Beirut/Damascus: In 1785, an unknown Shiite prelate from Jabal Amal in today’s southern Lebanon, travelled to the city of Baghdad.
Salah Ibn Ibrahim Sharaf al-Din set up base with his family in the northern neighbourhood of al-Kadhimiyya. Their roots in the mountainous region of Jabal Amal were deep, reaching back to the 12th century.
He was a simple man, seeking to improve his income and social status. He never imagined that he would sow the seeds for what was to become one of Iraq’s most powerful political families — one that these days plays a pivotal role in the country’s politics: the Sadrs.
Much has been written about the current leader of the family, Muqtada al-Sadr — a descendant of Sharaf al-Din who rose to prominence immediately after the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Baghdad.
Iraq's Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr holds a press conference in Najaf, Iraq on August 30, 2022.
Then a young man of 30, he became a household name in Iraq — first, as the leader of an insurgency against the Americans, then as politician, and now the kingmaker of Iraqi politics.
At the young age of 30, Muqtada became a household name in Iraq — first, as the leader of an insurgency against the Americans, then as politician, and now the kingmaker of Iraqi politics.
Al-Sadr has been well represented in the Iraqi parliament and every government since 2003. He has played a crucial role in the naming of every premier, from Ibrahim al-Jaafari in 2005, to Mustapha al-Kadhimi in 2020.
Despite his prominence, Iraq observers are uncertain of what to make of him.
Some describe him as a selfless nationalist who wants to wrestle Iraq from both US and Iranian tutelage, while others see him as a thug with blood on his hands (in reference to the April 2003 assassination of prominent Shiite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who was killed on al-Sadr's orders, according to the Americans, just days after their troops rumbled into al-Najaf).
Critics claim that al-Sadr's only objective is to consolidate power within his own family, especially after winning 73 out of 329 seats in Iraq's parliament last October.
Claiming to hold a clear majority, Sadr has tried to impose a figure of his choice as prime minister, refusing to share power with other Shiite leaders in the Iran-backed Coordination Framework (CF).
When they refused to endorse his candidate — his cousin and brother-in law Jaafar al-Sadr — al-Sadr ordered his MPs to resign from parliament, hoping that the move would bring down the entire chamber.
That did not happen and was actually used by the CF to squeeze him out of the process of forming a cabinet, amid claims they were now the single largest bloc in Parliament.
Supporters of the Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr use ropes to bring down concrete barriers along the Al-Jumhuriya (Republic) bridge that leads to the capital Baghdad's high-security Green Zone July 30, 2022.
In retaliation, his followers stormed the Iraqi Parliament in late July 2022, paralysing the state and its legislative branch.
Iconic figures
Walking through the Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, one can see giant posters of al-Sadr clad in black, photoshopped next to his late father Sadiq and father-in-law Baqir al-Sadr. These two iconic figures in Iraqi history remain crucial to his career and to the story of Iraqi Shiites.
Although many years have passed since they were both killed on Saddam Hussein's orders, al-Sadr never tires of mentioning them or stressing their importance to the history of Iraq and that of the Shiite community, in particular.
In the seminal work, "Muqtada", award-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn names Baqir al-Sadr, who was killed in 1980, as Sadr I, the First Martyr, and Muqtada's father Sadiq, assassinated in 1999, is identified as Sadr II, or the Second Martyr.
When leading an armed insurgency against the Americans in 2004, Muqtada often referred to himself as the Third Martyr. That would make him Sadr III.
Identifying martyrs by such numbers is not new to the Shiites, and they regularly use such terminology in reference to two of their early martyred scholars, Jamal al-Din al-Makki and Zein al-Din Bin Ali al-Jebai al-Ameli.
To better understand al-Sadr, we need to take a deeper look at the history of his illustrious family, along with the role models in his life who have forged his identity and influenced his politics.
When Baqir al-Sadr was born in Iraq's city of al-Kadhimiyya in 1935, the country was then ruled by the Hashemite family — descendants of the Prophet Mohammad who had been given seats of power by the British — first in Syria, then in Jordan and Iraq.
The first king of Iraq, Faisal I, had courted the Shiites lavishly, appointing Rustom Haydar, a notable from Baalbak, as his personal envoy and finance minister, while making Mohammad al-Sadr — a second cousin of Muqtada's father — as president of the Iraqi Senate in 1929.
Mohammad Al Sadr in seated in the centre of the picture.
Mohammad al-Sadr would eventually become prime minister of Iraq, albeit briefly, in 1948. King Faisal even chose 18 Dhu al-Hijja on the Muslim calendar (23 August) as the date of his 1921 coronation in Baghdad, which is when Shiite Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammad singled out his cousin and son-in-law Ali as his successor.
