Daily Times

*What you will read is used with permission. It is archived correspondence from a Shi’a colleague. The backdrop is needed to discuss policy issues. Enjoy this look back in history.

I guess a good place to begin would be to take things back and perhaps post-WWI. The Ottomans had been thrown out of Iraq and she was now to all intents and purposes a British colony. Whilst the natives were happy to be rid of the Turks, they were by no means enamoured of the idea of being ruled by ‘European infidels’. I am going to take the liberty of allowing myself a bout of plagiarism and quote from the British Defence Journal.

A T Wilson, the senior British officer in Iraq in 1920 took a predictable line. “We cannot maintain our position…by the policy of conciliation of extremists. Having set our hands to the task of regenerating Mesopotamia, we must be prepared to furnish men and money…We must be prepared…to go very slowly with constitutional and democratic institutions.”

There was fighting in the Shia town of Kufa and a British siege of Najaf after a British officer was murdered. The British demanded “the unconditional surrender of the murderers and others concerned with the plot”, and the leading Shi’a divine, Sayed Khadum Yazdi, abstained from supporting the rebellion and shut himself up in his house. Eleven of the insurgents were executed.

A local shiekh, Badr al-Rumaydh became a target. “Badr must be killed or captured, and a relentless pursuit of the man till this object is obtained should be carried out…” a British political officer wrote.

The British now realised they had made one big political mistake. They had alienated a major political group in Iraq of the former Turkish Iraqi officials and officers. The ranks of the disaffected swelled. For Kufa 1920, read Kufa 2004. For Najaf 1920, read Najaf 2004. For Yazdi, read Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. For Badr, read Muqtada al-Sadr.

So the Brits, having realised that compromises had to be made, decided to install Faisal, son of Sharif Hussain of Mecca (who himself had been kicked out of Mecca by the Sauds, courtesy yet again of the all-conquering Brits.) as the king of Iraq. What they did not do is make any attempt to talk to the Shi’a clergy and by default the Shi’a populace at large. A huge political mistake that continues to rankle the Shi’a to date, as they saw it as yet another lost opportunity to regain their rightful place in Iraqi society following the end of the hateful Ottoman regime. Faisal did try to reach out to the Shi’a but was hampered in his efforts by the largely British appointed and mainly Sunni ministers who saw the Shi’a as nothing more than a nuisance at best and agents of their Persian Shi’a neighbours at worst.

The Ayatollahs, as has been their wont through the centuries, retreated to their seminaries in Najaf where they continued with their policy of not totally cooperating, but also not raising their heads too much above the parapet. The massive influence they exerted over the Shi’a did not diminish. In fact, the sense of injustice felt by the Shi’a meant that the influence grew in strength. The seminaries now became the focus of quiet resistance by the Shi’a and the Ayatollahs became the leaders of a silent revolution. Iraq, meanwhile, descended into a succession of bloody coups under one guise or another until eventually, the ultimate Machiavellian a.k.a. Saddam Hussein took power.

Saddam, as has been the trait of absolute dictators and tyrants through history, wanted nothing less than complete, 100 percent control over the lives of every single citizen of his country, and he desperately wished to be seen as the benevolent and much loved father of a resurgent Arab nation. Unfortunately, he made some of the same mistakes as the Ummayads, the Abbasids, the Ottomans, the British, King Faisal and the assorted dictators that had preceded his rule. He totally underestimated the power of the Ayatollahs and the unquestioning loyalty of the Shi’a toward them. Whilst he was able to bring almost everyone to heel through sheer brutality and unbridled tyranny, he somehow could not totally kill off the love and affection of the Shi’a toward their clergy. Saddam could not stand the sight of the poor Shi’a peasants kissing the hand of the Grand Marj’a. He loathed the idea of the Shi’a paying Khums (a Shi’a taxation system) directly to the seminaries. He did everything in his unlimited power to stop this. Hundreds of clergy were executed, imprisoned or sent into exile. Tens of thousands of Shi’a were deported to Iran, falsely accused of being ‘Iranian immigrants’. Saddam ordered the killing of the Grand Marj’a Syed Baqir al Sadr, accusing him of being an Iranian spy. He did not stop at that. He ordered his sister, Sayyada Binte Huda be killed as well. When asked why, he said, “I will not make the same mistake as Yazeed.” (Remember the story of Sayyada Zainab?) He then tried to impose his own man as Grand Ayatollah, ‘appointing’ Syed Sadiq al-Sadr (cousin of Syed Baqir al-Sadr and father of Muqteda) as a challenge to the then Grand Ayatollah Syed Abul Qassem al-Khoei. Sadly, the plan did not work. In the grand tradition of the Shi’a clergy, Syed Sadiq al-Sadr declared himself to be totally independent of Saddam and ordered the imposition of Shari’a law in all the Shi’a towns and villages. Saddam had him executed as well.

An entente cordiale of sorts existed between the clergy and Saddam for a while, but this did not stop him from putting a ban on all Shi’a religious ceremonies, taking control of the Shi’a shrines and holy places and placing all seminaries under government control. He also had the Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei and his deputy Syed Ali al-Sistani placed under house arrest.

Next week we will see how a Grand Ayatollah stood his ground.

(To be continued)

The writer is a freelance journalist and author of the novel Arsenal. She can be reached at tammyswof@msn.com