Iraqis divided as cleric's role widens

NAJAF, Iraq -- Before midday prayers, the tinny speakers atop the gold-domed Shrine of Ali proclaimed that Iraq's most prominent Shi'ite Muslim party was backing Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for early elections, another sign of the revered cleric's growing political power.

But across town that recent day, at the Kufa mosque, Sistani's fiery young rival, Sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr, was challenging the senior cleric's view that the United Nations should help determine whether direct elections can be held by a June 30 deadline for a new Iraqi government.

As the reclusive Sistani emerges as the most influential figure in Iraqi politics, there are signs he is taking steps to guard against losing control of the popular movement he has unleashed.

Sistani's aides have urged his followers to hold off on street protests until the UN reaches its verdict. On his website yesterday, www.najaf.org, statements marked "urgent" disowned self-described spokesmen who have threatened violence. And while Sadr's followers denied they were breaking with Sistani, they were also adamant in going well beyond his position, calling the UN untrustworthy and a tool of the United States.

US officials increasingly act as though Sistani has the power to veto, or to salvage, their plans for the handoff from American to Iraqi control. Last week, after Sistani's call for a direct ballot sent hundreds of thousands of demonstrators into the streets of Baghdad and Basra, US officials asked the UN to assess the possibility. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has dispatched a team to Iraq to weigh alternative methods for the political transition. US officials are considering revising or scrapping the complex caucus system they designed to choose a transitional assembly.

Within Iraq, the degree to which Sistani represents the country's majority Shi'ites -- or controls them -- is a matter of anxious debate.

Sistani, who has not left his house in this holy city in six years, is the most revered of the religious scholars whom observant Shi'ites consult on everything from what to eat to how to deal with family disputes. But Iraqis are divided on whether Sistani's role should be extended to politics.

"He stated his opinion. Why are we overemphasizing this?" said Sayyid Farkad al-Qizwini, a Shi'ite cleric and president of a university in the central city of Hillah. He works closely with US officials and shares their view that elections should wait until Iraq has better security and more-developed political institutions.

Shi'ite intellectuals -- as well as leaders of the nation's Sunni Muslim and Kurdish minorities -- worry that by giving Sistani a lot of sway, the United States is promoting sectarianism and handing too much power to religious leaders.

Fakri Karim, a former Iraq Communist Party activist and editor of an Iraqi newspaper, Al Madah, fumed against the US-appointed Governing Council, whose members shuttle regularly to Sistani's home in Najaf.

"They and Bremer created this situation," he said, referring to L. Paul Bremer III, the US-appointed administrator of Iraq. "Bloody fools. They couldn't separate respecting Sistani as a high religious authority and [seeking] his advice on political decisions."

Sistani also faces pressure from more confrontational religious leaders like Sadr, the son of a revered cleric Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was murdered in 1999 after defying Saddam Hussein.

Asked whether Sadr was suggesting Sistani's position was not tough enough on the United States and the UN, a Sadr aide said, "His stand will strengthen [Sistani's] opinion." But the aide, Sheik Jabbar al Khafaji, added: "The UN agrees with whatever the US says. This is what we do not accept. The UN will find a pretext to deny the elections."

Sistani's demand for a ballot has tapped into a deep well of discontent over the US-led occupation and the slow pace of reconstruction, particularly among Shi'ites yearning to take political power after decades of brutal oppression by Hussein. His purges killed tens of thousands of Shi'ites, who are believed to make up 60 percent of Iraq's population.

Critics like Karim said they believe Sistani is sincere in searching for the most democratic solution for Iraqis. But they worry that Shi'ite politicians who bend his ear -- like Abdel Aziz al Hakim, a Governing Council member and head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq -- want to rush elections to keep other groups from catching up to their level of organization and discipline.

The cleric's power has been by turns helpful and alarming to officials of the US-led coalition. They know the relative calm in Shi'ite areas has endured in part because Sistani has urged followers to cooperate to speed the end of the occupation. And they fear what would happen if Sistani changed his mind.

Ask observant Shi'ites what they will do if Sistani's demands are not met, and the answers are remarkably uniform, whether from technocrats or laborers.

"It is for Sistani to decide and us to follow," said Haider Abdelkarim, 24, an unemployed graduate of a technical institute who traveled from Baghdad's Sadr City slum to the Kufa mosque for Friday prayers.

Kadhim Naba Hamadi, 53, an Education Ministry employee who came to the Ali mosque to receive a blessing for a relative's corpse, said, "I have no opinion other than Sistani's."

Yusef Faal Thamad, a journalist and member of a local council representing a Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad, said that if Sistani called for it, he would quit the council, even though that would mean forfeiting a role in the planned caucus system.

Asked how he could square unquestioning obedience to an unelected leader with his demand for democracy, he said, "It's not just any leader." Echoing popular opinion, he called Sistani wise, moderate, devoid of personal political ambition, and a symbol of Shi'ite survival.

But Karim said there are new pressures on Shi'ites to publicly maintain a party line from people who accuse, "If you don't agree, you are not a Muslim."

The role of the 73-year-old cleric opens a window on a key feature of Shi'ite practice: "taqlid," or emulation, of a religious guide called a "marja."

Sistani is one of several clerics in Iraq who have attained a high enough level of scholarship to become a marja. Shi'ites are free to choose which marja to follow and are expected to seek his guidance on all important matters.

Outside Sistani's home, in an alleyway between a fabric store and a shop selling gold watches, men stand in line to pass questions through his aides. His website details how to live morally and piously. Followers can e-mail him questions or select from pull-down menus on topics from marriage to washing before prayers. The site provides special instructions for Muslims living in the West: Women, for instance, should not watch professional wrestling if it involves men in scanty clothes.

But by taking on a visible role in a political issue, Sistani is entering new territory. Although he was born in neighboring Iran, he has not called for an Iranian-style theocracy. He favors an approach called quietism, which holds that clerics should not get involved in politics. He survived Hussein's regime by keeping a low profile, while his rival Sadr spoke out and was executed.

But in Iraq's political vaccum, Sistani is the only trustworthy figure to turn to for Shi'ites yearning for jobs, security, and national dignity, said Yitzhak Nakash, a professor at Brandeis University and author of "The Shi'is of Iraq."

"He symbolizes something that is uncorrupted, when everything is falling apart," Nakash said.

Outside the Shrine of Ali, Razak Jassem Mohammed, 34, a Health Ministry technician, said, "He will lead us from hell to heaven."