https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3214-5381
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ABSTRACT
This contribution aims to examine the extent to which a populist political style can break through the established structures of a religious hierarchy using authority in the field of politics. Citing the example of the digital communication of the Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, it will be argued that al-Sadr is assuming functions beyond his relatively low theological rank through an authority gained in the political field via populism. The paper explores not only the interplay of different logics of authority but also how far al-Sadr´s populism differs, due to his specific role as a politicizing Shiite cleric, from other forms of populism.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The materials used for this are from the years 2013 to 2023, analysed with the help of a qualitative analysis of each discourses: cf. Anselm L. Strauss, Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists, 14th edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Jörg Strübing, Jörg. Grounded Theory. Zur sozialtheoretischen und epistemologischen Fundierung des Verfahrens der empirisch begründeten Theoriebildung [Grounded Theory. On the Social-theoretical and Epistemological Foundation of the Process of Empirically Grounded Theorization] (Wiesbaden: VS, 2004). Additionally, I also examined them with the help of the ATLAS.ti software for quantitative accumulations of particular vocabulary and certain coded topoi. Out of the several thousand posts about 1,000 were selected for an in-depth analysis, about 300 were hitherto translated.
2 Len Clarke, ‘The Shīʿī Construction of ‘Taqlīd’’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 12:1 (2001), p. 40.
3 Names of persons and places are written in this article as commonly used in the media. Organizations and technical terms, on the other hand, are transcribed according to the IJMES guidelines.
4 It has been doubted that any difference exists at all. Most notably, Charles Taylor denied any difference in logic between a religious and a secular logic: Charles Taylor, ‘Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of Secularity’, in idem et al. (eds), The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 34–59. This outright rejection has, in turn, provoked a critique, Taylor cannot easily refute: Namely, Dallmayr has argued if Taylor wanted to reject any difference in logic between the two logics, also his (Taylor's) own distinction between immanence and transcendence would be rendered untenable: Fred M. Dallmayr, ‘Post-secularity and (global) Politics: A Need for Radical Redefinition,’ Review of International Studies, 38:5 (2012), p. 969/FN 10.
5 Florian Bernhardt, Ḥizb ad-Daʿwa al-Islāmīya. Selbstverständnis, Strategien und Ziele einer irakisch-islamistischen Partei zwischen Kontinuität und Wandel (1957–2003) [Self-Conception, Strategies, and Objectives of an Iraqi-Islamist Party Between Continuity and Change] (Würzburg: Ergon, 2012), pp. 18ff.
6 Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi, ‘The Establishment of the Position of Marjaʿiyyt-i Taqlid in the Twelver Shiʿi Community’, Iranian Studies, 18:1 (1985), pp. 35–51.
7 Ann K. S. Lambton, ‘A Reconsideration of the Position of the Marjaʿ al-Taqlīd and the Religious Institution’, Studia Islamica, 20 (1964), p. 116.
8 Kazemi Moussavi, op. cit., p. 45.
9 Akhbāris usually prefer ḥadīth (tradition) and akhbār (reports) over uṣūl al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence). The Uṣūlīs, in contrast to them, are those jurists who follow ijtihād (independent legal reasoning): Ehsan Gheisari and Jawad Qasemi, s.v. ‘Akhbāriyya’, Encyclopaedia Islamica, online ed., rev. 2024-01-29, https://doi.org/10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_0240.
10 Reasoning on Islamic jurisprudence based upon the sacred texts.
11 Kazemi Moussavi, op. cit., pp. 37ff.
12 Ibid., p. 39.
13 Ibid., p. 44.
14 Ibid., p. 45.
15 Said Amir Arjomand, ‘Ideological Revolution in Shiʿism’, in idem (ed.), Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), pp. 194ff.
16 Lambton, op. cit.; Clarke, op. cit., p. 59.
17 Arjomand, op. cit., pp. 194ff.
18 Mehdi Khalaji, ‘The Last Marja. Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism’, Policy Focus no. 59 (2006), Washington Institute for Near East Policy, pp. 21–24, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/3502.
19 Cas Mudde, ‘The Populist Zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition, 39:4 (2004), p. 543.
20 Cristóbal R. Kaltwasser and Kirk A. Hawkins, ‘The Ideational Approach to Populism’, Latin American Research Review, 52:4 (2017), p. 514.
