AI-Mahdi Army! Active Religious Seminary ! Al-Sadr’s Group

Hujjat al-Islam Muqtada aI-Sadr says that the Mahdi would soon return, in Iraq. This rumor, touching the core of Shi’i faith and eschatology, is being spread by Sadr’s preachers. In the Shia tradition, the Mahdi is the 12th Imam, who is in occultation. Muktada al-Sadr says the Americans were aware of the impending reappearance, and that the Americans invaded Iraq to seize and kill the Mahdi. His supporters chant Sadr’s name at rallies to imply that he is the “son of the Mahdi.” Sadr has stated that the army “belongs to the Mahdi” as an explanation of why he cannot disband it, as has been required of other private militias. Although the reappearance of the Mahdi central to Shia thought, it is unusual to raise claims of the imminence of this event, and other Shiite clerics have avoided the messianic ecstasy that such claims can induce.

One Iraqi Shi’a religious family which opposed working with the US-led occupation [and trying to get control from the al-Hakim family] is the al-Sadr family, which calls itself ‘The Active Religious Seminary”. Until recently it was headed by Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadi~ aI-Sadr, who was assassinated along with two of his sons by presumed agents of Hussein ih Al-Nlajaf in 1999.

The loyalty of many of his supporters passed to another son, Hojatoleslam Muqtada al-Sadr, a mid-level cleric about 30 years of age. Unlike his father, Muqtada had little formal religious standing to interpret the Koran, and relied for religious authority on an Iran-based Iraqi exiled cleric, Ayatollah Kazern aI-Haeri, who was a student of Bakir aI-Sadr. Muqtada aI-Sadr formed the Jania’at aI-Sadr al-Thani (Association of the Second aI-Sadr) as the key organization of the aI-Sadrfamily network.

Various observers have suggested that aI-Sadr has staked out an anti-Iranian position by raising the issue of the “foreign origin” of key Iraqi Shflte clerics, notably including Sistani, who is of Iranian oriain. Other observers contend that
aI-Sadr is a proxy for Iranian interesti, Since he receives theological backing from the Iraqi Ayatollah Kadhim Hussayni aI-Ha’iri, who resides in Tehran. It is clear that al-Sadr’s rival, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI], enjoys the support of the Iranian government [before the downfall of Saddam, SCIRI was based in Tehranj. But Iran may lend some support to any element working to hasten the departure of the Americans from Iraq, and would probably seek to develop a working relationship with all major factions.

The militia wing of this movement is known as the “Mahdi Army!! and was estimated as
of early 2004 to    Ads by Gooooooqle consist of about
500-1000 trained combatants along with another 5,000-6,000 active participants. According to another US DOD estimate! as of 01 April 2004 the Mahdi Army was estimated to consist of about 3,000 lightly armed devotees of Sadr before operations against the group started. It was a small group on the margins! and while it was unknown how large the group is, it had been degraded.

On 04 June 2004 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that the AI-Mahdi Army consisted of 6,000 to 10,000 combatants.

Some younger ShUtes have contended for power with the more traditional Shiite Muslims in the city and region. Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr and his young followers have sought to replace more traditional factions as the voice of Iraq’s ShUte majority. The aI-Sadr family portrays themselves as the ones doing the most to redress decades of suppression by Sunni Muslims under the Saddam’s rule.

The aI-Sadr group has drawn charges of involvement in attacks and intimidation in Al-Najaf that have highlighted political differences among Shi’a political organizations. The most notable of those attacks was a mob killing of a pro-US cleric., Abd al-Majid aI-Khoi, shortly after his return from exile in London in early April. Al-Khoi was himself the son of another extremely powerful former grand ayatollah, Abolqassem aI-Khoi. AI-Khoi was murdered as he emerged from the city’s Imam Ali Mosque in a gesture of reconciliation with the mosque’s custodian, who was popularly considered to have collaborated
with Hussein’s regime. The custodian was killed along with aI-Khoi and it is unclear whether aI-Khoi was an assassination target or was struck down because he tried to defend the other man.

Immediately after aI-Khoi’s murder, supporters of aI-Sadr surrounded the house of another grand ayatollah in Al-Najaf, Ali Sistani, in what was taken to be a gesture of intimidation. Sistani -- who has
said that Stii’a leaders should limit themselves to religIous questions and stay out of politics — went into hiding and only re-emerged after tribesmen loyal to him raced to Al-Najaf

Al-Sadr’s group denied it had anything to do with the April 2003 attempt on the elder al-Hakim, and said Hussein loyalists were to blame. But in 2004, an Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for al-Sadr in connection with the killing of Ayatollah Abd al-Majid al-Khoi in 2003.

