Sistani’s disclosed message to Hezbollah: Lebanon should not be dragged into wars

Iraqi and Lebanese clerics have revealed that Iraq’s top Shiite authority, Ali al-Sistani, had sent a message to Hezbollah, following the pager device explosions but before the assassination of the group’s former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on September 2024.

The message came not as an imposition, but rather a “guidance and counsel only,” in accordance with the “unchanging traditions of Najaf’s religious establishment.” According to an informed Lebanese Shiite cleric, the letter warned Hezbollah leadership that “the assault on Lebanon knows no limits, and the fire of war is unrestrained by rules, which makes it imperative to assume responsibility for protecting Lebanese lives,” thus emphasizing the protecting of not only Shiite lives, but all Lebanese civilians as well. Two Shiite clerics also claimed that Sistani’s message included that

Lebanon should not be dragged into wars serving foreign agendas that deepen its people’s suffering.

For Hisham Daoud, an Iraqi researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, Lebanon holds “significant importance for the Najaf religious authority, not only because of its large Shiite population or the influence Najaf exerts there, but also because of its regional and international relevance despite its fragile circumstances.” He claimed that Sistani would like to see a prominent political role for Lebanese Shiites in the Lebanese sphere, but “peacefully, through the state and its institutions, while respecting Lebanon’s fine-tuned internal equilibrium.”