21 Ico Maly, ‘Populism as a Mediatized Social Relation: The Birth of Algorithmic Populism’, Tilburg Papers in Cultural Studies, no. 213 (2018), p. 5, https://tinyurl.com/2kn5fwdv.
22 Kurt Weyland, ‘Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics’, Comparative Politics, 34:1 (2001), pp. 1–22.
23 Paris Aslanidis, ‘Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective’, Political Studies, 64:1 (2016), pp. 90ff.
24 Ibid., p. 96.
25 Jan Jagers and Stefaan Walgrave, ‘Populism as Political Communication Style. An Empirical Study of Political Parties’ Discourse in Belgium’, European Journal of Political Science, 46:3 (2007), pp. 319–345.
26 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016), pp. 28f.
27 Pierre Rosanvallon, ‘The Political Theory of Democracy’, in Oliver Flügel-Martinsen et al. (eds), Pierre Rosanvallon's Political Thought. Interdisciplinary Approaches (Bielefeld: Bielefeld University Press, 2019), p. 23.
28 Paula Diehl, ‘Political Theory through History. Pierre Rosanvallon's Concepts of Representation and the People and their Importance for Understanding Populism’, in: Oliver Flügel-Martinsen et al. (eds), loc. cit., p. 48.
29 Among many others: Jamie Bartlett, Jonathan Birdwell, and Mark Littler, ‘The rise of populism in Europe can be traced through online behavior … ’ The New Face of Digital Populism, Working Paper, London: Demos, 2011, https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/new-face-digital-populism, rev. 2024-05-13 (and all case studies belonging to this series), Claudia Alvares and Peter Dahlgren, ‘Populism, Extremism and Media: Mapping an Uncertain Terrain’, European Journal of Communication, 31:1 (2016), pp. 46–57; Toril Aalberg, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, Carsten Reinemann, and Jesper Strömbäck (eds), Populist Political Communication in Europe (New York/London: Routledge, 2017); Cas Mudde, ‘Populismus in Europa: Von den Rändern zum Mainstream’ [Populism in Europe: From the Margins to the Mainstream], Totalitarismus und Demokratie, 17 (2020), pp. 27ff; Moffitt, op. cit., pp. 88–93; Maly, op. cit.
30 Jonathan Hardy, Western Media Systems (London/New York: Routledge, 2010); Jens Lucht, Jens and Linards Udris, ‘Transformation of Media Structures and Media Content. A Diachronic Analysis of Five Western European Countries.’ Working Paper no. 49, National Center of Competence in Research, University of Zürich, 2009, https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/24118/, rev. 2024-05-13.
31 Andrew Chadwick, The Hybrid Media System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
32 Gianpietro Mazzoleni and Roberta Bracciale, ‘Socially Mediated Populism: The Communicative Strategies of Political Leaders on Facebook’, Palgrave Communications, 4:1 (2018), p. 3.
33 Christian Thuselt, Lebanese Political Parties: Dream of a Republic (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), pp. 183–192.
34 Paul Taggart, ‘Populism and Representative Politics in Contemporary Europe’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 9:3 (2004), p. 274.
35 Mudde, ‘Populist Zeitgeist’, p. 546.
36 Amir Taha, ‘Turning Ex-Combatants into Sadrists: Explaining the Emergence of the Mahdi Army’, Middle Eastern Studies, 55:3 (2019), pp. 357–373.
37 Kjetil Selvik and Iman Amirteimour, ‘The Big Man Muqtada al-Sadr: Leading the Street in Iraq under Limited Statehood’, Third World Thematics, 5:3–6 (2020), p. 246.
38 Caroleen Marji Sayej, Patriotic Ayatollahs. Nationalism in Post-Saddam Iraq (Ithaca, CA/London: Cornell University Press, 2018), p. 89.
39 Selvik and Amirteimour, op. cit., p. 252.
40 Tamīm al-Ḥassan, ‘Juyūsh ʾIliktrūniyya tadkhul ʿalā Khaṭṭ ʿIntizā al-Darajāt al- Khāṣa wa ʾIjbār ʿalā al-Istiqālāt [Electronic Armies Engaging into the Removal of the Special Ranks and Forcing Resignations', al-Madā, 14 November 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mpb6b74a, rev. 2022-11-16.
