Cleric builds a faith-based foundation

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

March 23, 2006

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr addresses a press conference in Najaf, Iraq. (AP Photo / March 13, 2006)

DAMASCUS, Syria - In the cloistered world of Iraq's Shia clergy, no other cleric inspires the extreme of emotions that Muqtada al-Sadr does.

To some, he is a hero who stood up to the U.S. military. To others, he is a renegade who fans anti-American sentiment for his own gain and does not heed the Shia religious leadership. But whatever feelings al-Sadr might inspire, he has established himself as a major power broker in the new Iraq.

While he doesn't have an official political party and insists he is not seeking any government post for himself, his supporters control 30 seats - one of the largest blocs - in the 275-member Iraqi parliament. That gives al-Sadr enormous clout in selecting the country's next government.

"He managed to turn his strength on the Iraqi street into political influence," said Hazem Shammari, a political science professor at Baghdad University. "He showed that he was a better tactician than his opponents believed."

Al-Sadr, 33, is most popular among poor, young Shias from Baghdad's slums and southern Iraq. Because the Shia majority was ruthlessly suppressed by Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, many had supported the U.S. invasion in March 2003. But since then, Shias have become disillusioned with the raging insurgency, the slow pace of reconstruction and the continued U.S. military presence.

Since he emerged in late 2003 as the fiercest Shia critic of the U.S. occupation, al-Sadr has been remarkably adept at using religious symbols to position himself as heir to a long line of Shia martyrs. By doing so, he has tapped into a central trait of Shia Islam: dying in defense of one's beliefs, as the sect's founding figures did in the seventh century.

In the struggle for power within the Shia community, al-Sadr has two claims to leadership: He is the son of a revered cleric killed by Hussein's regime, and he never left Iraq to live in comfortable exile. Since Hussein's ouster, al-Sadr has tried to win support by creating a social service network in Shia cities and modeling himself after his father's vision of an activist clergy.

But al-Sadr has been hampered by youth and lack of religious credentials. In the Shia hierarchy, he is a low-level cleric, several ranks and many years away from attaining the title of ayatollah, which would allow him to issue religious rulings.

His father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, was one of the pre-eminent scholars of the Shia world. Yet he had rivalries with other senior clerics and some of that enmity has been passed on to his son. Unlike Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the elder al-Sadr argued that clerics should be politically and socially involved.

Soon after the U.S. invasion, al-Sadr's followers took control of hospitals, schools and mosques in parts of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala. He provided social services in the absence of a central government. Posters of al-Sadr and his father lined the walls of Shia neighborhoods. He drew tens of thousands to his rallies and Friday sermons. He created a militia, the Mahdi Army, which is believed to have several thousand fighters.

In 2004, al-Sadr twice instigated revolts against U.S. troops in Shia sections of Baghdad and southern Iraq. The fighting ended in August 2004, when a cease-fire was finally arranged by al-Sistani and other senior clerics. The Mahdi Army was crippled in its confrontation with U.S. forces, and al-Sadr's future was in doubt.

"Al-Sadr's movement could have been wiped out in 2004," said Shammari. "But he rebuilt it."