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Ayatollah Khoie |
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Some of Sadr's Books |
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Center of Shi'i Academy, the Hawza. |
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EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | WRITINGS | BINT AL-HUDA | BIOGRAPHY | HOME |
On April 8, 1980, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was executed. His execution aroused no criticism from the West against the Iraqi regime, however, because Sadr had openly supported the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime in Iran and because the West was distracted by the turbulence in Iran that followed the revolution. Governments both in the West and in the region were concerned that the Iranian revolution would be "exported," and they set about eliminating that threat. When Ayatollah Khomeini called upon Muslims in Iraq to follow the example of the Iranian people and rise up against the corrupt secular Ba'thist socialist regime, they interpreted it as the first step in the spread of Islamic radicalism that would eventually lead to the destablization of the whole region.
Sadr's support of the Khomeini crusade against the Bacthists
was considered a threat to the Iraqi regime and dealt with swiftly.
Thousands were arrested, and hundreds were executed without trial.
Sadr as the head of a movement that had gained popular support
from the success of the Iranian revolution, emerged as an antigovernmental
leader and a catalyst for anti-Ba'thist activity, and was regarded
by his followers as the "future Khomeini" of Iraq.1
The Ba'thist regime decided that he had to be eliminated if the
regime was to survive. Sadr's execution, hence, was the act of
an authoritarian regime fighting for its survival.
What made political Islam such a grave danger to the regimes
in the area was not simply its popular appeal, but also the grassroots
organizations that embraced its principles and political slogans.
In almost all Middle East countries Islamic political groups
had, since the turn of the century, been bent on achieving their
principal goal of establishing a state based on the principles
and teachings of Islam, and these very organizations had paved
the way for the victory of the revolution in Iran,2 Khomeini
also found in them both the means and the political muscle to
export Islamic revolutionary ideas to the rest of the Middle
East.
Some of these organizations, including the Islamic Da'wa Party
which Sadr founded, had existed in Iraq before the Islamic revolution
in Iran and the Ba'thist regime in Iraq. Sadr was also the mastermind
behind a program that aimed to establish an Islamic state not
only in Iraq, but throughout the Islamic world. The role Sadr
played in the Shi'i community in Iraq at large and his effort
to counter the political acquiescence of the religious establishment
and to confront the political oppression there made him the Shica
leader in that country. A detailed account of the events that
led to the rise and fall of Sadr is therefore useful for placing
Sadr in the context of Iraqi politics in general and of the Islamic
movement in particular.
In 1958, a military coup d'etat began a period of great turmoil
in Iraq that changed its political system and social fabric.
The kingdom that had been engineered by British occupation forces
in 1921 was replaced by a "republic" under the rule
of a military junta; the royal family and the ruling class were
executed. The head of the military junta, General Qasim, who
had led the revolt gained popular support unprecedented in modern
Iraqi history, in part because of his policy of dissociating
Iraq from Britain, which included withdrawing from the CENTO
alliance known as the "Baghdad Pact" and closing British
military bases in the country.3
With the coup in place, a variety of political groups sought
a place in the new regime, and in the process created anarchy.
Some, of which the Communist Party was the best organized, were
given a voice in the new regime. To increase his power base in
the country, Qasim used the Communists to eliminate his colleagues
in the ruling junta who were loyal to the Arab nationalist movements.
In the bloody street fighting that followed, especially in the
northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk where the nationalist officers
attempted a military coup against Qasim, the Communists emerged
as the major political force.4
The Shi'i religious establishment, acquiescent since its last
revolt against the British in 1920, found itself challenged by
atheist political forces who, if left unchecked, might wipe Islam
from the lives of the people,5 for the nation seemed to be welcoming
the secularism and antireligious sentiments of the new regime
and to accept Communist propaganda, which denounced the religious
establishment as reactionary and religion as an obstacle to modernization
and the progress of the people. The Communist forces then began
to penetrate the religious establishment itself in the holy cities
of Najaf, Karbala, and Kadhimiyah, even recruiting members of
religious families, but the religious leadership (marja'iyya)
under the Grand Mujtahid Muhsin al-Hakim took steps to overcome
these challenges.
The Shica religious establishment in the al-Hawza al-cilmiyya
(religious academy) was divided between traditional scholars
who advocated indifference or aloofness from politics and activists
who advocated involvement. The latter organized themselves into
the Jamacat al-cUlama' in Najaf6 to counter antireligious trends
in society. Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was at that time a young scholar
and was not considered an official member of the Jama'at al-Ulama'
which was made up mainly of elders and well-known mujtahids.7
He was able, however, to exert influence on the group through
his father-in-law Shaykh Murtaza Al Yasiyn, who was acting president
of the group, and through his older brother, Ismacil al-Sadr,
a mujtahid who held a senior position in the Jamacat.8
According to Talib al-Rifa'i, the Jamacat al-Ulama' had as its
immediate objective countering the Communist challenge to Islam.
In their maneuvering, they were realistic enough to appease the
popular Qasim; in their public leaflets and announcements, they
supported him while attacking the Communists. As a reward, the
Qasim regime gave them access to the government-controlled radio.
The weekly public statements of the Jama'at al-Ulama' were written
by Sadr and delivered by Hadi al-Hakim.9
This appeasement did not last long. Conflict between the religious
leadership and Qasim erupted when Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim issued
a fatwa that identified Communism with atheism and forbade Muslims
from joining the Communist Party or helping its cause. The fatwa
embarrassed the Qasim government and forced General Qasim to
abandon the Iraqi Communist Party. Qasim made several requests
to visit Ayatollah Hakim, but the latter refused to meet with
him until he had abrogated the civil-liberties' law, which violated
the Islamic codes of inheritance.10
For two years during the appeasement period the Jama'at al-Ulama'
had been given permission to publish a monthly journal al-Awa'
(the Lights), whose objective was to counter the intense secular
and antireligious propaganda that had followed the 1958 revolution.
According to Talib al-Rifa'i, Muhsin al-Hakim had suggusted it,
but since it was not acceptable for a marja' to sponsor a political
publication, the Jama'at al-Ulama' was asked to assume the task.11
Sadr wrote its editorials, which he used to outline the basic
political program of the Islamic movement,12 and in the process
discovered that he had a talent for writing persuasively.
