Word: najaf
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...return to, or discover, normal life. Cautiously at first, and then in a deluge of bustling crowds - a human "izdiham" - Iraqis have returned to the streets and opened their shops and restaurants. There is certainly no shortage of food in much of Iraq, and in the streets of Najaf, the yellow humanitarian daily rations packages provided by the U.S. sell for 50 cents a piece. Of their contents, Iraqis appear to like only the raisins...
...achieving legitimacy in Iraqi eyes may lie with the Shiite majority, and in particular with the Hawza, the national Shiite clerical leadership based at Najaf. The Hawza has been demonstrably the most organized and effective Iraqi social force on the ground in the wake of Saddam's ouster. On their orders, Iraqis in different cities (and in Baghdad's largest neighborhoods) have suppressed looting, mounted security patrols and restored basic services. But the Hawza comprises different factions: Its leader is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who advocates keeping the clergy out of directly political roles. But that view is challenged...
...Muqtada's supporters are alleged to have been involved in the murder of pro-U.S. returned exile Ayatollah Abdel Majid al-Khoei at Najaf last month, and then briefly laid siege to the home of Iraq's supreme Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and demanded that Sistani leave Iraq. Some U.S. officials speculated that his fanatical supporters, who had worked underground, were a pro-Iran faction stirring up trouble. But it quickly emerged that Muqtada spelt trouble even for the leading Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Muqtada - whose supporters...
...Even before he attains such status, he does not hide his contempt many of the others who have. "I deny all marjah, except for Haeri, and I represent the second martyr (meaning his father) and not the Hawza (the supreme religious academy of Iraqi Shi'ism, located in Najaf)." Of the other marjah, he says, "some of them have no followers." He downplays the importance, both political and military, of one of the most senior marjah, Ayatollah Mohammed Sayeed al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its military wing, the Badr corps...
...involved in politics. Anyone who seeks to be involved in politics should join hands with America." At the same time, however, Muqtada al-Sadr is promoting the involvement of clerics in public affairs, as against the more apolitical role for the imams envisaged by Sistani and others at Najaf, and urging that women be veiled and alcohol be banned throughout Iraq...