Scholar discusses role of competing clerics in Iraq

A successful Iraqi democracy will in large part depend on which Islamic Shi'ite leader garners the most support in the coming months, said the eminent Islamic scholar Roy Mottahedeh in a lecture last night.

Comprising nearly 60 percent of the Iraqi population, the Shi'ite community is not unified in support of any religious cleric.

In southern Iraq, where the Shi'ite community is most concentrated, Ayatollah Ali Sistani seems to have the most support among the more liberal, educated, and middle-class Shi'ites. However, in the densely populated suburbs of Baghdad, where the mostly poor and extremist Shiites live, Ayatollah Moqtada Sadr holds sway, Mottahedeh said.

Sadr, though much less trained in Islamic law than Sistani, has gained a large following mainly because of "the system of astrictive status" among Iraqi Shi'ites in which certain clerical families have "great importance," Mottahedeh said.

Sadr is the grandson of the most famous Iraqi cleric Mohammed Bakir Sadr, who founded a Shi'ite school in Iraq in the 1960's where Sistani was once a student, Mottahedeh said.

Moqtada Sadr has roused the passions of many destitute Iraqi Shi'ites because of his largely inflammatory sermons which are broadcast throughout the Muslim world. Advocating a strong form of Islamic government in the new Iraq, the United States has strongly opposed Sadr and his brand of political Islam, Mottahedeh said.

Mottahedeh, a Harvard professor who is considered one of the foremost scholars today in Islamic history, said that in the political battle between Sadr and Sistani, the latter may ultimately win because of the strong financial support he receives from middle-class Shi'ites.

Sistani is a more moderate leader who advocates a future Iraqi government with Islamic values, but one that is democratic and respects basic human rights. While also accepting the assistance of foreign powers to bring about a democratic Islamic state, Sistani stresses that aid must come from the United Nations, not solely the United States.

Sistani arose as a dominant political rival to Sadr during the 1990s, when Saddam Hussein led a violent campaign against Iraq's Shi'ite community. The Shi'ites revolted against him during the first Persian Gulf War, and were verbally supported by the United States but received no physical aid.

The revolt and its subsequent suppression was not the first time Hussein had tried to annihilate Iraq's Shi'ite population, however. Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, had long seen Shiites as a problematic faction because of their inherent religious differences with Sunni Muslims and because of ethnic connections tying them to Iran's religious regime, which is predominantly Shi'ite.

"The hysteria of the Iranian domination of the South [today] however is really just hysteria," Mottahedeh stressed. Because of the tribal nature of Iraqi society and Iraqi nationalism, Mottahedeh claims Iraqi Shiites pledge greater allegiance to their state version of Shia Islam rather than pan-Islamic Shiism.

But, Mottahedeh said, "The capture of Saddam Hussein is an essential prerequisite for any kind of stability in Iraq."