Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani: Iraq’s Last Great Cleric

It seems ironic that Iraq’s most senior religious leader is, in fact, not Iraqi at all. It seems strange that one of Iraq’s most vocal advocates for democratic elections is ineligible to vote. It seems odd that a man with millions of dollars at his disposal chooses instead to live the life of a commoner. His face is one of the most recognizable in Iraq though he refuses to have his picture taken. Thus is the way of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, an unorthodox orthodox and one of Iraq’s last great clerics.

Early Life

Nestled in Iran’s eastern corner, not far from the border of what is today Turkmenistan, is the town of Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran. Mashhad has long held a religious significance as it is where Ali ibn Musa al-Rida, Shiite Islam’s Eighth Imam, is buried. Since his death in 818, al-Rida’s mausoleum has attracted millions of worshippers from across the Islamic world.

It was in this city that Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani was born in August of 1930.

Sistani’s spiritual roots run deep in his religiously-rich family. Named in honor of his grandfather, who was a revered religious scholar himself, Sistani seemed destined to one day follow in the clerical footsteps of his forefathers.

Sistani’s religious indoctrination began at the age of five when he began studying the Koran in his hometown before eventually moving onto the sacred city of Qom and finally to the center of Shiite Islam – Najaf, Iraq. He achieved the status of marja (i.e. grand ayatollah) in 1960, a feat all but unheard of for a student of his young age at the time.

The position of marja granted Sistani the authority to practice ijtihad – independently interpreting Islamic law and providing “guidance to Shiites on day-to-day matters.”

While studying in the ancient seminaries of Najaf Sistani became acquaintances with fellow Iranian Ruhollah Khomeini, a then-burgeoning cleric whose stern scowl continues to usher back bitter feelings with many Americans to this day.

The two, connected by religion and nationality, were polar opposites when it came to the role of clerics in government.

Unlike his more charismatic counterpart, Sistani ardently adheres to the “quietism” school of theology which urges Shiite clerics to stay clear of politics and political influence. Khomeini, on the other hand, was a fervent believer in “absolute” velayat al-faqih (“rule of the jurisprudent”), a theocratic belief largely developed and popularized by Khomeini himself. Suffice to say the two senior clerics differed mightily on this key issue as well as others and the two, “by all accounts … were never friends.”

Khomeini would go on to become one of the most recognizable faces of the later 20th century as his revolution of 1979 deposed the secular and West-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and instituted a conservative theocracy in Iran.

While Sistani would never garner the worldwide fame and notoriety that his contemporary achieved, he too was in line for a weighty promotion.

Election to the Hawza

After the death of his former teacher and spiritual mentor, Grand Ayatollah Abul Qassim al-Khoei, in 1992, Sistani took over the Hawza – in effect becoming the dean of Najaf’s complex of religious institutions. Sistani was elected to the Hawza by a vote of his clerical peers, the traditional means of selecting the supreme leader.

His ascension to the top of Iraq’s Shiite hierarchy did not come without its detractors, chiefly Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr who also sought the weighty title after al-Khoei’s death. Rivalries between Sistani and the al-Sadr family would linger through the ensuing decades and continue to this day.

A popular cleric in his own right, al-Sadr chastised and at times openly mocked Sistani for being the leader of what he termed the Hawza al-Samita, or the “Silent Hawza.” Al-Sadr then proceeded to declare himself as the head of the separate Hawza al-Natiqa, or “Vocal Hawza.”

The division in the Hawza represented a wider schism in Shiite Islam with regards to the role of clerics in political affairs, a division exacerbated by the 1979 revolution in neighboring Iran.

Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr was a cleric molded in the form of Sistani’s old classmate and champion of the Iranian revolution Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. He appealed to the segment of Iraqi Shiite society that wanted more from their religious leader than simply spiritual guidance. Al-Sadr’s weekly Jumu’ah (“Friday”) sermons were filled with muffled condemnation of the Iraqi government and bellicose rhetoric of impending Shiite triumph.

Al-Sadr’s growing influence and increasingly anti-Baathist rhetoric eventually grew too much for Saddam Hussein to bear. Sadiq al-Sadr was gunned down along with two of his sons in February 1999 by members of the Mukhabarat, Saddam’s omnipresent security apparatus.

Following the assassination of Sadiq al-Sadr, Sistani went further underground. Isolated and at times placed under house arrest, Sistani largely reclined himself to his modest Najaf compound. In his own show of defiance Sistani, despite unveiled overtures, never once gave the slightest endorsement of Saddam’s regime as so many other senior clerics succumbed into doing.

