Shia political development in Iraq: the case of the Islamic Dawa Party

Abstract

The invasion of Iraq and its subsequent occupation by US‐led forces has allowed the majority Shia population to assert itself politically. Much of the debate regarding its political development has focused on the role of the religious scholars, at the expense of other Shia political groups. The Dawa Party has the longest history of organised communal political activity in Iraq among the Shia and is the only main party headed by a non‐scholar. The persecution it suffered under Saddam Hussein and the sacrifices it made have earned it support among the Shia population, but its fractious nature and the other Shia political groupings will make it difficult for the party to regain its former influence amongst the Shia.

Notes

Dr Rodger Shanahan is a Visiting Fellow at the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific, University of Sydney and teaches in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Email: [email protected]

Although it should be noted that Amal and its predecessor Harakat al‐Mahrumin (Movement of the Dispossessed) were started by the alim Musa as‐Sadr.

The Shia have for a long time constituted the largest confessional group within the Lebanese Communist Party. See Nazih Richani, Dilemmas of Democracy and Political Parties in Sectarian Societies: the Case of the psp of Lebanon 1949–1996, New York: St Martin's Press, 1998, p 160. Confirmed during author's interview with Sa'adlallah Mazraani, Deputy Secretary‐General of the Lebanese Communist Party, Beirut, 6 June 2002.

Keiko Sakai, ‘Modernity and tradition in the Islamic movements in Iraq: continuity and discontinuity in the role of the Ulama’, Arab Studies Quarterly, 23 (1), 2001, p 38. Many of al‐Dawa's founders, such as Murtada al‐Askari and Sayyid Mahdi al‐Hakim, were students of al‐Muzaffar.

Joyce Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shias, Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992, p 33.

Hawza refers to the physical centres for juristic learning, but can be used in a collective sense as the most learned of Shia jurists of Najaf.

Fadil Jamali, ‘The theological colleges of Najaf”, The Muslim World, L (1), January 1960, p 15.

Wiley, The Islamic Movement, p 32.

Ibid, pp 31–32.

TM Aziz, ‘The role of Muhammad Baqir as‐Sadr in Shii political activism in Iraq from 1958 to 1980’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25 (2), 1993, p 213.

Hanna Batatu, ‘Shii organisations in Iraq: al‐Dawah al‐Islamiyah and al‐Mujahidin’, in Juan RI Cole & Nikki R Keddie (eds), Shiism and Social Protest, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986, p 197.

Sakai, ‘Modernity and tradition’, p 41.

A good account of recruitment methods for university students can be found in Amatzia Baram, ‘Two roads to revolutionary Shiite fundamentalism in Iraq’, in Marty, ME & Appleby, RS (eds), The Fundamentalism Project, Vol 4, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991, p 540.

Yitzhak Nakash, ‘The Shiis and the future of Iraq’, Special Policy Forum Report Number 719, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 4 March 2003, p 1, at ⟨http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/watch/Policywatch/policywatch2003/719.htm⟩.

Wiley, The Islamic Movement, p 38.

Aziz, ‘The role of Muhammad Baqir as‐Sadr’, p 212.

Chibli Mallat, ‘Religious militancy in contemporary Iraq: Muhammad Baqir as‐Sadr and the Sunni‐Shia paradigm’, Third World Quarterly, 10 (2), 1988, p 727.

It is claimed that 96 members of ad‐Dawa were executed in this month alone.

The marjaiyya is theoretically the collective body of the most highly regarded scholarly sources of emulation (maraji). Who they are, and how they are to be appointed are questions that would need to be resolved before it could practically be implemented.

For a broader examination of this area, see Chibli Mallat, The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer as‐Sadr, Najaf and the Shii International, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p 63.

Wiley, The Islamic Movement, p 126.

Mallat, The Renewal of Islamic Law, p 73.

Abdul‐Halim al‐Ruhaimi ‘The Dawa Islamic Party: origins, actors and ideology’, in Faleh Abdul‐Jabar (ed), Ayatollah, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq, London: Saqi Books, 2002, p 158.

Sakai, ‘Modernity and tradition’, p 42.

Ibid.

Juan Cole, ‘The United States and Shiite religious factions in post‐Bathist Iraq’, Middle East Journal, 57 (4), 2003, p 553.

Ruhaimi, ‘The Dawa Islamic Party’, p 159.

Sakai, ‘Modernity and tradition’, p 43.

Chicago Tribune, 3 June 2003.

A William Samii, ‘Shia political alternatives in postwar Iraq’, Middle East Policy, X (2), 2003, p 95.

Mahan Abedin, ‘Dossier: Hezb al‐Dawah al‐Islamiyyah: Islamic Call Party’, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, 5 (6), 2003, at http://www.meib.org/articles/0306_iraqd.htm.

Interview with Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah, Middle East Insight, May–August 1996, p 38. Of the other six members, three were from Amal and three were independent ulama.

Al‐Dawa, 6 August 2003, quoted at http://memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=poqchives&ID=SP55403.

Chicago Tribune, 15 April 2003.

Dar al‐Hayat, 15 July 2003, at http://english.daralhayat.com/arab_news/07‐2003/Article‐20030715.

Baram, Two Roads to Revolutionary Shiite Fundamentalism, p 572.

Ibid, p 574.

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Rodger Shanahan

Dr Rodger Shanahan is a Visiting Fellow at the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific, University of Sydney and teaches in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Email: [email protected]