Response to liberalisation
Baqir grew up in a tolerant society. His father Haydar had died young, and he was raised by his elder brother Ismail, who, in 1946, sent him to study Shiite Islam in the holy city of al-Najaf, 160-km south of Baghdad.
By all accounts Baqir was an exceptionally smart and talented student, who helped establish a religiously driven political party named al-Dawa (The Call) in 1957.
Founded in al-Najaf, al-Dawa was established in response to the increasingly liberal and secular views that were infiltrating Iraq and the broader Arab world.
Much of that secularism was inspired by colonial powers like France and Great Britain, who had just recently left the area. Women were unveiling. Men were no longer going to mosques, except on Fridays.
Some Iraqi women were even starting to engage in politics through the Iraqi Communist Party, then, at its zenith during the Cold War, calling on them to break the bonds of male-dominated society.
That struck a particularly raw nerve with pious Muslims like Baqir al-Sadr — then a young man of 23 — who promoted al-Dawa as a protector of Islamic values.
Baqir also joined a Shiite seminary (hazwa), through which he met a 62-year-old Iranian cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini sometime in late 1965. Khomeini had been banished from his country for opposing the secular and pro-Western rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and was to stay in Iraq for a total of 14 years until 1978.
He knew exactly who the Sadrs were, given that they traced their lineage directly to the Prophet Mohammad through the seventh Shiite imam, Musa al-Kazim.
There was an Iranian branch to the Sadr family into which Musa al-Sadr was born in 1928. He eventually moved to Lebanon in the late 1950s and established the Movement of the Dispossessed (aka AMAL), with whom Khomeini was well acquainted.
Khomeini courted the young Baqir al-Sadr, inspiring revolution in his heart and the hearts of al-Dawa members. They watched in awe as he lectured them on an Islamic state where there is no constitution but the Holy Quran and no rule of law except the hadith and behaviour of the Prophet.
Expanded activism
Baqir and his friends had already started to expand their political activism, after a bloody revolution toppled and butchered the young king, Faisal II, along with his entire family on 14 July, 1958. They were shot and their bodies mutilated along with pro-American premier, Nuri Pashi al-Sa'id.
Iraq's new strongman Abdul Karim Qassim was half-Shiite from his mother's side, and he ordered the construction of homes and infrastructure in what was to become an all-Shiite suburb, created to serve the community's poor and needy.
It was first called al-Thawra (Revolution City after the 1958 Revolution) before Saddam changed it to Saddam City in 1982. After Saddam's downfall in 2003, Muqtada renamed it Sadr City, after his slain father, Sadiq al-Sadr.
However, Baqir's relationship with the officer class had its ups-and-downs. In January 1970, his supporters were accused of wanting to stage a coup against Iraq's Baathist president, Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr.
Two years later, Baqir was arrested briefly for anti-government sermons, only to be released due to the sheer weight and number of his constituency throughout the Iraqi south.
However, 74 members of al-Dawa, hailing from al-Najaf, Karbala and Basra were executed. The party's leader in Baghdad, Sahib al-Dakhil, disappeared and was never seen again.
When Iraq's security chief Fadil al-Barrak asked Baqir to omit a phrase in one of his books criticising socialism — one of the main pillars on which the ruling Baath Party was founded — he agreed, trying to avoid a confrontation with the security apparatus.
However, when he was later asked to ghostwrite a book on religion for President al-Bakr, Baqir said no.
Striking a nerve
The turning point in Baqir al-Sadr's career came when the Islamic Revolution in Iran toppled the autocratic Shah in February 1979, overthrowing the Pahlava dynasty that had been in power since the mid-1920s.
Baqir could not hold back his joy, sending an envoy to Tehran to congratulate his old friend, Imam Khomeini, while calling for three days of celebrations in al-Najaf.
He probably didn't think that this would anger Iraqi officialdom, which was never too fond of the Shah, accusing him, among other things, of being an agent of Western imperialism, an ally of the US, and a friend of Israel.
But the sheer thought of a turbaned cleric overthrowing an omnipotent president or king was enough to send shivers down the spine of Iraqi's powerful vice-president at the time, Saddam Hussein.
When he assumed power that July, Saddam ordered an immediate crackdown on al-Dawa, arresting anywhere between 2,000-4,000 of Baqir's supporters, while sending 200 of them to the gallows.
The sheer thought of a turbaned cleric overthrowing an omnipotent president or king was enough to send shivers down the spine of Iraqi's powerful vice-president at the time, Saddam Hussein who ordered an immediate crackdown on al-Dawa, arresting anywhere between 2,000-4,000 of Baqir's supporters, while sending 200 of them to the gallows.