41 Patrick Franke,‘Die Ḥawza von Nadschaf: eine internationale schiitische Bildungsinstitution und ihre politische Rolle nach dem Sturz des Baath-Regimes’ [The Ḥawza of Najaf: An International Shiite Educational Institution and its Political Role after the Fall of the Baath Regime], in Stefan Leder and Hanne Schönig (eds), Bildungsformen und Bildungsträger zwischen Tradition und Moderne [Forms of Education and Educational Institutions between Tradition and Modernity], Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte, no. 22 (Halle: Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg), pp. 91ff.
42 Cf. ʿAli Kassem, ‘The “Modernization” of the Hawza? Lebanon as a Case Study’, Contemporary Arab Affairs, 11:4 (2018), pp. 83–110.
43 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Which is not to say that these concepts did not become a global model to which one had to refer in order to build a polity capable of participating in a global modernity that functions as a structural framework, even if only to catch up with the more powerful actors: Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World. A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
44 For example, that the Iraqi judiciary shall stand above the parties, (https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1496852429631115273), or the executive stemming from an election deciding on the legislative (https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/998619103207313408). Sovereignty is one of al-Sadr's most widely-used notions and conceptions. The public interest (al-maṣlaha al-ʿāmma) must take precedence over party interests (https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1051158911468875776) and is supposed to ‘lead the country to survival and drive away the ghost of disagreement, difference, and rivalry and that on,’ https://jawabna.com/index.php/permalink/4860.html, rev. 2023-04-24.
45 Andrew F. March, The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). Rather modern Islamists than pre-modern Muslims considered it a scandal to be ruled by men instead of by God himself. The rule of law was considered a human, personal and fallible affair among pre-modern Muslim scholars: ibid. But of course this pre-modern imaginary lacks the concept of ‘the people’ articulating a will of an otherwise abstracted entity.
46 Alvares and Dahlgren, op. cit., p. 54.
47 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1333470143503093761. All translations of his statements are the author's. All Twitter-statements have been last checked in early November 2023.
49 The first Shia Imam.
54 Claude Lefort, ‘The Question of Democracy’, in idem, Democracy and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), pp. 17ff.
56 Taggart, op. cit., p. 274.
57 Although, of course, Iraq shows a very high degree of religiosity, yet somewhat less than countries such as Jordan, Egypt, and Libya, cf. the sixth (2010–2014) and the seventh wave (2017–2020) of the World Values Survey, www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp, rev. 2024-05-13.
59 Ibid.
60 A very typical Islamist notion. Sayyid Qutb used it abundantly to describe the—in his perspective—permissive mores of America, which he saw as epitomes of a state of decay that would mark the fall of an empire due to its weakness, which, according to him, went hand in hand with the rise of non-heteronormative sexualities: Joseph A. Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007), pp. 125f.
62 Ibid.
63 Such as the one shaking the region in 2023: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1622686745564221475.
65 Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Démocratie et représentation: pour une critique du débat contemporain’ [Democracy and Representation: For a Critique of the Contemporary Debate], Trivium, 16 (2014), p. 7.
66 Timothy Mitchell, ‘The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics’, American Political Science Review, 85:1 (1991), pp. 77–95. Seen in this way, the state and its institutions would be the materially tangible result of a discursive hegemony over the respective social conflicts: Oliver Marchart, Das unmögliche Objekt. Eine postfundamentalistische Theorie der Gesellschaft [The Impossible Object. A Post-fundamentalist Theory of Society] (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2013), pp. 368–380.
67 Cf. Rosanvallon, op. cit.; Paula Diehl, Das Symbolische, das Imaginäre und die Demokratie. Eine Theorie politischer Repräsentation [The Symbolic, the Imaginary and Democracy. A Theory of Political Representation] (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015).
68 Paul I. Heck, ‘Law in ʿAbbasid Political Thought. From Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 739/756) to Qudāma b. Jaʿfar (d. 337/948)’, in James E. Montgomery (ed.), Abbasid Studies: Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, 2 (Leuven etc.: Peters, 2004), p. 105.
69 A wild assemblage of militias, who were recognized and subsidized by the Iraqi state in June 2014 to fight the ‘Islamic State.’
70 No author, ‘al-Ḥashad min Tarhīb al-Mutaẓāhirīn ʾilā al-Tarhīb al-Kāẓimī [The Mobilization: From Terrorizing Demonstrators to Terrorizing al-Kāẓimī], al-ʿArab, 27 May 2021, https://tinyurl.com/jxnvh8ss, rev. 2021-05-31.
