Juan Cole

*US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Monday, of the future of Iraq that he did not expect to see a theocracy there like that of Iran. “‘There should be a country that is organized and arranged in a way that the various ethnic groups and religious groups are able to have a voice in […]

*Breaking News US military forces arrested Shaikh Muhammad al-Fartusi and two other clerics at a Baghdad checkpoint. This arrest provoked a big demonstration of 5,000 Shiites in front of the Palestine Hotel. I saw it on Fox Cable News, as reported by Jennifer Eccleston. I could see placards in Arabic saying “We demand the release […]

*Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites continue to make their way to Karbala, the site of the shrine of Imam Husayn, to commemorate the 40th day after his martyrdom (which took place in 681). In Muslim societies it is common to mourn someone at his funeral and then to hold another ceremony 40 days later. […]

*The eight nations bordering Iraq met in Riyad and called for an early US withdrawal. They demanded that the US abide by the 4th Geneva Convention in providing security and basic needs to the population. They wanted assurances that Iraq’s national unity would be preserved. They wanted Iraqis to govern themselves and assurances that the […]

Some two million Shiites live in eastern Baghdad, and several factions are jockeying for influence with them. Press reports of local Shiite clerics in Baghdad organizing neighborhood militias to restore order after the looting of the weekend of April 11-12 quoted them as loyal either to the Najaf establishment (mainly Muqtada al-Sadr) or to al-Da`wa. […]

*Al-Hayat for April 18 has an interview with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. It says that Sistani “affirmed his rejection of any foreign power after the war to which the country had been subjected.” His son Muhammad Rida Sistani conveyed from his father “his rejection of any foreign power that would rule Iraq, emphasizing […]

*I’ve just read several recent new reports on the Shiites of Iraq, and I am struck by how often people mention the authority they grant to the religious establishment in Najaf. Many members of the al-Da`wa party and supporters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq appear to discount democracy in favor of […]

AFP and ash-Sharq al-Awsat are reporting that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (73) in Najaf issued a statement through is son, Muhammad Rida Ali Sistani, calling for Iraq to be government by “the best of its sons” (khirat abna’ihi). “It is for Iraqis to choose who governs; we want them to control the country.” The son […]

Iraqi Shiites in the slums of Baghdad, which were once called al-Thawrah Towship and then Saddam City, have now renamed their neighborhood Sadr City after the martyred Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by the Baathists in 1999. There are reports of local Shiite clerics like Ali al-Shawki, arming followers and establishing neighborhood militias […]