During the same period, Sadr published his first philosophical
study, Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy; 1959),13 a critique of communism,
the materialist school of thought, and dialectic materialism,
in which Sadr argued, that communism had too many flaws and shortcomings
to be considered the final truth for mankind. It could not be
the answer to society's problems because its basic assumptions
were false, Sadr contended. His second work, Iqtisaduna (Our
Economics; 1961), criticized the economic theories of communism
and capitalism and introduced an Islamic theory of political
economy in an effort to counter the argument by secularists and
communists that Islam lacked solutions to the problems of man
in modern time. Sadr's major task in Iqtisaduna was to show that
Islam was concerned with man's economic welfare. In fact his
major intellectual achievement was his formulation of an Islamic
economic doctrine based on Islamic law; he was the first to do
so.
Sadr and his colleagues also confronted the secular forces on
a third front through the establishment of the Da'wa Party. According
to Talib al-Rifa'i, it was founded by Mahdi al-Hakim, al-Rifaci
and another, unknown, person. Al-Rifaci later introduced Sadr
to the party leadership, and Sadr eventually became its head,14
playing an important role in setting party structure and doctrine,15
and later its supreme jurisconsult (faqih al-hizb). Even the
name of the party, Da'wa ("Call"), was said to be Sadr's
idea.16 The aim of the Da'wa was to organize dedicated Muslim
believers with the goal of seizing power and establishing an
Islamic state. To achieve that goal it would indoctrinate revolutionaries,
fight the corrupt regime, and establish an Islamic state; then
it would go on to implement Islamic laws and export the Islamic
revolution to the rest of the world.17 This grand plan was said
to be Sadr's idea. The first stage had to be clandestine to secure
the party against a crackdown, so the party was organized in
a hierarchical multi-branch cell structure. Its activities were
not to be limited to Iraq only, but were to go on in other Shica
communities around the world. To that end branches were secretly
formed in the Gulf states and in Lebanon; attempts to form them
in Iran were unsuccessful.
By 1960, Sadr was one of the leading mujtahids in the religious school of Najaf with a distinguished reputation in jurisprudence (fiqh and usul al-fiqh). His seniors in the Hawza therefore advised him to give up his political role in the Da'wa party and on the Awa', which were detrimental to his leadership in the Hawza and prepare himself for becoming the future grand marja' of the Shi'i (the hawza would not accept an active mujtahid for the position of grand marja', at least not a member of a political party).18 The marja' is usually selected from among the leading mujtahid in the fiqh and usul al-fiqh, and the candidate has to prove his capacity in these areas by using the Socratic method in his teaching and by publishing his legal opinions. Since being appointed depended on the approval of the teachers and mujtahids in the Hawza, the prospect of Sadr's becoming the grand marja' of all Shics was in jeopardy so long as he continued to be politically active. Although pressure on Sadr to give up his political activities seemed to come mainly from the former marja' Muhsin al-Hakim, many factions in the Hawza were critical of Sadr's activism. Led by Hussein al-Safi,19 a public campaign was launched against Sadr depicting his activities as harmful to the survival of the Hawza.20 A group in the Jama'at, influenced by the propaganda against Sadr, began to show their dissatisfaction with him as well.21 Sadr's editorials in al-Awa' also raised a disturbing question: they were subtitled Risalatuna (Our Message), but the enemies of Sadr questioned whether they represented the views of the Jama'at at all. Finally, in 1961 Muhsin al-Hakim, through his son Mahdi, persuaded Sadr to give up his post as faqih of the Da'wa party and as editor of Awa'.22
After his resignation Sadr confined himself to the traditional
way of life of the Hawza, avoiding activities that might jeopardize
his marja' status. He even delayed the publication of his long
awaited book, Mujtamacuna (Our Society) because, according to
some sources, the time was not ripe for it.23 According to members
of the Da'wa party, however, Sadr kept in touch with the party
through one of his pupils.24 As for the Awa', Fadlullah notes
that Sadr encouraged him to write its editorials.25
Sadr's passion for reform was now directed toward the hawza itself.
First it was necessary to modernize its curriculum: for the past
century and a half, Najaf's hawza had emphasized only fiqh and
usul al-fiqh because that was what Najaf was noted for; other
Islamic studies were considered minor or unimportant, and the
hawza's teachers paid little attention to them. Sadr was also
uneasy over the irregular attendance of the students and their
neglect of their studies. He felt that students must complete
their courses with distinction before they could claim to be
religious scholars (calim)26 and proposed a new textbook on the
grounds that the old ones were not written for students. A textbook,
according to Sadr, must take into consideration the student's
ability to comprehend the subject only gradually from its basic
concepts to its most recent development. Sadr's plan embraced
not only the use of textbooks of the sort used in modern academic
institutions, but the establishment of Western-style universities
that would hold the student responsible for completing certain
courses and passing regular examinations.
To implement his reforms, Sadr helped establish the Usul al-Din
College in Baghdad in 1964 and set up its curriculum.27 He later
wrote three textbooks on the Qur'an, the usul al-fiqh, and Islamic
economics for first- and second-year college students.28 However,
his efforts to carry out his reforms in the Hawza itself faced
stubborn resistance from both students and its antiquated establishment.
The years 1964-1968 were a "golden era" for modern
Shi'i politics, first because the Ba'thist-Arif regime felt indebted
to the Shica religious establishment for its help in discrediting
and ousting Qasim's regime and second because the new regime
gained legitimacy from the Shica leaders who supported their
crackdown on Communist forces in the country (ironically, most
of those prosecuted were also Shi'as). The relative freedom the
Shi'a enjoyed during that period resulted from the continuous
struggle between the Ba'thists and Arif, between the Arab nationalists
and the Communists, and among the Ba'thists themselves. The regime
was so preoccupied with this internal fighting that it turned
a blind eye to Shi'a political activities, though later, it ousted
Shi'as from the few governmental posts they had gained under
Qasim.
Free from government interference, the Da'wa party increased
its membership in the universities and among the intelligentsia.
According to Da'wa sources, more than 1,500 copies of the Da'wa
official, but underground, journal, the awt al-Da'wa, were distributed
to members and supporters in the University of Baghdad alone.