71 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1397565518207459330. The word harām, i.e. forbidden by God, in relation to the violent disturbance of public peace and—expressis verbis—in connection with the undermining of the state monopoly on the use of force can also be found elsewhere. Exemplarily: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1333470143503093761.
72 See: No author: ‘Ṣāliḥ Muḥammad al-ʿIrāqī: Rīʾāsat al-Wuzarāʾ al-Ṣadriyya ʿAqāʾīdiyyatun Dīniyyatun lā Siyāsiyyatun’ [Salih Muhammad al-Iraqi: The Sadrist Prime Ministry Is a Dogmatic Religious and not a Political One], al-Sharqiyya, 19 September 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mvr23m6e; No author, ‘Muqtadā al-Ṣadr: al-Ṣadr yuḥadhdhiru ʿAnṣārihi Istiʿdādan li-Istilām Ḥukm al-ʿIrāq’ [al-Sadr Admonishes his Supporters to Prepare to Take Over the Rule Over Iraq], Ultrairaq, 24 September 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ynv5au76, both rev. 2021-10-22.
73 Marji Sayej, op. cit., pp. 15ff. In the years immediately after 2003, the Sadrists were often associated with the young, the lower social classes, and often also—in polemical discursive form—with those religious students who had failed in their studies, cf. International Crisis Group, ‘Iraq's Muqtada al-Sadr: Spoiler or Stabiliser?’ Middle East Report, 55 (2006), https://tinyurl.com/fc47avey.
74 Iranian pilgrimage organizations conduct an annual poll by questionnaire among Shiite pilgrims as to who their Marjaʿ is. Around 2006 allegedly up to 80% followed al-Sistani, thus making him the most widely-followed Shia authority, Khalaji, ‘Last Marja’, pp. 6ff.
75 Marji Sayej, op. cit., pp. 23ff. Yet, despite of later on breaking with the regime, also Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was originally greatly supported by the Baʿthist-regime: Jawdat al-Qazwinī, al-Marjaʿiyya al-Dīniyya al-ʿUlyā ʿinda al-Shīʿa al-Imāmiyya. Dirāsatun fī al-Tatawūr al-Siyāsī wa al-ʿIlmī [The Highest Religious Reference among the Twelver Shia. A Study of the Political and Scholarly Development] (Beirut: Dār al-Rāfidaīn, 2015), pp. 338f; Pierre-Jean Luizard, 2007. ‘Les sadrists en Irak: un défi pour lʾAmérique, la marjaʿiyya et lʾIran’ [The Sadrists in Iraq: A Challenge for America, the marjaʿiyya, and Iran], in Sabrina Mervin (ed.), Les mondes chiites et lʾIran [The Shiite Realms and Iran] (Paris/Beirut: Karthala/Ifpo, 2007), pp. 244ff.
76 Luizard, op. cit., p. 250. The extent to which the title of the newspaper picks up a neologism becomes clear when it is remembered that al-Ḥawza was used in Persian sources only from the 1960s and in Arabic ones from the 1980s, see: Franke, op. cit., pp. 86ff.
77 Franke, op. cit., pp. 91ff.
78 Marji Sayej, op. cit., p. 32.
79 Tweet 27 March 2016 from his old account. On his older channel https://twitter.com/SMuqtada. No longer online. Archived in 2022.
80 al-Khutba al-Rābiʿat Ashra al-Kāmila li al-Saīd Muqtadā al-Ṣadr [Sayyid Muqtada as-Sadr's full fourteenth Friday sermon], Kufa 18 July 2003, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLZwUHrspY4, rev. 2023-03-28.
81 Luizard, op. cit., pp. 246ff.
82 Marji Sayej, op. cit., p. 23.
83 ICG, op. cit., p. 6.
84 Allegedly he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's: EPC 22 July 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5f3p8vdn, rev. 2023-03-31.
85 No author: ‘Muqtadā al-Ṣadr ʾAmāma Muʿḍilatun al-Badīl ʿan Ayyat Allahi al-Mutaqāʿid’ [Muqtada al-Sadr Facing the Difficulty to Replace the Outgoing Ayatollah], al-ʿArab, 4 September 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5pjuyvta, rev. 2022-09-12.