Pvlustafa Al-Yaqubi was detained on April 3, 2004 in connection with the April 2003 murder of Ayatollah
Sayyed .Abdul Majeed al-Khoei. An Iraqi judge issued a warrant for Mr. Yaqubi’s arrest as a result of an
Iraqi criminal investigation and indictment He was taken into custody at his home in An Najaf.

In early April 2004, the militia of Muqtada Al Sadr’s army-- Jaysh Mahdi or Mahdi Army-- attempted to interfere with security in Baghdad, intimidate Iraqi citizens and place them in danger. The militia attempted to occupy and gain control of police stations and government buildings. During this attack, this illegal militia engaged coalition forces and 1SF with small arms fire and RPGs. Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces prevented this effort and reestablished security in Baghdad. Coalition troops fought gun battles with members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Imam Al-Mahdi Army militia in the southern cities of Al-Nassiriyah, Amara, and Kut. Clashes etween al-Sadr’s Al-Mahdi Army and coalition troops south of Baghdad tested the resolve of the United States’ partners in Iraq.

By 07 April2004, US-led coalition forces were invo~ved in the most widespread fighting in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein a year ago. Troops battled ShUte militias in half a dozen Iraqi towns and cities from near Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the south.

As of 08 April 2004, the Al-Mahdi Army had taken full control of the city of .Al-Kut and partial control of Al-Najaf. Residents of Al-Kufah said militiamen had some control of that city as well. In Karbala, Polish and Bulgarian troops fought Al-Mahdi Army militants as hundreds of thousands of Shi’ites were gathering ahead of a religious festival. The Polish Army said commanders were meeting with moderate Shi’ite clerics after radicals demanded the withdrawal of coalition forces.

Hundreds of loyalists to radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attacked British troops Saturday 08 May 2004 in the center of Basra, south of Baghdad. They also assaulted the governor’s offices there, and fired rocket-propelled grenades at the coalition headquarters. The British sent in reinforcements, tanks and armored vehicles to secure the area. Several Iraqi insurgents were killed in the gun battles. The violence erupted a day after a cleric in Basra told worshippers he would offer cash rewards for the killing or capture of British and American troops. He also said anyone who captured female soldiers could keep them as slaves. The cleric, Sheikh Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli, said his offer was in response to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers. Al-Bahadli is the Basra representative of hard- line Shiite leader Muqtada al- Sadr.

In early June 2004, Iraq’s interim Prime Minister lyad Allawi said that most of the country’s powerful militias had agreed to disarm. Their members would either join state-controlled security services, or return to civilian life.

The first week of August 2004 witnessed a cycle of growing violence which culminated with fierce clashes across central and southern Iraq between the Al-Mahdi Army and US, British, and Italian forces. It was the heaviest fighting since al-Sadr’s forces agreed to a truce in June. In the southern city of Al-Nasiriyah, Iraqi fighters attacked Italian patrols with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. At least 20 Iraqis and one US soldier were reported killed on 5 August in Baghdad, Al-Najaf, and Al-Basrah. Militants brought down a US helicopter in Al-Najaf, though the US military recovered the crew unharmed. Al-Sadr offered to join a new reciprocal ceasefire, but it was unclear whether the fighting was a brief flare-up or the collapse of the truce.

On 07 August 2004, the interim Iraqi prime minister signed a limited amnesty law that will pardon insurgents who have committed minor crimes, but have not killed anyone. Interim Prime Minister lyad Allawi said insurgents have 30 days to turn themselves in to Iraqi security forces to qualify for the amnesty. The prime minister offered an olive branch to Moqtada al-Sadr. Allawi gave the cleric a chance to distance himself from the actions of his followers and begin taking part in the political process. Allawi said “I have been having positive messages from Moqtada al-Sadr. That is why we don’t think that the people who are committing the crimes in Najaf and elsewhere are his people. We think they are people using his name. We invite, and I invite from this platform, Moqtada al-Sadr to participate in the elections next year.” Previously, Moqtada al-Sadr has rejected invitations to participate in a national conference and national council, and has not indicated any willingness to take part in the elections scheduled for January.

By 07 August 2004, fighting between al-Sadr’s supporters and US forces continued in Baghdad and
Najaf, though initial reports suggested the battles had lessened in intensity. By that time as many as 400 militants had been killed in Najaf alone, the highest single-day death toll among anti-coalition forces since the end of Major Combat Operations in 2003. Two US Marines were also killed in the fighting in Najaf.

