Archives|THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE RECONSTRUCTION; Iraq's Path Hinges on Words of Enigmatic Cleric
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE RECONSTRUCTION; Iraq's Path Hinges on Words of Enigmatic Cleric
By EDWARD WONG JAN. 25, 2004
An austere home in a dusty alleyway here has become a center of power rivaling the American occupation headquarters in Baghdad -- and the scene of fierce inner struggles for one man's ear.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a reclusive 73-year-old cleric revered by many of Iraq's 15 million Shiites, hears arguments and requests here from the country's most senior politicians, occasionally issuing decrees through them that thwart the plans of the world's sole superpower.
Donkey carts trundle through the mouth of the narrow alleyway, but bodyguards keep most visitors out. On Saturday morning, two dozen men in brown robes pleaded to be allowed to seek the cleric's spiritual advice. Only two emissaries from a Baghdad mosque were allowed in.
The ayatollah's secular power is clear: his insistence on direct elections for a transitional national assembly before Iraqi sovereignty in June drew up to 100,000 supporters to Baghdad's streets on Monday and left the Bush administration scrambling to salvage plans for a caucus-style selection.
Yet this man has not stepped out of his house in six years, rarely gives interviews and is often described as wanting to stay out of politics.
He has a Web site, sistani.org, but it focuses on religious guidance, like whether Islamic law allows the eating of Caspian sturgeon. (Only if close inspection reveals scales, he counsels.)
The world now simply comes to him. The ayatollah's house has become as important a pilgrimage site for Iraq's leaders as the nearby golden-domed shrine of Ali, son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, is for the world's Shiites.
The men who visit say they deliver their opinions on the American-led occupation; they are clearly vying for the cleric's backing in the current political free-for-all, with many factions jockeying for a share in the as-yet unshaped Iraqi government. Any endorsement from Ayatollah Sistani instantly bestows legitimacy in the eyes of many Shiites; his support can win votes for politicians and will weigh heavily on further plans for installing an interim government.
The full motives of the men advising Ayatollah Sistani are known only to them, yet they are some of the cleric's main conduits to and from the outside, passing on his messages and bringing him their versions of the latest developments.
That makes them the only tea leaves to read, however murkily, to divine the ayatollah's intentions. They range from formerly exiled Iraqi politicians to local imams to envoys of L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Perhaps to distance himself from the day-to-day fray of politics, and to remain on a level above the occupation forces, he has refused to meet with Mr. Bremer himself.
It is inevitable that those closest to Ayatollah Sistani are Shiite Islamists, many of whom can win popular support by getting his backing. Last week, Ibrahim al-Jafari, a Governing Council member and the current head of the venerable Dawa Islamic Party, visited to discuss the stalemate over direct elections. Other frequent visitors include officials from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party recently returned from exile in Iran that clearly wants to play a role in governing the new Iraq.
Adnan Pachachi, the current head of the Governing Council, said he was skeptical of some of the men surrounding Ayatollah Sistani. Mr. Pachachi met with the ayatollah two weeks ago to ask him to back down from his demands for direct elections, only to be rebuffed. Some of the ayatollah's advisers, Mr. Pachachi said in an interview, wanted to keep personal power ''under the guise of protecting Shiite influence'' and ''want to use religion in order to assume power.''
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a senior Dawa official in the 1980's who now professes to be relatively secular, meets with the ayatollah once or twice a week and has his own view of the cleric's decision making.
''The major thing in his mind is not to hand over the country to an American-picked government,'' Mr. Rubaie said. ''The fear is that the coalition forces will impose a group of Western-influenced politicians, fanatic liberals who will design the future of Iraq irrespective of the culture and religion of the country.''
The ayatollah sometimes delivers his messages through political leaders, but more often through religious representatives, as he did Friday when he asked a spokesman to tell worshipers at a mosque in Karbala to refrain from protests against the Americans. The people should hold off, the spokesman said, while the United Nations is deciding whether to send a team to assess the feasibility of direct elections.
