Nasrallah’s Funeral

As the two coffins were driven through the crowd, a deep, sorrowful voice came from the loudspeakers. The sound of a violin rose as the voice of the man receded. I texted people in Beirut to confirm that the music was playing at the funeral, not being added by the television broadcasters. ‘What of a light that the darkness tried through fear to imprison?’ the voice asked:

The darkness comes to be imprisoned by the light. I saw you as death stood in the shade. When you nodded, death hurried to sit down. And we are seekers, who hope to find your pleasurable company. And you, all of life’s walls and its mountains, to you I sacrifice even our barricade.

The crowd threw scarves and flags up to the men in black suits who stood beside the coffins; the men rubbed the scarves and flags on the yellow silk that draped the coffins, then tossed them back. White, black and yellow pieces of fabric flew back and forth. Someone threw a white rose. Around the motorcade, masked men managed the crowds. The large yellow Hizbullah flags fluttered in the wind on an unusually cold day in Beirut. The music of wind instruments reverberated as the speaker continued:

And from your blood reposing on our soil, olive seedlings, a deep planting, and from the epithets of love, the most beautiful lisp, which we offer each other every Eid, and we murmur.

The man’s voice rose steadily as the music swelled, until he was shouting:

From the East of the East, and the North of the North, from Beirut and its suburb which does not die, from the villages and the houses, we stay true to our old pledge, we vow allegiance to Naim, and we cry, oh God, oh generous, protect Sheikh Naim.

Naim Qassem, Hizbullah’s new secretary general, spoke next. He wasn’t there in person: the speech was broadcast on video screens, like the speeches of Hassan Nasrallah in his later years. Nasrallah had been secretary general for 42 years when he was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike on 27 September. His successor, Hashem Safieddine, was killed the following month, only six days after taking over. The funeral of the two men was postponed until the completion of a ceasefire deal between Lebanon and Israel, delayed at Israel’s behest from 26 January to 18 February.

Neither a slight speech impediment nor the fact that he spoke from underground hiding spots diminished Nasrallah’s power as an orator. People congregated to hear ‘the Sayyid’ (a Shia honorific by which Nasrallah was known among his supporters). In the street where I grew up, there would be fireworks to mark the beginning and end of one of his speeches. He spoke faultless formal Arabic, a rare feat among recent Lebanese and Arab leaders, but his real virtuosity lay in the ease with which he switched between formal and informal Arabic. He also switched between two registers: one bombastic, militaristic, threatening, zealous; the other warm, friendly, personal, humorous.

Excerpts from Nasrallah’s speeches were played in the sports stadium where the funeral took place. The stadium is named after Camille Chamoun, president from 1952 to 1958, who appealed to Eisenhower for help against pan-Arabist groups, backed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, seeking to overthrow his government. Nasrallah spoke of resistance and of inevitable victory. He promised his people he would always stand by them.

As well as the tens of thousands who had waited since the early hours of the morning to enter the stadium, hundreds of thousands are thought to have gathered in the streets surrounding it. Many cried. Between the speeches and the chants, they also shouted ‘Death to Israel’, ‘Death to America’ and ‘We pledge to you Nasrallah.’ A representative of the Iranian supreme leader gave the opening prayer at the ceremony.

In his speech, Qassem said that resistance was faith, and a right, but also a duty. He called on people to take Palestine as a qibla, the direction Muslims face when praying (towards the Kaaba in Mecca). He recited the verse from the Quran ‘Do not say of those who are killed in Allah’s path, they are dead. In fact, they are alive, but you perceive it not.’ He repeated the slogan ‘We stay true to our pledge,’ emblazoned on his podium and in front of the vehicle carrying the coffins. ‘Are you not impressed that we came out from under the rubble?’ he asked.

He criticised the new government in Beirut for not standing up to Israel and reasserted Hizbullah’s alliance with the other main Shia party, Amal, whose leader, Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament, attended the funeral. There had been rumours of a rift between the two parties.

‘I miss you, my Sayyid,’ Qassem said.

Israeli planes flew low over the city.