Tensions in Najaf were diffused on 27 August 2004 when Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was able to broker a deal with Moqtada al-Sadi~s forces and the keys to the Imam Ali mosque were handed over to Sistani. Aides of al-Sadr have stated that he plans to participate in the political process in Iraq. Additionally, media reports have announced that Sadr has ordered a ceasefire by Mahdi Army militia until his political plans are made public, although no formal, written ceasefire statement has been received.


The Mahdi

The great religious traditions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam --share references to a savior of humanity at the end of time. These religions share glad tidings of his coming, though there are differences in detail and deep controversies in interpretation.

The idea of the coming of a Mahdi (the guided) has roots in Islamic traditions, both ShUa and Sunni, even though the Mahdi is not mentioned in the Qur’an. The Mahdi prepares the way for the second coming of the Prophet Isa (Jesus) and the impending end of the world. Eventually the awaited Imam will appear, and the Divine Aim will reach its fulfillment The Qur’an explicitly declares the return of Jesus to earth. Surah Al ‘lmran 55 is one of the verses indicating that Jesus will come back. But in many verses of the Qui~an Allah states that those having faith in the trinity certainly are disbelievers: Those who say that the Messiah, son of Maryam, is the third of three are disbelievers. There is no god but One God. (Surat al-Ma’idah: 73).

In anticipation of Judgment Day, it was essential that the people return to a simple and rigorous, even puritanical Islam. The Islamic belief in the second coming of Christ is the creed of Sunni and Shui Islam in its generality. For Muslims, there is no question about the forthcoming Armageddon, following which war technology shall become unusable. The Mahdi will defeat the remaining third of the Jews (the other two thirds having already perished at Armageddon); This will be followed by a Christian vs. Muslim war, called al-Malhama al-Kubra ~‘Great Slaughter of the Intercessor” ie, the Prophet) in Muslim texts.

When the Mahdi’s Army receives word of the Antichrist, they will go to fight the Antichrist, but he will besiege them in Jerusalem. Jesus will descend, and perform the dawn prayer behind the Mahdi, then Jesus will go out and kill the Antichrist After that, he will take over the Caliphate. Upon the return of Jesus, he will not accept that Christians and Jews live with any other religion than Islam, and so will unite all the believers as Muslims.

Through the history of Islam, a few individuals claimed to be the Mahdi and found a following among those who were looking for salvation. For some of these figures, like Bab in Iran or Mirza Ghulam in India, the claim of being Mahdi was a stepping stone to the development of sects which broke away from Islam.

Muhammad b. Hanafiyya was regarded as the Mahdi by some Muslims. The Jarudis among the Zaydis believed that Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allah b. Hasan was the Mahdi. The Nawusi’s believed that Imam Ja’far Sadiq was the Mahdi. The Waqifis believed that Imam Musa b. Ja’far had not died and was in occultation.


The Shila Mahdi

The Awaited Mahdi is absolutely central to the belief system of the twelve lmami’ah Shias, and constitutes one of the core principles of their religion. ShUa look for the Signs of the Reappearance (Qiyam) of the (Imam) who undertakes the Office (al-Qa’im).

Muhammad al Mahdi (the guided) is the 12th and last Imam of the Twelver Shi’i, and is also known as Muhammad al Muntazar (the awaited), Little can be said of him with certainty, and the non-Twelver Muslims question whether there was an historical person associated with the name. Jafar, the brother of the Eleventh Imam, denied the existence of any child and claimed the Imamate for himself Twelver Shi’i believe he was born to a Byzantine slave, and that his birth was kept quiet by his father, the Eleventh Imam, Hassan al Askari, because of the persecution of the Shi’is at that time. The 10th and 11th Imams were both under house arrest and communicated with their followers through a network of wikala (agents), a time that subsequently came to be known as the Lesser Occultation.
For the seventy years after the martyrdom of his father when he’was aged six, he communicated with his adherents through a succession of four assistants, each known as the Bab (Gate). As he lay dying in AD 941, the fourth Bab disclosed a letter from the Hidden Imam stating that there should fifth Bab, and that thenceforth the Mahdi would be unseen [ghaybah]. Thus began the Greater Occultation, which would end with the reappearnce of the Mahdi as champion of the faithful in the events leading to the Judgement Day. Titles of the 12th Imam include: Hujjat, KhalafSalih (the righteous offspring), Sahib az Zaman (Master of the Age), Sahib al Amr (Master of Command), al Qa’im (the one to arise), Bagiyyat Allah (remnant of Allah) and Imam al Muntazar (the awaited Imam).

