Nir Rosen - Aftermath

Nearby was the cemetery set aside for the martyrs of the Mahdi Army. Hundreds of tombs of young Mahdi Army fighters had flags waving on them. Pictures of the dead wielding weapons were placed behind glass on the stones. Many streets in Sadr City had been named after Mahdi Army men who had been martyred by the Americans on those streets. My friend Ahmed, himself a Mahdi Army fighter, visited the tombs of his friends after regaling his mother with tales of their derring-do fighting the Americans in Sadr City. Ahmed was related to an important Shiite politician, and his oldest brother led Mahdi Army fighters and planted roadside bombs for American convoys. I was told Ahmed dabbled in this as well.

We continued to the Shrine of Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. A steady stream of pilgrims went through the stringent security procedures to enter. Coffins were carried into the mosque to circle around Ali’s tomb before burial. Iranian pilgrims had their pictures taken in front of the shrine by enterprising Najaf boys with enough Farsi to take advantage of the dazed pilgrims. Pilgrims kissed the wooden doors and entered the vast courtyard where the golden shrine shimmered in the sun. Families sat in the shade and picnicked; others prayed together or strolled around. Outside, boys sold souvenir photos of Shiite leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr and his father.

Kufa, a town just outside Najaf, was dominated by followers of Muqtada. As we approached the Kufa Mosque, all roads were once more blocked off. We were searched by members of the Mahdi Army. Lugubrious latmiyas (mournful songs) echoed from the stalls, describing in rhythmic beats the death of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet, and professing loyalty to him. The mosque’s thick walls looked fortified. It had been used as a base for the Mahdi Army during the 2004 intifada, when thousands of fighters battled the Americans in Najaf and Kufa. Inside the mosque fighters had lined up to receive food and advanced weapons training. Small groups were instructed in how to use grenades and grenade launchers. Crates full of weapons had been stored in the mosque in those days, as well as in Muqtada’s office in Najaf.

It was in Kufa that Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr made his forty-seven famous sermons, beginning in 1998, when Saddam relaxed restrictions on such activities. Saddam promoted Sadr at first, viewing him as an Iraqi nationalist and as a pliable tool to use against Shiite leaders of Iranian or Pakistani descent, and against Iran. But Sadr, like Thomas à Becket, did not show sufficient loyalty to the ruler. In his last sermons he even criticized Saddam. In 1999 Sadr and two of his sons were shot on the road by unknown assailants. The government accused rival Shiites of the murder and executed the suspects, but Sadr’s followers blamed Saddam and rioted. Many were killed in Sadr City, then known as Saddam City. Some Sadrists blamed the Hakim family or Iran for the assassination. After the war Muqtada took over the Kufa Mosque, and it was to this mosque that he retreated in April 2004 when his followers began their intifada, urging them to “make your enemy afraid” and assuring them that he would not abandon them. “Your enemy loves terror and hates peoples, all the Arabs, and censors opinions,” he said.

Kufa has a mystical importance to Shiites. Some Iraqi Shiites believe Kufa Mosque is the oldest mosque in the world. Imam Hussein’s cousin, Muslim bin Aqil, was buried there after being slain by the same traitors who would later kill Hussein. Many Shiites believe that the Mahdi will return to that mosque, descending down from heaven onto its dome.

In the market outside stands sold souvenir pictures or key chains of Muqtada and his father, as well as books by Shiite thinkers like Muqtada’s uncle Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, the most important Shiite theologian of the twentieth century, who led the Dawa Party and was executed along with his sister Bint al-Huda by Saddam in 1980. (Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was known as the first martyr, and Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was known as the second martyr.) Books by Khomeini were also available. One stand sold films of Muqtada’s sermons as well as panegyrics to Muqtada and films depicting his men battling the Americans. A large group of men stood around to watch these films. Other stands sold newspapers associated with Muqtada’s movement, such as Al Hawza and Sharikat al-Sadr (Rays of Sadr).

A crowd assembled to receive Muqtada’s latest bayan , a piece of paper with his rulings on certain questions. That week’s bayan was formulated in a typical way: a real or hypothetical question was posed, followed by Muqtada’s response.

“ Seyiduna al mufadda ,” began the question, meaning, “Our Lord, for whom we sacrifice ourselves.” “In the Iraqi streets these days, there is a lot of talk . . . about militias. And as your eminence knows, some politicians classify the army of the Imam al-Mahdi, God speed his appearance, under this title. So do you classify the army under this title just like the case with the brothers in the Badr Organization and the Kurdish pesh merga , or do you classify it under another classification, and does your eminence encourage its members to join the government institutions, especially the security and military ones?” The question was signed by a “group of members of the Mahdi Army,” and whether they were real or not, it was clearly also an official attempt to distinguish the Mahdi Army from the Badr Organization, which belonged to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the pesh merga , which belonged to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Muqtada provided several answers. He began by defining a militia as an “armed group which is outside the control of the government and which belongs to political parties.” “According to my understanding,” he wrote, “by armed groups they mean a group that has been armed by a specific party or specific political entity. But as you know most of the Iraqis armed themselves by themselves after the collapse of the dirty Aflaqists,” he wrote, referring to Baathists by their founder, Michel Aflaq. The Mahdi Army was an outlaw only to oppressive governments, he continued; so as long as the government was legitimate, meaning not oppressive and not associated with the people’s enemies, then the Mahdi Army was with it “in a single trench.” Most importantly, he wrote, “We are not a political party, we are the hawza ilmiya which speaks the truth, and we and the Mahdi Army belong to it, and this is an honor for us in this world and the next world. The fourth answer, the sons of this honest sect [Shiites], God make them victorious, consider themselves soldiers of the imam. . . . And that means their actual leader is the imam himself, God speed his return.” His fifth answer was that “according to what I know, the registered armed militias under the so-called current government are only nine, and the Mahdi Army is not one of them. In addition, the Mahdi Army is not a party and it is not an organization. There is no salary, no headquarters, there is no special organization, there is no arming, and every weapon is a personal weapon, if they have one.” Muqtada added that it was the occupiers, the Saddamists, and the takfiris who had provoked these questions. “If they really want to benefit the people,” he wrote, “they must fight terrorism and take off its arm, and they should provide security and safety to our patient people. Otherwise they are not protecting Iraqis, and they are not letting the Iraqis protect themselves.” Finally, he wrote that the Mahdi Army belonged to the Shiite leadership in the hawza , which had refused to dissolve it in the past, “especially after they knew it belongs to the Mahdi,” because the Shiite leadership were the deputies of the Mahdi. He was both implying that Ayatollah Sistani supported the Mahdi Army and appointing himself one of the Mahdi’s deputies.