Asia Times
August 6, 2003
By Syed Saleem ShahzadThe Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim emerged as a leading figure in the Shi'ite community through his untiring struggle against the Saddam Hussein regime. But now his position as the leader of the most organized Shi'ite grouping faces a challenge from sections opposed to his perceived pro-US stance.
Hakim, 63, returned to Iraq in early May after more than two decades of exile in neighboring Iran. There he had formed a movement advocating theocratic rule for Iraq and conducted a low-level, cross-border guerrilla war against the regime of Saddam. His movement, the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), was directly supported with funds by Tehran and with arms by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.
But now one of Hakim's SAIRI members, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, is a part of the 25-member Governing Council appointed by the United States to help the US civil administration run Iraq until the country is handed over to a democratically elected government, and to give the country's majority Shi'ites a voice after being largely denied by Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime.
This willingness on the part of Baqir al-Hakim to participate in the US process presents many Shi'ites with an awkward dilemma. On the one hand his religious pedigree is excellent, while on the other his political judgment now appears flawed.
Hakim profits from identification with his father, Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim, who was the spiritual leader of Shi'ite Muslims around the world until his execution at the hands of Saddam in 1970. For the average Shi'ite, their clergy is the most sacred thing on earth and they dare not deviate from their guidance.
However, this subservience is being overridden by the desire on the part of many Shi'ites to rebel against the presence of US troops in the country in place of Hakim's more conciliatory approach. This sentiment is being championed by Muqtada al-Sadr, a charismatic 30-year-old cleric from the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, and who also comes from a powerful clerical dynasty. He is the son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr, who was killed in 1999 by agents presumed to be working for Saddam. Also on this bandwagon are members of the Iraqi Communist Party, back to life after decades of exile and disrepair, and now determined to make its own grab for at least a share of power.
Baghdad barometer
The al-Kadhmiya neighborhood in Baghdad is home to the shrine of Imam Musa Kazim, the seventh successor of the Prophet Mohammed, who is deeply revered by Shi'ites. This is one of the few areas in the Iraqi capital where daily life goes on much as before as pilgrims from all the over the world keep the local economy ticking over, as evidenced by busy streets, hotels and restaurants.However, there is one significant difference from the past. From almost every shop blare the speeches of Shi'ite scholars extolling the Islamic way of life and Islamic revolution. Near the Imam's shrine, banners bearing the slogans of revolution are plentiful, while hawkers sell the sermons of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, in books and on compact discs.
Jostling for space on walls near the shrine are Communist Party banners singing the praises of former Iraqi president Abdul Karim Qasim, whose accession to power through a coup in 1958 ended the monarchy. Qasim was assassinated in 1963 when the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (Ba'ath Party) took power.
Southern indicator
To the south of Baghdad in Najaf, which has traditionally been a nest for the Ba'ath Party, Muqtada al-Sadr - a vocal critic of the US occupation of Iraq - has emerged as a key figure. Some doubts have been expressed about the young cleric's intentions, let alone his qualifications. Either way, last Thursday about 10,000 men showed up in Najaf to join the "army of al-Mahdi" in response to a request from Muqtada al-Sadr, so clearly he has some credibility, and growing clout.Much farther south, near Basra, vast marshlands are home to Shi'ite Biduwiyan tribes. At the time that Saddam was suppressing the heads of the Shi'ite clergy and their followers, these tribes remained loyal to Saddam and in return received monthly stipends in the form of drought relief funds and a degree of political power. They still constitute a stronghold for Saddam's followers, and they have recently allied with Muqtada al-Sadr.
After the fall of Saddam's regime, his pictures in streets, homes and mosques were widely replaced by those of Baqir al-Hakim and his father Muhsin al-Hakim. To date, these pictures remain. But very recently images of Muqtada al-Sadr have appeared on the walls of two sacred shrines in Karbala, site of the 7th-century martyrdom of al-Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and one of the Shi'ites' most revered saints, and his younger brother al-Abass.
These portraits could represent the true picture of things to come for Iraq's Shi'ites.