Muqtada's powerful push for
prominence By Nir Rosen
BAGHDAD - "Our god prays for
Muhamad and Muhamad's family," the crowd of Shi'ite
faithful in Baghdad's Kadhim Mosque began in traditional
chorus. But then they continued with a strange innovation, "and speed the
appearance of the Mahdi [Shi'ite messiah], and damn his
enemies and make victorious his son Muqtada! Muqtada!
Muqtada!"
This had never been heard
before, but Turkmen Shi'ites were shouting it in
demonstrations in front of the Coalition Provisional
Authority headquarters, as well as in Kirkuk during a
February 27 show of force that included thousands of
Muqtada's followers, as well as 2,000 members of his
militia. Followers of popular cleric Muqtada Sadr now
repeat it in their daily prayers.
For the past
year, Muqtada has been changing all the rules while
confronting the US occupation and rival clerics he sees
as weak. The United States and Muqtada have been engaged
in a game of brinkmanship, with US forces occasionally
leaking threats that they will arrest him. Muqtada,
meanwhile, warns US forces that his people's armed
rebellion will soon begin. So far, Muqtada has been
winning in this game, gaining experience as a leader as
well as admirers of his defiance and followers of his
father's office. Muqtada is the only living son of
assassinated grand ayatollah Muhamad Sadiq Sadr.
Although mainstream Shi'ite Islam requires
Shi'ites to choose a marja, or jurisprudent, and
follow his religious verdicts based on his rational
interpretation of Islam, it also requires that he be
alive. By preserving the office of his slain father,
Muqtada has changed yet another rule.
Muqtada
and his followers have established eight religious
courts throughout the country, with two in Baghdad. In
Najaf, they initially tried to establish the court
within the shrine of Ali, where they
already have an
office, but such an audacious move was prevented by the
Najaf police. Within the shrine there are two prayer
groups, one led by Hojatollah Sadrudin al Qubanchi, the
spiritual leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, and the other by a cleric from the
office of Muqtada's father.
Haidar al Ma'amar, a
22-year-old student in the Hawza Shi'ite seminary, was
praying with Qubanchi's group when two men sat beside
him and asked him why he opposed praying on Fridays and
why he criticized Muhamad Sadiq Sadr. Haidar denied both
charges and the men said "so come with us to the court".
Sheikh Haidar felt threatened, so he consented. Four men
escorted him forcefully down the alleys leading to the
court.
Sheikh Jabel al Khafaji was the presiding
judge. "This is a very disrespectful way to deal with a
Hawza student," Haidar complained, but the judge said
nothing, merely gesturing with his finger to the guards
that Haidar should be taken away. He was placed in an
underground prison, where he spent six days and five
nights, living off of soup and some bread.
There
are two forms of punishment in the court, had,
meaning fixed or limited punishment for specific crimes
such as adultery (100 lashes) or stoning, and
taazir, meaning unlimited punishments, subject to
the judge's discretion.
Haidar, the father of
two children, was already a frail man with an attenuated
body made to appear even smaller by the immense turban
he wears that presses down on his large ears. Wide eyes
and a long nose protrude from his lengthy thin face -
which appears even longer because of his beard. Haidar
said he was chained to a column and beaten. He claims
electrical torture was also used. Haidar's forehead is
now scarred - a result of having his head bashed into a
column. He also claims there were about 35 inmates in
the prison, including a 12-year-old accused of
homosexuality and a 14-year-old who stole money.
Haidar, who was known publicly to believe that
Muqtada's men were responsible for the murder of Abdul
Majid Khoei last April, was released after he was shown
on television as a missing person and representatives
from the Hawza pressured Muqtada's office. Haidar has
since returned to being a student.
Najaf's chief
of police was forced to pay more than US$200 to release
a police officer who was held in the jail. Najaf police
fear Muqtada's Army of the Mahdi has even infiltrated
their ranks. The Army of the Mahdi has used grenades to
blow up over seven video-compact-disc shops in Najaf,
accusing them of selling pornography. The police
received support from coalition forces and the Iraqi
Governing Council (IGC) finally to shut down the court
in Najaf and release the prisoners, though in Baghdad
the courts and prisons still operate in the city's
Shi'ite bastions.
The Mahdi
Army has been assuming the role of government elsewhere,
exhuming 40 bodies from a mass grave between Karbala and
Najaf after an old man who discovered the bodies
notified the Sadr
office in the town of Kifil. They continue searching for
mass graves in the region and have publicly announced
that neither Iraqi police nor coalition forces are
helping them.
