Hezbollah
Iranian-backed Shia Islamist political party and terrorist organization in Lebanon
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party with an active paramilitary wing whose military and security activities have been prohibited by the Lebanese government since March 2026, amid the 2026 Lebanon war. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength was assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army in 2016.
Hezbollah was founded in 1982 by Lebanese Shiite clerics in close cooperation with Iran. It emerged in the context of the Lebanese civil war, the collapse of central authority, Iran's strategic interests in Lebanon, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The movement's formation was shaped by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's model of Islamic governance. Hezbollah subsequently established strong ties with Iran as part of the "Axis of Resistance". The group was initially supported by 1,500 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) instructors, who helped unify various Lebanese Shia factions under Hezbollah's leadership. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto outlined its key objectives, which include expelling Western influence from the region, destroying Israel, pledging allegiance to Iran's supreme leader, and establishing an Islamic government influenced by Iran's political ideology. However, the manifesto also emphasised Lebanese self-determination.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hezbollah” is iranian-backed Shia Islamist political party and terrorist organization in Lebanon. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hezbollah, Iranian-backed and Shia, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “iranian-backed Shia Islamist political party and terrorist organization in Lebanon” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q41053. VIAF identifies the subject as 139513420. The Library of Congress control number is n88191600. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2026, 2016, 1982 and 1979.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hezbollah”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hezbollah primary sources, Hezbollah archive and Hezbollah research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hezbollah”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Hezbollah” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.