The Sunni Mahdi

The Mahdi also figures in Sunni belief, as events in the Sudan in the late 19th Century reveal. The story of the Mahdi and his fundamentalist revolt in the Sudan in the late 1880s is the stuff that movies are made of (ie., “Khartoum”, ‘The Four Feathers”). Charles George “Chinese” Gordon, a British officer, resigned as governor general of Sudan in 1880. His successors lacked direction from Cairo and feared the political turmoil that had engulfed Egypt. As a result, they failed to continue the policies Gordon had put in place. The illegal slave trade revived, although not enough to satisfy the merchants whom Gordon had put out of business. The Sudanese army suffered from a lack of resources, and unemployed soldiers from disbanded units troubled garrison towns. Tax collectors arbitrarily increased taxation.

In this troubled atmosphere, Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah, a faqir or holy man who combined personal magnetism with religious zealotry, emerged, determined to expel the Turks and restore Islam to its primitive purity. The son of a Dunqulah boatbuilder, Muhammad Ahmad had become the disciple of Muhammad ash Sharif, the head of the Sammaniyah order. Later, as a shaykh of the order, Muhammad Ahmad spent several years in seclusion and gained a reputation as a mystic and teacher. In 1880 he became a Sammaniyah leader.

Muhammad Ahmad’s sermons attracted an increasing number of followers. Among those who joined him was Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, a Baqqara from southern Darfur. His planning capabilities proved invaluable to Muhammad Ahmad, who revealed himself as Al Mahdi al Muntazar (“the awaited guide in the right path,” usually seen as the Mahdi), sent from God to redeem the faithful and prepare the way for the second coming of the Prophet Isa (Jesus). The Mahdist movement demanded a return to the simplicity of early Islam, abstention from alcohol and tobacco, and the strict seclusion of women.

To avoid arrest, the Mahdi and a party of his followers, the Ansar, made a long march to Kurdufan, where he gained a large number of recruits, especially from the Baqqara. From a refuge in the area, he wrote appeals to the shaykhs of the religious orders and won active support or assurances of neutrality from all except the pro-Egyptian Khatmiyyah. Merchants and Arab tribes that had depended on the slave trade responded as well, along with the Hadendowa Beja, who were rallied to the Mahdi by an Ansar captain, Usman Digna.

Early in 1882, the Ansar, armed with spears and swords, overwhelmed a 7,000-man Egyptian force not far from Al Ubayyid and seized their rifles and ammunition. The Mahdi followed up this victory by laying siege to Al Ubayyid and starving it into submission after four months, The Ansar, 30,000 men strong, then defeated an 8,000-man Egyptian relief force at Sheikan. Next the Mahdi captured Darfur and imprisoned Rudolf Slatin, an Austrian in the khedives service, who later became the first Egyptian-appointed governor of Darfur Province.

The advance of the Ansar and the Beja rising in the east imperiled communications with Egypt and threatened to cut off garrisons at Khartoum, Kassala, Sannar, and Sawakin and in the south. To avoid being drawn into a costly military intervention, the British government ordered an Egyptian withdrawal from Sudan. Gordon, who had received a reappointment as governor general, arranged to supervise the evacuation of Egyptian troops and officials and all foreigners from Sudan.

After reaching Khartoum in February 1884, Gordon realized that he could not extricate the garrisons. As a result, he called for reinforcements from Egypt to relieve Khartoum. Gordon also recommended that Zubayr, an old enemy whom he recognized as an excellent military commander, be named to succeed him to give disaffected Sudanese a leader other than the Mahdi to rally behind. London rejected this plan. As the situation deteriorated, Gordon argued that Sudan was essential to Egypt’s security and that to allow the Ansar a victory there would invite the movement to spread elsewhere.

Increasing British popular support for Gordon eventually forced Prime Minister William Gladstone to mobilize a relief force under the command of Lord Garnet Joseph Wolseley. A “flying column” sent overland from Wadi HaIfa across the Bayyudah Desert bogged down at Abu Tulayh (commonly called Abu Klea), where the Hadendowa Beja -- the so-called Fuzzy Wuzzies -- broke the British line. An advance unit that had gone ahead by river when the column reached Al Matammah arrived at Khartoum
on January 28,: 1885, to find the town had fallen two days earlier. The Ansam had waited for the Nile flood to recede before attacking the poorly defended river approach to Khartoum in boats.