Students showed their commitment in a march known as the mawakb
al-alaba (students' procession) in Karbala at the annual commemoration
of the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn. Al-Hakim expanded his influence
by increasing enrollment in the Hawza in Najaf and by developing
plans to establish a Western-style Shica academy in Kufa, where
a college education would become available to Shi'i youths who
would someday be influential in political affairs. He also established
new religious centers and libraries in several Iraqi cities directed
by missionaries known as wukala' (representatives). The religious
scholars of Baghdad and Kadhimiyah organized an association,
similar to the Jama'at al-Ulama' in Najaf, known as the Hay'at
Jama'at al-Ulama' fi Baghdad wa al-Kadhimiyah.29
Confrontation with the Ba'th Party
The Ba'th Party's rise to power on July 17, 1968, started a new phase in the conflict between Shi'i leaders, Muhsin al-Hakim and Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and the central government in Baghdad. The regime faced two leaders, who had both charisma and political clout, al-Hakim through his symbolic leadership of the Shica worldwide, and Sadr through his influence over the Da'wa. The stability of the new regime depended on withstanding them. Its first step toward limiting the Shica's power was to curtail their religious activities, which included the closing of the Jawadayn elementary and high schools and the Usul al-Din college in Baghdad, confiscating the land and funds set aside for building Kufa University, shutting down the Risalt al-Islam, the only religious journal the government allowed to be published at that time, prohibiting the mawakb al-Talaba in Karbala, expelling hundreds of non-Iraqi students from the hawza in Najaf, and issuing a law requiring Iraqis attending the hawza to join the armed forces.
The Shi'i leaders appeared to be disorganized and the Ba'th regime
to catch them by surprise. Unaware of the Bacthist's plan to
eliminate the political structure of the Shica community, its
leaders met to figure out some peaceful means for dealing with
the government and decided on a public protest. The Hay'at al-Ulama'
suggested that Muhsin al-Hakim visit Baghdad to mobilize Shi'i
support against the government.30 Al-Hakim took up residence
in Kadhimiyah to receive supporters; Sadr went to Lebanon to
organize protest from abroad and use the office of the Shi'i
supreme council headed by his cousin Musa al-Sadr to campaign
against the Iraqi government. Telegrams were sent by Musa al-Sadr
to the heads of the Islamic states and Islamic groups calling
attention to the Bacthist's government harassment of the religious
leadership in Najaf. The result of these efforts was disappointing.
Only Nasser of Egypt, Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Iriyani of North
Yemen, and the Jama'at-i Islami of Abu al-A'la Mawdudi in Pakistan
gave any moral support, and no one acted.
On his return to Iraq, Sadr, with the cooperation of the Jamacat
of Najaf and the Hay'at of Baghdad and Kadhimiyah, held a public
meeting at the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf to support al-Hakim and
condemn the Ba'thist government action. The statement, which
was delivered to the audience by Mahdi al-Hakim, had been drafted
by Sadr.31 The next step to be taken against the government,
according to Murtada al-Askari, was to organize a mass demonstration
in Baghdad in support of al-Hakim.32 However, before the plan
was carried out the Ba'thist government announced that Mahdi
al-Hakim was plotting to overthrow the government in a military
coup with the help of some generals and Shi'i businessmen who
had links to Iran and the West (by which they meant the United
States and Israel).33 This accusation put the Shica leaders on
the defensive and diluted their support. Mahdi al-Hakim was smuggled
out of the country; al-Askari went to Lebanon; and Muhsin al-Hakim
retreated to Najaf where he died a few months later. His successor
Ayatollah Khoei, the mentor of Sadr, refrained from taking any
action against the Ba'thist government.34
After Muhsin al-Hakim died, the Ba'th's government intensified
its efforts to reduce the influence of the Hawza in Najaf by
expelling its non-Iraqi students (the majority of students were
foreigners) and monitoring the Iraqi students there. That threw
the whole Hawza into chaos. To keep non-Iraqi students in the
country so they could help resist the government, Sadr convinced
Ayatollah Khoei to issue an order (ukum) to students to stay
in Najaf and continue their studies.35 Unwilling to antagonize
the new Shica marja', Ayatollah Khoei, who was considered to
be above politics, the Ba'th government postponed implementing
its deportation policy. The Ba'thist regime then started to crack
down on the Da'wa party. Many suspected members of the party
were rounded up in 1972 and sentenced to one to five years in
prison.36 Sahib Dakhiyl, known as Abu cIsam, died under torture
in 1973. He was the organizer of the student procession held
in Karbala37 and was also believed to have been the head of the
Da'wa party's Baghdad branch.38 A year later, about seventy-five
Da'wa party members, some of them religious scholars, were detained
by the security forces, and five, all of whom were believed to
be leaders of the Da'wa party, were sentenced to death by the
revolutionary court.39 Sentencing these people, three of them
ulama', brought a public outcry and condemnation from the religious
establishment, including Khoei, Khomeini, and Sadr.40 In order
to avoid a precedent for executing religious scholars of the
Hawza, Sadr issued a fatwa forbidding students or scholars of
the Hawza to join any political party. Later that year, Sadr
himself was detained by security forces and taken from Najaf
to Baghdad for interrogation, but was soon released.41
In the post-Hakim era, Sadr was recognized in the Hawza as a
marj'c and the heir-apparent of Grand marja' Ayatollah Khoei.42
However, he was aware that the marja'iyya, the Shicas' only true
source of political leadership, lacked adequate institutional
underpinning, even though it was a thousand years old. In particular,
it lacked the means of enforcing decisions on the rank and file
of 'ulama'. Additionally, the marjic traditionally made policies
and arrived at decisions using an inner circle of close associates
and family members to gather information, issue statements, and
distribute religious funds. There was no formal procedure for
making decisions or planning long-term strategy, and that often
resulted in confusion that weakened the relationship between
the marja'iyya and the people.
To enhance the power of the marja'iyya, Sadr sought, as he put
it, to transform what he called the "subjective marja'iyya"
into an "objective marja'iyya." The marja', according
to Sadr, must conduct his affairs and guide his people using
an organized structure. To conduct the affairs of the umma, the
marja' should set up committees to manage educational affairs
in the hawza, to support Islamic studies, research, and writing
on essential subjects, to look after the affairs of the culama'
who represent the marja' in other cities, to support the Islamic
movement, and, finally, to administer financial affairs.
