He was born in the village of al-Fakiha, in the district of Baalbek/al-Hermel in 1948, to a Sunni Muslim and pro-Nasserist family. He joined the Lebanese Armed Forces’ Military Academy in 1960, and retired from LAF in 2003 with the rank of Brigadier-General. In 2009, he was elected as Hezbollah’s representative from the District of Baalbek/al-Hermel, replacing his brother Ismail who had been the party’s representative for the district in the 1996 and 2005 elections.