Movement of the Deprived

The "Movement of the Deprived," or Harakat al-Maḥrūmīn, was a Lebanese Shiʿi social reform movement founded by Mūsā al-Sadr in 1975. Al-Sadr, an Iranian-born cleric, moved to Lebanon in the late 1950s and became involved in social work among the disenfranchised Shiʿi community. He established the Higher Shiʿi Islamic Council in 1968–69 to advance the community's interests. In 1975, al-Sadr formed Amal, the armed wing of the Movement of the Deprived, to defend the Shiʿi community during the Lebanese Civil War. Mūsā al-Sadr disappeared in Libya in 1978, and his fate remains a mystery.1