A Wartime Ayatollah

Sistani has proven to be both a blessing as well as a burden for the U.S. in Iraq. Like so many other Iraqis, especially Shiites, Sistani welcomed the overthrow of Saddam in 2003. However, he quickly began to question the ultimate motivations and aspirations of America’s ongoing presence in Iraq. He has thwarted the plans of U.S. authorities on numerous occasions while also saved any chance for U.S. “success” in Iraq as he has helped pull the nation away from the brink of anarchy and all out civil war in some of its darkest moments over the course of the U.S.-led occupation.

Though he has stayed true to his “quietism” approach to politics, Sistani has nonetheless played an active role in Iraq’s burgeoning democracy.

Sistani shot down several initial U.S. plans for a postwar Iraqi government. To show his displeasure, Sistani’s coalition organized several mass demonstrations that brought millions of Iraqis into the streets in peaceful protest. The message was clear and the U.S. quickly reshuffled its postwar political strategy to appease several of Sistani’s demands.

When voting did take place Sistani ordered his followers to participate in the landmark elections, even going so far as calling it a “religious duty.” He went further, urging Iraqi women to vote regardless of if their husbands or brothers disapproved. While that statement may not seem like much in secular America, it is nothing short of remarkable in Iraq’s conservative Islamic society.

The grand ayatollah has also played the role of referee at times, attempting to broker peace amidst Iraq’s kaleidoscope of violence.

Sistani was vital in brokering a peace deal of sorts between maverick cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (the son of Sistani’s onetime detractor Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr) and U.S. forces in the summer of 2004. Sistani, at the time recovering in London after treatment for a heart condition – the first time he had even left Najaf in over a dozen years – rushed back to southern Iraq and traveled towards Najaf in a “peace convoy” to urge a halt to the pitched violence. Within a day of his arrival, al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters agreed to lay down their weapons and American forces withdrew from the holy city.

He further urged restraint when, in February 2006, Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida bombed the al-Askiriya Shrine shattering the mosque’s iconic golden dome. The shrine contains the tombs of Shiite Islam’s tenth and eleventh saints – Imam Ali al-Hadi and Imam Hasan al-Askari – and is generally revered as one of the faiths holiest sites.

Sistani has had dozens of top aides assassinated since the onset of the war. He has also been the target of several attempts on his own life and from every conceivable angle imaginable – everybody from Sunni Takfiris (former al-Qaida in Iraq front man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi often referred to Sistani as the “devil” in audio speeches and communiqués) to a Shiite messianic, doomsday cult. Each and every time Sistani has urged calm and ordered his followers against any form of retribution.

More than anything he has been a consistent source of calm and moderation in a war-torn nation where revenge and radicalism so often rule the day.

Practicing What He Preaches

Part of Sistani’s lore comes from his remarkably ascetic lifestyle.

Sistani is said to eat a peasant diet of yogurt and rice. His humble Najaf house is furnished with aging furniture while Sistani clothes himself in inexpensive garments. Legend has it that Sistani consistently refuses his followers offers of a new air conditioner – a necessity in Iraq’s scorching summertime heat – instead urging his aides to donate the new unit to a local needy family. Another time an ill Sistani is rumored to have quipped at a well-meaning aide who brought him a glass of juice saying, “People are not finding … water and you’re bringing me juice? No.”

In late 2007 Sistani organized a reconciliation conference of some 200 Shiite and Sunni clerics from across Iraq in a bid to halt sectarian infighting. At the conference Sistani issued a fatwa (“religious edict”) ordering his majority Shiite followers to protect Iraq’s Sunni minority.

It was Sistani who put together a delegation of imams and sheiks, Shiite as well as Sunni, to visit the archbishop of the northern city of Kirkuk – a city that contains one of the largest populations of Iraq’s ever-dwindling Christian minority – to congratulate them on this past Christmas holiday.

If Iraq is to emerge from the nadir of bloodletting and destruction that has encompassed the Land of the Two Rivers in the half-decade since the deposition of Saddam Hussein and the Baath regime it will be due in large part to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani – one of the few people in Iraq today whose words wield more influence than any weapon.

The Insurgency’s Sunni Schism

The U.S. military’s hope of quelling violence in western Iraq rests on the lanky shoulders of a man most Americans have never heard of: Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, head of Iraq’s Abu Risha tribe.

Abdul Sattar al-Rishaw is a slender man with a pair of stern eyes and a bushy, jet-black mustache. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the collapse of law and order that accompanied it, Sattar and his tribesmen are said to have amassed a fortune raiding caravans traversing Anbar’s desolate and lawless roads. More ominously, Sattar is rumored to have been one of the developing insurgency’s initial supporters as some of his followers joined the then burgeoning armed movement against the U.S. presence inside Iraq.

