Translated by Al-Ahed News, Al-Akhbar Newspaper

Sayyed Hassan Abdel Karim Nasrallah was no figure from another world. His story was that of a generation whose consciousness was molded by the three decades that followed the great human catastrophe of “Israel’s” creation. He was born a decade after the Nakba, into a family uprooted by the occupation of Palestine. Another decade later, he was searching for meaning in faith — a search that, by his early twenties, carried him straight into the heart of the struggle.

[Sayyed] Hassan, still a boy searching for a way out of that first circle of oppression, chose neither the trade of his family nor the path of his peers — those who, swept away by war, stumbled blindly into an open death without pausing to ask what greater purpose it might serve.

In the first stirrings of his political awakening, he came to understand that resisting tyranny required knowledge, real knowledge. But the modern sciences pursued by others — whether born of poverty or privilege — were never within his reach. Instead, the days revealed a different calling, as if guided by an instinct whose source could never quite be named. Even tracing his story back to the age of ten offers no final answer to the question that lingers: what was it that drew him, with such certainty, toward the path of religious study?

But the young man, whose hair was already touched with gray as he sought to complete his religious studies, found himself walking — this time with full awareness — along the path traced by seekers of sacred knowledge. When he first arrived in Najaf, it never crossed his mind that he was about to face his first true trial.

He had to prove his ability to reconcile the sciences he pursued with the demands of the present. And the faith that lived within him until the day of his martyrdom — his unwavering belief in God and in the life to come — was never a refuge from that test. On the contrary, he chose, with full consciousness, to stand among young men who thought deeply about the condition of their lands and their people, committing himself to a different course in his journey of following the traces.

I do not know the source of his awareness of his place among the students of religious scholarship, whether it stemmed from being a descendant of the Prophet and his Household. But those who knew him during his brief years in Najaf recall that he bore no hesitation in embracing the obligations of the turban, the robe and the new garb of faith. He understood that this change would shape much of his life.

He would remove his religious attire only when necessity demanded it. Yet even then, he tested himself constantly, striving to hold on to his original character — even when circumstances required him to remain unseen, whether from enemies or from admirers.

Across nearly five decades of public engagement, he lived as a fighter who rose swiftly through the ranks of responsibility. He became at once a political leader, a military commander in the garb of a cleric, and the head of an institution charged with the fate of millions of his people, scattered across every corner.

And yet, despite it all, his yearning for that first dream — to walk the path of the scholars — would surface in moments he managed to steal, in occasions and circumstances that allowed him to act differently. Still, he may have been the only cleric, out of thousands, who was forced to weigh every word he spoke from the pulpit of religious learning.

For the path of “tracing the footsteps” — the course he had chosen, and along which he wished his people to follow — demanded of him, once again, restraint. It required that he not venture too far into the subjects, the studies the ideas he loved most.

But the idea of “tracing the footsteps”, for a man like Sayyed Nasrallah, was no longer his alone. With time, it became a chapter in a larger story — of people’s lives, their struggles, their faith. And yet, the image most people knew of him remained the same: a man whose thoughts were never far from God, but who was also far removed from the ascetic’s solitude.

The little time he could spare for reading was always devoted to his most beloved religious texts, a quiet return to the books that nourished both his heart and his mind. He did this in silence, without those around him sensing the depth of his passion. And when he returned to the people as a preacher, only a few could detect the subtle new elements in his words — the fresh expressions that crept into his sermons, the evolving way he spoke of the unseen world, all while remaining deeply grounded in the realities of life and the discipline of reason.

Sayyed departed at a moment that seemed to mirror the arc of his entire life. He left as he had wished — a knight, raising his sword against the butcher of the age, confident in his ability to turn his death into a truth shrouded in mystery. This is what made so many dream that he might rise once more from among the crowds, hand lifted, calling out to the people: “Arise, hasten to the struggle…”

Few dare to be bold enough to write a fair biography of this leader, and many more must be deterred — whether friends or foes — from attempting anything incomplete. Yet all stand before his widely known image, and the echo of his voice continues to penetrate ears wherever it may reach.

This same assembly is also granted the chance to follow in the footsteps of their hero, to embark once more on a journey of tracing his path. And the path is his — that of a man whom the world never wearied, who never shied away from life’s challenges, and who never feared the moment of confrontation. He walked steadily, unwavering, toward a destiny that seemed inevitable.

He is Hassan Abdel Karim, he is Sayyed Hassan, he is Commander Hassan — one of the few whose memory you may carry with you at all times. Not to smile at having witnessed him up close, but because the memories of him are more than recollections; they are a guide, giving you the confidence to walk steadily toward the source of light.

He leaves it to you to choose what suits you: whether mercy comes before firmness in the face of the resolute, or whether generosity tempers you when others expect awe and fear. Yet the true guide he left in our hands is not any of this. It is the trace of his life, his almost surreal witness, a path that we are bound to follow until the Day of Judgment.