[Homestead] Next a wild free-for-all in Iraq on the vicious Sharia
tvoivozhd
tvoivozd at infionline.net
Sat Feb 5 15:52:13 EST 2005
February 6, 2005
Top Iraq Shiites Exert Influence on Constitution
*By EDWARD WONG *
NAJAF, Iraq, Feb. 4 - With religious Shiite parties poised to take power
in the new constitutional assembly, leading Shiite clerics are pushing
for Islam to be enshrined in the new constitution.
Exactly how Islamic to make the document is the subject of debate.
At the very least, the clerics say, the constitution should ensure that
legal measures overseeing personal matters like marriage, divorce and
family inheritance fall under Shariah, or Koranic law. For example,
daughters would receive half the inheritances of sons under that law.
On other issues, opinion varies, with the more conservative leaders
insisting that Shariah be the foundation for all legislation.
Such a constitution would be a sharp departure from the transitional law
that the Americans enacted before appointing the interim Iraqi
government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. American officials pressed
Iraqi politicians drafting that law in early 2004 to guarantee equal
rights for women and minorities. The Americans also persuaded the
authors to designate Islam as just "a source" of legislation.
That irked senior Shiite clerics here, who, confident they now have a
popular mandate from the elections, are advocating for Islam to be
recognized as the underpinning of the government. They also insist that
the Americans stay away from the writing of the new constitution.
The clerics' demands underscore the biggest question surrounding the new
government: How Islamic will it be?
Many factors could force the clerics to compromise their vision. The
alliance of Shiite politicians in the constitutional assembly could
splinter as its members vie against one another for power and trade
favors with rival politicians like Dr. Allawi. Too strong a push for a
Shiite religious state could prompt opposition from the former governing
Sunni Arabs, a minority that already has said it feels disenfranchised,
or from the Kurds, who can exercise veto power over the new constitution.
And Shiite politicians, recognizing a possible backlash from secular
leaders and the Americans, have publicly promised not to install a
theocracy similar to that of Iran, or allow clerics to run the country.
But the clerics of Najaf, the holiest city of Shiite Islam, have emerged
as the greatest power in the new Iraq. They forced the Americans to
conform to their timetable for a political process. Their standing was
bolstered last Sunday by the high turnout among Shiite voters and a
widespread boycott by the Sunni Arabs, and the clerics will now wield
considerable behind-the-scenes influence in the writing of the
constitution through their coalition built around religious parties.
Once official election results are tallied, that coalition - a huge
slate of Shiite candidates called the United Iraqi Alliance - is
expected to take the largest share of seats in the 275-member National
Assembly. The assembly is charged with appointing an executive
government, drafting a constitution and preparing the country for
full-term elections by the end of the year.
"The constitution is the most dangerous document in the country and the
most important one affecting the future of the country," said Alaadeen
Muhammad al-Hakim, a son of and spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad
Said al-Hakim, one of the most senior Shiite clerics in Iraq. "It should
be written extremely carefully."
The leading Shiite clerics say they have no intention of taking
executive office and following the Iranian model of wilayat al-faqih, or
direct governance by religious scholars. But the clerics also say the
Shiite politicians ultimately answer to them, and that the top religious
leaders, collectively known as the marjaiya, will shape the constitution
through the politicians.
Some effects are already being felt locally. In Basra, the
second-largest city in Iraq, where one of Ayatollah Sistani's closest
aides has enormous influence, Shiite religious parties have been
transforming the city into an Islamic fief since the toppling of Mr.
Hussein. Militias have driven alcohol sellers off the streets. Women are
harassed if they walk the streets in anything less than head-to-head
black. Conservative judges are invoking Shariah in some courts.
"The opinion of the marjaiya will be raised through its representatives
in the national assembly," said Sheik Abbas Khalifa, a senior aide to
Ayatollah Muhammad Yacoubi, one of the most politically active clerics
here. Ayatollah Yacoubi's organization is part of the Shiite alliance
and could get nine or more seats in the national assembly. "The first
thing the marjaiya wants to see in the constitution is respect for
everybody and maintenance of Islamic identity."
"The marjaiya advise the United States to respect the will of the
marjaiya and the will of the people when they write the constitution,"
Sheik Khalifa added. "The marjaiya said there must be an election, and
because the Americans kept postponing it, there was destruction and
failure in Iraq."
It was the country's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, who initially demanded speedy elections, knowing that a
popular vote would bring to power a legitimate government run by the
majority Shiites. When the Bush administration objected, the ayatollah
forced the White House to back down by calling protesters into the
streets of Iraq.
Ayatollah Sistani's power was felt again when his office assembled the
United Iraqi Alliance and exhorted voters to turn out last Sunday.
Though the alliance could be threatened by power struggles, Ayatollah
Sistani will urge the politicians to work together in the writing of the
constitution, clerics say.
"Sistani and the other grand ayatollahs will press for as much Shariah -
or Islamic law - as possible in Iraqi law," said Juan Cole, a history
professor and specialist in Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan.
