NABATIYEH, LEBANON — Thirty years ago, the charismatic black-turbaned cleric who launched modern Shiite Muslim politics in Lebanon mysteriously disappeared during a trip to Libya. But his legacy remains strong.
At a rally Sunday in this southern Lebanese town, tens of thousands of his movement's followers demanded an answer to the Iranian-born Imam Moussa Sadr's whereabouts. The rally capped a week of legal actions and political rhetoric that were meant in part to galvanize his political party, Amal, which has been eclipsed by the militant group Hezbollah as the leader of the country's Shiite community.
Last week, Lebanese judicial authorities issued an arrest warrant for Libyan President Moammar Kadafi. Sadr had traveled to Libya with two companions in 1978, during a time of tension in Lebanon between Shiites and Palestinian militants backed by Kadafi and other Arab leaders.
"Again we say to the head of the Libyan regime Moammar Kadafi: The disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr is your personal responsibility," Nabih Berri, leader of the Amal movement and speaker of the Lebanese parliament, told flag-waving throngs of supporters. "What is required is to uncover the truth of the fate of Imam Sadr and his companions."
Though a political partner of Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Amal has a relatively secular outlook and is closer to Syria than Iran, which is Hezbollah's primary backer. Amal has been losing supporters, in contrast to the larger Hezbollah, which is perceived as more energetic and less corrupt.
"Amal, on the ground, it's very weak compared to Hezbollah," said Oussama Safa, an analyst at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, an independent think tank. "It has become kind of an open secret that it cannot grow or become strong under the current partnership with Hezbollah."
Both Hezbollah and Amal count Sadr as a spiritual and political forebear. He was a member of the clerical family that includes Iraq's Muqtada Sadr, and Moussa Sadr's rise signaled the emergence of a new wave of Shiite political activism that transcended national boundaries.
An Iranian passport holder but of Arab descent, Sadr arrived in Lebanon in 1960 after finishing his studies in the Iranian seminary town of Qom. He was sent by Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, to minister to what was then Lebanon's poorest community. He launched schools and clinics in the country's south that served Christians and Sunni Muslims as well as Shiites and urged young clerics to be community leaders as well as scholars.