Under no circumstances would he allow another Khomeini to emerge in Iraq. Two hundred security forces were dispatched to al-Najaf to place Baqir al-Sadr under house arrest. He was confined to his home and deprived of electricity, telephones, and clean water.
Saddam then made him an offer: complete silence for the rest of his life or clear condemnation of the Islamic Revolution and its Ayatollah. Baqir agreed to neither, prompting Saddam to outlaw al-Dawa in March 1980.
After that, membership in the party became a capital offense, punishable by death.
On 8 April 1980, five months before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, Baqir al-Sadr was taken to a state prison, along with his sister Bint al-Huda, where they were summarily executed on Saddam's orders.
Some say they were hanged in their prison cells. Others claim they were shot.
Sadiq al-Sadr
The career of Muqtada's father Sadiq was not as illustrious as that of his father-in-law, but equally impactful. Born in 1943, Sadiq was a student of Baqir al-Sadr, but he only began to gain prominence after the 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam Hussein, launched shortly after the liberation of Kuwait.
He was not the only prominent Sadr after Baqir. There was also an influential "defector" called Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr, who remains in al-Kadhimiyya as of 2022, leading a separate branch of the family which, until today, doesn't adhere blindly to Muqtada al-Sadr.
During this time, an international coalition headed by the United States had staged the second Gulf War leaving Iraq in ruins. Many thought that Saddam's days were numbered, including Sadiq al-Sadr, who only turned his back on the revolution when it became clear to him that Saddam was far from finished.
Interestingly, however, the Iraqi president decided to keep him alive, seeing him as less militant than his co-religionists, and perhaps, more importantly, unaffiliated with Khomeini's Iran.
Reluctant cooperation
Saddam reasoned that Sadiq could help him control the hawzas, explaining why many prominent families like the Hakims (then based in Tehran) accused him of being an agent of Iraqi intelligence.
After the Iran-Iraq War started in September 1980, the Hakims had set up the Badr Organisation with Iranian funds, with the sole purpose of fighting Saddam's army — an act that Sadiq opposed from the start.
But the ever-suspicious Saddam never fully trusted Sadiq, seeing his cooperation as a tactic and disingenuous. He was only allowed to lead Friday prayers in the late 1990s — first in Kut (1996), then in Baghdad (1997) and finally in Kufa in 1998, just months before his assassination.
But those sermons — tolerated with the intention of enforcing allegiance to Saddam — actually had the opposite effect. They cemented allegiance to Sadiq al-Sadr, who became something of a living saint to all those caught in his orbit.
Saddam only allowed Sadiq to lead Friday prayers in the late 1990s but those sermons — tolerated with the intention of enforcing allegiance to Saddam — actually had the opposite effect. They cemented allegiance to Sadiq al-Sadr, who became something of a living saint to all those caught in his orbit.
In future years, his supporters were fond of telling a story — which has been passed on from one generation to the next — saying that in October 1997, Sadiq said "no" to Saddam's presidential referendum, claiming: "Yes is only to God."
Had that been true, however, then Saddam would have had him shot — right there and then — and not waited until 1999 to get rid of him.
Repressive backlash
Meanwhile, in the late 1990s, pressure was mounting on Saddam from the Clinton White House.
An infamous crisis over UN inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction mushroomed into a military confrontation known as Operation Desert Fox, launched on 16 December 1998.
Saddam became bitter and was no longer in the mood for any compromise with those who were not 100% loyal to him, triggering a repressive backlash against the Shiite community.
Thousands were arrested and many were executed in jail, making silence very difficult for Sadiq al-Sadr.
On 12 February 1999, speaking at Friday prayer in Kufa, he called for the release of 101 Shiites — both clergy and their students —arrested since 1991. Worshipers replied, with one thundering voice: "Immediately! Immediately! Immediately! We want! We want! We want!" As they spoke, the ornate walls of the Kufa mosque shook with force.
Three days later, Sadiq sent a note to the London-based Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi. It read: "I need help. Saddam is going to kill me."
And that is precisely what Saddam did. On 19 February, Sadiq was ambushed along with his two children while entering the 1920 Revolution Square in al-Najaf.
An Oldsmobile was parked at the corner, filled with gunmen. They opened fire at Sadiq's car, killing his sons immediately, along with the driver. Sadiq was wounded in the head and legs and taken to Saddam Hospital, around 3-km away.
At the state-run hospital, he was allowed to bleed to death. Sadiq was only 56.
These stories, famed throughout Iraq and the wider Arab world, form the heritage and shape the thinking of one of the country's most influential figures and to understand them is to understand Muqtada al-Sadr.
-Sami Moubayed is a writer and historian, former Carnegie Scholar and Research Fellow at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
