Alexander Dziadosz
By Alexander Dziadosz & Raheem Salman
Over his past three Friday sermons, Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, an ascetic 83-year-old of almost mythological stature to millions of followers in Iraq and beyond, has seized his most active role in politics in a decade. From his spartan office in the holy city of Najaf, down an alleyway protected by armed guards, Sistani has asserted his dominance over public affairs, demanding politicians choose a new government without delay and potentially hastening the end of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s eight-year tenure.
The cleric, a recluse who favours a behind-the-scenes role, kicked off his newly assertive stance on June 13 with a call for Iraqis to take up arms against a Sunni insurgency — the first fatwa of its kind in a century, clerics familiar with Sistani’s thinking say, motivated by his fear the state faced collapse. Tens of thousands of men have heeded the call, bolstering an army that at times seemed close to implosion. Sistani’s appeal for an inclusive government has further been seen as an implicit rebuke of Maliki, even by some of the premier’s supporters.
On Friday he called on political blocs to choose a prime minister, president and speaker of parliament by July 1, meaning Maliki could be replaced within days. “Today, the roadmap is clear and there is a timetable. It’s as if Sistani has put all the parties in a corner,” a Shia lawmaker said. The fatwas also carry risks, both in the near and long term. Sunni leaders say Sistani’s call to arms inflamed the conflict. And, more broadly, the fatwas revive an old question of what role Najaf’s clerics, who traditionally keep their distance from politics, will play in affairs of state.
The Shi’ite lawmaker, who has good relations with the clergy, put it succinctly: “Sistani is the driver now.” Shi’ites are required to choose a senior cleric, known as a “marjaa”, to emulate, usually one who has attained the top rank of grand ayatollah after many decades of study at either of the two great seminaries, in Najaf, Iraq or Qom, Iran. Mohammad Hussein Al Hakim, whose father is another of Najaf’s four top clerics, reaches deep into history to describe the threat Shi’ites now feel from the hardline Sunni Islamists spearheading the insurgency.
Two centuries ago, puritanical Sunnis rampaged through the holy city of Kerbala north of Najaf. Without the clerics’ intervention, Hakim said, history might have repeated itself. He listed abuses and atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Al Qaeda splinter group spearheading the insurgency: Tombs have been razed, Shi’ites murdered, mosques sacked. “They will leave no culture or values behind,” Hakim said. “Their behaviour is monstrous.”
Thaer Al Khateeb, a 56-year-old fabric seller who works down the street from the Imam Ali shrine, said Sistani’s fatwa had saved the nation. The charge that Sunnis were marginalised was exaggerated, he said, by those who wanted “to turn the wheel back”. “They don’t let you live — the remnants of the old regime and those whose interests were hurt with the new regime,” Khateeb said. “They are saying, ‘We have ruled for 1,400 years and now you are coming to rule us? Impossible’.”
The most immediate consequence of Sistani’s involvement may be to speed up the formation of a new government — a process that took about nine months the last time it was attempted in 2010 — potentially hastening the end of Maliki’s premiership. Sistani’s call on Friday for politicians to choose a prime minister by July 1 left no doubt the crisis had compelled him to take his most active stance since the early days of the US occupation, when he successfully pushed in 2004 for early elections and a constitutional referendum.
The move piles pressure on Maliki, who many Iraqi and Western officials blame for alienating Kurds and Sunnis and failing to forestall the insurgency. In his second sermon after the crisis erupted, Sistani called for an inclusive government, which some figures across the political spectrum saw as a signal the prime minister should go. “The door was closed on Maliki,” the Shi’ite lawmaker said. Another official from Maliki’s ruling alliance acknowledged Sistani’s statements implied criticism of the prime minister’s policies, but said the top cleric was not trying to oust him.
“Sistani doesn’t want to get involved in who is the next prime minister, but there has to be progress,” he said. There is also a chance that even the censure of Sistani, the United States and Iran may not be enough to unseat Maliki, a masterful player of Iraq’s political game, said Hayder Al Khoie, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank. Yet the situation now is urgent, clerics say. Bodies of soldiers killed by insurgents regularly arrive in Najaf, expanding a vast cemetery where tombs are plastered with images of men who died in the sectarian warfare of 2006 and 2007.
During that earlier conflict and the entire period of US occupation Sistani called for restraint, while relatively junior but more radical clerics, like Moqtada al-Sadr, rallied Shi’ites to fight at times mocking the caution of their elders. Ali Al Najafi, son of another of Najaf’s grand ayatollahs, said the difference is that ISIL now poses an existential threat to Iraq’s Shi’ites — better-armed than previous insurgents and with allies among members of Saddam’s old regime.
If Sistani’s fatwa had not reinvigorated Iraq’s army during the anxious days when it seemed the insurrection might sweep to Baghdad, “then we would not be meeting here today,” Najafi said. He would not object to US air strikes, he said, nor would he oppose Shi’ite militias joining the fight to eradicate ISIL - as long as it were done legally. “This is a threat to Iraq’s existence.... And it is a threat to our people, to the Shi’ites generally, and non-Shi’ites too.”