"They can afford to be patient if they can't push through everything now."
Adnan Zurfi, the governor of Najaf and a former student in the Shiite
seminary here, said of the clerics: "The most important thing for them
is to write the constitution. This is why they supported the elections."
The clerics generally agree that the constitution must ensure that no
laws passed by the state contradict a basic understanding of Shariah as
laid out in the Koran. Women should not be treated as the equals of men
in matters of marriage, divorce and family inheritance, they say. Nor
should men be prevented from having multiple wives, they add.
One tenet of Shariah mandates that in dividing family property, male
children get twice as much as female children.
"We don't want to see equality between men and women because according
to Islamic law, men should have double of women," said Muhammad Kuraidy,
a spokesman for Ayatollah Yacoubi. "This is written in the Koran and
according to God."
The Americans have actively pushed for equality for women. In the
elections last Sunday, many women voted, and the clerics have not
publicly objected to that right, nor have they criticized a clause in
the transitional law that sets quotas for women in the national assembly.
But Sheik Khalifa, Ayatollah Yacoubi's senior aide, said the ayatollah
did not want the constitution to be linked to the transitional law whose
writing was overseen by the Americans.
"There was no clear point about Islam," he said. "It just said that
Islam should be respected. But we want a legal article that states
frankly that no laws should violate Islamic law.
A State Department official said the United States "would urge an
inclusive and participatory process," but that for now the Bush
administration was simply watching the debate unfold. "This is an Iraqi
process," said Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman.
A former administration official said the White House was relying on
veto power by the Kurds and possibly the Sunni Arabs to limit any moves
toward a Shiite theocracy. But "this isn't going to be Jeffersonian
democracy," he said, "and we are naïve to think the Iraqis can draft a
constitution and build a democracy without at least tipping a hat to the
role of Islam." Even under the formal American occupation, the Shiite
religious parties - the same ones expected to wield great power in the
new assembly - almost managed to enshrine Shariah as the basis for
personal law. That took place in December 2003, when the 25-member Iraqi
Governing Council voted in a private session to repeal a relatively
secular family law used under Saddam Hussein and replace it with
Shariah. Women's groups staged street protests the next month, and L.
Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator at the time, vetoed the
move.
But with the unpopularity of the mullahs in Iran serving as a stark
reminder, some moderate clerics say they recognize that unrest may ensue
if Islamic law is applied injudiciously.
Muhammad al-Haboubi, a senior aide to Ayatollah Sistani, said the top
priority in the writing of the constitution was "the preservation of the
rights of all citizens, majority or minority, so they are all equal in
the eyes of the law."
But "the percentage of the Muslim majority should be considered when
writing the constitution," Mr. Haboubi said. "Public freedoms should be
regulated based on the country's Islamic character."
For example, he said, alcohol sales should be restricted out of
"consideration of the feelings of the Muslim majority," but should not
be banned because non-Muslims live in Iraq.
On the more radical end of the spectrum, Moktada al-Sadr, the young
firebrand cleric who has led uprisings against the Americans, wants
Islam enshrined as the national religion and Shariah recognized as the
law of the state, said Sheik Ali Smesim, Mr. Sadr's top aide.
"The religious people should have a role in writing the constitution,"
he said. "Islamic law is so broad, and Shiite Islamic law has so many
branches. There is an answer from Islam for everything in society."
The Sadrists have been carrying around a pamphlet with a suggested Iraqi
constitution written last year by Ayatollah Kadhum Hussein al-Haeri, a
prominent cleric who is Mr. Sadr's godfather. The Iraqi Army should
allow only Muslims into its ranks, the ayatollah wrote, and all proposed
laws should be reviewed by a 12-member constitutional committee similar
to the Council of Guardians in Iran. Half the committee members would be
clerics appointed by the marjaiya, and the other half would be Islamic
lawyers.
"The infidel coalition forces want to make a constitution for our dear
Iraq and carry out their infidel agenda through the current government,"
Ayatollah Haeri wrote. "This is the most dangerous thing for Iraq and
Islam. They want to change our identity, habits, morals and Islamic way
of life."
The pamphlet was given to a reporter at a mosque here by Sahib Obeid
al-Amiri, a Sadr official. "It's possible the national assembly could
take some ideas from here," he said. "They cannot ignore this book."
But how much Islamic influence the clerics manage to get into the
constitution could come down to the sentiments of ordinary Iraqis. Mr.
Hussein spent much of his rule molding Iraq into one of the most secular
nations in the Middle East. That indoctrination is not easily cast off,
even by some residents of Najaf. "There are some people who are close to
Iran, who lean toward Iran," said Shakir Mahmoud Abdul-Hussein, 47, a
union leader who voted for the secular slate led by Dr. Allawi. "Those
with turbans will ruin our country. They just want to permit things for
themselves and not for others."
/Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting from Washington for this article./
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