The Revealer: What Does the Mehdi Army Believe?

A daily review of religion and the press

What Does the Mehdi Army Believe?

07 April 2004
UPDATE: "River," an Iraqi blogger, writes: "If the situation weren't so frightening, it would almost be amusing to see Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom describe Al-Sadr as an 'extremist' and a 'threat'. Muqtada Al-Sadr is no better and no worse than several extremists we have sitting on the Governing Council. He's just as willing to ingratiate himself to Bremer as Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom. The only difference is that he wasn't given the opportunity, so now he's a revolutionary. Apparently, someone didn't give Bremer the memo about how when you pander to one extremist, you have to pander to them all.

"as I blog this, all the mosques, Sunni and Shi’a alike, are calling for Jihad..."


		US Marines at a railway line outside Falluja (BBC)

And Zeyad, a pro-American Iraqi blogger, suggests that the press is overlooking Iranian support for the revolt coming under cover via Iranian Shi'a tourists: "I'm assuming, of course, that the money and equipment supplied by our dear Mullahs in Iran is being put to use good enough, not to mention the hundreds of Pasderan and Iranian intelligence officers.. sorry I mean Iranian Shia pilgrims that have been pouring into Iraq for months now."

*****
A glimpse into the Iraqi militant mindset:
"...[W]hen [Khadem, a Mehdi Army soldier] was asked if he had not welcomed the American forces who toppled Mr. Hussein almost exactly a year ago, as many Shiites did, he turned suddenly combative.

"'It was God who finished Saddam, not the Americans,' he said. 'The Americans broke all their promises to us, and they have brought their infidel beliefs to Iraq. We hate them, and they are worse than Saddam.'"
--John F. Burns, NY Times

*****
Are the Mehdi militiamen confused about their own faith?
"Taking its name from Mehdi -- the 'promised one' in Islam -- the militia is fiercely loyal to its religious founder.

"'I'm not sure what the aim of the army is or when we will fight, but I will follow Sadr's orders,'" one combatant said last July, according to the BBC's Patrick Jackson -- a revealing comment in an "analysis" of the force that like most of the press still leaves us wondering who the fighters are, what they believe, and why they follow al-Sadr and not Sistani.

*****
And NPR's Phillip Reeves just reported (8 a.m. ET) that posters of the Shiite cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr are proliferating in Fallujah, a Sunni stronghold -- warnings of a new, "ecumenical" holy war against the U.S.?

"Signs are emerging," reports The Washington Post's Karl Vick, "that resistance to the U.S. occupation may be growing from a sporadic, underground effort to a broader insurrection by militiamen who claim to be fighting in the name of their common faith, Islam.... 'When we all sit together, the groups of this city, it's something new," says Abu Ahmed, a Bagdhad shopkeeper, speaking of the alliance. 'You'll be surprised. Something really very new.'"

But what is it, exactly, The Revealer wonders. Pan-Islam, or Iraqi nationalism (or both)? Is the disappearing division between followers of al-Sadr and of Sistani a matter of politics or of theology (or both)? Are the more secular Sunni Iraqis becoming even more secular to make common cause with the Shia militias, or are they adopting elements of Shia belief (or both)?

These are just some of the questions that the press has failed to answer. During the Vietnam war, correspondents grew accustomed to seeing their reporting on Buddhism and other religious elements to the conflict trimmed out by editors determined to see the war as purely political. Such a view is impossible now, and yet once again, we know almost nothing about the beliefs behind the bullets aimed at U.S. troops in a foreign war.

Recent posts on Iraq: "Where's the Why?" (April 4); "Hearts, Minds, Mortars" (March 30).