Mohammad Al Hajj Hassan

Who is Mohammad Al Hajj Hassan?

Sheikh Mohammad Hajj Hassan is a Lebanese Shia cleric and politician born in 1976, and is the founder and head of the Free Shia Movement that is associated with the opposition March 14 Alliance.

At age 17, he started his religious studies in a religious school in Baalbeck. He lived part of his youth in Syria, Iran and Iraq before coming back to Lebanon. For a small period of time, he was part of the Shia Hezbollah before leaving the movement disenchanted with their policies and established in 2006 his own political movement the Free Shia Movement, which tries to represent an alternative third voice for the Lebanese Shia community and protests the hegemony of the two main Shia parties allied with March 8 Alliance, namely Amal Movement and Hezbollah on the community.