Hizb Al-Da?wa Al-Islamiyya (Islamic Appeal Party, in Arabic)

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HIZB AL-DAʿWA AL-ISLAMIYYA (Islamic Appeal Party, in Arabic)

Lebanese Shiʿite movement that surfaced at the end of 1979 to spread the Iranian Islamic revolution. Better known simply as al-Daʿwa, it issued from the Iraqi al-Daʿwa, founded in 1957. Starting in 1970, Iraqi Shiʿite religious leaders sent their followers to Lebanon to teach the fundamentals of their movement. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, Shiʿite proselytism was directed by Tehran through the intermediary of its Syrian representative, the Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Mohtashemi. The Lebanese branch of al-Daʿwa, headed by Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, one of the highest Lebanese Shiʿite dignitaries, advocated an Islamic republic in Lebanon. In 1981 Ayatollah Khomeini recommended dissolving al-Daʿwa, considering the party system a Western phenomenon. The members of the movement joined AMAL to found, in February 1985, the Lebanese Hizbullah.

SEE ALSO Hizbullah.