In his Friday sermons at the Kufa
Mosque near Najaf, Muqtada has derided every decision
made by the coalition forces as well. "I ask the UN to
take care of the Iraqi people and not the occupying
forces and ask the Organization of Islamic [Conference]
and the Arab League to work with the UN to supervise the
elections so the Arab and Muslim leaders will cooperate
to supervise elections, and the people should know that
the protests are in demand of elections - not in demand
of UN supervision."
After the United States gave
former president Saddam Hussein prisoner of war (POW)
status, Muqtada and his representatives assailed the
decision. "Saddam is a war criminal," Muqtada shouted,
"and there are no two people who can argue over this."
Sheikh Abdul Hadi al Daraji, a representative of
Muqtada in Baghdad and the Khatib of the Muhsin mosque
in Sadr City, spoke to thousands, saying that "at a time
when no two people can argue about Saddam's crimes and
his crimes against the Iraqi people and other countries,
the American leadership declares - according to its
arrogant, racist politics - that the infidel Saddam is a
prisoner of war. Saddam is a war criminal and not a
prisoner, and we should treat him accordingly, and the
Iraqi people should judge him so he can face justice
from here. We ask the Iraqi people to voice their
opinion about this bad decision."
Muqtada has
also been competing with more accommodating Shi'ite
clerics such as Ayatollah Ali Sistani. On January 16,
Muqtada called for a demonstration to be held on January
20 to protest against Saddam's prisoner status. Sistani
called for one on January 19. The next day, on Saturday
the 17th, Sistani's office called for a demonstration in
support of free elections. Not to be outdone, Muqtada's
men took four ambulances with loudspeakers attached and
drove through Baghdad's Sadr City on Sunday the 18th
announcing that the Monday the 19th demonstration
(Sistani's) had been postponed until Tuesday
(Muqtada's).
The demonstration on the 19th
started in a hospital in Sadr City and proceeded to
Mustansiriya. Many protesters held pictures of Muqtada,
and there were even Muslims holding posters of Jesus
Christ to convey interfaith support. They claimed there
were Christians taking part in the demonstration, but
none could be seen. That day and the next, thousands of
Muqtada's supporters demonstrated throughout the
country, condemning Kurds for seeking a federal system
in Iraq which they blamed for "dividing the country".
In one such demonstration in Baghdad's Fardos
Square, a Muqtada representative said that "we are
demonstrating against federalism because we saw what
happened in Yugoslavia, and federalism is an Israeli
plan to divide us!" They held banners saying "no to
dictatorship, no to racism and yes to freedom".
Demonstrators also opposed the POW status given to
Saddam and shouted "death to Saddam". In Karbala
thousands of Muqtada supporters demonstrated and Jalal
Hasnawi, the Muqtada spokesman in Karbala, told the
demonstrators that "we are against Kurdish federalism
and we support Sistani's call for general elections". In
Najaf, thousands of demonstrators shouted "down with the
USA, yes to Iraq", calling for elections and opposing
federalism and also demanding an Iraqi trial for Saddam.
Muqtada supporters in Kut called for power to be handed
over to Iraqis and they demanded a united Iraq as they
held anti-occupation slogans.
In late January,
Muqtada rejected the United Nations supervision of
elections or participation in them because he claimed
the UN had legalized the occupation of Iraq. He added
that the Shi'ite clergy was able to supervise the
elections and he called for all Islamic parties to
establish an Islamic constitution for Iraq that would
guarantee the rights of the Iraqi people.
Aiham
al-Samarrai, interim minister of electricity, later
announced that although Iraq would not buy electricity
from Israel, it might in the future be willing to sell
electricity to Israel, but "at three times the price. We
will extract money from Israel for the benefit the Iraqi
people." Muqtada, in turn, addressed al-Samarrai in his
Friday sermon in Kufa: "We won't have any objection at
all once we send you and your followers to hell."
In Nasiriya, a demonstration a few days later
forced Sabri Hamid Badr al Rumayadh, the governor of the
Dhiqar province, to resign, though he changed his mind a
few days later, provoking a large protest of thousands
led by Muqtada representative Sheikh Aws al Khafaji on
February 7, including members of the Mahdi Army, who
surrounded the governor's headquarters and called for
dissolving the appointed city council and establishing
an elected council.
