Imam Musa helped to fill a yawning leadership vacuum that resulted from the increasing inability of the traditional political bosses to meet the cascading needs of their clients. From the 1960s on, the Shi'ites had experienced rapid social change and economic disruption, and the old village-based patronage system was proving to be ever more an anachronism. Musa al-Sadr was able to stand above a fragmented and victimized community and see it as a whole. He reminded his followers that their deprivation was not to be fatalistically accepted. He felt that as long as they could speak out through their religion they could overcome their condition. As he once observed, "Whenever the poor involve themselves in a social revolution it is a confirmation that injustice is not predestined."
As a Political Leader
He shrewdly recognized that his power lay in part in his role as a custodian of religious symbols. But above all else he was a pragmatist. It is both a tribute to his political skill and a commentary on his tactics that one well-informed Lebanese should have commented that nobody knew the position of Imam Musa.
He was often a critic of the Shah of Iran, but it was only after the Yom Kippur (October) War of 1973 that his relations with the Shah deteriorated seriously.
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