Muqtada al-Sadr: Iraq’s Unforeseen Powerbroker

Muqtada al-Sadr isn’t a lot of things. He’s not a very high-ranking cleric. He doesn’t enjoy a great deal of foreign support. He’s not even a particularly charismatic speaker according to most accounts. The one thing al-Sadr is above all, however, is a populist.

Al-Sadr’s Shiite clerical elders resent the brash junior for taking a portion of the power historically garnered to their seniority. Iraq’s intellectuals discount al-Sadr as an uneducated religious zealot. Many Sunnis see him as a mass-murdering thug bent on destroying Iraq’s former ruling class.

Regardless of how they view him, nobody in Iraq simply disregards Muqtada al-Sadr. Not anymore.

Al-Sadr’s power comes from the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. These followers are spread out from the teeming metropolis of Baghdad south through the desert and marshlands that make up Iraq’s vast Shiite heartland.

His official residence is in the holy city of Najaf although the undisputed epicenter of al-Sadr’s power is located in the capital’s Sadr City district, a sprawling slum positioned on Baghdad’s east side.

Originally constructed in the 1950’s as a quick-fix solution to the country’s growing urban population, Sadr City today is home to more than two million of Iraq’s poorest citizens. The dilapidated, downtrodden district – named in honor of al-Sadr’s esteemed father – is comprised of row after row of government-built pre-fabricated structures. An aura of poverty envelops the enclave. Trash litters its cramped streets and raw sewage seeps slowly through its back alleyways.

Al-Sadr and his supporters have turned the decrepit area into a quasi city within a city as members of al-Sadr’s group administer most of the social services that would otherwise fall under the responsibilities of a federal government. To its needy supporters, the group doles out everything from food rations to medical care to generator-powering kerosene.

The stern-face of al-Sadr is hard to escape in Sadr City. Posters adorning his image are plastered across the district on everything from buildings to billboards while framed photographs of the cleric are often prominently hung in the homes of Sadr City’s residents.

Much of Muqtada’s authority is a by-product of his rich yet bloody family lineage. As evidenced, the black turban that adorns Muqtada’s head signifies his direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed.

The al-Sadr clan has long been a clerical dynasty in Shiite Islam. Both Muqtada’s father and uncle achieved the prestigious status of Grand Ayatollah. The family’s high status along with their popularity among Iraq’s Shiites placed them directly in the scope of Saddam and his notorious security apparatus.

On February 18, 1999 al-Sadr’s father, Mohammed Sadiq, was slain in a hail of gunfire along with two of Muqtada’s brothers. It is widely believed that Saddam’s henchmen were behind the assassination. At the time of his murder the Grand Ayatollah was the most-renowned Shiite cleric in Iraq.

Following his father’s death, Muqtada went underground. He unexpectedly found himself at the head of the centuries old al-Sadr dynasty and all the power and responsibility that came with the prestigious position.

Prior to the U.S.-led toppling of the Hussein regime in 2003, al-Sadr was not much more than a little-known cleric identified largely through his distinguished father. It did not take long however for Muqtada to establish himself in post-Saddam Iraq.

Understanding the importance of clerical leadership in Shiite society, coalition forces sought out Western-friendly imams to help usher in a stable and peaceful post-invasion environment. They found their man in Abdul Majid al-Khoei. Born in Najaf in the 1960’s, the religiously moderate al-Khoei fled Iraq for London following the first Gulf War. While residing in exile in England, al-Khoei, an outspoken critic of the Hussein regime, established close links with both the British and American governments.

Just weeks after the initial invasion, al-Khoei was flown back to Iraq aboard a U.S. military aircraft. Only days after returning to his native country, al-Khoei was brutally hacked to death by a lynch mob of angry Shiites while visiting the sacred shrine of the Imam Ali in his hometown of Najaf.

Suspicion for the murder immediately fell on al-Sadr’s backers, a charge al-Sadr himself vehemently denies.

In early April 2004 word leaked out that an Iraqi judge had issued a warrant for al-Sadr’s arrest in connection with the al-Khoei murder. This development, coupled with the decision by U.S. forces to shut down al-Sadr’s newspaper, Al Hawza, sent his followers pouring into the streets. Much of Shiite Iraq disintegrated into a battlefield as al-Sadr’s militiamen engaged coalition forces in pitched battles from Baghdad to Basra.

Skirmishes between al-Sadr’s forces – commonly referred to as the Jaish al-Mahdi, or “Mahdi Army” – and U.S. troops lasted until mid-June when Muqtada himself issued an edict declaring a cessation to the hostilities. The body count was staggering, hundreds of militants and dozens of coalition soldiers died in the fighting.

