Victory News Magazine

The Role Of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr In Shi'a Political Activism  In Iraq From 1958 TO 1980  

Conclusion

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 legitimise their political activities within the non-political 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 politicise Shi’a everywhere. It seemed to them only a matter of time before Sadr would assume the marja’iyya, since he was indisputably 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.

Sadr Was Dragged into Public Opposition

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 Ayatullah 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 Ayatullah 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.

www.victorynewsmagazine.com

Disclaimer