Al Sadr aiming for Ayatollah degree
By Basil Adas
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Baghdad, 10 March 2008 (Gulf News)
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Young Shiite leader Moqtada Al Sadr will continue his postgraduate studies which he started months ago under the supervision of senior Shiite authorities to secure an advanced degree in Jaafari Shiite doctrine, close sources told Gulf News.
"The leader is about to complete his study on the so-called broad research and several Shiite references will give him Ayatollah degree which qualifies him to issue fatwas [rulings]," Talal Al Saadi, a leader in Al Sadr movement in Baghdad, told Gulf News.
The move comes amid arrest campaigns waged by joint American and Iraqi forces against members of the Mahdi Army.
Al Sadr, 37, is considered one of the most prominent Shiite clerics and revolutionaries who waded into battle against the American and Iraqi forces.
"There are three main [reasons] to move Al Sadr towards the religious scientific life," said Talib Hussain Al Amari, a political analyst.
"First is to move him from the political life and his interference in politics and [also] to enable him to control his supporters," he said. "Finally [the move aims to] calm the internal conflict in the broad Shiite front which exacerbated during the 2007 Karbala events near the Imam Hussain shrine triggered by Mahdi Army dissidents."
According to reports of the Iraqi intelligence unit headed by Mohammad Abdullah Al Shahwani, one of the greatest beneficiaries of Al Sadr's new religious and scientific move, is Iran since Iranian military controls large sections of the Mahdi Army in the absence of Sadr leadership on field and that means the Iranians may try to use the Mahdi Army to confront the Americans in Iraq.
Raheem Al Sari, a member of the Dawa Party, told Gulf News: "The greatest threat to Mahdi Army would come from the dissolved Baath Party, but there is a plan to keep Al Sadr as the leader controlling the army and to turn the Mahdi Army from a military army to popular committees that assist citizens."
Some Shiite political figures expressed their fears of the leader turning into Ayatollah because it will enable him to issue fatwas which will make him senior to coalition Shiite leader Abdul Aziz Al Hakim who has a Hijatulislam degree in the Shiite denomination.
Ridha Al Musawi, a student at Hawza in Najaf, told Gulf News: "I think if the leader received the Ayatollah degree, his role will be broader and more dangerous and there will be fears that he might issue fatwas unlike other Shiite political leaders or threaten security situation in the stable southern Shiite governorates."
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