Relative peace was maintained until fighting flared once again in August of 2004. A multitude of events, not the least of which was festering animosity stemming from the previous skirmish, exacerbated the situation until the cease-fire agreed upon in June officially crumbled. Yet more bloodshed ensued as the battle centered on al-Sadr’s hometown of Najaf. Hundreds of al-Sadr’s followers sought refuge in the Imam Ali mosque. Ironically, the holy shrine is the same place where al-Sadr first drew the ire of governmental authorities when his followers were accused of murdering rival cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei outside its golden doors in 2003.

As fighting scarred the holy city, senior clerics pleaded with al-Sadr to end the fighting for the sake of the embattled town. A tenuous peace deal was brokered in late August of the year as U.S. troops agreed to vacate Najaf. The armistice came too late for the thousands of Iraqis, both guerillas and civilians alike, who perished in the pitched fighting.

The dual uprisings of 2004 served their purpose for al-Sadr and were a testament to his rising prowess. It was now clear that at his command he possessed thousands of armed militiamen willing and able to do battle in his name.

Al-Sadr’s defiant encounters with the U.S. military garnered him praises from numerous Shiite dignitaries, most notably Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and propelled him to the forefront of the Arab world.

After initially chastising the Iraqi political process, al-Sadr eventually decided to enter the country’s nascent democracy. Al-Sadr threw his hat into the political ring by backing the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a broad coalition of Shiite parties.

Following al-Sadr’s call to vote thousands of his supporters turned out at the ballot box on December 15, 2005. Muqtada played his cards more like an elder statesman than the junior cleric he was. When the iconic purple ink dried on the fingers of the Iraqi voters, it was clear the UIA had, as expected, scored a resounding victory in the nations inaugural legislative elections. For their part in the victory the UIA awarded the al-Sadr movement, known politically as the “Sadrists,” with an estimated 30 of the 275 seats in Iraq’s Council of Representatives.

Furthermore their strong showing earned the Sadrists at least five cabinet-level positions placing them in control of such state entities as health, education, and agriculture.

While his supporters view al-Sadr as both a protector and a provider, his opponents see him as just the opposite. Sunnis in particular vilify al-Sadr in much the same light as their Shiite counterparts detested former al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Sunnis blame al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army as being the chief culprits behind the dozens of executed corpses that are discovered on Baghdad’s city streets each and every day. The killings may have a more sinister purpose than simply sectarian revenge. Some Sunnis have accused al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army of executing a plan of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad’s mixed neighborhoods.

Although al-Sadr denies the charges levied against his militia even he grudgingly admits that he no longer is able to maintain direct control over all of the Mahdi Army.

Highlighting this is the notorious gang led by Abu Diraa. Purportedly breaking away from al-Sadr in 2004, Diraa has amassed a following among some hard-line Shiites due in large part to his heavy-handed approach in tackling the security problem, something al-Sadr has shied away from as he attempts to establish himself as a viable political figure. Diraa’s brutal tactics, including his known affinity for filling the craters left by car bombings with the corpses of executed Sunnis, are well known across Baghdad and have led some to morbidly coin him as the “Zarqawi of the Shiites.”

Sunnis are not alone in their loathing of the maverick cleric. Rival Shiites have repeatedly battled al-Sadr for clerical supremacy and the power it wields. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Iraq’s largest political entity, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), has emerged as Muqtada’s main Shiite adversary.

Like al-Sadr, al-Hakim hails from a religiously prominent family. The two families have been battling one another for centuries over who reigns supreme among the Iraqi Shiite populace. The family feud serves as Iraq’s version of the Hatfields and the McCoys

The two men’s disagreements go far beyond archaic family bickering, however.

During the Saddam regime many of the al-Hakim clan, including Abdul Aziz, fled Iraq and sought exile inside Iran. In doing so, the al-Hakim’s developed a close relationship with Iran’s Shiite government who helped to organize and fund the SCIRI.

The al-Sadr’s, by and large, chose to stay in Iraq despite the hardships imposed on them by Iraq’s Baathist leadership. Muqtada, an ardent nationalist, remains largely xenophobic and wary of Iranian influence inside Iraq’s borders.

Even the execution of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s former powerbroker, could not escape the growing grip al-Sadr has on present-day Iraq. As the noose was being tied around the former tyrant’s neck one of the hangmen feverously chanted “Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada.” It is a cry now heard around the world, as the execution itself was to be immortalized in a grainy cell-phone video.

In many ways the execution of Saddam and its chaotic proceedings symbolize the change transgressing Iraq. One of the darkest eras in Iraqi history ended along with Saddam’s life. Yet, as the old proverb states, with death comes new life. The new life sprouting in Iraq was culminated in the prison guardsman’s piercing chant.

No one can predict exactly what lies in the future for Iraq, a country being torn apart at the seams by war and sectarian divisions. One thing is for certain, however. Muqtada al-Sadr, the brash cleric who before the war was seldom regarded as anything more than the son of a famous religious leader, will be positioned at the forefront of whatever developments arise in the Land of the Two Rivers.