The Ansar slaughtered the garrison, killing Gordon, and delivering his head to the Mahdi’s tent. Kassala and Sannar fell soon after, and by the end of 1885, the Ansar had begun to move into the southern region. In all Sudan, only Sawakin, reinforced by Indian army troops, and Wadi Haifa on the northern frontier remained in Anglo-Egyptian hands.

The Mahdiyah (Mahdist regime) imposed traditional Islamic laws. Sudan’s new ruler also authorized the burning of lists of pedigrees and books of law and theology because of their association with the old order and because he believed that the former accentuated tribalism at the expense of religious unity.

The Mahdi maintained that his movement was not a religious order that could be accepted or rejected at will, but that it was a universal regime, which challenged man to join or to be destroyed. The Mahdi modified Islam’s five pillars to support the dogma that loyalty to him was essential to true belief. The Mahdi also added the declaration “and Muhammad Ahmad is the Mahdi of God and the representative of His Prophet” to the recitation of the creed, the shahada. Moreover, service in the jihad replaced the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, as a duty incumbent on the faithful. Zakat (almsgk4ng) became the tax paid to the state. The Mahdi justified these and other innovations and reforms as responses to instructions conveyed to him by God in visions.

On the advice of the British, who occupied Egypt since 1882, the Turko-Egyptian government was withdrawn. Although the Mahdi died it, the same year, the Sudan under his successor, the Kha[fa Abd Allah remained independent until 1898.

In 1892, Herbert Kitchener (later Lord Kitchener) became sirdar, or commander, of the Egyptian army and started preparations for the reconquest of Sudan. The British decision to occupy Sudan resulted in part from international developments that required the country be brought under British supervision. By the early 1890s, British, French, and Belgian claims had converged at the Nile headwaters. Britain feared that the other colonial powers would take advantage of Sudan’s instability to acquire territory previously annexed to Egypt. Apartfrom these political considerations, Britain wanted to establish control over the Nile to safeguard a planned irrigation dam at Aswan.

In 1895, the British government authorized Kitchener to launch a campaign to reconquer Sudan. Britain provided men and materiel while Egypt financed the expedition. The Anglo-Egyptian Nile Expeditionary Force included 25,800 men, ~,600 of whom were British. The remainder were troops belonging to Egyptian units that included six battalions recruited in southern Sudan. An armed river flotilla escorted the force, which also had artillery support. in preparation for the attack, the British established army headquarters at Wadi Haifa and extended and reinforced the perimeter defenses around Sawakin. in March 1896, the campaign started; in September, Kitchener captured Dunquiah. The British then constructed a rail line from Wadi Haifa to Abu Hamad and an extension parallel to the Nile to transport troops and supplies to Barbar. Angio-Eg~tian units fought a sharp action at Abu Hamad, but there was little other significant resistance until Kitchener reached Atbarah and defeated the Ansar. After this engagement, Kitchener’s soldiers marched and sailed toward Omdurman, where the Khalifa made his last stand.

On September 2, 1898, the Khalifa committed his 52,000-man army to a frontal assault against the Anglo-Egyptian force, which was massed on the plain outside Omdurman. The outcome never was in doubt, largely because of superior British firepower. During the five-hour battle, about 11,000 Mahdists died whereas Anglo-Egyptian losses amounted to 48 dead and fewer than 400 wounded. Mopping-up operations required several years, but organized resistance ended when the Khalifa, who had escaped to Kurdufan, died in fighting at Umm Diwaykarat in November 1899.

In the century since the Mahdist uprising, the neo-Mahdist movement and the Ansar, supporters of Mahdism ftom the west, have persisted as a political force in Sudan. Many groups, from the Baqqara cattle nomads to the largely sedentary tribes on the White Nile, supported this movement, The Ansar were hierarchically organized under the control of Muhammad Ahmad’s successors, who have aft been members of the Mahdi family (known as the ashraf). The ambitions and varying political perspectives of different members of the family have led to internal conflicts, and it appeared that Sadiq al Mahdi, putative leader of the Ansar since the early 1970s, did not enjoy the unanimous support of all Mahdists. Mahdist family political goals and ambitions seemed to have taken precedence over the movement’s original religious mission. The modern-day Ansar were thus loyal more to the political descendants of the Mahdi than to the religious message of Mahdism.

In June 1988, Sadiq al Mahdi formed a coalition government. Unfortunately, however, Sadiq proved to be a weak leader and incapable of governing Sudan. Party factionalism, corruption, personal rivalries, scandals, and political instebility characterized the Sadiq regime.
Articles Jan 6th, 2006 - 16:51:28
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