Moqtada al-Sadr is the fourth son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad al-Sadr, who was killed in 1999, along with two of his sons, by agents presumed to be working for Saddam Hussein, thus becoming one of the major symbols of Shi'a resistance to Saddam Hussein's former regime. However, al-Sadr's heterodoxical theology, his inherited position as Shi'a theological royalty, and his highly militant paramilitary force, the Mahdi Army, all put him in opposition to Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani's softly-softly approach.
As Rahimi writes in his analysis for The Jamestown Foundation:
"Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Sadrist movement, mainly dominated by Moqtada al-Sadr, has emerged as one of the most populist and grassroots currents in the post-Baathist era. Yet the militant movement has also posed the most serious threat to clerical orthodoxy and its conservative and quietist tradition, best embodied by Ayatollah al-Sistani."
At first, al-Sadr made little effort to build bridges with al-Sistani because:
"Ideologically, the Sadrists are Arab nationalists and resent the presence of any non-Arab cleric in Iraq, especially those of Iranian descent, like al-Sistani, who have been residing in the shrine-cities for decades. The origin of the movement dates back to the early 1990s, when Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr, the father of Moqtada, led an anti-quietist campaign by accusing al-Sistani and other leading clerics in Najaf of abandoning ordinary people and allowing Baathist oppression to take place."
However, escalating sectarian violence has made for strange bedfellows:
"Al-Sistani saw the Mahdi Army as a major asset in dealing with anti-Shiite Sunni groups and U.S. forces in Iraq. Due to the encouragement from Hezbollah and Tehran, the agreement signaled an opportunity to tame al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, militarily weakened by U.S. forces, by bringing his troops closer to the mainstream Shiite establishment."
And the union is not merely one of necessity:
"Both al-Sadr and al-Sistani share the common interest of protecting the Shiite community against the ongoing sectarian war and, simultaneously, promote a unified Iraq governed by a centralized government in Baghdad. In this sense, the two are against a federalist system of government, particularly the sectarian-provincial model of federalism advocated by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. This common objective has brought them closer together, while facing opposition from pro-federal factions, such as the Iranian-backed SCIRI, which continue to push a sectarian agenda in the revised version of the constitution expected to be proposed by the constitutional committee in mid-May 2007."
Soon, however, these alliances may not stand for long, because Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is 76 years old and:
"The leading candidate to replace al-Sistani is the Afghan-born, Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq al-Fayadh. He is an old seminary student friend of al-Sistani since the 1950s and a staunch ally since 1992. As a successor, al-Fayadh is more likely to deal directly with the United States and get involved in the transition process; however, he is also likely to antagonize the Sadrist nationalists, who view him as an Afghan foreigner who should not have a say in Iraq's politics. Two other Najaf-based clerics, the grand ayatollahs Bashir Hussein al-Najafi and Muhammad Said Hakim, are also potential candidates. It is unlikely that they will be the successors, however, because they are considered lesser scholars than al-Fayadh, who is highly respected by many Shiite Iraqis, particularly by the tribal chieftains of Najaf."
While it is not yet clear who will achieve primacy in Iraq's Shi'a theocratic firmament, it is clear that Iran will continue to influence the shaping of Iraq's Shi'a, if not national, direction.
