Date of Birth: 1953
Place of Birth: Kfar Kila, Lebanon
Position: Deputy Secretary General
Naim Qassem was born in the village of Kfar Kila, in the Nabatieh Governorate of south Lebanon. Qassem is one of Hezbollah’s chief ideologues and one of its earliest members. He was part of the network of radical scholars – including Abbas al-Mousaoui, Subhi al-Tufaili, Mohammad Yazbek, Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, and Hassan Nasrallah – who founded Hezbollah.
Qassem began his involvement in politics in the 1970s as a member of Imam Musa al-Sadr’s Amal Party, and his biography claims he helpled al-Sadr found his “Movement of the Dispossessed (Harakat al-Mahrumin).” He is fluent in French, and completed his studies for a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from Lebanese University in 1970s while simultaneously pursuing his higher religious and theological studies under Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. He was a founding member of the Lebanese Union of Muslim Students, and the head of the Association for Islamic Religious Education from 1974-1988.
His military activities in the early days of Hezbollah are unknown. However, he is known to have maintained a supervisory role over al-Mustafa Schools, one of the movement’s educational networks. Qassem was elected as the party’s Deputy Secretary General on May 22, 1991, during its second conclave, serving under then-Secretary General Abbas al-Mousaoui. He has held that position ever since, serving under Hassan Nasrallah when he replaced al-Mousaoui as Secretary General upon the latter’s assassination in February 1992. Additionally, he is a member of Hezbollah’s Shura Council and is in charge of overseeing its parliamentary and governmental activities.
Qassem is a prolific writer and author, publishing over a dozen books on religious and political subjects, including Hizbullah: the Story from Within, which recounts the movement’s foundation and ideology as it conceives them. Several editions of the book have been published to date, and it has been translated into a total of six languages: Arabic, English, Farsi, French, Indonesian, Turkish and Urdu.
Qassem is married, with six children. In addition to his website, he runs several social media pages, including a Facebook page and a YouTube Channel.