However, at that time Sadr was not ready to form the institutional
structure of the "objective marja'iyya" because he
was not the supreme marja', the symbolic authority for all Shicas,
a position that would give him the financial and the religious
power to carry out changes. The publication of his al-Fatawa
al-Wadiha, a book on relgious laws, was intended in a way to
announce his marja'iyya, and prepare himself and contenders in
Najaf and Qum in the traditional manner to succeed Ayatollah
Khoei, the grand marja'. Sadr also had a political motive behind
his early indirect announcement of interest in the marja'iyya.
He thought it would protect him from government prosecution.
Once he was a marja', Sadr believed, the government would spare
his life regardless of his political stand, because regimes in
Iraq and Iran did not execute leading jurists. A case in point
was the Shah's decision not to execute Ayatollah Khomeini after
the marajic in Qum issued a statement proclaiming that Khomeini
as one of them. Instead the Shah expelled Khomeini from Iran.
In announcing his marja'iyya, Sadr somehow thought he was gaining
political immunity. At the publication of Sadr al-Fatawa al-Wadiha,
members of Da'wa party and Sadr's admirers, mostly students and
intellectuals, started referring to him as their marja' and leader.
In early 1977, the Ba'th regime took the boldest step yet to
curb the Shi'a when it banned the annual ceremonies commemorating
Imam Husayn's martyrdom. The regime had tried but failed to prohibit
them since 1970, especially in Najaf and in Karbala. That year,
the Ba'th leadership was determined to use any means necessary
to stop the traditional procession from Najaf to Karbala, an
event that generates considerable religious fervor. Tens of thousands
of Shi'a from all over Iraq participate in the pilgrimage, which
usually takes four days to cover about fifty miles. The procession
was seen by the regime as hindering their policy of secularism
and as providing the religious authorities with popular support.
Banning the procession in 1977 provoked riots in Najaf. Organizers
distributed leaflets that called on people to participate in
defiance of the authorities to protect their religious rights.43
The public hearings organized by the Ba'th Party and the governor
of Najaf did not ease the tension but rather precipitated chaos.44
An estimated thirty thousand people began their procession holding
banners printed with verses from the Qur'an, such as "The
power of God is above theirs" and "Victory shall come
from God."45
Faced with this defiance, the regime first met with the leaders
of the procession46 and sought the help of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim,
who informed the Shica that the regime was willing to lift the
ban on the procession if the rioters would stop chanting anti-government
slogans. However, anti-Ba'thist sentiments ran so high by then
that compromise was impossible. The government on its part mobilized
a military brigade with tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets
to block the way to the city of Karbala.47 Hundreds of demonstrators
were able to get into the city, however, because many officers
and soldiers were sympathetic to the cause and were unwilling
to obey the government orders to fire on people chanting religious
slogans.48 The government then mobilized the Ba'th Party security
and police to suppress the procession in the streets of Karbala
and to detain as many people as they could. Hundreds were imprisoned,
and many were injured.
The government then formed a special revolutionary court (makamat
al-thawra) headed by three high-ranking Ba'th Party leaders to
try the defendants.49 Seven people were sentenced to death and
fifteen, including Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, to life imprisonment.
The incident also caused a split within the Ba'th leadership
itself. Some high-ranking members of the party judged the action
unduly harsh and seemed hesitant to take strong action. An extremist
group led by the Bakr-Saddam factions won by expelling the moderate
group, including the members of the Special Revolutionary Court,
from their government and party positions.
The regime suspected Sadr of having had a part in the demonstration.
It had been well organized, which suggested that the Da'wa Party
was behind it. Al-Hakim, the head of the group who negotiated
on behalf of the regime with the rioters, was a disciple and
personal representative of Sadr. His failure to gain concessions
from the rioters whose links were with the Da'wa, the main Sadr
organization, was one of the signs that made the regime suspect
that Sadr led a behind-the-scenes conspiracy. The regime's security
forces detained Sadr and sent him to Baghdad for questioning,
but released him when the people demanded it in order not to
instigate another riot by the Hawza.
Encounters with the Ba'th Party: The Final Episode
The leaders of the Ba'th regime thought that their measures in 1977 had put an end to religious opposition for years to come, but the revolution in Iran in 1978 rekindled efforts against the Shah and a revolution led by religious leaders in Najaf was in the making. The Shi'i capital was again at center stage; though this time the effort was not directed toward the Ba'th, it was still troublesome to the Iraqi regime. Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian uprising, had been living in Najaf for the past fourteen years. He took advantage of Ba'th enmity toward the Shah to launch a campaign against him in Iran. He was given access to Iraqi radio to beam his messages, and this also made it possible for him to be approached by his political collaborators. However, such favors (which in any case were severed after the Saddam-Shah Algiers agreement in 1975 that ended the hostility between the two regimes) did not elicit any pro-Ba'th sentiment from Khomeini. He had witnessed the Bacth's oppressive measures toward the Hawza of Najaf and toward Shi'i leaders.
The revolution in Iran seemed to demonstrate that an oppressive
regime run by a wellentrenched security apparatus and supported
by the Western intelligence could in fact be challenged and defeated,
and that Islamic ideology was capable of leading the masses to
establish the dreamed-of Islamic state. It showed that blood
sacrificed during revolution can encourage other devotees of
Islam's cause. The oppressive measures of the regime could be
turned into the means for achieving victory. The revolution in
Iran presented an appealing political scenario for Muslim revolutionaries
to follow; the Iraqi Shi'a were the first to emulate it.
