 May 10, 2003 Shias divided over Ayatollah's return from 23-year exile |
| “AYATOLLAH HAKIM is coming!” the announcer blares from his astutely positioned loudspeaker van, as the faithful surge away from Basra’s largest Shia mosque at the end of Friday prayers. The Supreme Council likes crowds. A mile across town, roadsweepers are at work, cleaning Saddam Hussein’s parade ground, where the exiled politician cleric will make his first speech on Iraqi soil for two decades. The Supreme Council likes its irony spotless. “But what about his two Shia rivals?” sceptics ask. On cue, pictures of them and their martyred ancestors appear on the windows of his Basra headquarters. The Supreme Council likes displays of unity. For now. By 9am today, if there is anyone in Basra who does not know about the planned return from exile in Iran of Ayatollah Sayed Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, it will not be for lack of planning by his Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri). The 63-year-old Shia leader, forced into exile by Saddam, is returning today after a 23-year absence, during which five brothers and up to 50 relatives have been killed by the Iraqi dictator. To supporters it is the Khomeini-like return from exile of a man who is due — at the very least — a place among the Iraqis who will form the country’s interim leadership. To his opponents he has been away too long and is too close to Tehran, where he lived while his people fought a bloody eight-year war with Iran. “He’s yesterday’s man,” grunted one Shia in Basra yesterday. This is almost certainly the fervent belief of Ayatollah al-Hakim’s chief rivals, the Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Hojatoleslam Moqtada Sadr, between whose competing followers there are enough tensions without adding a returned exile. But this was not the view of many outside the Abbila mosque in Basra at noon yesterday, where Shia leaders and worshippers praised Ayatollah al-Hakim and his resistance against Saddam’s regime even from exile. In a city still black with flags of mourning for long-lost relatives whose fates have only recently been discovered, the sacrifices of Ayatollah al-Hakim’s own family earn respect, as does the risks taken by Sciri’s Badr brigades to fight Saddam’s forces. Ayatollah al-Hakim’s religious credentials are also unimpeachable: his black turban denotes that he is a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and his late father, Grand Ayatollah Muhsin al-Haqim, was supreme leader of the Shia community until 1970. Hassanien al-Sayed Ali, one of the leading clerics at the Abbila mosque, said that he expected many thousands to turn out today, and to follow Ayatollah al-Hakim on his progress during the coming days toward the holy city of Najaf, burial site of the Prophet’s grandson, Ali. “He is as powerful as if he remained in Iraq,” he said. “The Americans do not like religious leaders at all. In Mosul they picked a man who had nothing to do with religion, and in al-Kut there was a religious man who made sure there was no looting and they pulled him out.” If the Americans sought to freeze out Ayatollah al-Hakim, he said, “there will be chaos, great demonstrations”. Aware of Western sensitivities to the prospect of a Khomeini-style Islamic revolution, Sciri plays down its Iranian links and makes soothing noises that it intends to blend democracy with Islam in Iraq and to respect the rights of all religions. Nevertheless, as he prepared to fly out of Tehran yesterday, Ayatollah al-Hakim thanked the Iranian leadership for its hospitality and hinted that he intended to pursue a religious agenda. The man who told The Times six months ago that he wanted the Americans to stay in Iraq “not a month, not a week, not a day” indicated that he would continue to distance himself from Iraq’s new occupiers. “The future of Iraq belongs to Islam. And making efforts to preserve Iraq’s independence is our key challenge,” he said at Tehran University.
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