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Victory News Magazine |
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The Role Of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr In Shi'a Political Activism In Iraq From 1958 TO 1980 |
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The Ba’th Party’s rise to power on July 17, 1968, started a new phase in the conflict between Shi’a leaders, Muhsin al-Hakim and Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and the central government in Baghdad. The regime faced two leaders, who both had charisma and political clout, al-Hakim through his symbolic leadership of the Shi’a 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 Shi’a’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 Risalat 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’a leaders appeared to be disorganized and the Ba’th regime to
catch them by surprise. Unaware of the Ba’thist’s plan to eliminate
the political structure of the Shi’a 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’a 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’a 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 Ba’thist’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 Jama’at 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’a businessmen who
had links to Iran and the West (by which they meant the United States and
Israel).(33) This
accusation put the Shi’a 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 Ayatullah Khoei, the mentor of Sadr, refrained from
taking any action against the Ba’thist government.(34) After
Muhsin al-Hakim died, the Ba’th 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 Ayatullah Khoei to issue an order (hukm)
to students to stay in Najaf and continue their studies.(35)
Unwilling to antagonize the new Shi’a marja’ , Ayatullah 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 ‘Isam, died under torture in 1973. He was the
organizer of the student procession held in Karbala (37)
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 marja’ and the heir-apparent of Grand marja’ Ayatullah Khoei. (42) However, he was aware that the marja’iyya, the Shi’as’ 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 marja’ 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 ummah, 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 ‘ulama’ 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 Shi’as, 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 religious 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 Ayatullah 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. Ayatullah Khomeini Not Executed by Shah of Iran 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 Ayatullah Khomeini after the maraji’ 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’s 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.
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Chapter
Six- Confrontation with the Ba’th Party