Associates say Ayatollah Sistani does not want to be so politically involved and that he simply sees it as his duty as a marja-al-taqlid, or senior cleric with the authority to interpret Islamic law, to ensure that Iraq has an Islamic identity. They say he is keenly aware that the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population, for centuries were kept from ruling under the Ottoman and British Empires and the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab.
That is not to say that he wants a complete intertwining of the state and Shiite Islam, as in Iran. Though the ayatollah was born in the holy Iranian city of Mashad and began studying the Koran there at age 5, he spent his early 20's in Najaf, where he became the protégé of the late Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qassim al-Khoei.
Ayatollah Khoei was a proponent of the ''quietist'' school of Islamic thought, which advocates a withdrawal from politics, unlike the activist school promoted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran and put into practice there after the revolution of 1979.
Ayatollah Sistani, Mr. Rubaie said, ''always says something like this: 'I did not find election in the jurisprudence books. I did not go into the Koran and the prophetic tradition to derive the idea of elections. I derived the idea from a textbook on democracy.' ''
Befitting a spiritual leader, the ayatollah, through his representatives, interacts regularly with the other three grand ayatollahs in Najaf. Muhammad Hussein al-Hakim, the son and spokesman of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim, said people from his organization and that of Ayatollah Sistani consult often. All the ayatollahs have voiced support for Ayatollah Sistani's demands for direct elections, though none have issued similar edicts.
Some Iraqis have wondered whether Ayatollah Sistani's political involvement is an attempt to stave off a power play by a young rival to the older clerics, Moktada al-Sadr, who has also begun calling for direct elections. His father, the respected cleric Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, was killed by Saddam Hussein's government in 1999. Mr. Sadr is now trying to use his father's name -- and brash anti-American rhetoric -- to leverage himself into a position of authority.
But his organization has only a fraction of the popular support and financial resources of the ayatollah's group, which has amassed a fortune through the Shiite tradition of donations.
''I know Mr. Sistani, and I'm sure he's not acting out of personal interest,'' Mr. Hakim said. ''The most important thing for the marjaiah is to act in the general interest of the people. Maybe others just can't grasp this concept.''
Last November, Ayatollah Sistani made it clear he wanted direct elections for a transitional assembly by delivering the message through Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Mr. Hakim is one of the politicians closest to the ayatollah and acts as an intermediary between the cleric, the Governing Council and the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Mr. Hakim's deputies meet often with Ayatollah Sistani, including Imam Jalaladeen al-Sagheir of the Baratha Mosque in Baghdad. At a recent interview with two reporters, the imam took an urgent phone call from one of Mr. Bremer's aides. ''I have to go to Karbala and Najaf to take care of that issue,'' he said quickly before hanging up, indicating perhaps that Mr. Bremer wanted him to talk to the ayatollah.
Two weeks ago, a major battle for the cleric's ear was joined, when it fell to Mr. Pachachi, of the Governing Council, to lead a delegation to discuss the issue of direct elections. Mr. Rubaie, who accompanied the delegation, said the ayatollah sat on the floor of his home opposite them, wearing his customary black turban and black robes. Mr. Pachachi tried explaining that there was not enough time to organize direct elections by the June 30 deadline. He produced a letter from Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, saying as much.
''That didn't cut the ice with him,'' Mr. Rubaie said. ''He had already been convinced that elections were possible.''
That had come about, Mr. Rubaie said, because the ayatollah had absorbed the opinions of Iraqi census experts, the minister of trade and a senior United Nations envoy acting unofficially, all of whom had made it known to the cleric that direct elections were feasible.
If American officials end up compromising too easily with Ayatollah Sistani, though, that could quickly alienate Sunni Arabs and Kurds, who fear being marginalized in a Shiite-dominated government. Those groups make up 40 percent of the population, and that is where Ayatollah Sistani's influence ends. Their loyalties lie with their own leaders.
A version of this article appears in print on January 25, 2004, on Page 1001001 of the National edition with the headline: THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE RECONSTRUCTION; Iraq's Path Hinges on Words of Enigmatic Cleric. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe