Shaheed Ayatullah Baqir al-Sadr and Islamic unity

Shaheed Ayatollah al-Udhmah al-Sayyid Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr had a prominent role in the Islamic unity in Iraq.

Short biography

Shaheed Ayatollah al-Udhmah al-Sayyid Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr was born on the 25 al-Qi’da 1353/ 28 February 1935, in Kadhimiya, Iraq. Commentators highlight Martyred al-Sadr’s ‘international scholarly background’ and his family’s relative poverty as important determinants of his upbringing, as well as the death of his father, Haydir al-Sadr, when he was only three years of age. In 1945, and having completed primary school in Kadhimiya, Martyred al-Sadr and his family moved to Najaf, the historical centre of the Hawza (Islamic Seminary), where he spent the rest of his life. He joined the Hawza at the early age of 13, quickly emerging as an exceptionally gifted student, who rose to the level of a ‘mujtahid’ or profound scholar at the extraordinary age of 20. From thereon, Martyred al-Sadr’s writings quickly made him the pre-eminent scholar in the reformist movement that sought to revolutionise Islamic thought and law after decades of inertia.

Academic Writings

Central to Martyred al-Sadr’s worldview was the belief, consistently made from his first writings to his last, that: Islam is a holistic and complete Concept, because it is composed of a complete system of beliefs in creation, stemming from which is a comprehensive social system that encompasses all the aspects of life, and satisfies the most two important needs of humanity: an ideological basis and a social system. It was up to scholars in Islamic law, politics, economics, sociology and so forth to ‘discover’ elements of this holistic system, as if they were all involved in putting together a jigsaw puzzle. In pursuing this grand goal, Martyred al-Sadr went on to make his contributions in all these diverse fields, all of which were rooted in his unique approach to understanding Islam through ‘topical exegeses’ (thematic tafsir) of the Qur’an (al-tafsir al-mawdhu’i) which he himself had pioneered. Martyred al-Sadr’s theories involved a critique of Capitalism for what he held was its elevation of the individual over everything else. At the same time, he rejected Marxism for its denial of human individuality altogether, both as agent in history, and as the driving force of social and economic life. For Martyred al-Sadr, both theories were flawed, not least because they neglected the spiritual aspect of man, which if nurtured properly, elevates him beyond his base desires and mere material existence, ever closer to the absolute, Allah (swt). A similar error was made by western scholars and revolutionaries of liberty. Martyred al-Sadr praises the revolutionary moment when Europeans in the pre-Renaissance era broke away from the shackles imposed by the Church and by Feudalism, which had left Europeans “downtrodden”. However, Martyred al-Sadr argued, Europeans then made the mistake of converting liberty, one important value amongst many and a means to the end of creating a prosperous and happy society, into the value upon which to construct the new world, that is, the end in itself: It is not enough to break the chains. Freedom from them only provides a framework for the progress and development of humanity, whereas proper development of individuals requires an inner basis in the light of which progress may be made. Mere freedom to do whatever one wants and to go wherever one wishes is not enough. Man must know how and why he should take a particular step… For Martyred al-Sadr, true freedom contained not only this ‘negative’ component of the absence of physical restraints, but rather self-mastery and direction, possible only when man attaches himself to God Almighty.

Political Activities

In the hearts of many of his followers in Iraq and elsewhere, Martyred al-Sadr is remembered as much for his brave and active resistance toward Saddam’s tyranny as his immense contributions to Islamic thought. The key vehicle for political action, Martyred al-Sadr believed, was group action; the key strategy, al-marhaliya (gradualism). These ideas were put into practice through the establishment of the Islamic Dawa Party (IDP), which he and a number of other scholars and community leaders set up in Najaf in 1957. The IDP’s popularity, particularly on university campuses and amongst the middle classes, quickly made it the greatest challenge to Saddam’s Ba’ath regime, which had seized power in a military coup on the 17th of July1968. Saddam’s regime was ferocious in its response: issuing a directive which made membership of or sympathy to the IDP and its ideals a capital offense, and arresting countless Iraqis under the charge, and imprisoning, torturing or executing thousands. Martyred al-Sadr was made to endure particular hardships, all in the vain hopes he could be driven away from his activism. He was arrested in 1971, 1974, 1977 and 1979. Many of his students and colleagues were executed and on the 5th April 1979, following several months of house arrest, he and his sister, Amina al-Sadr, who had emerged in her own right as one of the leading female activist against Saddam’s tyranny, were arrested for the final time. After several days of torture, on the 9th of April 1980, Mohammed Baqir and Amina al-Sadr were executed, becoming in the process celebrated icons of peaceful resistance to Saddam’s brutal reign.

