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Islam in Iraq
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The history of Islam in Iraq goes back several centuries to the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632).
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The Muslim population of Iraq is approximately 65 percent Arab Shi'a, 12 percent Arab Sunni and 20 percent Kurdish. Iraqi Kurds are mostly Sunni, with about 10% being Shi'a Faili Kurds. Most Kurds are located in the northern areas of the country, with most following the Shafi school of Islamic law and being members of the Naqshbandi Sufi tariqah. Iranian Shi'as consider the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala as critical to their own faith and culture and wield significant religious influence over Iraqi Shi'as there. Shi'as throughout the world come to Najaf as the center of Shi'a learning and the site of Ali ibn Abi Talib's (the first Shi'a Imam) tomb. Najaf was also the center from which opposition to British rule was organized, where Lebanese Shi'a religious leaders were trained, and where Ayatollah Khomeini spent fourteen years in exile after first arriving there in 1965. Shi'a activism from Najaf contributed to opposition to the Communist threat in the 1960s and to the Baath regime, which was dominated by Sunni's, since 1968.[1]
- Further information: Demographics of Iraq
Throughout the 1970s the Baathist regime stepped up the oppression of Shiites, which fueled the rise of al-Dawa ("the Call"), a political party dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq. The other major religious Shi'i groupings included the Paykar group (a guerilla organization similar to the Iranian Mujahidin) and the Jama'at al 'Ulama (groupings of pro-Khomeini ulema), which were united and their activities co-ordinated from within Iran by Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Meanwhile, the Baath leadership made a determined effort to woo support from Iraqi Shi'is during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Resources were diverted to the Shii south. The official government propaganda cast the war with Iran in terms of the struggle between the Arabs and the Iranians for supremacy that occurred in the early days of Islam, trying to make the Shiis of southern Iraq identify more with their being Arabs in the face of the Iranian foe, rather than their being Shi'is. Thus, the Iraqi official propaganda used certain symbolic key-words such as Qādisiyya (the battle at which the Arab armies defeated the Iranian Empire in 637), while the Iranian propaganda sought to win support of south Iraq's Shi'is by using such key-words as Karbala.
Since the US led 2003 invasion of Iraq, there have been daily conflicts between the Shi'a and the Sunnis within the country. However, despite increasing sectarian violence in Iraq, historically a sense of shared Arab heritage was effective in minimizing conflict in the past. In this regard, Ahmad Chalabi commented in 2004, "Sunnis and Shiites have never fought against each other. The violence was always perpetrated by Saddam Hussein."[2]
- Grand Ayatollah al-Shirazi
- Abu'l-Hassan Isfahani
- Muhammad Husayn Al Kashifu'l-Ghita
- Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim
- Ayatollah Abdul Majid al-Khoei
- Hujjatu'l-Islam Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim
- Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr
- Muqtada as-Sadr (b.1973)
- Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq as-Sadr (1943-1999)
- Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr (d.1980)
- Ismail as-Sadr
- ^ John Esposito, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford University Press 2003
- ^ National Geographic, Reaching for Power June 2004
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