Scholars of modern Shiism have heavily investigated the politicization of Shiite rituals of Muharram in Lebanon. Likewise, the place of public ritual in Lebanon’s Islamic movement headed by Hezbollah has also been examined. Given the substantial scholarly interest in the emergence of public ritual and forms of piety as an emblem of the contemporary Shiite Islamic movement, it is surprising that no scholarly work has examined funerals as a site where these transformations transpire. This study is therefore concerned with two overlooked ritualization sites of the Lebanese Shiite community: the common and the military funeral. It asks, how have the death rituals (funerary, commemoration) changed from 1969 to 2019? How does the death ritual function in a particular sociopolitical environment? To answer these questions, the first section of the paper utilizes oral history and participant observation records to examine the change in common death rituals, funerary and commemoration, over the last five decades in a Shiite village in South Lebanon. It focuses on the reform, or following Lara Deeb, the authentication of the young pious Shiites of their parents’ ‘customs and traditions’. Here, an understanding of the ritual itself, reflecting a greater religious knowledge, the policing of gendered public expression of mourning, and the prescription of disciplined and regimented practices as an alternative to no longer accepted rites, is what differentiate the authenticated ritual from its predecessor. Ultimately, the Karbala paradigm becomes entrenched in the practice of death rituals, with the double emphasis on the lament ceremony or majles and the moral sermon. The second section draws on ethnographic records of Hezbollah's martyr funerals and the Party’s discourse production since 2013. Using Eric Hobsbawm’s concept of “invented tradition,” it is argued that Lebanese Shiite funerals have become the site for the rapid invention of sacralizing tradition, one which builds on the form of common funeral and actively appropriates ‘timeless’ Ashura symbols and rituals. Through this invented tradition, which classifies the community’s dead bodies in a well-defined hierarchy through sacralization, the making of Hezbollah martyrs is realized.