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Muqtada al-Sadr's Power Grab
by Mohamad Bazzi The bad boy of Iraqi politics is going back to school. Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite militia, is studying to become an ayatollah.
It might seem like a minor development within Iraq's notoriously insular Shiite politics, especially against the backdrop of daily bloodshed. But Sadr's decision has enormous implications for Iraqis and the United States.
The 33 year-old Sadr is taking a long view, showing greater political skill than the United States and his Iraqi rivals usually give him credit for.
[Republished at PFP with express Agence Global permission.]
The bad boy of Iraqi politics is going back to school. Muqtada
al-Sadr's plan to become an ayatollah has enormous implications for
Iraqis and the United States.
Once a renegade cleric with a ragtag militia fighting US forces,
Sadr has transformed himself into a statesman. He controls a key bloc
in the Iraqi Parliament and he was a kingmaker in the selection of Nuri
Kamal al-Maliki as prime minister. Now Sadr is trying to burnish his
religious credentials, which would make him an even more formidable
force in Iraqi life. After he attains the title of ayatollah -- the
second-highest clerical position in Shiite Islam -- Sadr can issue his
own fatwas, or religious rulings, and he will no longer have to defer
to senior clerics. He will also be able to teach other clergymen, and
his followers must obey his rulings.
Sadr's aides told the
Associated Press that he is on track to attain the status of ayatollah
by 2010, or even sooner. That would be a remarkable fast-tracking of
the normally rigid system of Shiite scholarship. In the Shiite
hierarchy, Sadr is a low-level cleric, several ranks and many years
away from attaining the title of ayatollah. It's not even clear that he
truly reached the status of hojat al-Islam, which is what his
supporters call him -- more out of respect for his leadership than his
religious achievement. In normal circumstances, it can take two decades
for a cleric to establish the record of teaching and deep study of
Islamic law required to become an ayatollah.
The title of
hojat al-Islam applies to a range of seminary students, from those
holding the equivalent of a master's degree to others with a freshly
minted doctorate. (Sadr first enrolled in advanced seminary studies in
2000, but he dropped out after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.) An
ayatollah is akin to a tenured, senior professor who has published
several books and has a wide following. Think of superstar academics
like Stanley Fish or Cornel West -- that's what Sadr is aspiring to.
Why
did Sadr suddenly decide to resume his long-neglected religious
studies, and why is a seemingly esoteric debate about clerical status
so important to the future of Iraq? The answers lie in the marshy
fields of southern Iraq, where oil and religion mix. Sadr is
positioning himself for a new battle with his main rival for dominance
of the Shiite heartland: the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, led by a US
and Iranian-backed cleric, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. On December 16, British
forces handed control of Basra Province -- home to the vast majority of
Iraq's oilfields and the country's only port -- to the Iraqi
government. In reality, that means Iraqi police and security forces
loyal to Sadr, Hakim or the smaller Fadhila Party. Whatever Shiite
faction ultimately rules Basra will be in a position to dominate the
rest of southern Iraq. And in a few years, the master of Basra
(undoubtedly, he will be a cleric) will control much of the oil and the
means of shipping it. He will become the most powerful man in Iraq,
regardless of who is prime minister in Baghdad.
To have a
leg up on his competitors, Sadr is looking for more religious
legitimacy. He can only get it in Najaf, the seat of Shiite theology.
Quietism or Activism?
I
first went to Najaf in May 2003, a few weeks after the US invasion. In
the warren of alleyways around the Imam Ali Mosque, fruit and meat
vendors jostled with those hawking prayer beads, gold-leafed religious
books, and faded postcards bearing the stern photos of various clerics.
It is a place of religious intrigue, where men speak in whispers
outside the homes of Shiism's leading theologians. The rumors that
emerge from Najaf's dusty alleys make their way to the rest of Iraq,
and they are carefully dissected by the country's Shiite majority. This
is the world of Muqtada al-Sadr.
Amid the euphoria that
followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime, clergymen debated their
role in politics. Sadr and his supporters argued that they must fill
the void left by the Baathist system. They also defied the US
occupation and its plan to install an interim government made up mainly
of exiled Iraqi politicians like Ahmad Chalabi and Ayad Allawi.
On
the other side were the Najaf traditionalists and disciples of Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered cleric in Iraq, who viewed
political power as fleeting. One afternoon, I went to the home of
Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Kharsan, who at the time was 42 years old and
considered one of the best "young" theologians of Najaf. Like most
Shiite clerics, he lives in a modest house, down an alleyway where
sewage runs along the side of the street. The walls are bare, except
for a poster of Sistani and a Quranic verse. "Politics involves getting
ahead through tricks and deception; these are not the things that
Shiite clerics should be involved with," Kharsan said as we sat
cross-legged on a floor covered with faux Persian carpets, drinking
sweet tea. But as a religious leader, he argued, you could ultimately
hope to wield far more influence than a mere politician. "When you are
a government minister, there is a prime minister above you. Maybe you
can serve for four or five years, and then you are out," he said.
"People trust us with their lives, with their money, with their
spiritual welfare. We want to win the hearts and minds of people
forever. That is not something that politicians can do."
Sadr
wanted to be both: a respected cleric and a politician. Shortly after
the US invasion, his followers took control of hospitals, schools and
mosques in parts of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala. They provided social
services in the absence of a central government. Posters of Sadr and
his assassinated father lined the walls of Shiite neighborhoods. He
drew tens of thousands to his rallies and Friday sermons. He created a
militia, the Mahdi Army, which had several thousand fighters -- most of
them poor, young Shiites from Baghdad's slums and southern Iraq. In
2004 Sadr twice instigated revolts against US troops in Shiite sections
of Baghdad and southern Iraq. The Mahdi Army was crippled in its
confrontations with US forces, and Sadr's future was in doubt.
