Word: ayatullah
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...vast majority of them successful: the economy is reviving, tens of thousands of Iraqis have returned from exile, oil production is near prewar capacity, the country is rebuilding. Did we make any mistakes? Of course we did. The most egregious being not giving enough protection to the pro-Western Ayatullah Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, who was murdered, most likely by followers of the now notorious Muqtada al-Sadr...
...symbolic transfer of power, even if a significant number of troops remain and real authority will mostly be wielded out of a new 3,000-person U.S. embassy. Officials believe delaying the transition would only further enrage Iraqis, including, critically, the country's most revered Shi'ite leader, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, whose support the U.S. needs more than ever as it tries to rein in the upstart al-Sadr. "June 30 is a good date," says Rend al-Rahim Francke, Iraq's diplomatic representative to the U.S. "It is long overdue...
...that is not Muqtada al-Sadr's way. He shares with the late Iranian revolutionary Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini a belief in rule by the clergy in a strict theocratic state. Al-Sadr's strategy, it now appears, is to engage coalition forces in a deadly confrontation, in the belief that Iraqi Shi'ites will support him in a direct showdown with the U.S. His rabid anti-Americanism, which previously failed to connect with the majority of Shi'ites, now strikes a chord. A year after the war began, their tolerance is exhausted. The lower rungs of society...
...action against an Islamic cleric. In the past, Sistani marginalized al-Sadr by ignoring him, according to Noah Feldman, a New York University professor who was an adviser to the coalition authority. As a result of the clashes, says Feldman, "we've tied Sistani's hands." Last week Ayatullah Sistani put out a careful call for an end to Shi'ite violence but criticized American use of force in response...
...Sadr has financed his rise by entering the booming religious-tourism business, cornering the market on Shi'a pilgrims, who have poured into Najaf to visit its shrines. After the assassination last August of Ayatullah Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, who used to give Friday sermons at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, al-Sadr's men worked to consolidate their position in the town--and, more important, their control over the money donated by visitors to its holy sites. Al-Sadr now controls the lockbox at the Imam Ali mosque, worth millions of dollars a year. Last October his militia...