Final Sermons to the Iraqi people

In the last months before his execution, Baqir al-Sadr famously delivered three ‘calls’ to Iraqis. In them, he spoke out against oppression and dictatorship, called for democracy, freedom and human rights, and for unity amongst all Iraqis. He concluded his historical third speech with these poignant words, which were to become his last to the Iraqi people: This is the last message before the Ba’athists in Iraq executed him on April 9, 1980, along with his sister and hundreds of his supporters. ‘Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the world, and peace and blessing be upon Prophet Muhammad, his purified family and guided companions. O’ my dear Iraqi people: I talk to you all, Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Kurds, at this acute moment of your crisis and Jihadi life, because the crisis doesn’t belong to one sect or group. And since the crisis is the crisis of all Iraqi people, the brave reaction and the struggle must become the reality of all the Iraqi people. Since I knew my existence (being) and responsibility towards the Ummah, I have spent this existence for the sake of the brotherhood of Shias and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds. I defend the message, which unifies all of them. And the belief which embraces all of them. I lived with my thought and being, only for Islam – the way of freedom and the aim of all. Thus I am with you, my Sunni brother and son, as much as I am with you, my Shia brother and son. I am with both of you as much as you are with Islam, and as much as you carry this great torch to save Iraq from the nightmare of oppression and injustice. The tyrants and their allies are trying to make our righteous Sunni sons believe that the problem is a Sunni-Shia one in order to separate them from their battle against the common enemy. I want to say to you, the sons of Ali and Hussain, the sons of Abu Bakr and Umar that the battle is not between the Shia and the Sunni rule. The Sunni rule, which was represented by the guided califate, caused Imam Ali to carry the sword defending it in the battles of the Apostates under the leadership of Abu Bakr. We must all defend the Islamic flag whatever its sectarian colour. Half a century ago, the Shia ulema issued their fatwas making it a Jihad to defend the Sunni rule, which was carrying the Islamic banner and hundreds of thousands of Shia went out to the battlefield shedding their blood to protect the Islamic motto. The actual rule today is not a Sunni rule although the people at the top belong historically to the Sunni branch of Islam. Sunni rule does not mean the rule of a person, who has descended from Sunni parents, but it means the rule of Abu Bakr and Umar, which has been challenged by the tyrant rulers of Iraq today in all their practices. They abuse Islam, they abuse Ali and Umar together, violate Islam every day in every step they take. O’ my sons and brothers, the sons of Mosul, Bassrah, the sons of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf, the sons of Saerra and Kadhimiyah, the sons of Amarah, Kut and Sulemaniyah, the sons of Iraq everywhere. I promise you all that I am for all of you, for the sake of all of you, and that you are my aim in the present and the future. Your words must unite, and your plans must be unified under motto of Islam, for the sake of saving Iraq from the nightmare of this authoritarian rule, building a free, glamorous Iraq, brightened by the justice of Islam, and covered by the dignity of man. In this Iraq, citizens with all their nationalities and sects will feel that they are brothers and they will all contribute in the leadership of their country, building their home and realizing their Islamic ideas and the dawn of our glamorous history.’ In the words of Late Ayatollah Fadhlallah ‘Because you are a power; Because you are a revolution; Because you are the secret to a nation’s awakening; You will remain for us, You are alive for us.’ The Legacy of al-Sadr Martyred al-Sadr was a passionate believer in man’s capacity to change his destiny. On an individual level, seeking knowledge and deepening one’s connection to God are the keys to success. On a societal level, collective action, organisation, moderation and incremental change are the means by which our visions can be transformed to reality. Through devoting his life to advancing knowledge and fighting for human dignity and liberation, Martyred al-Sadr set an example for all. We celebrate his life and sacrifice, but also must follow his lead. Should we do so, we will indeed have ensured that Martyred al-Sadr will and for eternity, ‘remain for us, alive for us’.