Modernity And Tradition In The Islamic Movements In Iraq: Continuity And Discontinuity In The Role Of The Ulama

During the Iraq-Iran War, however, the negative influence of the Iranian regime on the party through 'ulama cannot be ignored, especially when the Iranian regime frequently tried to exploit these Iraqi anti-government organizations to attack the regime in Iraq. This pressure from the Iranian government caused a widening of the gap between its branch in Tehran and others in London and Damascus, which were able to keep their distance from the Iranian regime. This was obvious after the Gulf War. Calls for cooperation between various opposition groups based in London and Damascus urged al-Da'wa to find their way to compromise with other secular or western-style organizations. Their location made their stance different from those who were protected in Iran.

Introducing an Election System in the Party After the Loss of the Sole Leader

Fearing the impact of the Islamic revolution, the Ba'th regime in Iraq executed Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Bint Huda secretly in 1980. In order to overcome this gravest disaster for the party, al-Da'wa reached two significant conclusions. One was to recognize that there would be no marja'iya who could embody the 'objective marja'iya' by himself other than Baqir al-Sadr. This encouraged the inevitability of institutionalization of marja'iya. Mu'min contendss that "Imam Khomeini, as well as Baqir al-Sadr, was a rare case as a standard for religious marja'i and jurist, and it is impossible for all the Islamic jurists to be like Imam Khomeini." [27] Faced with the difficulty of naming a single person that everyone could agree upon as the most suitable candidate for next leader, collective leadership became necessary to fill the vacuum of loss of legitimacy under the sole leader.

The second decision of al-Da'wa was to introduce an election system at its headquarters. [28] Through the reorganization of the party, its hierarchical system was modified as follows; the supreme body for the party is mu'tamar (the Congress) which is to be held every two years. There the Leadership is elected and its term of office is two years. Leadership is composed of seven Bureaus, and the major bureaus are the Political Bureau, Organizational Bureau, Military Bureau and so on. Decision making in the Leadership is carried out by the shura system. Under the Leadership, there are Local Committees, Mahalla Committees, and cells. [29] Members of the party can obtain the right to attend the Congress after 6 years full membership, and after 3 years in the Mahalla Committee. This restructuring made the command system in the party clear under the supremacy of the Congress. [30]

SEPARATION OF THE POLITICAL PARTY AND MARJA'IYA

In the newly established party structure, the relation between the Council of Jurisprudence and the party's Political Bureau has been controversial. The Council of Jurisprudence is composed of 'ulama of higher rank, and is supposed to give advice to the Leadership from a judicial and religious point of view. This secures 'ulama's higher position in guiding the party, but at the same time it may limit 'ulama's interference in decisionmaking in the party to the level of 'guidance'. Closely watching the recent developments in al-Da'wa's discourses, we can observe a symbolic example in a dispute between the Political Bureau of the party and al-'Asifi in 1998, and victory of the former over the latter.