Musa Sadr al-Din al-Sadr (; 4 June 1928 – disappeared 31 August 1978) was an Iranian-born Lebanese scholar and political leader who founded the Amal Movement. Born in the Chaharmardan neighborhood of Qom, Iran, he underwent both seminary and secular studies in Iran. He belongs to the Sadr family from Jabal Amel in Lebanon, a branch of the Musawi family tracing to Musa Ibn Jaafar, the seventh Shia Imam and ultimately to the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima. Therefore, Musa al-Sadr is often styled with the honorific title Sayyid. He left Qom for Najaf to study theology and returned to Iran after the 1958 Iraqi coup d'état. Some years later, Sadr went to Tyre, Lebanon as the emissary of Ayatollahs Borujerdi and Hakim. Fouad Ajami called him a "towering figure in modern Shi'i political thought and praxis". He gave the Shia population of Lebanon "a sense of community". In Lebanon, he founded and revived many organizations including schools, charities, and the Amal Movement. On 25 August 1978, Sadr and two companions cheikh Mohamad Yaacoub and Abaass Bader el dine departed for Libya to meet with government officials at the invitation of Muammar Gaddafi. The three were last seen on 31 August. They were never heard from again. Many theories exist around the circumstances of Sadr's disappearance, none of which have been proven. His whereabouts remain unknown to this day. Early life and education Family background Musa al-Sadr came from a long line of clerics tracing their ancestry back to Jabal Amel. His great-great-grandfather S. Salih b. Muhammad Sharafeddin, a high-ranking cleric, was born in Shhour, a village near Tyre, Lebanon. Following a frantic turn of events related to an anti-Ottoman uprising, he left for Najaf. Sharafeddin's son, Sadreddin, left Najaf for Isfahan, which was then the most important centre of religious learning in Iran. He returned to Najaf shortly before his death in 1847. The youngest of his five sons, Ismail (as-Sadr), was born in Isfahan, in Qajar-ruled Iran, and eventually became a leading mujtahid. The second son of Ismail, also named Sadreddin, was born in Ottoman Iraq and also decided to settle permanently in Iran. He became Musa al-Sadr's father. While living in Iran, Sadreddin married a daughter of Ayatollah Hussein Tabatabaei Qomi, an Iranian religious leader. She would become Musa al-Sadr's mother. Early life Musa al-Sadr was born in the Cheharmardan neighborhood of Qom, Iran, on