role. He was also elected to his position as Hezbollah’s number two, by the group’s then Secretary General Seyyed Abbas al-Musawi, who would be replaced by Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah the following year after his assassination.

Since the death of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Naim Qassem has issued two speeches. In the first, which lasted just under 20 minutes, he gave reassurances that Hezbollah was still a capable fighting force and would continue to fight; despite the considerable blows it had been dealt to its leadership.

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In his last 30-minute speech, he spoke with a more confident tone and asserted that all the leadership positions had been filled, with the exception of the position of Secretary General.

However, if you are to read the accounts of his speech and cherry-picked quotes, in outlets like Reuters, you would be under the impression that Sheikh Qassem was bowing down to ceasefire calls and abandoning Gaza.

Anyone who watched or read his speech can tell that he simply supported the work being done by the leader of the Amal movement, Nabih Berri, but asserted that Hezbollah will not abandon Gaza and instead will only escalate its offensive and defensive military operations.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.