Sadr made several calculated but discreet political moves that
would not antagonize the Iraqi regime but would show his commitment
to and support for the revolution in Iran.50 He first sent a
long statement to the Iranian people while Khomeini was in Paris,
declaring his support and praising the uprising.51 Then after
Khomeini returned to Iran, Sadr sent Mahmood al-Hashimi, one
of his closest disciples, to Iran as his representative.52 Both
actions were considered by the Iraqi regime as clear violations
of the government's "wait and see" policy.53 Furthermore,
Sadr, contrary to the Ba'th government policy of instigating
and supporting the uprising of the Arab population in Iran, had
asked the Arabs to support the Islamic state that eventually
would fulfill their political and ethnic rights. In one of his
messages to the Iranian people, Sadr called on the Arabs in Iran
to obey the leaders of the revolution because the Islamic republic
represented the state founded by the Prophet where people of
different nationalities and ethnic background could live in tranquillity.54
Sadr then published six essays that concerning the foundation
of the Islamic state which were later collected under the title
al-Islam Yaqwwd al-Hayat (Islam governs life). One of them dealt
with the religious basis for forming an Islamic government. In
this treatise he outlined the structure of an Islamic state,
the functions of each of its branches of government, the responsibilities
of the marja' in the state, and the legitimacy of his absolute
authority according to Shi'i Islam. The treatise seems to have
had a major impact on the authors of the constitution of the
Islamic Republic of Iran. One can find many of Sadr's ideas and
views on the structure of an Islamic state in the final draft
of that document. The other five essays dealt with the principles
of the Islamic state and the structure of its economy, using
ideas similar to those Sadr presented in his works twenty years
earlier, proof that he had conformed to his early ijtihad.
Sadr's boldest step against the regime was issuing a fatwa prohibiting
Muslims from joining the Ba'th party or its affiliated organizations,
a step so dangerous that even some of Sadr's representatives
in various Iraqi cities hesitated to publish it because they
feared for their own safety and for Sadr's survival. To make
its contents known, Sadr resorted to means such as encouraging
his students to ask him questions during his regular sermons
in the Hawza regarding participation in the Ba'th party. After
that people expected a severe step to be taken against Sadr,
but relations between Sadr and the regime remained under control.
Instead, the last straw was added by Iran.
Ayatollah Khomeini, relying on his sources in Najaf, broadcast
a message to Sadr calling on him to stay in the Hawza and not
to leave Iraq despite government harassment.55 Although Sadr
was facing detainment or possibly execution, he was not in any
case planning to leave Iraq.56 Khomeini's message and Sadr's
response,57 which were heard by millions in Iraq, set off a wave
of public demonstrations in several Iraqi cities in support of
Sadr and in praise of Khomeini. Najaf was the most turbulent;
there delegations from all over Iraq came to hold demonstrations
and to be received by Sadr. Sadr told his followers to call the
demonstrations off; since they represented the core of his support,
Sadr did not want them exposed to the regime and needed to secure
their protection from future government crackdowns.58 He told
one of the Da'wa's members that "the regime's quiescence
for the moment reveals a great hidden danger; thus we should
use precautions and prudence in our action."59
Then the government, as Sadr anticipated, began to crackdown:
Sadr's representatives and hundreds of Da'wa members were rounded
up and imprisoned or executed. Then Sadr himself was detained
and taken to Baghdad. His sister, Amina al-Sadr, known as Bint
al-Huda, went to the holy shrine of Imam Ali and gave a fiery
speech urging people to demonstrate against the government and
to protect their leader. As the news of his arrest spread, riots
broke out in Baghdad, Basra, Diyala, Samawa, Kuwt, Diwaniyya,
Karbala, and other cities. The bazaar in Najaf closed down; angry
crowds clashed with the police. The whole city seemed under siege
as the government increased its security efforts. The spread
of violence in the country forced the regime to free Sadr the
next day.
The detention of Sadr gave the Ba'th regime a clear idea of the
extent of his support. His opposition to the regime had made
him a national leader and a galvanizer of popular opinion, and
his presence had become a threat to the survival of the regime.
The Ba'thists therefore determined to cut him off from his allies,
his ulama' and the rank and file of the Da'wa party. Muslim activists
were arrested en masse, tortured, and executed, and the mosques
the ulama' served were shut down. Even some prominent ulama'
who usually cooperated with the regime and supported its policy
were detained. The policy of the Ba'thist regime was not to spare
any effective Shi'i religious forces in the country. Government
documents show that the Revolutionary Court passed at least 258
death sentences out of twenty-two trials.60
Sadr himself was placed under house arrest, which the regime
tried to extract concessions from him. During his interrogation
of Sadr in August 1979, Fadil al-Barak, the head of the security
agency, demanded that he make a public statement denouncing the
Iranian Revolution and supporting the Iraqi policy toward Iran.
When Sadr refused the regime softened its language, and a new
mediator, Shaykh Isa al-Khaqani, was sent to ask Sadr to fulfill
only one of five conditions to spare his life: withdraw his support
of Ayatollah Khomeini and of the Iranian regime; or issue a statement
supporting one of the government's policies such as the nationalization
of foreign oil companies and national autonomy for the Kurds;
or issue a fatwa forbidding association with the Da'wa party;
or revoke the fatwa that prohibited joining the Ba'th party;
or be interviewed by an Iraqi or other Arab newspaper that was
affiliated with the Iraqi regime. By then Sadr, according to
his personal secretary al-Nu'mani, had concluded that his days
were numbered any way, and he decided to reject all government
demands in anticipation of his martyrdom. He told al-Khaqani,
the Ba'th regime's mediator:
The only thing I have sought in my life is to make the establishment of an Islamic government on earth possible. Since it has been formed in Iran under the leadership of Imam [Khomeini] it makes no difference to me whether I am alive or dead because the dream I wanted to attain and the hope I wanted to achieve have come true, thanks to God.61
When the Islamic fundamentalist groups, the Da'wa party and Islamic
Action Organization headed by al-Shirazi and the Mudarisi brothers,62
saw the regime harassing their leader, they took up arms against
the Ba'th officials. They attacked the Ba'th party ideologue
Tariq Aziz (then the foreign minister) in Mustansiriyya University.
Aziz was supposed to deliver a speech to the Ba'th party members
among the university's student body stating the regime's policy
towards Iran. Muslim activists threw a bomb at Aziz, injuring
him and killing his bodyguards. At the public funeral for the
guards another bomb was thrown at the funeral procession, killing
several people.63 The regime faced for the first time resistance
that was undermining its support among the Shi'a. Saddam Hussein,
by then the new president of the republic, during a hospital
visit to those who has been injured at Mustansiriyya, called
for revenge against the perpetrators. The regime's old tactic
of labeling the Muslim armed struggle as the work of Iranian
elements in the country was no longer convincing because, Muslim
anti-government activities continued to flourish even after more
than 130,000 Iraqis of Iranian origin had been deported to Iran.
