Victory News Magazine

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

Chapter Three- al-Hawza al-’ilmiyya (Religious Academy)

The Shi’a religious establishment in the al-Hawza al-’ilmiyya (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 Jama’at al-’Ulama’ in Najaf ⁽⁶⁾ 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, Ismail al-Sadr, a mujtahid who held a senior position in the Jama’at. ⁽⁸⁾

According to Talib al-Rifa’i, the Jama’at al-‘Ulama’ had as its immediate objective countering the Communist challenge to Islam. In their manoeuvring, 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⁾

Al-Hakim's Fatwa Identifying Communism With Atheism

This appeasement did not last long. Conflict between the religious leadership and Qasim erupted when Ayatullah 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 Ayatullah 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 suggested 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.

Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy; 1959) and Iqtisaduna (Our Economics; 1961)

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-Rifa’i and another, unknown, person. Al-Rifa’i 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 Shi’a 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.

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