Table of contents

Beginning in the 1950s with a clandestine call to Islam and continuing today with a more revolutionary approach, Iraq's Islamic reformers are altering what used to be the traditional Shi'i position of noninvolvement in politics. This work details the contemporary Islamic movement that has united Iraqi Shi'as and Sunnis alike and describes the philosophy of governing through Islamic law, a philosophy aimed largely at eliminating corruption and Western influence. In the process, the author sheds light on the social bases for the activists' reforms, their political ideology and the strategies of the movement.

Religion and Politics in Iraq features four chapters that outline the major political developments faced by Iraq's Muslim clerics from the end of the 19th century, under the ailing Ottoman empire, to the 1980s. This crucial period saw fierce internal struggles, foreign intervention and bloody persecution of the political opposition, as well as the emergence of a totalitarian one-party system with absolute control over all sectors of social and religious life. During this period, Baathist Iraq attacked its Muslim neighbours Kuwait and Iran and used poison gas in its "ethnic cleansing" campaign against the Kurds. This book focuses on the dilemma of Iraq's clerics within this setting, caught between political activism and quietism. It addresses also major developments in neighbouring Iran insofar as they had a bearing on Iraq.

This book argues that ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which established a Shia Islamic government in Iran, that country’s religious and political leaders have used Shia Islam as a crucial way of expanding Iran’s objectives in the Middle East and beyond. Since 1979, Iran’s religious and political leaders have been concerned about Iran’s security in the face of the hostility and expansionism of the United States and other western countries, and the threats from powerful neighboring Sunni leaders and countries. While Iran’s government has attempted to align itself with Shia Muslims in various countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, against American and Sunni expansionism, the Iranian government has attempted to religiously nourish and politically mobilize those Shias as a matter of principle, not only because of the Iranian government’s desires to protect Iran from external threats. The book analyzes Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon which have among the largest proportional Shia populations in the Middle East and are vibrant centers of Shia intellectual life. The book's clear and jargon-free approach make it especially accessible for students and general readers who would like an introduction to the book's topics.

The author addressed the critical need to gain the cooperation or at least the passive tolerance of the Shi'ite clerics and community. Such an effort could become more challenging as time goes on, and one of the recurring themes of this monograph is the declining patience of the Shi'ite clergy with the U.S. presence. By describing the attitudes, actions, and beliefs of major Shi'ite clerics, the author underscores a set of worldviews that are profoundly different from those of the U.S. authorities currently in Iraq and Washington. Some key Shi'ite clerics are deeply suspicious of the United States, exemplified by conspiracy theories. These suggest that Saddam's ouster was merely a convenient excuse, allowing the United States to implement its own agenda. Other clerical leaders are more open-minded but not particularly grateful for the U.S. presence, despite their utter hatred for Saddam and his regime.

This book is the first comprehensive study of Islam and Islamism in Iraq. It begins by presenting the multitude of forms and structures of religion present there: from organized religion to the myriad patterns of popular religion, as well as the various Islamist social movements and organizations in existence. All serving social, political and economic functions that are complex and intricate. It also attempts to avoid the oversimplified current views on the nature of Islam and its roles within Iraq, especially with regard to the interplay between ethnicity and religion: the trilogy of Kurds, Shi'is and Sunnis, who presumably lead a strained, antagonistic relationship. While focusing on the unique nature of religion and state-religion tensions in Iraq, the book includes detailed comparisons with other Middle Eastern countries, mainly Iran.

The Shi'is of Iraq provides a comprehensive history of Iraq's majority group and its turbulent relations with the ruling Sunni minority. Yitzhak Nakash challenges the widely held belief that Shi'i society and politics in Iraq are a reflection of Iranian Shi'ism, pointing to the strong Arab attributes of Iraqi Shi'ism. He contends that behind the power struggle in Iraq between Arab Sunnis and Shi'is there exist two sectarian groups that are quite similar. The tension fueling the sectarian problem between Sunnis and Shi'is is political rather than ethnic or cultural, and it reflects the competition of the two groups over the right to rule and to define the meaning of nationalism in Iraq. A new introduction brings this book into the new century and illuminates the role that Shi`is could play in postwar Iraq.

This book takes a fresh look at the foundations of modern Islam. Scholars often locate the origins of the modern Islamic world in European colonialism or Islamic reactions to European modernity. However, this study focuses on the rise of Islamic movements indigenous to the Middle East, which developed in direct response to the collapse and decentralization of the Islamic gunpowder empires. In other words, the book argues that the Usuli movement as well as Wahhabism and neo-Sufism emerged in reaction to the disintegration and political decentralization of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal empires. The book specifically highlights the emergence of Usuli Shi‘ism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The long-term impact of the Usuli revival was that Shi‘i clerics gained unprecedented social, political, and economic power in Iran and southern Iraq. Usuli clerics claimed authority to issue binding legal judgments, which, they argue, must be observed by all Shi‘is. By the early nineteenth century, Usulism emerged as a popular, fiercely independent, transnational Islamic movement. The Usuli clerics have often operated at the heart of social and political developments in modern Iraq and Iran and today dominate the politics of the region.

A portrait of the formidable Shiite figure who has been predicted to be a future leader in Iraq, this book describes his rise from a resistance fighter, the assassinations of his family members, and his frequent confrontations with the American military.