Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah Overshadowed by What Hezbollah Became

Southern Lebanon swelled with thousands of mourners Tuesday who had come to pay their respects to Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Arab leaders have sent their condolences, and the Lebanese government has declared a national day of mourning.

The cleric has been referred to as the godfather of the Hezbollah movement, and Americans might recall his name linked to attacks on U.S. barracks set up in Beirut during President Ronald Reagan's ill-considered intervention into Lebanon in the 1980s during the country's civil war. It was this war, and the 1982 Israeli invasion, that gave rise to Hezbollah, a resistance movement that has empowered the country's Shiite population, which had long been marginalized by Christians and Sunnis.

But Fadlallah never held an official position with the group, and despite his steadfast criticism of Israel and the U.S., he distanced himself from Hezbollah's close links to Tehran. The group's most visible religious figure is its leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.

Fadlallah survived an assassination attempt in 1985, a car bombing in Beirut near a mosque that killed 80 people. According to reporter Bob Woodward, it was a CIA-orchestrated attempt.

Fadlallah was also known for his relatively moderate views on women's rights under Islam.

"He issued a fatwa forbidding female circumcision and was opposed to the 'honor killings' of women by their families," reports the BBC. "In 2009, as France was debating whether to ban the full-body veil, Fadlallah accused the French president of 'banning women from choosing their own clothes.' He also had opposed the call to 'jihad,' or holy war, by Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban, which he considered to be a sect outside Islam."