After 47 years since his disappearance along with his companions in Libya under mysterious circumstances, the positions and statements of Imam Musa al-Sadr remain widespread and circulated. Most were carefully selected to coincide with specific events in the Lebanese arena, but few people truly delve into the approach of this man and explore beyond these words to understand his exceptional and visionary personality.

Many of al-Sadr’s initiatives during the few years he spent in Lebanese public affairs include the “Working Paper for Political, Economic, and Social Reforms” which he published on May 11, 1977, about two years before his disappearance.

Highlighting this document and its clauses today and every day shows that al-Sadr was ahead of his time and foresaw Lebanon’s future with the awareness of someone who lived through the details and fluctuations of Lebanese politics during the ignition of the civil war. The evidence is that a simple and quick comparison leads to the conclusion that the main points contained in the Taif Agreement in 1989, ten years later, are the same points mentioned by al-Sadr in the 1977 paper, as if the spirit of the Imam was present with the delegates in the Saudi city of Taif to extinguish the fire of war which he had tried hard to prevent before his disappearance, using all available means, sparing Lebanon from its flames.

In the first paragraph of this paper, al-Sadr stated “Lebanon is a final homeland with its present borders, sovereign, free, and independent,” and secondly spoke about “rejecting the division of Lebanon under the pretext of political decentralization regardless of its structure,” and welcomed any form of administrative decentralization that would enhance responsible governance in regions, shorten routine procedures, bring the judiciary closer to litigants, and involve popular, municipal bodies, and the Council of Governors in managing local affairs.

Under the title of political reforms, the paper stated “the abolition of political sectarianism in all public life sectors, the formation of the Economic and Social Council, or the Senate or both, amending the parliamentary election law based on making Lebanon one electoral district (Taif did not mention this law but acknowledged the necessity of reaching a law outside sectarian constraints), the impossibility of dissolving the parliament except in specific cases, and defining the powers of the president, prime minister, and ministers.”

In the body of the paper, the Imam did not forget to address defense and security, writing “rebuilding the army to become a shield for the nation and an effective tool in its development, a school to establish the foundations of national unity and strengthen it with sufficient numbers and equipment, modernizing its preparation methods, enhancing and increasing its numbers and weapons,” and in another clause within the same paragraph “dissolving all militias and armed organizations and collecting their weapons.”

All these reforms appeared in the Taif Agreement with minor wording changes, meaning that the solution that satisfied the warlords was in their hands only two years after the war started, and it was not an invention resulting from the war experience as some claim. It is clear that only Arab pressure (specifically Saudi and Syrian) at that time could impose the fragile civil peace and these amendments and reforms, which attempts to implement them have still failed to this day.