86 Robert Gleave, ‘Conceptions of Authority in Iraqi Shiʾism. Baqir al-Hakim, Haʾiri and Sistani on Ijtihad, Taqlid and Marjʾiyya’, Theory, Culture & Society, 24:2 (2007), p. 70.
87 Clarke, op. cit., p. 59.
88 https://jawabna.com/index.php/permalink/4859.html, rev. 2023-04-24.
89 Ibid.
90 Clarke, op. cit., p. 56.
91 Islamic legal rulings.
92 Islamic religious law.
93 On 25 July 2012.
95 Mehdi Khalaji, ‘Iran's Regime of Religion’, Journal of International Affairs, 65:1 (2011), pp. 132ff.
96 Since 2003, his offices and those of al-Haʾiri were often in competition, Luizard, op. cit., p. 255.
97 Ibid., pp. 246/255ff.
98 Benedict Robin-D’Cruz, ‘Muqtada al-Sadr and the Struggle for Religious Authority’, in Malcom H. Carr Carnegie Middle East Center, 14 September 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3uphxk75, rev. 2022-11-25.
99 Jawabna.com on 25 July 2012, https://jawabna.com/index.php/permalink/4859.html; Luizard, op. cit., p. 245.
100 Marji Sayej, op. cit., p. 29. His statement is to be found here: https://jawabna.com/index.php/permalink/10683.html.
101 Jon Armajani, Shia Islam and Politics. Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020), pp. 16ff.
102 Luizard, op. cit., pp. 244ff.
103 Tweet 25 April 2016, on his older channel https://twitter.com/SMuqtada, 2016-04-25.
105 Khalaji, ‘Last Marja’, pp. 25–34.
106 No author, ‘Iran Sends a Powerful Signal to Counter Iraqi Nationalist Trend’, al-Monitor, 13 September 2019, https://tinyurl.com/munb5nfc, rev. 2023-03-05.
107 Now among Shiites, this is usually restricted to the Akhbārīs to whom as-Sadr does not belong, cf. Clarke, op. cit., pp. 54–57.
108 See his piece on authority on https://jawabna.com/index.php/permalink/4859.html.
109 A picture of him in that car: https://tinyurl.com/y6mpv7h8, rev. 2023-02-21.
110 Selvik and Amirteimour, op. cit., p. 249. However, the extent to which Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was interested in his son Muqtada is debatable: One version has it that he appointed him director of his religious school, another that he was totally uninterested in him as an heir. ICG, op. cit., p. 6.
111 https://tinyurl.com/bdejxwbh, rev. 2023-03-05.
112 Mustansir Mir, ‘The Qurʾanic Story of Joseph: Plot, Themes, and Characters’, The Muslim World, 76:1 (1986), pp. 1–15.
113 https://tinyurl.com/bjzxnxdt, rev. 2023-03-05.
114 https://tinyurl.com/4y2627h9, rev. 2023-03-07.
115 https://twitter.com/salih_m_iraqi/status/1708800870790382001/photo/1, rev. 2024-01-30.
116 Moffitt, op. cit., pp. 57–67.
117 Ibid., pp. 57f.
118 https://twitter.com/salih_m_iraqi/status/1680874767052599297, rev. 2024-01-30.
119 https://twitter.com/salih_m_iraqi/status/1450840636224151553 and https://twitter.com/alinajm_1/status/1450840862024511493, rev. 2024-01-30.
120 https://twitter.com/SMuqtada, active from 2012 to 2017, all secured on 2022-06-29.
121 cf. Khalid Sindawi, ‘Ḥawza Instruction and Its Role in Shaping Modern Shīʿite Identity: the Ḥawzas of al-Najaf and Qumm as a Case Study’, Middle Eastern Studies, 43:6 (2007), pp. 839ff.
122 https://twitter.com/SMuqtada, active from 2012 to 2017.
123 6 January 2023, https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1611280575767216128.
124 For example a poem on occasion of ʿĀshūra 2017: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/914411986284433409.
125 See, for example, the scholarly reaction on the attempt of a spontaneous poem on Iraq: Kamal Mizir, ‘Muqtadā al-Ṣadr: Shāʿirun Fāshilun wa Rajul Dīn Mutaṭarrif’ [Muqtada al-Sadr: A Failed Poet and a Radical Man of Religion], al-Daraj, 8 May 2020, https://daraj.media/46097/, rev. 2023-03-06.
