Shiite Clerics Emerge as Key Power Brokers

The Washington Post via Iran va Jahan ^ | December 1, 2003 | Anthony Shadid

[Pan_Yans Wife]

The office of Grand Ayatollah Bashir Najafi is conscientiously bare, reflecting the asceticism of Iraq's most senior Shiite Muslim clergy in this holy city. His lone indulgence is a Persian prayer rug, on top of which sits a mud prayer stone, a Muslim rosary and a comb for his flowing gray beard.

But the conversation in his office and those of Iraq's influential clerics these days is anything but modest. The debate revolves around religion and state, secular and sacred, and the part the clerics will play as leaders of the country's Shiite majority.

"The grand ayatollahs will always be the highest spiritual guide in everything -- economics, politics and social issues," said the ayatollah's son and spokesman, Ali Najafi, sitting on a straw mat. "They will be the fathers, the leaders and the advisers."

Before any election for a government, before any debate over a constitution, Najafi and the other senior Shiite clerics have emerged in the vacuum left by former president Saddam Hussein's destruction of civil society. They have become the most influential figures in the country today. In a process both abetted and opposed by the U.S. administration, the elderly clerics in Najaf have begun sketching out for the first time in decades the sharply contested role of Islam in the country's political life.

By far, the most influential among them is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a once-reticent cleric who has taken on a far more activist role. This weekend, he made public his opposition to key elements of a U.S. plan for a political transition in Iraq. That followed his edict in June that any convention charged with writing a constitution must be elected. Together, they have secured a role for him and other clergy in helping determine the issues central to Iraq's future -- the selection of a government, the shape of a constitution and the nature of law.

"They are gaining momentum now," said Wamid Nadhme, a political science professor at Baghdad University.

"It seems that Mr. Sistani is showing his teeth to the Americans, that he is showing his willpower to the Iraqis" in the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, he added. "It's as if he's saying to all those concerned that I'm the man who is the last word."

Sistani and the others have insisted their political role will be limited, and their influence will almost certainly fall far short of the clergy's domination of neighboring Iran. But the very challenge of drawing the line between Islam and government could have a broad impact in a country where officials of the U.S.-led administration still hope a largely secular state will evolve. It has sent a shudder, too, through the minority Sunni and Kurdish communities, which face the prospect of a Shiite-led country for the first time in Iraq's history.

"If we see something that violates Islam and our country's traditions, we will give advice," said Ali Waadh, Sistani's deputy in Baghdad. "People look to [Sistani] as the highest authority. People listen to him before they listen to a government."

In a country long ruled by minority Sunni Muslims, Shiites were relentlessly repressed by Hussein's government, and the revival of Shiite ritual since Hussein's fall on April 9 has emerged as one of the most startling displays of newfound freedom. Streets, bridges and squares have been renamed after revered Shiite figures, as was Baghdad's largest neighborhood. Shiite iconography -- from green flags to portraits of Shiite martyrs -- has multiplied across the capital and southern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Shiite. The holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, whose influence faded in the 1960s, have undergone a boom as they host tens of thousands of pilgrims.

The clergy's activism, followers say, marks the progression of that revival from ritual into politics.

"We are guides and advisers," said Waadh, 52, who had been under house arrest for 19 years until Hussein's fall.

The Shiites, seen by occupation officials as the key to stability in postwar Iraq, are torn between politics and personalities. Some of the best-organized parties -- among them the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq -- have engaged U.S. authorities and taken part in the Governing Council. Others, such as the followers of Muqtada Sadr, a 30-year-old cleric whose father was a revered ayatollah, have come out defiantly against the occupation, devoting their attention to street politics.

But none of the parties claims the religious authority enjoyed by the grand ayatollahs, four of whom in Najaf are widely recognized as deserving the title marja al-taqlid, or source of emulation. Their authority among their followers is unquestioned.

Each day, crowds gather at the end of the winding alley that leads to Sistani's modest office. Nothing marks it, except for a folded slip of paper on a nearby wall that informs religious students when their salaries will be paid. The pleas of the crowd range from requests for aid to questions on everyday life. They are typically answered in hand-written notes, some of which are posted on his Web site.

Can Muslims play chess and backgammon? "It is not permissible." Are birth control pills allowed? "Yes." Can a Muslim go to a swimming pool where both men and women mingle? "Absolutely not permissible, as a precaution."

