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Does the Shi'ite turban
fit?
By Nir Rosen
BAGHDAD -
Iraq's two main radical Shi'ite groups have recently
slightly moderated their position on the United States,
seeking to be included in the administration of the
country, and to avoid punishment. Sheikh Mohammed
al-Yaqubi's Fudala group and Muqtada al-Sadr both issued
statements that indirectly recognized the legitimacy of
the US occupation, though it is clear that their
followers still despise the US, and "the Jews".
Yaqubi was expected to give the sermon last
Friday, October 31, in Baghdad's immense and unfinished
al-Rahman mosque, which his followers recently occupied
after expelling Sadr's followers in  clashes. Yaqubi did not
appear, however, and his representative Sheikh Ali
al-Ibrahimi spoke instead to the congregation of about
1,000, which sat in the bare concrete interior and
gravel exterior of the mosque, decorated with banners.
Outside the mosque hundreds of books were on
sale about Shi'ism and the theologies of Iranian
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iraqi cleric and Dawa
party founder Mohammed Baqir Sadr, as well as Yaqubi's
own books, including The West and Us, in which he
compares the US to Islam's version of the anti-Christ
and prophesies its destruction.
Ibrahimi
complained that the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) "was
chosen by the Americans and they weren't chosen
democratically". He announced four suggestions made by
Yaqubi to legitimize the council. Yaqubi's first
proposal was to add two seats to the council so that the
26 seats would each represent a million Iraqis. "Bush
and [chief administrator L Paul] Bremer should know," he
warned, "that there are millions of Shi'ites who follow
the Hawza [Shi'ite religious academy in Najaf] and they
are not represented by the IGC. Thus people cannot work
together or help the IGC and people cannot trust the
members of the IGC because the actual Iraqi leaders are
not part of the council."
Ibrahimi called for
one seat on the revised council to represent the
followers of Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, the dead father of
Muqtada Sadr, with whom Yaqubi is competing to claim
sole representation of the slain Sadr's followers.
Ibrahimi reported that Yaqubi's second
suggestion was to limit the ability of the IGC to issue
unpopular decisions, such as its recent decision to
permit certain non-Iraqi citizens to obtain citizenship.
Ibrahimi warned that "if Jews reside in Iraq, then they
will become Iraqi citizens and they will own Iraq and we
will be their guests". He explained that the founders of
the US initially feared letting the "owners of money"
enter the country, but that "this happened when the Jews
came and the Americans and others became their guests".
"How can the IGC members issue a decision if
there is no constitution to derive it from?" Ibrahimi
demanded. He called for a constitution and suggested
that until then "the IGC should issue temporary
decisions and these will help the wounded Iraq wake from
its current problems".
Yaqubi's third
recommendation was to strengthen the ability of the IGC
to make independent decisions that would hold. Ibrahimi
recalled the unanimous opposition expressed by IGC
members to the proposed introduction of Turkish troops
to Iraq and the rejection of the IGC's will by Bremer
and the Coalition Provisional Authority, who insisted
the Turkish troops would come. "This was contemptuous to
the IGC," he said, "and by this the IGC became actors
and the White House became the decision-maker. Their
decisions should be completely independent and represent
the Iraqi people."
Yaqubi also called for IGC
members to "clarify the truth about them and whether
they really belong to this country because for the past
six months since they established this council and until
now the Iraqi people are still wounded, sleeping in
darkness and cannot enjoy the water of the Tigris and
Euphrates". Ibrahimi called for the IGC to "quickly make
decisions that restore the condition of the Iraqi people
and then the Iraqi people can trust the IGC and the IGC
will be the future representative of the Iraqi people".
He stressed that since the Prophet Mohammed's death and
the subsequent crisis over succession that would lead to
the Sunni/Shi'ite divide, Shi'ites "have lost our trust
in governments for the past 1,500 years".
This
was the first time that Yaqubi or his supporters had
issued statements recognizing the IGC, even if they were
calling for minor adjustments, essentially ones that
would include them and allow them to dominate the
activist school of Shi'ism represented by the mantle of
Sadr. "We are here to tell the IGC our opinions and the
IGC will tell [President George W] Bush and Bremer our
opinions", Ibrahimi said. He inflated the population of
Iraqi Shi'ites to 21 million (more like 15 million), and
called on all Shi'ites to cooperate.
Yaqubi's
arch rival, Muqtada al-Sadr, also issued a conciliatory
statement on Saturday, November 1. The young Sadr and
his followers in the Army of the Mahdi have been
increasingly clashing with US troops, as well as more
moderate Shi'ite groups. Alarmed by US army threats that
he would be arrested as a rabble rouser threatening
Iraqi stability, Sadr issued a statement asking American
troops to spare Iraqi lives, calling for unity and
brotherhood between the Americans and the Iraqis.
He stated that Saddam Hussein was a "sinful
aggressor" and that he and his backers were the real and
only enemies of Iraq, not the Americans. Sadr described
Americans as guests in Iraq, adding that they were
"peace loving people". He also stated that the Iraqi
people only want good for the Americans (credit for
translation of Sadr's statement goes to Juan Cole,
professor of history at the University of Michigan ).
These statements were a repudiation of Sadr's
earlier comparison of the IGC and the new Iraqi regime
to Saddam's government. Sadr has been lashing out at the
US as a result of Pentagon threats to arrest him. Many
of his followers have already been arrested and his
house was searched last month after he declared a shadow
government and an unarmed militia that was in fact
heavily armed.
Sadr had also accused the US and
CPA of provoking Shi'ite infighting in order to divide
their ranks, though he had simultaneously discussed
recognizing the IGC if it were enlarged (presumably to
include him) and if Bremer's veto power was removed.
However, Sadr's radical departure from his
previous hostility to the US was contradicted in private
the same day by one of his main deputies in Baghdad.
Seyid Hasan Naji al-Musawi, the 38-year-old imam of Sadr
City's Muhsin mosque and commander of Sadr's Army of the
Mahdi in Baghdad, said that the final days were
approaching in which the Mahdi would return. Shi'ites
believe that the 12th imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, a
descendant of Mohammed, went into an invisible
supernatural location when he was a child, and he has
ruled the world from there, but that he will one day
return to the corporeal world and restore justice,
accompanied by Jesus Christ.
Musawi declared
that America's real purpose in coming to Iraq was to
kill the Mahdi. "Iraq will be the end of America," he
said, "the Mahdi will be coming soon and when he comes
he will kill the Jewish leadership," which he equated
with the Americans, adding that Julius Caesar was
Jewish, and the Jews were the Romans. Musawi quoted a
verse from the Koran prognosticating the eventual defeat
of the Jews. He added that the Mahdi would be coming
from the Hejaz area of Saudi Arabia, accompanied by
Jesus, and he would also kill many clerics who wear the
imama, or Shi'ite turban.
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