Today, however, Sattar meets and greets America’s military brass and top-ranking Iraqi government officials on a regular basis, shuffling between his walled-off Ramadi compound and Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone – the epicenter of Iraq’s infantile democracy.

Maturation of an Insurgency

Anbar province has long been a thorn in the side of the American military, as it has fruitlessly attempted to pacify Iraq following the deposition of former strongman Saddam Hussein. Encompassing much of western Iraq, the province of Anbar stretches from the Syrian and Saudi Arabian borders east all the way to the outer edges of Baghdad. The Euphrates River meanders a path across the province’s arid landscape giving life to the towns and villages that dot its ancient banks.

It is in these piously religious cities that al-Qaida first established a foothold in a post-Saddam Iraq. Pouring into Iraq from across the Muslim world – many through the porously guarded border with neighboring Syria – the aspiring jihadists came to the war-stricken country with a zeal for battle accompanied by a sense of divine righteousness.

Angered over the armed removal of fellow Sunni Saddam Hussein, the tribes of Anbar initially welcomed the foreigners and the plush finances that accompanied them. And although the disparate groups differed in their motives, their ideology, and ultimately in their goals, the two formed a tacit alliance with one another against a common enemy: invading American and coalition forces.

Insurgents Heyday

Fallujah was a city rife for falling into the hands of insurgents. Deeply religious as well as almost entirely Sunni, one would be hard pressed to find an Iraqi town more opposed to the U.S.-led invasion.

The town’s simmering tensions boiled over when, in late April of 2003, U.S. forces opened fire on a crowd of Fallujans demonstrating against the American presence in their city. Over 15 civilians were killed and dozens more injured in the shooting. Following the mass shooting incident insurgents found a receptive populace amongst the townspeople. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s “Tawhid Wal Jihad” [“Monotheism and Holy War”] organization – with the help of local insurgents – quickly established Fallujah as its de-facto base in Iraq, running off what remained of the U.S.-installed security apparatus and implementing a strict version of Islamic Sharia law across the city of 350,000.

One of the vital players in helping al-Zarqawi gain control of the “city of mosques,” as Fallujah is often called, was a 30-something town native named Omar Hussein Hadid. A devout Muslim who adhered to the puritanical Salafi branch of Islam, Hadid was sentenced to death under the Hussein regime for the murder of a senior Fallujah Baath party official. Hadid escaped punishment as he fled the region before quietly returning following Saddam’s overthrow. An electrician by trade, Hadid led a small militia of locals before eventually linking forces with al-Zarqawi’s men.

It was locals like Hadid who helped bridge the tenuous gaps between Iraq’s native insurgents and al-Qaida’s foreign fighters in the early stages of the conflict. Without individuals like Hadid it would have been all but impossible for al-Qaida to establish any type of sizeable presence in the Iraqi heartland.

In March 2004 insurgents ambushed a car of American security contractors traveling through Fallujah. The four men were summarily executed, mutilated, and strung up on one of the city’s prominent bridges for all the world to see.

The ghastly images of the charred corpses swaying from the bridge’s rusted beams, to the delight of a raucous crowd of celebrating Iraqis, shocked and outraged many in America. The event conjured up American’s painful memories of the 1993 Somali “Black Hawk Down” incident.

The brutal killing of the American contractors was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back, marking the beginning of the end for an insurgent-controlled Fallujah. Within months the city of Fallujah would feel the full force of the U.S. military.

Hadid, the native son and al-Zarqawi cohort, was struck down – as were an estimated 1,000 of his guerilla counterparts – during the “Second Battle of Fallujah” as insurgents inevitably failed to fend off the massive U.S. onslaught.

Never again would Iraq’s insurgents possess a unified base as they did for over a year just 40 miles west of Baghdad in Fallujah.

After Fallujah

Many of the militants who escaped the fighting in Fallujah headed further west to Anbar’s provincial capital of Ramadi. Others sought shelter in Baghdad while still others traveled north and east to ethnically mixed and religiously diverse cities like Mosul, Kirkuk, Tal Afar, and Baqouba.

It is in these new havens that al-Qaida in Iraq transgressed its bounds and, in the process, made a great deal of enemies out of their natural allies.

After the losses sustained in Fallujah some Sunnis decided to lay down their AK-47’s, unwrap their keffiyeh’s, and join the nascent political process. After largely boycotting the nation’s preliminary elections – and as a result finding themselves all but un-represented in Baghdad – many Sunni groups encouraged their followers to partake in the democratic voting process.