Moreover, Sadr, the symbol of the Islamic movement, belonged
to a well-known Iraqi family. What the Ba'th regime needed was
to liquidate the Islamic movement altogether. On March 31, 1980,
the Revolutionary Command Council passed a law sentencing all
past and present members of the Da'wa party or its affiliated
organizations, or people working for its goals, to death. That
law eliminated any possibility of sparing Sadr's life.
Sadr had in any case left no room for retreat. While he was under
house arrest, he smuggled three messages to his associates calling
on the Iraqi people to resist the regime in any way possible.64
In these messages, he spoke as their leader in their name, and
he demanded from the government political and religious rights
for all people, Shi'is and Sunnis, Arab and Kurds. He even appealed
to the members of the Ba'th party, whose leader he accused of
violating the principles of the party itself. He challenged the
Ba'th leadership to allow the people for only one week to express
their hostility to the regime. In one of these messages, Sadr
issued an ultimatum: topple the regime and establish an Islamic
government in its place:
It is incumbent on every Muslim in Iraq and every Iraqi outside Iraq to do whatever he can, even if it cost him his life, to keep the jihad and struggle to remove this nightmare from the land of beloved Iraq, to liberate themselves from this inhuman gang, and to establish a righteous, unique, and honorable rule based on Islam.65
The security forces came for Sadr and his sister on April 5,
1980, and detained them in the headquarters of the National Security
Agency in Baghdad. Three days later, his body was brought back
to his uncle Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr in Najaf for secret burial.
The whereabouts of Bint al-Huda, his sister, were never disclosed
by the regime, but it is widely believed that she too was executed.66
Two weeks later, Ayatollah Khomeini announced the execution of
Sadr and his sister and called on the Iraqi people and the armed
forces to overthrow the Ba'th regime.
Sadr's involvement in politics in his early life was fortuitous
and not, in my view, the result of an overall plan on his part.
Here I differ with the conventional wisdom of the revolutionary
Islamists who claim the opposite. Sadr, as a young student and
scholar of jurisprudence, was dedicated entirely to his religious
studies; he took no part in political affairs after the 1958
coup in Iraq. His involvement in politics was a result of the
encouragement of his colleague and friend, Talib al-Rifa'i, who
introduced him to the founders of the Da'wa party.67 They in
turn saw in him the means to legitimize their political activities
within the nonpolitical Hawza of Najaf, because of his reputation
there. However, once he became engaged in the activities of the
party, he was regarded as its faqih, a position entailing supervision
of all its activities. His intellectual attainments, admired
by the insecure religious establishment of that time, especially
after the publication of his work, Falsafatuna, made him the
party's ideologue. Later, he became the religious leader of the
Islamic movement that spread out of Najaf to a large part of
the Muslim world. His sudden resignation from the party did nothing
to reduce his influence. In fact it was in part intended to open
the way to the leadership of the Shi'a community, i.e., the marja'iyya.
Activist Muslim jurists and the Islamic movement were hoping
that Sadr's elevation as supreme marja' would help spread their
mission and politicize Shi'a everywhere. It seemed to them only
a matter of time before Sadr would assume the marja'iyya, since
he was undisputably a resourceful jurist of the Hawza and "the
jewel of the religious schools," according to Khomeini.
It was possible, many thought, that the political acquiescence
of the marja'iyya could be ended.
In his final two years, Sadr was dragged into public opposition
to the regime by the Iranian leadership and by those in Iraq,
especially in the Da'wa party and among Sadr's close associates
who influenced by the Iranian revolution. He did not believe
the time was ripe; "the objective conditions," to use
his terminology, were not in place. According to al-Nu'mani,
Sadr was not pleased when the Da'wa organized a public procession
to show their allegiance to him, because it would expose its
members and supporters to government persecution. If Sadr had
felt that conditions had reached a revolutionary stage, he would
not have anticipated the regime's repression. However, the Iranian
leaders went ahead with their public campaign; in their Arabic
broadcasts to the Iraqi people, they asked them to follow Sadr
and topple the Ba'th regime.68 They encouraged Islamic political
organizations in Iraq to organize demonstrations and protests
similar to those used by the Iranian revolution in which people
shouted slogans claiming the spiritual leadership of Sadr. This
put Sadr in an awkward position: to support the masses who were
calling for his leadership he would betray his own convictions.
As a religious jurist, he was constrained to side with those
people who needed his guidance and demanded his leadership against
tyranny. He was probably never consulted by the leaders in Iran
or of the Islamic movement in Iraq. Evidently, he simply heard
the messages of Ayatollah Khomeini and other Iranian leaders
urging him to revolt against the government on the radio. Some
of the earliest public protests and demonstrations in his support
by the Islamic organizations were also spontaneous, started by
enthusiastic supporters galvanized by the spectacular success
of the revolution in Iran.69 Later the Da'wa party welcomed these
demonstrations, and put pressure on the marja's in Najaf (Khoei
and Sadr) to initiate a movement like Ayatollah Khomeini's in
Iraq.70 The leaders of the party concluded that conditions were
ripe to start the revolution against the Ba'thist regime. The
Iranian experience showed them that if public demonstrations
were large enough the regime could not crush the multitude of
protesters. Their mistakes were overestimating the revolutionary
frame of mind of the masses in Iraq and assuming that the Ba'th
regime would react to public protest like the Shah had. For those
miscalculations Sadr and his followers paid a deadly price.
References
1.Islamic Da'wa party, Istishhad al-Imam Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr
min Mandhur Hadhari, (n.p, 1981), pp. 36-37.
2. These groups included Fedaian Islam founded by Nawab Safavi
in the late 1940s and later headed by Sadiq Khilkhili, the head
of the revolutionary courts in 1979-80; Mujahidiyn Khalq, a Socialist
Islamic organization supported by the late Ayatollah Talaqani;
and Nahzat Azadi, a liberal-Islamic group, founded by Mahdi Bazargan,
the first prime minister of the revolution appointed by Ayatollah
Khomeini.
3. For a full account of Qasim's regime, see Uriel Dann, Iraq
under Qassem (New York: Praeger, 1969).
