Word: cleric
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ever quite sure where al-Sadr stands. The rebellious Shi'ite cleric is a master of the mixed message, and last week he flipped so often between vows of violence and offers to negotiate that even when the two-week-old standoff between his Mahdi Army and combined U.S. and Iraqi-government forces seemed about to end, it wasn't clear if it had. Did he really intend to quit the shrine? Or was he actually planning to resume combat, as he later urged his followers, against the enemy forces still poised outside? As one of his spokesmen, Sheik Ahmed...
...equation. Sistani has demanded that the U.S. and Iraqi forces withdraw from around the mosque and that Sadr's gunmen leave before he'll enter. The U.S. and the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi may have no option but to comply, because alienating Sistani, the most influential cleric in Iraq, would be political suicide. Getting Sadr's fighters out of the mosque would, of course, accomplish one of the government's primary objectives. Doing so along the lines suggested by Sistani, however, also helps Sadr...
...recognized and venerated - even as it is, effect, challenged to move in a more radical direction - by Sadr's movement. Sistani is a "Marjah," an object of emulation in the Shiite tradition, whose position is attained through decades of patient learning and Islamic jurisprudence. Sadr is a junior cleric, although his supporters have taken to referring to him as a Hujjat al-Islam, or jurisprudent, the next step up the ladder, although most observers doubt he has completed the requisite studies...
Nevertheless, Iraqi leaders in the interim government who are desperate for national reconciliation see the value of according a role to al-Sadr and his wide following. When the interim government regained sovereignty, Prime Minister Allawi opened talks with the cleric, even offering clemency for the murder charge against him. For weeks, Fa'oud Massoum, the chairman of the committee organizing the national conference to choose an interim legislature, tried to persuade al-Sadr to send representatives, but he has refused...
Making matters worse was the absence of Sistani, who left his home in Najaf two weeks ago for medical treatment in London. Al-Sadr supporters say the U.S. was exploiting his absence to crack down on the populist cleric. But Sistani's associates say al-Sadr was the one taking advantage of the ayatullah's departure to intensify his campaign against the U.S. Just before undergoing angioplasty, the Grand Ayatullah issued a strong statement calling on all parties to stop the fighting...