The greatest risk of Sistani’s activism, Sunni critics say, is that it may sharpen the sectarian edge of the conflict.Reuters
By Alexander Dziadosz & Raheem Salman
Over his past three Friday sermons, Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, an ascetic 83-year-old of almost mythological stature to millions of followers in Iraq and beyond, has seized his most active role in politics in a decade. From his spartan office in the holy city of Najaf, down an alleyway protected by armed guards, Sistani has asserted his dominance over public affairs, demanding politicians choose a new government without delay and potentially hastening the end of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s eight-year tenure.
The cleric, a recluse who favours a behind-the-scenes role, kicked off his newly assertive stance on June 13 with a call for Iraqis to take up arms against a Sunni insurgency — the first fatwa of its kind in a century, clerics familiar with Sistani’s thinking say, motivated by his fear the state faced collapse. Tens of thousands of men have heeded the call, bolstering an army that at times seemed close to implosion. Sistani’s appeal for an inclusive government has further been seen as an implicit rebuke of Maliki, even by some of the premier’s supporters.
On Friday he called on political blocs to choose a prime minister, president and speaker of parliament by July 1, meaning Maliki could be replaced within days. “Today, the roadmap is clear and there is a timetable. It’s as if Sistani has put all the parties in a corner,” a Shia lawmaker said. The fatwas also carry risks, both in the near and long term. Sunni leaders say Sistani’s call to arms inflamed the conflict. And, more broadly, the fatwas revive an old question of what role Najaf’s clerics, who traditionally keep their distance from politics, will play in affairs of state.
The Shi’ite lawmaker, who has good relations with the clergy, put it succinctly: “Sistani is the driver now.” Shi’ites are required to choose a senior cleric, known as a “marjaa”, to emulate, usually one who has attained the top rank of grand ayatollah after many decades of study at either of the two great seminaries, in Najaf, Iraq or Qom, Iran. Mohammad Hussein Al Hakim, whose father is another of Najaf’s four top clerics, reaches deep into history to describe the threat Shi’ites now feel from the hardline Sunni Islamists spearheading the insurgency.
Two centuries ago, puritanical Sunnis rampaged through the holy city of Kerbala north of Najaf. Without the clerics’ intervention, Hakim said, history might have repeated itself. He listed abuses and atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Al Qaeda splinter group spearheading the insurgency: Tombs have been razed, Shi’ites murdered, mosques sacked. “They will leave no culture or values behind,” Hakim said. “Their behaviour is monstrous.”
Thaer Al Khateeb, a 56-year-old fabric seller who works down the street from the Imam Ali shrine, said Sistani’s fatwa had saved the nation. The charge that Sunnis were marginalised was exaggerated, he said, by those who wanted “to turn the wheel back”. “They don’t let you live — the remnants of the old regime and those whose interests were hurt with the new regime,” Khateeb said. “They are saying, ‘We have ruled for 1,400 years and now you are coming to rule us? Impossible’.”
The most immediate consequence of Sistani’s involvement may be to speed up the formation of a new government — a process that took about nine months the last time it was attempted in 2010 — potentially hastening the end of Maliki’s premiership. Sistani’s call on Friday for politicians to choose a prime minister by July 1 left no doubt the crisis had compelled him to take his most active stance since the early days of the US occupation, when he successfully pushed in 2004 for early elections and a constitutional referendum.
The move piles pressure on Maliki, who many Iraqi and Western officials blame for alienating Kurds and Sunnis and failing to forestall the insurgency. In his second sermon after the crisis erupted, Sistani called for an inclusive government, which some figures across the political spectrum saw as a signal the prime minister should go. “The door was closed on Maliki,” the Shi’ite lawmaker said. Another official from Maliki’s ruling alliance acknowledged Sistani’s statements implied criticism of the prime minister’s policies, but said the top cleric was not trying to oust him.
“Sistani doesn’t want to get involved in who is the next prime minister, but there has to be progress,” he said. There is also a chance that even the censure of Sistani, the United States and Iran may not be enough to unseat Maliki, a masterful player of Iraq’s political game, said Hayder Al Khoie, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank. Yet the situation now is urgent, clerics say. Bodies of soldiers killed by insurgents regularly arrive in Najaf, expanding a vast cemetery where tombs are plastered with images of men who died in the sectarian warfare of 2006 and 2007.
During that earlier conflict and the entire period of US occupation Sistani called for restraint, while relatively junior but more radical clerics, like Moqtada al-Sadr, rallied Shi’ites to fight at times mocking the caution of their elders. Ali Al Najafi, son of another of Najaf’s grand ayatollahs, said the difference is that ISIL now poses an existential threat to Iraq’s Shi’ites — better-armed than previous insurgents and with allies among members of Saddam’s old regime.
If Sistani’s fatwa had not reinvigorated Iraq’s army during the anxious days when it seemed the insurrection might sweep to Baghdad, “then we would not be meeting here today,” Najafi said. He would not object to US air strikes, he said, nor would he oppose Shi’ite militias joining the fight to eradicate ISIL - as long as it were done legally. “This is a threat to Iraq’s existence.... And it is a threat to our people, to the Shi’ites generally, and non-Shi’ites too.”
The greatest risk of Sistani’s activism, Sunni critics say, is that it may sharpen the sectarian edge of the conflict.Reuters