4. On the influence and the atrocities of the Iraqi Communist
Party (ICP), see U. Zaher, "The Oppression," in CARDRI
(Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq),
ed., Saddam's Iraq, Revolution or Reaction?, (London: Zed, 1986),
pp. 148-50.
5. Hassan Shubar, "Dawr Hizb al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya fi al-Taghyir
wa-Halat al-Istirkha' al-Sabiqa," al-Jihad, 363 (October
24, 1988), 8.
6. According to Talib al-Rifa'i, a colleague of Sadr and a well-known
jurist activist in the 1950s and 1960s, Jamact al-cUlama' consisted
of ten mujtahids: Murtada Al Yasiyyn, Abbas al-Rumaythi, Isma'il
al-Sadr, Muhammad Tahir Shaykh Radi, Muhammad Jawad Shaykh Radi,
Muhammad Taqi Bahr al-Ulum, Musa Bahr al-Ulum, Muhammad Reda
al-Mudhaffar, Husayn al-Hamadani, and Muhammad Baqir Shakhs.
7. Interview with Mohammad Baqir al-Hakam, al-Jihad 5 (Summer,
1980), 7-9.
8. Muhammad Husayn Fadlullah, "Taqdim, preface to Muhammad
Baqir al-Sadr, Resalatuna (Beirut: al-Dar al-Islamiyya, 1981),
p. 16.
9. An interview with one of the leading figures in the Jamacat
al-cUlama' and the Da'wa party, in January 1, 1990; he requested
anonymity and will be referred to here as A.H.F.
10. Interview with Talib al-Rifa'i.
11. However, al-Awa', according to Talib al-Rifa'i, was later
to become the voice of the Islamic Da'wa party; it published
party doctrine in editorials and articles.
12. Fadlullah, "Taqdim," p.17.
13. Talib al-Rifa'i told me that Sadr did not have the money
to buy books on Western philosophy, but a friend, an Arab nationalist
and an owner of a bookstore, generously let him borrow them.
14. However, according to A.H.F, the al-Siwaki brothers, Hadi
and Mahdi, who were members of the Tahrir party, proposed forming
a political party to Murtada al-Askari, who in turn contacted
Sadr to set up the party's structure and write its doctrine.
According to A.H.F, Mahdi al-Hakim and Talib al-Rifaci were among
the first to be contacted and to join.
15. Al-Asadi, "izb al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya," ariq al-aq,
August, 1980, p. 46.
16. Sadr, according to the Da'wa party, wrote four articles in
the official journal of the party, awt al-Da'wa, explaining the
name, the structure, the goals, and the nature of the political
struggle to build up the party. The articles published in Da'wa
party publication no. 13, Min Fikr al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya: al-Shahid
al Rabi', al-Imam al-Sadr (n.d, n.p.)
17. Al-Asadi, "izb al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya," p. 48.
18. According to al-Rifa'i, Sadr decided to resign from the party
at Samarra, where the shrines of Imams al-cAskariyyn are located,
after randomly selecting a verse from the Qur'an and using it
as a basis for his decision.
19. Hussein al-Safi was the head of the Ba'th party in Najaf,
which cooperated with the Islamic forces to counter the communist
surge. Jamacat al-cUlama' used Muhammad Reda Sheikh Radi as a
link between them and al-Safi's nationalist and Ba'thist forces,
and was well aware of Sadr's activities. When the Bacthists came
to power in 1963, al-Safi was appointed governor of Diwaniyya,
a principality near Najaf. He later retired from politics, and
emigrated to Morocco in the 1970s to become a businessmen. Saddam
invited him to Iraq in 1985, and later executed him.
20. For a full account of the situation, see Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim's
interview in al-Jihad 14 (Jamadi al-Thani 1401). Al-Hakim referred
to a letter explaining the whole episode that Sadr sent to him
when the latter was in Lebanon.
21. Ibid.
22. Fadlullah, "Taqdim," p. 17.
23. A famous saying of Sadr, "Mujtamacuna la yatahaml Mujtamacuna"
(Our society cannot bear Our Society).
24. Interview with A.H.F., Jan 1, 1990.
25. Conversation with Muhammad H. Fadlullah in St. Louis, December,
1982; also see his "Taqdim," p. 17.
26. Fadil al-Nuri, al-Shahid al-Sadr Fada'iluhu wa-Shama'iluhu,
(Qum: Mahmuwwd al-Hashimi Office, 1984), p. 93.
27. The Sadr book in Usul is al-Macalim al-Jadida fi Usul al-Fiqh
See Fadil al-Nuri, al-Shahid al-Sadr, p. 64; and S. D. al-Qubanchi,
al-Jihad al-Siyasi, p. 79.
28. Ibid.
29. The association headed by Hadi al-Hakim and Murtada al-Askari.
In the late 1960s, Mahdi al-Hakim, became the best and most outspoken
member of the association. See "Interview with al-Askari,"
Liwa' al-Sadr, Jamadi al-Thani 7, 1409, p. 6.
30. The meeting was held in al-Karada al-Sharqiyya, a suburb
of Baghdad, attended by sixty religious scholars from Baghdad
and Kadhimiyah; see al-Shahada, Jamadi al-Thani 2, 1409.
31. Liwa' al-Sadr, Shacban 29, 1409.
32. Murtada al-Askari, "Jidhuwwr wa-Khalfiyat al-Taharuk
al-Islami fi Muwajahat al-Ba'th al-cAflaqi," Liwa' al-Sadr,
Muharam 22, 1409, p. 10.
33. Ibid.
34. The Ba'thist government tried to influence the selection
of the Supreme Mujtahid of the Shica through a campaign on behalf
of Shaykh Ali Kashif al-Ghita' who publicly endorsed the regime.
However, Sadr and Muhsin al-Hakim's eldest son Yusuf put their
weight behind Khoei. On the selection of Ayatollah Khoei, see
also Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam, Musa al-Sadr and the Shia
of Lebanon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), p.
194.
35. Qubanchi, al-Jihad al-Siyasi, p. 74.
36. Da'wa Party, Lamaat min masirat hizb al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya,
(n.p., n.d.), p. 25.
37. Salih al-Adib, "Mawakb al-Talaba," al-Jihad, Feb
29, 1988, p. 12.