126 No author, ‘Saleh Mohammed al-Iraqi: al-Sadr's Mouthpiece Who Tweets “What the Leader Cannot Say”’, Shafaq, 17 September 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yptx63f3, rev. 2023-03-07.
127 Exemplarily: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1466389866695086082.
128 https://jawabna.com/index.php/permalink/4859.html, rev. 2023-03-28.
130 Charles Tilly, ‘Reflections on the History of European State-Building’, in Idem (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 3–83.
132 Literally a ‘paternal state’ (dawla abawiyya), an expression that also makes it possible to allude on various occasions to his father and therefore allows the charismatic dimension of his legitimacy to come into play.
135 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1244254481505816578 and https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1244687404625207296.
137 Ismail Albayrak, The Qur’anic Narratives of the Golden Calf Episode / قصة العجل الذهبي في القراَن’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, 3:1 (2001), p. 56.
140 Tellingly, Muqtada al-Sadr's first post on Twitter was addressed ‘To the honorable Iraqi Shiite community’ and not to the Iraqis as such: https://twitter.com/SMuqtada/status/228571081290682368?cxt=HHwWgMCQpP-LhqwGAAAA.
142 Only in February 2017, a somewhat regular pattern of translating four of his statements can be observed. Here, also unpolitical statements were translated. There seems to be no connection between them.
144 Tweet 29 January 2020, not any longer online.
145 Sudarsan Ragharvan, ʿDonald Trump destroyed my lifeʾ says barred Iraqi who worked for U.S.’, The Washington Post, 29 January 2017, https://tinyurl.com/yckmt267.
146 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1052263349440970752 the Arabic version: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1052254818255785984. The term ‘pharaoh’ is used in modern Islamist discourse as popularized by Sayyid Qutb, meaning a tyrannical worldly ruler who usurps the prerogatives due to God: Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf, Herrschaft und Gesellschaft. Der islamische Wegbereiter Sayyid Quṭb und seine Rezeption [Domination and Society. The Islamic Pioneer Sayyid Quṭb and his Reception] (Würzburg: Ergon, 2002). However, also medieval Muslims considered the ‘the tyrants and Pharaohs’ as those rulers having sinned and not executing God's will: Patricia Crone, God's Rule. Government and Islam. Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), p. 7.
147 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1360667887606894592, the Arabic version: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1360639330507771905.
148 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/996000496249909249 and https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/996013847130640384.
149 https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1528093781190402051, the Arabic version: https://twitter.com/Mu_AlSadr/status/1528058580896780288.
150 Originally 23 May 2022.
151 https://twitter.com/salih_m_iraqi/status/1598296265355587586. Remarkably, this post is still online, as is most of the campaign. A revealing insight into the considerable regional differences in X-s policies.
152 Mark LeVine, ‘Killing Emos, and the Future, in Iraq’, al-Jazeera, 20 March 2012, https://tinyurl.com/yw227hv8, rev. 2024-05-13.
153 Maly, op. cit.
154 https://tinyurl.com/3xwsxj3v. The Arabic acronym stands for the letter ‘Mīm’ (=m), with which the Arabic words for ‘gay,’ ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgender’ start when written as an adjective.
155 https://twitter.com/HZSPbHTfuU2PYlO/status/1598641561637568512 all links related to that campaign active as of 7 March 2023.
156 https://twitter.com/alsdrei_kr, Post 1 December 2022.
157 https://twitter.com/Nakam_Alsadr, Post 1 December 2022.
160 https://twitter.com/Fo0jdq90sfil/status/1668978497367187456, rev. 2024-03-01.
162 MJ Lee et al., ‘Biden Signs into Law Same-sex Marriage Bill, 10 Years after his Famous Sunday Show Answer on the Issue’, CNN, 13 December 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2s47r4vm, rev. 2024-03-01.
163 The World Value Survey, 7th wave 2017–2022 (https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp), showed that on a scale of 1 (never justifiable) to 10 (always justifiable), only 8.3% of respondents considered them justifiable under certain circumstances (scale values 6–10), and only 0.7% always justifiable. The mean was 2.30. For comparison: Russia 2.35, Spain 7.00, United Kingdom 7.31.
