Lebanon was clouded by grief as the country's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shiite Islam's main religious figures, died on Sunday at 75 after long time illness.

Lebanon's top Shi'ite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah speaks during an interview with Reuters in al-Hasanein mosque in Beirut January 10, 2007. [Xinhua/Reuters File Photo]

Fadlallah died from internal bleeding at Beirut's Bahman Hospital in the Shiite-inhabited southern suburb Dahiya. He had been hospitalized for several times in the last few months. On Friday he was admitted to intensive care as his health deteriorated.

An official at Fadlallah's office told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that the Ayatollah suffered from a second internal bleeding on Saturday after the first one on Friday.

Fadlallah was from a Lebanese family, but was born in Najaf, Iraq. He studied Islamic sciences in Najaf before moving to Lebanon in 1952. In the following years, he gave lectures, engaged in intense scholarship, wrote dozens of books, founded several Islamic religious schools, and established the Mabarrat Association.

Through that association he established a public library, a women's cultural center, and a medical clinic.

He supported the ideals of Iran's Islamic Revolution and advocated the corresponding Islamic movement in Lebanon. He is also a long-time critic of the U.S. Middle Ease policy. However, he condemned the September 11 attacks by Al-Qaida as acts of terror.

Fadlallah had been the target of several assassination attempts, including the allegedly CIA-sponsored and Saudi-funded March 8, 1985 Beirut car bombing that killed 80 people.

A spiritual leader of Lebanese Shiite Muslim community which accounts for about one third of the country's four-million population, Fadlallah's death cast a grievous shadow in Lebanon. Climates of grief and sorrow prevailed in the various Shiite- inhabited southern areas following the announcement of the passing away of Fadlallah. Quranic recitations blurred from loud speakers in the various mosques, with black flags hoisted on public roads and highways in mourning of the late scholar.

Social, clerical, political and municipal dignitaries poured into Al-Imamayn Hussaynayn Mosque in Beirut suburbs to pay condolences to the late Scholar.