38. Sahib Dakhiyyl, editor of the Da'wa party's underground journal,
Sawt al-Da'wa, was detained on Sept. 28, 1971, and later executed;
al-Jihad, Jan. 3, 1983.
39. The five sentenced to death were Shaykh cArif al-Basri, cIz
al-Din al-Qubanchi, cImad al-Tabrizi, Hussein Chalukhan, and
Nuri Tucma. See Islamic Da'wa party, Shuhada' Baghdad (Tehran:
Islamic Da'wa party publication, 1982).
40. On the reaction of Ayatollah Khumeini to the execution of
five "martyrs," see al-Jihad, Rabiyc al-Awwal 1404,
p. 44.
41. Qubanchi is the only one to mention that Sadr was detained
by the government in 1971, but was not imprisoned because of
his poor health; he was, however, tied to his hospital bed (see
al-Jihad al-Siyasi, p. 53).
42. Another marajic in Najaf was Ruhallah Khumeini; there were
others in Qum such as Gulpaygani, Shariycat-Madari (d. 1985),
Marcashi-Najafi (d. 1989); and in Mashhad cAbdullah Shirazi (d.
1986).
43. For detailed accounts of the uprising, see Racad al-Musawi,
Intifaat afr al-Islamiyya fi cIraq, 2nd ed. (Qum: Amiyr al-Mu'miniyyn,
1983) pp. 66-68.
44. Ibid., pp. 71-73.
45. Ibid., pp. 68-69.
46. Ibid., pp. 95-99.
47. Ibid., p. 101
48. Ibid., pp. 102-103.
49. The three members of the court were Izat Mustafa, Minister
of Health, Hasan Ali, and Falayh Jasim, all members of the regional
command of the Ba'th party.
50. In a letter to his former pupils and disciples in Iran, Sadr
expressed his admiration for Khomeini, and demanded they support
him. Sadr said that Khomeini's marja'iyya had achieved the goals
of the "objective marja'iyya," which he has theorized
years ago. For the text of the letter, see al-Ha'iri, Mabaith
ilm al-usul (Qum: n.p., 1988) pp. 145-46.
51. The message was not publicized because Sadr's disciple living
in Iran thought such a statement would endanger Sadr's life.
For the full text of the message, see al-Ha'iri, Mabaith, pp.
142-45.
52. Ibid, p. 114.
53. Because of the 1975 agreement between Iraq and Iran, the
Ba'th government supported the Shah. Saddam, then the vice president,
had declared in one of the party meetings in Basra, al-Shah baqi,
baqi, baqi ("The Shah will survive, will survive, will survive").
54. For the text, see Ha'iri, Mabaith, p. 147.
55. For texts of Khomeini's message to Sadr, see Ibid., pp. 117-18.
Khomeini insulted Sadr by addressing him as ujjat al-Islam wa-al-Muslimiyn,
a title used for a low-ranking calim; Sadr was then a marja'
of well-known reputation and usually addressed as ayatullah al-cuma
(grand ayatollah). Only after Sadr's death did Khumeini start
referring to him as Ayatollah Sadr.
56. Conversation with Sayyid M. H. Fadlullah in 1982.
57. For the text of Sadr's reply to Khomeini, see al-Ha'iri Mabaith,
p. 123.
58. Al-Nu'mani quoted in al-Ha'iri, Mabaith, p. 119.
59. al-Jihad, May 2, 1983.
60. Al-Jihad, May 2, 1983.
61. Al-Nu'mani as quoted in al-Ha'iri, Mabaith, pp. 162-63.
62. Munaamat al-Amal al-Islami (Islamic Task Organization) is
a splinter group of the Da'wa party. Their leader, Muhammad Mahdi
al-Shirazi, was one of the first group, according to Mahdi al-Hakim,
to join the Da'wa party. In the early 1970s he and his brother
Hasan (assassinated in Lebanon in 1980) formed their own organization,
al-'Amal al-Islami as a result of disagreement with Da'wa over
an issue of leadership of the party and political tactics. When
al-Shirazi announced his marja'iyya in 1970, Muhammad Taqi al-Mudrisi
and Hadi al-Mudrisi headed al-'Amal, while Shirazi assumed the
role of spiritual leader of the organization.
63. Chibli Mallat, "Religious Militancy in Contemporary
Iraq: Muhammas Baqer as-Sadr and the Sunni-Shia Paradigm,"
Third World Quarterly, April, 1988, p. 728.
64. According to Da'wa party members, these recorded messages
were supposed to be published and distributed to people inside
and outside Iraq, but they were censored by his associates fearing
the regime's reprisal on Sadr's life and were not made public
until after his death.
65. For the full text of Sadr's three messages to the Iraqi people
in Arabic; see al-Ha'iri, Mabaith, pp. 147-153; for an English
translation see Abu Ali, A Glimpse of the Life of The Martyred
Imam: Muhammad Baqer al-Sadr and His Last Three Messages (n.d.,
n.p), pp. 16-19.
66. According to one of Sadr's cousins, the family of Sadr still
hopes that the regime has spared the life of Amina al-Sadr, but
the Islamic movement always refers to her as a martyr.
67. See an interview with Mahdi al-Hakim on the history of the
Islamic movement in Iraq in Liwa' al-Sadr, Jan 12, 1990, 12.
68. One of the examples of how Sadr was pushed into unplanned
direct confrontation against the government was when he was hospitalized
in 1979, and one of the Iranian ulama asked Talib al-Rifaci to
write a get-well telegram in Arabic to Sadr. However, the draft
was rejected on the basis that its language was too mild and
did not include a harsh statement against Saddam and the Ba'th
party. Al-Rifaci refused to write such a statement because it
would endanger Sadr's life.
69. An interview with Ahmad Kubba, one of the Da'wa members who
initiated the first demonstration after the Friday sermon of
Ayatollah Khoei in the Masjid al-Khadra in Najaf, in 1978. He
said that he had no orders from the party to start the demonstration.
Rather the party officials discouraged such a move. He then had
supported public protests only after the success of the revolution
in Iran.
70. Ayatollah Khoei advised Sadr, via the latter's representative
in Kuwait, that he should not involve himself in a political
struggle then because the Ba'thist government would certainly
kill him at a time when the Hawza needed his services.