A few sheikhs even urged their followers to sign up for the local Iraqi army or police. Both decisions came into direct conflict with al-Qaida’s ideological dogma of “fighting the occupier until either victory or martyrdom.”

For the first time in the war al-Qaida turned its guns on their Sunni brethren. Sunni voting proponents were labeled as heretics and targeted for death. Several high-profile suicide bombings killed and maimed scores of Sunnis lined up outside army and police recruitment centers in Ramadi and elsewhere in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated regions.

By the time al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June 2006, al-Qaida had seen its popular support in Anbar erode drastically. The fact that al-Zarqawi was killed in the country’s eastern Diyala province as opposed to his former stronghold of Anbar is as telling of a testament as any to just how unpopular al-Qaida had become in its onetime power base of western Iraq.

Enough is Enough

While a number of Iraq’s Sunnis – including some associated with the insurgency – longed voiced concern over al-Qaida’s relentless barrage of bombings against the country’s Shiite populace, the real breaking point in Anbar province is said to be the result of two developments: (1) al-Qaida’s decision to attack members of its own religious sect and (2) al-Qaida’s increasing encroachment on the power historically enjoyed by the regions sheikhs.

Sheikh Sattar’s Anbar Salvation Council (ASC) appears to have developed as a result of both. The group claims they decided to take up arms against the al-Qaida network after growing tired of the indiscriminate violence al-Qaida unleashes across Iraq on a daily basis. Many speculate, however, the real reason behind the tribal chieftains’ about-faced decision to fight al-Qaida is a more pragmatic one: to regain the power al-Qaida and the foreign element of the insurgency has taken from them since the war began.

Like so many of his fellow Sunnis, Sattar initially supported al-Qaida’s actions in Iraq. It wasn’t until al-Qaida began infringing on his territorial turf and challenging his authority that Sattar turned against his one-time allies.

Sattar’s decision to turn on al-Qaida has not come without a heavy personal price. He has lost his father and at least three of his brothers at the hands of al-Qaida or likeminded militants. Sattar himself has been the target of assassination attempts on a number of occasions. The attacks have been unsuccessful thus far – although they did prompt the U.S. military to permanently station a tank outside his Ramadi fortress to ensure that their most valuable counterinsurgency weapon to date stays operational – and Sattar continues his crusade to eradicate al-Qaida from Anbar province.

As part of his ongoing effort, Sattar has reached out to other disenfranchised tribal heads persuading at least 26 of Anbar’s 31 major tribal chieftains to join his fledgling alliance.

The ASC’s plan is simple enough: encourage tribesmen to join Iraq’s security forces in a grassroots effort. They have and in numbers never before seen. Since the inception of the ASC, the Iraqi army and police force in Anbar have been overrun with willing recruits, a development unthinkable just a year or so ago when many cities in Anbar were without a functioning government security force at all. In essence the tribesmen form a Sunni militia outfitted in Iraqi military fatigues. While the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad officially plays the role of headmaster, their ultimate control and say-so is limited at best. Anbar’s security apparatus – much like in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq – takes their orders from the local level instead of the national.

Today the ASC, through its numerous militant wings, is actively battling al-Qaida and its remaining Iraqi supporters. Some of the fiercest clashes in recent months have been between the ASC and elements of al-Qaida.

The U.S. military, desperate for any morsel of progress in a conflict that is witness to fewer and fewer with each passing year, has welcomed and trumpeted the drastic change of course in Anbar. The military is going so far as to help train and equip the very men who, just months ago, were planting roadside bombs and launching mortar strikes against U.S. forces across the western province.

Al-Qaida’s Counter Measures

Watching their power slip in Anbar, al-Qaida has made several attempts to improve its PR image in the minds of the regions citizens.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s successor, Abu Hamza al-Mujahir, is said to have placed a much higher priority on winning over the locals than his savage and uncompromising predecessor did.

At around the same time the ASC started to gain strength, al-Qaida announced that it had created the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella guerilla organization that is comprised of a handful of formerly independent insurgent groups as well as at least five of Anbar’s tribes. As part of the effort to win back some of its local supporters al-Qaida chose an Iraqi national to head the ISI. The heretofore unknown Abu Omar al-Baghdadi – a nom de guerre in all likelihood chosen to emphasize his status as a native of Baghdad – was selected to lead the organization. In seeking the legitimacy of a functioning governing body the group recently took the step of naming a ten person “cabinet” of which al-Baghdadi is the emir.

However, in Iraq, just like everywhere else in the world, actions speak louder than words.

