# Posted 6:41 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

SADDAM VS. SADR: 1979. Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was the father-in-law and distant cousin of Moqtada Sadr, our unpredictable adversary today in Iraq. Baqir al-Sadir, along with his sister Bint al-Huda, was tortured and killed by Saddam's henchmen in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution. The revolution in Shi'ite Iran provoked a sort of uprising among Shi'ites in neighboring in Iraq:

A ferocious campaign of repression therefore began against members of the [Shi'ite group] al-Da'wa and other similar organizations.

The repression led to protests from Shi'i leaders. Chief among these was Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr who was placed under house arrest in June 1979. The repercussions awoke the regime's fears of the reservoir of dissent that existed amongst the Shi'a: massive demonstrations of support for al-Sadr, mixed with protest against the government, were organized in Najaf, then in Karbala, Kufa and Madinat al-Thawra, the largely Shi'i public housing quarter of Baghdad. Indeed in Madinat al-Thawra the Ba'ath's apparatus of surveillance and repression collapsed under the weight of the protests.

These events sharpened Saddam Hussein's concerns about the hidden power of the Shi'a and the doubtful reliability of the Ba'th Party in a crisis. Instead he turned to the more trustworthy security services, bringing the streets under control through violence and arresting nearly 5,000 people, including number of Shi'i clerics and even some Sunni 'ulama. Many were executed and some of the most prominent Shi'i clergy were expelled from Iraq. Al-Sadr remained under house arrest, but tapes of his sermons denouncing the regime were circulated to considerable effect throughout Iraq, listened to by Shi'i and Sunni alike. (Quotation from Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, pp. 220-221.)

This violent outbreak took place less than a month before Saddam Hussein formally became president of Iraq (although he was already in firm control of the regime). The next spring, after an assassination attempt against Deputy Prime Minister Tariq 'Aziz, Baqir al-Sadr was imprisoned, tortured and killed along with his sister. Moqtada would've been too young to remember this directly, yet one imagines that it was an experience that loomed over his childhood in the Sadr family. And then his own father and brothers were murdered by Saddam almost twenty years later.

If we are fortunate, the recently declared ceasefire with Moqtada Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) will result in signficantly fewer attacks on US forces, even if it doesn't end the violence among Shi'ite militias. If we aren't so fortunate, it would be wise to remember the brutal experiences that shaped our adversary.

Labels: Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Shi'ites

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# Posted 5:06 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

BA'ATHISTS VS. SHI'ITES: THE EARLY YEARS. Hasan al-Bakr led the Ba'athists to power in Iraq in 1968, via the usual military coup. Within months, al Bakr found himself in a conflict with Iran over the Shatt-al-'Arab waterway that both countries bordered.

In April 1969, Hasan al-Bakr tried to persuade the senior [Shi'ite] mujtahid, Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim, publicly to condemn the Iranian government in its dispute with Iraq over the Shatt al-'Arab. Al-Hakim refused.

In response, Hasan al-Bakr took a series of measures aimed as much at the Shi'i hierarchy in Iraq as at Iran: Iranian religious students were arrested and expelled; the independent Kufa University at Najaf was closed down and its endowments confiscated; roughly 20,000 people of alleged Iranian descent were summarily expelled across the border with Iran.

The mounting campaign of harassment of the Shi'a, under the guise of uprooting the 'Iranian threat', brought sharp protests from the Shi'i hierarchy. In June 1969, Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim led a protest procession from Najaf to Baghdad, where thousands of Shi'a flocked to pay him their respects. The scale of this demonstration of loyalty so alarmed the authorities that the security services seized his son, Sayyid Mahdi al-Hakim, on trumped up charges of spying for Israel. The charge was then used to prevent people from visiting the ayatollah.

However, this did not stop the protests, which took the form of sermons and of petitions demanding an end to arbitrary arrest and torture, an end to the expulsions of 'Iranians' and end to the continued confiscation of property of those whom the regime udged to be their opponents.

The government responded by arresting 'ulama [clerics] who had dared to by protest and by executing a Sunni 'alim [cleric], Shaikh 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Badri, who had preached in support of al-Hakim at one of the main Baghdad mosques. These measures were followed by the confiscation of religious endowments in Najaf, the banning of religious processions and the closing of Islamic schools in many of the predominantly Shi'i towns.

Alarmed by the apparent formation of a common Islamic front between Sunni and Shi'a, the government abandoned its early pretence of respect for Islamic values by prohibiting readings of the Qur'an on the state broadcasting networks and ending Islamic instruction in state schools.

Inevitably, these measures sparked off protests. Days of rioting and demonstration followed in the cities of the largely Shi'i south, most notably in Najaf, Karbala and Basra. These were violently suppressed by the government's security forces. For his part, Ayatollah al-Hakim issued a fatwa prohibiting membership of the Ba'th, and his son, now released from custody, prudently fled into exile.

(Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, pp.202-203)

I continue to find it how fascinating how, until relatively recently, Iraq's Sunni and Shi'ite communities shared a common Islamic identity, defined in opposition to the secularism of the Ba'athist state.

FYI, "Shi'ite" is an Anglicization of the Arabic noun and adjective "Shi'i". An individual is a Shi'i. Many Shi'i are Shi'a.

Labels: Iraq, Shi'ites

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