Word: shahristani
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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...seclusion, Sistani is worldly wise about Iraq's current realities. "He has his hands on the pulse of the nation," says Hussein Shahristani, a former nuclear scientist who returned from exile to advise Sistani. "It's at his fingertips." Sistani sees a steady stream of aides and agents based around the country as well as Iraqi leaders eager to court and consult him. Sheik Jameel al-Qurayshi, who represents Sistani in Baghdad's restive Sadr City district, visits the ayatullah at least once a week to discuss the fine points of Islamic practice and get political advice for handling...
Sistani's personal history would be interesting but unimportant if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq. The fall of Saddam left the country in chaos, with a power vacuum at the top. The Shi'ite masses naturally looked to Sistani for direction, says Shahristani, and the ayatullah felt compelled by religious duty to step in. "He believes at a crisis time like this, the marja must guide the people," says al-Qurayshi. So the cleric who had shied away from politics all his life began to issue fatwas of profound political importance...
...thinks Sistani is close to giving such an order. He is too "humane," says Shahristani. When al-Sadr's soldiers disobeyed Sistani's directive not to spill blood in Najaf, Sistani "wept for hours" over the young Iraqi lives that were lost, says an intimate. A diplomat in Baghdad regards Sistani as a "cautious man who doesn't go out on a limb." Sistani's men say he has repeatedly doused al-Sadr's uprisings because he fears violence will only cost the Shi'ites their legitimate claim to power...
...with nonpartisan technocrats without links to either the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council or to the man he calls "the big chief," Saddam. But only days before he had hoped to name Iraq's new leaders, that plan was overhauled. Brahimi's first choice for Prime Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, was leaked early last week to Washington reporters. But Shi'ite members of the Governing Council quickly complained that al-Shahristani, a former nuclear scientist, lacked any political base in the country; non-Shi'ite members of the council said he was too religious. Iraqi and U.N. officials say that...