164 Richard C. M. Mole, ‘Nationalism and Homophobia in Central and Eastern Europe’, in Koen Slootmaeckers et al. (eds), The EU Enlargement and Gay Politics. The Impact on Eastern Enlargement on Rights, Activism and Prejudice. Gender and Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 99–121; Olena Yermakova, ‘PiS vs LGBT: The ‘Othering’ of the LGBT Movement as an Element of Populist Radical Right Party Discourse in Poland’, Sprawy Narodowościowe, 53 (2021), https://doi.org/10.11649/sn.2568.
165 He further considered very openly the death penalty for cases of same-sex relations and refused to use the word ‘homosexuality,’ suggesting one should rather use ‘deviants’ or ‘poofters’ to describe the ‘ugliness of the act’, cf. https://twitter.com/Akhbaralsaha/status/1683470061720281089, rev. 2023-10-30.
166 See on the website of the Ugandan parliament: https://tinyurl.com/bdcvvdff and No author: ‘ Homosexuality: Cut Aid If You so Wish, Speaker Anita Tells Donors’, The Observer, 26 March 2023, https://tinyurl.com/98jrd8fz, both rev. 2023-05-29.
167 Zayd Salām, ‘Juyūsh ʾIliktrūniyya tughadhdhī Khitāb al-Karāhiyya fī al-ʿIrāq’ [The Electronic Armies Fuel Hate Speech in Iraq], al-ʿArabī al-Jadīd, 27 September 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ykd3nfhf, rev. 2022-10-12.
170 For example on 25 March 2023.
171 For example on Abo Mzeal on 7 April, 2023, when Israel bombed several targets in Lebanon and Palestine, or on March 21, 2023, relating to allegations of corruption. Or on March 26 thanking God for a huge fire in an ARAMCO facility at Khobar/Saudi-Arabia after a Huthi-attack. Ṣābirīn News promoted not only Iranian drones and their use in Ukraine but advertised the whole war in Ukraine, for example by tweeting a typical nashīd on the glory of the Russian army or by promoting hacker attacks on Ukrainian websites.
172 No author, ‘‘Rabaʿ Allāh’ wa ‘Jabha ʾAbū Jadāḥa’ … Milīshiyāt tuthīr al-Qalaq fī al-ʿIrāq’ [The Lord's Company and the Front of the Father of the Lighter: Militias Spark Fear in Iraq], al-Ḥurra, 18 October 2020, https://tinyurl.com/4bafjbdm, rev. 2023-03-05.
174 No author: ‘al-ʿIrāq: Hal Insaḥaba al-Ṣadr kay takasharu ʿal-Dawla al-ʿAmīqiyyaʾ ʿan ʾAnyābihā’ [Iraq: Did Sadr Withdraw for the ʿDeep Stateʾ to Bare its Teeth?], al-Quds al-ʿArabī, 27 January 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y7fj2j2w, rev. 2020-01-29.
175 José Casanova, ‘Secularization Revisited: A Reply to Talal Asad’, in David Scott and Charles Hirschkind (eds), Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2006), pp. 12–30.
176 Khalaji, ‘Last Marja’, p. 34.
177 No author, ‘ʾIrān taʿidu al-Ṣadr bi-Sulta Siyāsiyya wa Ḥuẓwa fī al-Marjaʿiyya baʿada wafāt al-Sīstānī‘ [Iran Promises al-Sadr Political Power and Patronage in {acquiring} Religious Authority after Sistani's Death], al-ʿArab, 28 January 2020, https://tinyurl.com/t8zdcux, rev. 2020-01-29.
178 Moffitt, op. cit., pp. 98–101.
179 Among many: Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).
180 Peter Lintl, Israelische Charedim und politische Moderne. Herausforderungen einer orthodoxen Strömung in einer detraditionalisierten Welt [Israeli Haredim and Political Modernity. Challenges to an Orthodox Tendency in a Detraditionalized World] (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2024).
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Christian Thuselt
Christian Thuselt works at the German Orient-Institut (OIB) in Beirut as a research associate and is responsible for the in-house production of the ‘Beiruter Texte und Studien’ (BTS). He holds an MA from Tübingen University and received his PhD in Social Sciences from Roskilde University with a study on Lebanese political parties as expressions of a global modernity. From 2009 to 2021, he worked at Erlangen University, most recently as an assistant professor. His research at the OIB focusses on Iraqi statehood as part of a discourse on legitimacy.