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Imam Musa Sadr is recognized as an “interfaith hero” by author Revenant Daniel L. Buttry in his landmark publication “Interfaith Heroes,” which chronicles great spiritual leaders including, in addition to Imam Sadr, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi. Imam Sadr dedicated his life to building facilities and organizations that empower women, orphaned girls, and the disenfranchised in Lebanon.

Born in 1928 in Qom, Iran, the son of Grand Ayatollah Sayed Sadreddine Sadr, Imam Musa received a traditional Islamic education in Qom and in Najaf, Iraq, and his degrees in law and economics at Tehran University. In the late 1950s, he moved to Lebanon, where he became involved in social work among the country’s disenfranchised community. In 1963, he and his sister Sayeda Rabab Sadr founded the Imam Sadr Foundation to provide for orphaned children.

In 1968–69, he formed the High Islamic Council to represent the South Lebanon community’s interests. In 1975, he formed Ḥarakat al-Maḥrūmīn (“Movement of the Deprived”), which petitioned the Lebanese government for border protection, which was initially ignored. This social reform movement formed an armed wing named Amal to substitute for governmental protection of the southern border communities. The need for Amal waned when the Lebanese government sent the requested protection to the south of the country.

Imam Musa served as a trusted interfaith leader and civil servant in the southern part of the country during the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when tensions between religious communities were high and the people of Lebanon needed his leadership and unwavering dedication the most.

Imam Sadr is perhaps best known for his brave stand in support of religious tolerance and peace. A simple yet courageous action in support of interfaith peace and harmony lives on in the history books. When some Muslim citizens in Tyr, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, decided to boycott a local ice cream shop because of the owner’s Christian religious affiliation, Imam Sadr ended a Friday prayer service with a march to the ice cream shop. People followed, not knowing what was about to happen. When the Imam arrived at the ice cream parlor, he ordered ice cream. Then all the marchers ate ice cream with him, and the boycott was officially over.

He believed in peaceful dialogue and cooperation between faiths. He was a strong advocate for inclusion of the minority Shi’a community on the political scene in Lebanon. He was a participant in many Islamic-Christian dialogues, and eventually cofounded with a Catholic archbishop an interfaith social movement to help the poor and marginalized. He also organized a committee of Christian and Muslim spiritual leaders in southern Lebanon to work together on political and social causes shared by both groups.

Imam Sadr also cared deeply about the rest of the communities in Lebanon and served them through myriad charitable works. His goal was to eradicate poverty and provide education for those who were disenfranchised by the woefully inadequate social and political systems in the country. Over the years, many social institutions were established such as vocational schools, kindergartens, health clinics, and literacy centers. Imam Sadr and his sister Sayedah Rabab acquired a small first-aid training school and expanded it into a technical school for nursing named “Rehab al-zahraa.”

On August 31, 1978, Imam Sadr and two companions, Sheikh Muhammad Yacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine, departed for Libya to meet with government officials at the invitation of Muammar Gaddafi to discuss issues related to the conflicts in Lebanon occurring during this time. The three men were seen boarding a car headed towards the airport, but disappeared, and have not been heard from since.

After waiting 43 years for his return, his wife Parvin passed away in September 2021 at the age of 83. His sister, Sayedah Rabab, his children Sayed Sadreddine, Sayed Hamid, Sayedah Hawra, and Sayedah Maliha keep his legacy alive through their involvement with ISF and other social service and educational institutions established since his disappearance.

At ISF, literacy programs were launched, public establishments were founded, and women were promoted and empowered by teaching them the arts of dressmaking, embroidery, and homemaking, and offering them other income-producing skills and education.

SFUSA staff, volunteers, and donors, who fund critical infrastructure, and educational and humanitarian programs in Metro Detroit and elsewhere in the US, carry on Imam Sadr’s work “for the sake of mankind.”

“Musa Sadr was one of those rare people who loomed so large in life that his shadow is still cast on Lebanese politics,” said A.R. Norton of Boston University, the keynote speaker at the conference on Shi’a, Modernity, and the Legacy of Imam Musa Sadr at the University of Michigan on March 14, 2008.