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Thousands mourn cleric in Lebanon | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Thousands of people in Beirut are attending the funeral of Lebanon's most eminent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. | |
A day of national mourning has been declared and a huge crowd has followed the funeral procession in Beirut's southern suburbs. | |
Tributes have poured in from all over the Arab and Islamic worlds. | |
The seminaries at Najaf in Iraq, where the ayatollah was born and studied, declared three days of mourning. | |
There are delegations here from outside Lebanon signifying that Ayatollah Fadlallah's impact was well appreciated outside the country. | |
Representatives from Shia communities in the Gulf, Iraq and Iran have all come to pay their respects to a man who on the religious scene was a colossus. | |
Certainly for Lebanon there was nobody within reach of his stature. | |
There is a huge sense of loss here among the many who felt he was a champion of the downtrodden. | |
The Americans may have seen him as some kind of terrorist because of his links with Hezbollah and his support for resistance to the Israeli occupation - as it is seen here - but that is a very different picture from the way that he is seen by most Lebanese and by many people in the Islamic and Arab worlds. | |
The militant Shia movement Hezbollah, with which the ayatollah's name was strongly linked, especially in its early days, has also declared three days of mourning and called for a massive turnout for the funeral. | |
The funeral procession is carrying the ayatollah's coffin from his home, through the southern suburbs, to the mosque which he favoured, where he will be laid to rest. | |
There has been no funeral like it in the southern suburbs, a stronghold for Hezbollah, since that of the former Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by the Israelis in 1992, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut. | |
Top Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, sent their sympathies and messages of praise. | |
In the late 1950s, Ayatollah Fadlallah helped found Mr Maliki's Daawa party. | |
Senior Iranian figures have also sent their condolences, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said that Ayatollah Fadlallah had always been a patron and supporter of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon - referring to Hezbollah. | Senior Iranian figures have also sent their condolences, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said that Ayatollah Fadlallah had always been a patron and supporter of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon - referring to Hezbollah. |
The Lebanese government has declared a day of national mourning and flags will be flown at half mast for three days. | The Lebanese government has declared a day of national mourning and flags will be flown at half mast for three days. |