伊瑪目和上校 | 半島電視台世界

The downfall of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi last year was greeted with great hopes for the rebirth of a nation.

But there was another hope felt by many inside and outside of the country – that the end of his 42-year rule would allow some light to be shed on the fate of a charismatic Lebanese cleric.

Imam Musa al-Sadr, the leader of Lebanon’s Shia Muslims, disappeared, along with two companions, in the summer of 1978 during a visit to Libya to meet Gaddafi.

As in the Shia myth of the ‘hidden imam’, this modern-day cleric left his followers upholding his legacy and awaiting his return.

The enigmatic cleric’s popularity had transcended religions. Calling for social justice and development, 在 1974 al-Sadr founded the Movement of the Deprived – aiming to unite people across communal lines.

Archbishop Youssef Mounes of Lebanon’s Catholic Information Centre remembers a sermon al-Sadr delivered in a church, in which he warned of an imminent sectarian war.

“It was a surreal scene,” Mounes says. “Seeing the turban of a Muslim imam under the cross in a Christian church. He delivered a sermon at a very significant time.”

When civil war erupted in Lebanon in 1975, al-Sadr led anti-war protests. And as the war intensified, so too did al-Sadr’s efforts to end it. As part of this, he toured the Arab world to plead the case for south Lebanon.

在 1978, this took him to Libya where he was due to meet Gaddafi.

He was never seen again.

In the years since conflicting stories have emerged about what happened to al-Sadr and his two companions. Now hopes have been raised that new evidence and witnesses will emerge to help solve the mystery of the missing imam.

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