But
the cleric's followers infiltrated Iraqi security forces and regrouped
as local civil defense units across southern Iraq. In the towns where
Sadr's fighters hold sway, they enforce a strict interpretation of
Islamic law. They have bombed liquor stores and movie theaters, and
they harass women who do not wear full veils. They also run death
squads that assassinate Sunnis and drive them out of Shiite
neighborhoods.
During Sadr's first uprising, in April 2004,
I often heard his supporters in Baghdad chanting: "No Sistani, no
Hakim, Muqtada is our zaeem." It was a carefully chosen slogan, meant
to avoid insulting Sistani or to challenge his religious authority, but
also to portray Sadr as the best zaeem, or political leader, for Iraqi
Shiites. "Muqtada stood up to the Americans from the first day they
came to Iraq, while the other clerics stayed quiet," a 22-year-old
fighter in the Mahdi Army once told me when I asked why he respects
Sadr. "Muqtada is young, that's true. But he has a right to lead the
Shiites of Iraq. And he never left Iraq like those other clerics who
went to live in London while Saddam massacred the Shiites. Muqtada
suffered like the rest of us."
By the time elections were
held in December 2005, Sadr managed to turn his strength on the Iraqi
streets into political influence, with his supporters winning thirty
seats in the 275-member Parliament -- the largest share of any single
faction. Over the past year, US forces have again targeted Sadr's
militia, and in protest he withdrew his ministers from Maliki's
government. But Maliki still relies on the cleric's support in
Parliament. In the end, Sadr proved himself to be a better politician
than a militia leader.
Because Sistani and other clerics
shun political involvement, they create a power vacuum in the Shiite
community. Sadr's early challenge exposed how distant the senior
clerics -- especially those affiliated with the Hawza, the Shiite
school of learning in Najaf -- had become from the Shiite masses. "The
question must not be, 'What is wrong with the Shiites who rally around
Muqtada al-Sadr?' Rather, it must be, 'What is wrong with the grand
ayatollahs who lose their constituents to Muqtada?' " wrote Abbas
Khadim, an Iraqi Shiite who teaches Islamic studies at the University
of California at Berkeley, in Al-Ahram Weekly in August 2004. "They
cannot hide behind their theological jargon in the middle of crises. If
they fail to act, someone else will pick [up] the pieces." In this
case, Sadr was ready and waiting.
Inheriting a Martyr's Legacy
In
the struggle for power within the Shiite community, Sadr has two claims
to leadership: He is the son of a revered cleric killed by Saddam
Hussein's regime, and he never left Iraq to live in comfortable exile.
His father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, was one of the
pre-eminent scholars of the Shiite world. Yet he had rivalries with
other senior theologians -- unlike Sistani, the elder Sadr argued that
clerics should be politically and socially involved -- and some of that
enmity has been passed on to his son.
Muqtada has tried to
model himself after his father's vision of an activist clergyman, but
he has been hampered by his youth and lack of religious credentials.
This problem will be solved if he becomes an ayatollah, even if he can
never reach the same stature as his father. Sadr may not be capable of
doing the careful scholarship required of an ayatollah, but he's
clearly on a fast track to attaining the title. Once he reaches that
point, he will have a firm religious standing to challenge Hakim and
the Shiite hierarchy represented by Sistani.
Since he
emerged in 2003 as the fiercest Shiite critic of the US occupation,
Sadr has been remarkably adept at using religious symbols to position
himself as heir to a long line of Shiite martyrs. By doing so, he has
tapped into a central trait of Shiism: dying in defense of one's
beliefs, as the sect's founding figures did in the seventh century.
During
months of traveling around Iraq in 2003 and 2004, I saw the same poster
hanging in homes and on walls of Shiite neighborhoods: Muqtada cradling
his assassinated father, blood dripping from his forehead and chest.
The elder Sadr is holding up a copy of the Quran, as the faceless
shadow of Shiism's founding figure, Imam Ali, looms over father and son.
In
reality, Muqtada was not with his father when he was gunned down by
agents of the Baathist regime in 1999. The cleric's two oldest sons
were with him, and they too were killed. But the painting is one
example of how Muqtada has used his father's martyrdom to build support
among Iraqi Shiites -- and it helps explain why young Iraqis are
willing to die for him, even as senior clerics urge them to avoid
confronting US forces. "Muqtada has always tried to use his father's
legacy as his claim for leadership of the Shiite community," Sheik
Fatih Kashif Ghitta, leader of a prominent Shiite family in Najaf, told
me in the summer of 2004, as Sadr's militia battled US troops. "The
senior clerics have not challenged him. He is really a disobedient
child who needs to be restrained."
Sadr started out as a
militia leader, with the populist appeal and credibility that comes
from being heir to a family of martyrs. He then turned himself into one
of Iraq's most effective politicians. The elder clerics watched from
the sidelines, confident that their rarefied religious authority would
be more enduring than the young upstart's fleeting political power. But
now Sadr is working to enhance his political influence, claiming the
heavenly mandate that comes out of being an ayatollah. The disobedient
child is on his way to becoming a master teacher -- and an even more
formidable kingmaker in Iraq.
Mohamad Bazzi, who was
Newsday's Middle East bureau chief for four years, is currently the
Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Agence
Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation, Le Monde
diplomatique, as well as expert commentary by Richard Bulliet, Mark
Hertsgaard, Rami G. Khouri, Peter Kwong,Tom Porteous, Patrick Seale and
Immanuel Wallerstein.
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Released: 22 December 2007
Word Count: 2,078
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