Two weeks later in Kufa,
Muqtada threatened armed opposition to the occupation,
claiming that "America came to harm the Iraqis but it
will not be able to destroy Islam".
In late
February, after a grenade was launched at the shrine of
Imam Kadhim one night, Muqtada's associate Seyid Hazim
al Araji spoke angrily, demanding that "we want the
tanks to be far from our holy city. The missile did not
come from Muslims, it came from the enemy of Islam. We
oppose terrorism in Iraq and we think the Americans know
the people who did this but they want to hide it. They
hide it to make a sectarian war. They should stop
playing the sectarian card." He urged religious leaders
to take advantage of the holidays to make important
decisions and demanded that the US should hand power to
Iraqis on June 30, permit elections by the end of the
year, increase the size of the IGC and end its delays.
In Baghdad on February 17, Abdel Mahdi Daraji, a
Sadr office representative, said that although Muqtada
had not yet called for an armed resistance, "it supports
a peaceful resistance against the occupation using
protests". Daraji refused to comment on armed operations
- though he did not condemn them - adding that "only the
marja is authorized to decide the time of the
resistance, and also Shi'ite marjas see that at
this time resistance is not good because it prolongs the
occupation, but American hesitation in handing over
power and prolonging the occupation may change the
people's position on resistance".
Several days
later, in Kufa, Muqtada railed against US administrator
Paul Bremer's announcement that Islam would not be the
main source of the new Iraqi constitution. "We want to
advise everybody," Muqtada said, "that the Iraqi people
have the ability to attack their enemies, and the
revolution of 1920 is the best example, and the Shaaban
intifada [the 1991 uprising after the Gulf War] is not
far from us, and we oppose statements interfering in our
internal national affairs. Just because Iraq is under
occupation does not justify them interfering in internal
affairs. Bremer's statement is a declaration of hate
against Islam and an attempt to erase the hopes of the
Iraqi people to obtain a constitution that is based on
Islam. The Iraqi people have an Islamic identity even if
many of them do not apply Islamic rules in their
behavior."
In an interview with the Iranian News
Agency, Muqtada said: "I will only negotiate with the
Americans if their country says that it has come here to
liberate us, not to occupy us. That is because occupying
a country is incompatible with the very principle of
holding negotiations. We are not hostile to America, but
we are the enemy of occupation." He added that the UN
did not have the right to interfere in Iraq's internal
affairs either, and added, "The UN has agreed to the
occupation of Iraq." He concluded, "From the very
beginning, I believed that the occupiers did not want
Iraq to enjoy either the rule of the people or freedom
... There is no reaction at present. If there is a
reaction, it is going to be manifested through peaceful
means."
After the Ashura attacks in Karbala and
Baghdad on March 2 in which more than 100 people were
killed in a series of suicide bombings, Muqtada's Mahdi
Army increased its "security-providing" role. Muqtada
compared the attacks to the September 11, 2001, attacks
in the United States, saying, "America stirred up the
whole world over what happened at the twin World Trade
[Center] towers, and it must be aware that our holy
places have been attacked and that their accusation of
[Ayman] al-Zawahiri is nothing but a game." He said: "We
will not be silent after that event unless we are given
more clarifications." Muqtada said the killers were
followers of Yazid and Muawiya (figures in Islamic
history hated by Shi'ites for opposing the rule of Ali
and descendants and killing Hussein) and that they were
serving the infamous triangle of Israel, the United
States and the United Kingdom. He added: "The Koran says
you must terrorize the enemy of god, and the Mahdi will
terrorize his enemies. I call on the officials and
politicians in Iraq not to be satisfied with slogans
alone."
After the interim constitution was
signed last week, Muqtada fumed, comparing it to the
British 1917 Balfour Declaration "which sold off
Palestine. We are on the way to selling Iraq and Islam.
It is a bad omen."
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innovation, "and speed the
appearance of the Mahdi [Shi'ite messiah], and damn his
enemies and make victorious his son Muqtada! Muqtada!
Muqtada!"
already have an
office, but such an audacious move was prevented by the
Najaf police. Within the shrine there are two prayer
groups, one led by Hojatollah Sadrudin al Qubanchi, the
spiritual leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, and the other by a cleric from the
office of Muqtada's father. 
notified the Sadr
office in the town of Kifil. They continue searching for
mass graves in the region and have publicly announced
that neither Iraqi police nor coalition forces are
helping them. 
