Shi'i jurists and Iraq's upcoming provincial elections
I know I promised a few updates from my last post on child marriage and the shari'a, but as I have not had a chance to get to the library, that will have to come later.
Right now, I feel compelled to report on something else, keeping all up to date on Iraq's latest electoral developments. Following up on an earlier post, it looks like a key amendment to the elections law forbidding the use of religious imagery and religious figures is going to pass. I did not expect this, but according to most recent reports, the Cabinet has approved the amendment along with a few others and will be sending it to the Parliament for final approval. All the interviews I've heard seem to suggest it is headed for passage. It does have a significant exception for former members of the Shia clergy, the marja'iyya, which means everyone is going to be parading around pictures of the late Sadrs and Hakims, but at least the living jurists won't have to find themselves subjects of campaign literature.
I did not expect this, even with the exception, though I will say that for some of the reasons discussed in that earlier post, it does make some sense. When it comes to these provincial elections, there is very likely to be intra-Shi'i competition in Iraq's south, and if different religious parties start competing with each other for marja'iyya support, intra-Shi'i disputes become more likely, about who is truly the more Islamic party. This was not an issue in the last election, when the Shi'a ran as one bloc and paraded pictures of the Shi'i high scholars and the Holy Sites around endlessly everywhere, making it almost a mortal sin to vote against them.
It is an issue now. The National Reform Party was just formed by former Da'wa leader Ibrahim Al-Ja'afari. Fadhila has yet to join a Shi'i bloc. The Sadrists are virtually certain to run separately. Given how fundamentally dependent on the jurists these Shi'i Islamists are for their legitimacy, given how much they need them and involve them, there is clearly a danger of political competition that brings in jurists where it need not and thereby endangers not only the parties, but the reputation of the jurists themselves.
There is already a danger of this, even with the new law. Just today (July 5) on the Sawa program Iraq and the World, Zahra' Al Hashimi, a spokeswoman for the Shi'i religious party Fadhila, was indicating that the party had not yet decided whether to join an alliance or run on its own, but that it expected to do well because it had good relations with and was "enlightened" (tundhawi) by a key high jurist, the Sheikh Muhammad al Yacoubi. A few words of praise for him and his dedication to Iraq followed, but the remarks were faintly disturbing. She made it sound as if "we'll do well because Yacoubi is with us."
So I wonder what happens if a Supreme Council spokesman replies "and we'll do fine because Sistani is with us." And the Sadrists we know will call upon Muqtada's late father primarily (I'm sure they'll also use the late Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, but Hakim's family will use him too). It's pick the jurist, and then vote the party, which is hardly encouraging and leads to precisely the type of inter jurist political partisanship that so bedeviled Iran, and even with this law, it's hard to stop. You can't police the substance of a radio interview, after all, it's not technically a political advertisement.
To be clear, the extent to which jurists really have much to do with this is very much in doubt. It's really the parties that need the jurists more than the jurists seeking to insert themselves directly (they can insert themselves when they want and get what they want when they do--but they prefer some distance as the last few posts pointed out). It's not therefore, right now, the onset of a fullblown crisis. Still, the last thing I think any of us want to see is any hint of any sort of political competition between different factions each claiming the "enlightenment" of different jurists, and this interview was just such a hint. Let's hope it's the last one. Of all the disasters to befall Iraq, and it's Shi'a in particular, this would be among the worst.
HAH
Right now, I feel compelled to report on something else, keeping all up to date on Iraq's latest electoral developments. Following up on an earlier post, it looks like a key amendment to the elections law forbidding the use of religious imagery and religious figures is going to pass. I did not expect this, but according to most recent reports, the Cabinet has approved the amendment along with a few others and will be sending it to the Parliament for final approval. All the interviews I've heard seem to suggest it is headed for passage. It does have a significant exception for former members of the Shia clergy, the marja'iyya, which means everyone is going to be parading around pictures of the late Sadrs and Hakims, but at least the living jurists won't have to find themselves subjects of campaign literature.
I did not expect this, even with the exception, though I will say that for some of the reasons discussed in that earlier post, it does make some sense. When it comes to these provincial elections, there is very likely to be intra-Shi'i competition in Iraq's south, and if different religious parties start competing with each other for marja'iyya support, intra-Shi'i disputes become more likely, about who is truly the more Islamic party. This was not an issue in the last election, when the Shi'a ran as one bloc and paraded pictures of the Shi'i high scholars and the Holy Sites around endlessly everywhere, making it almost a mortal sin to vote against them.
It is an issue now. The National Reform Party was just formed by former Da'wa leader Ibrahim Al-Ja'afari. Fadhila has yet to join a Shi'i bloc. The Sadrists are virtually certain to run separately. Given how fundamentally dependent on the jurists these Shi'i Islamists are for their legitimacy, given how much they need them and involve them, there is clearly a danger of political competition that brings in jurists where it need not and thereby endangers not only the parties, but the reputation of the jurists themselves.
There is already a danger of this, even with the new law. Just today (July 5) on the Sawa program Iraq and the World, Zahra' Al Hashimi, a spokeswoman for the Shi'i religious party Fadhila, was indicating that the party had not yet decided whether to join an alliance or run on its own, but that it expected to do well because it had good relations with and was "enlightened" (tundhawi) by a key high jurist, the Sheikh Muhammad al Yacoubi. A few words of praise for him and his dedication to Iraq followed, but the remarks were faintly disturbing. She made it sound as if "we'll do well because Yacoubi is with us."
So I wonder what happens if a Supreme Council spokesman replies "and we'll do fine because Sistani is with us." And the Sadrists we know will call upon Muqtada's late father primarily (I'm sure they'll also use the late Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, but Hakim's family will use him too). It's pick the jurist, and then vote the party, which is hardly encouraging and leads to precisely the type of inter jurist political partisanship that so bedeviled Iran, and even with this law, it's hard to stop. You can't police the substance of a radio interview, after all, it's not technically a political advertisement.
To be clear, the extent to which jurists really have much to do with this is very much in doubt. It's really the parties that need the jurists more than the jurists seeking to insert themselves directly (they can insert themselves when they want and get what they want when they do--but they prefer some distance as the last few posts pointed out). It's not therefore, right now, the onset of a fullblown crisis. Still, the last thing I think any of us want to see is any hint of any sort of political competition between different factions each claiming the "enlightenment" of different jurists, and this interview was just such a hint. Let's hope it's the last one. Of all the disasters to befall Iraq, and it's Shi'a in particular, this would be among the worst.
HAH
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