Under Hussein's rule, Sistani and the other senior clerics largely confined themselves to such day-to-day questions. Those who did not -- Sadr's father among them -- were executed, assassinated or imprisoned. But survival was not the clerics' only motive. Of Najaf's four grand ayatollahs, all are students of the most quiet tradition in Shiite Islam, which traditionally confines the role of clergy to spiritual matters.

Given Sistani's traditional reluctance to enter politics, the forcefulness of his recent opinions caught some by surprise. For months, the senior ayatollah, who has remained secluded in his home since the war's end because of fears for his safety, faced criticism from some Shiites for his lack of assertiveness. His reticence allowed more militant factions, such as that led by Sadr, to seize ground as public frustration mounted.

Some have argued that Sistani is being manipulated by Shiite political parties such as the Supreme Council, whose leaders had hoped his intervention would provide them more leverage in negotiations with U.S. authorities. Another argument, more common, is that he believes he has a responsibility to make clear his opinion on the country's most pressing issues and, at the same time, revive the prominent leadership role played by Shiite clergy in the debate over Iran's constitution in the early 20th century and the revolt against British forces in Iraq in 1920.

Those who have met Sistani say he, and the other grand ayatollahs, are setting up an oversight role for themselves -- well short of Iran's example, but influential nonetheless in debates only now getting underway.

"If there's something that will affect the entire population and if there is any strategic point like the constitution, he will pass judgment on it," said Mowaffaq Rubaie, a member of the Governing Council who returned from exile in Britain and has met Sistani. "He won't go for policy. He will go for strategic issues." Sistani's role, Rubaie said, "is in a state of evolution."

He said he expected Sistani to play "a very strong advisory role."

Sistani's supporters insist that he has deep concerns about the intentions of the United States, which is appreciated by many Shiites for overthrowing Hussein but, at the same time, resented for failing to support a U.S.-encouraged uprising after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

There is also suspicion that U.S. officials are delaying elections -- increasingly a central concern for Shiites -- in hopes of securing a more secular government down the road at the expense of the clergy's influence. Sistani's followers say he is particularly worried by the example of neighboring Turkey, where unremitting secularism has long served as state ideology.

"This is what we fear," said Mustafa Jaabari, a student of Sistani's for nine years. "That we will repeat this mistake here."

So far, Sistani's demands have centered on the broadest political issues in Iraq. His edict in June -- at first largely ignored by U.S. officials -- later forced the Bush administration to overhaul its plan for a political transition when Sistani made clear he would not compromise. His latest statement insisting that a provisional government be elected could force another revision in the plan. If his demand is not heeded, the U.S. administration and its Iraqi allies risk a conflict with the clergy, who are widely recognized to have far more credibility than an appointed Governing Council still struggling for legitimacy.

Sistani has also insisted that no legislation contradict Islamic law, according to Shiite politicians. That could potentially set up the clergy as arbiters of what constitutes a violation.

"Who's going to judge?" Nadhme said. "Who will be an authority on Islam who we are going to trust with our future?"

Three of the four grand ayatollahs were born outside Iraq -- Sistani in Iran, Najafi in Pakistan and Ishaq Fayed in Afghanistan. Sistani, 73, speaks Arabic with a heavy Persian accent.

Some more junior clergy, particularly those eager to put a more Arab and Iraqi stamp on a strain of Islam dominated by Iran, have pointed to Sistani's nationality to question his right to intervene. Those resentments are particularly strong among followers of Sadr, whose father was a rival of Sistani before he was assassinated in 1999.

"Whatever the respect for them, no Muslim will accept someone of another nationality interfering in determining Iraq's future," said Abbas Rubaie, a Sadr spokesman. "It is not a religious issue, it is national issue, and it's strange that they're interfering."

[kinghorse]

We haven't won there until this article title changes. More of the same medieval bs.

[joesnuffy]

"Who's going to judge?" Nadhme said. "Who will be an authority on Islam who we are going to trust with our future?"

"We the People" is gonna be a real hard sell on these dudes....of course we got a whole lot of judges we would be happy to lend them for 50 yrs or so...

[PoisedWoman]

Sistani's followers say he is particularly worried by the example of neighboring Turkey, where unremitting secularism has long served as state ideology.

this is troublesome and a far different opinion of Sistani than that advanced by Taheri, which you posted today.