Despite a slick new message of Sunni jihadist unity al-Qaida in Iraq remains as brutal and cutthroat as ever. Indiscriminate bombings – many aimed at nothing more than further sowing the seeds of sectarian discord – remain a daily occurrence in war-torn Iraq while reports of torture and mass murder frequently trickle out of areas where al-Qaida wields some control.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has, from the very onset, prided itself as a group that doesn’t discriminate in its targets. Anyone al-Qaida views as an enemy – the “occupying” American, the “heretic” Shiite, or the “apostate” Sunni – will find themselves squarely in their trigger-happy crosshairs. They make no wiggle-room for exceptions. In the end it is their defiant stubbornness, and not all the might and power of the American military that may in fact bring about the group’s very demise in Iraq.

UPDATE: On September 13, 2007 a powerful roadside bomb ripped through the convoy of Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, instantly killing the man who was the first to stand up against al-Qaida and their ilk in Anbar province.

While al-Qaida finally got their target number one – the Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qaida’s front group in Iraq, quickly took credit for the assassination – the movement al-Rishawi formed and the legacy he leaves behind will in all likelihood live on well past his death.

Iraq Watch: May 30, 2007

Rundown of Violence

Anbar Province

_ Nine civilians were killed and 15 others injured when several mortar rounds slammed into a residential neighborhood in Fallujah.

Diyala Province

_ In Khalis, near Baqouba, at least ten people, including four Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi soldier, were killed in skirmishes with suspected insurgents.

Sources: AP, Reuters

Iraq Watch: May 24, 2007

Rundown of Violence

Anbar Province

_ A suicide car bombing targeting a funeral procession in Fallujah killed at least 26 and wounded nearly 50 others. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 35.

Baghdad Province

_ In a Shiite suburb just north of the capital, militants ambushed a bus and executed all 11 passengers aboard.

_ A suicide bomber detonated explosives on a minibus in northern Baghdad killing at least three civilians and injuring another eight.

_ One Iraqi soldier was killed and two others were wounded when a suicide car bomber slammed into a security checkpoint in western Baghdad.

_ At least two civilians were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City. 15 others were wounded in the blast.

_ Authorities found 22 corpses scattered around Baghdad on Thursday.

Sources: AP, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Washington Post

Iraq Watch: May 23, 2007

Rundown of Violence

Anbar Province

_ 10 Iraqis were killed, including two members of an anti-al-Qaida organization, in a suicide bombing in the village of Albo Obaid.

_ Authorities discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of five individuals in the provincial capital of Ramadi.

Babil Province

_ A car bomb near the town of Iskandariyah killed at least three people and wounded another 15.

Baghdad Province

_ A mortar barrage in central Baghdad's Karradah district claimed the lives of three civilians.

_ At least 30 bodies were discovered in and around Baghdad over the last 24 hours.

Diyala Province

_ A suicide bombing at a cafe in the Iranian border town of Mandali, about 60 miles east of Baghdad, left at least 22 dead and more than 10 injured.

Salahuddin Province

_ Five Iraqi policemen were killed in a roadside bombing in Samarra.

Sources: AFP, AP, Reuters

Iraq Watch: May 22, 2007

Rundown of Violence

Baghdad Province

_ A car bombing in southwestern Baghdad left at least 25 dead and over 60 wounded. The blast struck an outdoor market in the Shiite-dominated Amil district.

_ Insurgents set up an impromptu checkpoint in a Sunni enclave of northern Baghdad, stopped a minibus full of college students, and executed eight of them. The bus was headed to the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City.

_ Two Iraqi police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting in the capital's Khadra neighborhood.

_ Four students were killed and 25 others were injured Tuesday morning when a series of mortars slammed into the campus of a university in northern Baghdad.

_ Authorities discovered at least 33 corpses across Baghdad on Tuesday. Those found dead were believed to be the victims of sectarian violence.

Diyala Province

_ A family of six was killed when gunmen ambushed their car near the restive city of Baqouba.

Sources: AFP, AP, BBC, Reuters

Iraq Watch: May 21, 2007

Rundown of Violence

Baghdad Province

_ Three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in western Baghdad.

_ Authorities discovered 24 corpses across the capital city of Baghdad on Monday.

Basra Province

_ One policeman was killed and another wounded when guerillas attacked their patrol in the southern city of Basra.

_ A British soldier died from injuries sustained during an attack on his convoy Monday in Basra. An Iraqi civilian was also killed in the attack.

Diyala Province

_ Militants shot to death at least seven Shiites after ambushing their minibus near the village of Hibhib.

_ Gunmen opened fire on a group of police officers in Muqdadiyah, killing two.

Sources: AFP, AP, McClatchy, Reuters