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NAJAF, Iraq --
Top Shi'ite clerics, emboldened by what they
perceive as a massive turnout by their followers for
the coalition of Shi'ite religious parties, have
already directed their attention to advocating for
an Islamic constitution, several of them said in the
aftermath of Sunday's election.
The turnout for the top-finishing electoral slate, a
coalition of Islamist parties supported by the
Shi'ite clerical establishment, has convinced
leading clerics in Najaf that religious parties will
have a majority in the Transitional National
Assembly that will write Iraq's next constitution.
The clerics of Najaf who orchestrated the Shi'ite
political party coalition say they expect a
constitutional debate between hard-core Islamists,
who want Koranic law to be the constitution's
primary source, and moderate Islamists, who want a
milder form of religious law. This debate, they say,
will dwarf any challenge from secular parties.
US officials are counting on Islamists who oppose a
direct role for clerics in government to prevail;
otherwise, they fear, Iraq's Shi'ite majority could
push the country in the direction of neighboring
theocratic Iran. The officials say Iraq's Shi'ite
clergy has supported democratic principles,
including elections, and shown political restraint
since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Interviews with clerics representing the leading
schools of thought in Najaf reveal a major debate
between the moderate and extreme Islamists, and a
growing belief that clerics will shape the
constitutional debate far more than secular
politicians.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani leads the top four
Shi'ite clerics, collectively known as the marjaiya,
who shape Shi'ite policy and whose fatwas, or
religious edicts, are taken as literal direct orders
by millions of Iraqi Shi'ites.
One of Sistani's top aides, Mohammed al-Haboubi, 42,
said the marjaiya would push for a constitution of
''Islamic character" that also protected the rights
of Iraq's minorities.
''Public freedoms should be regulated based on the
country's Islamic character," Haboubi said, citing
as an example the sale of liquor.
Liquor should not be completely banned, Haboubi
said, because there are some non-Muslims in Iraq.
But its sale should be severely curtailed ''in
consideration of the feelings of the Muslim
majority."
But Sistani's is the moderate position in the
internal debate over how Islamic the constitution
should be. Several of his aides and the leading
candidate on the Shi'ite List, Abdelaziz al-Hakim,
said in interviews and public statements after the
election that they want a constitution that protects
the rights of all minorities in Iraq.
Ayatollahs and clerics from the more activist school
believe that the constitution should include
provisions on divorce, inheritance, family law, even
the allocation of the national budget based on a
direct reading of the Koran.
One result would be inheritance laws that would give
female heirs a smaller share than male heirs, a
codification of Koranic law proposed by Islamist
leaders on the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council
and unexpectedly approved by the entire council in
December 2003. That attempt was shot down by the US
administrator of Iraq at the time, L. Paul Bremer
III, who refused to sign the law.
The activists include Sheikh Ali Smesim, the top
aide to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose radical Mahdi
Army militia rose up against the US occupation in
April and destabilized Shi'ite areas in the south
and center of the country until a decisive battle
with US Marines in Najaf in August.
Sadr commands millions of followers, mostly among
young males and the poor. His rhetoric is fiercely
anti-American and pro-Islamic. During recent months,
imams loyal to him have ignored the electoral
process and instead railed against the spread of
Western immorality in Iraq.
While Iraqi government figures such as interim Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi espouse a secular government,
the Sadr movement challenges the establishment
Shi'ite clergy from the right, advocating a
hard-line Islamist approach.
''The Islamists should have the central role,
because the majority in Iraq are Muslims," Smesim
said. ''If the Islamists have a majority in the
assembly, Islam will be the first and major source
of the law."
In his view, the Iraqi constitution should turn to
the Koran to resolve questions of divorce,
inheritance, taxation, and government spending:
''Islam provides an answer for anything in society."
Muslims should learn about Western ideas, he said,
so long as they don't filter into their Islamic code
of law. As an example, he cited same-sex marriage as
a European concept ''not applicable in Muslim
countries."
The Sadr movement, he said, had not yet decided
whether the elections were legitimate and whether
they would support the new government, or if they
would continue to dismiss it -- as they have
Allawi's government -- as an American puppet.
An American diplomat, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said that several political mechanisms
would put a brake on forces pushing for a theocracy,
including the two-thirds vote required in the
Transitional National Assembly to approve the
constitution.
The diplomat also said that Turkey offered a
reassuring example of Islamists with a track record
of surrendering power democratically, he said.
''As a general rule I think we've got to trust these
people . . . unless they say `vote for me and this
is the last vote you'll ever take in your life,' "
the diplomat said.
The mainstream marjaiya is eager to consolidate its
position as the undisputed Shi'ite voice. Sistani's
emissaries have tried to assuage American worries
about fundamentalism, disowning the Iranian model in
public statements and declaring that they don't want
a cleric-controlled state.
Still, Iraq's clerics in the last two years have
played a central role in politics unprecedented in a
state that has been avowedly secular since it won
independence from Britain in the 1920s. Sistani
personally called for the formation of a Shi'ite
electoral slate, and allowed his organization, which
has representatives in every Shi'ite neighborhood in
Iraq, to campaign for it.
Sistani and the marjaiya forced the US occupation
authority to set a deadline for elections and then
stick to it, threatening mass protests if the vote
were postponed.
The marjaiya's power and influence was felt on
election day when the Shi'ite List drew the vast
majority of votes in Shi'ite areas. Across the
country at poll sites, Shi'ites declared they were
voting for the Shi'ite List because Sistani had
ordered them to, even if personally they would have
preferred another candidate.
Bookseller Amar Muslem al-Dujaili said he couldn't
vote for his own preferred choice, the party of
interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
''I couldn't disobey the marjaiya's order," he said.
''Allah was watching while I voted."
Clerics say that the marjaiya has singlehandedly
restrained the country's majority Shi'ites in the
face of nearly two years of constant and bloody
provocation from a Sunni insurgency that has marked
out Shi'ites (as well as Kurds) for death.
''The marjaiya was able to restrain the Shi'ite
street from turning to random killing," said Sayyed
Alaadin Mohammed al-Hakim, a son and spokesman for
one of the four ayotallahs who form the marjaiya.
''It had a big role in thwarting the civil war that
the terrorists were trying to provoke. This should
give confidence to others, especially our Sunni
brothers."
He said the constitution must ''maintain the Islamic
identity of the country" while ''keeping equality
between the ethnic groups" -- a delicate task, he
added, for which Iraqi politicians must set aside
personal ambitions.
One academic who has studied Iraq's Shi'ites for
decades, Yitzhak Nakash, said he thought the
establishment clerics would use their influence to
keep Iraq's politicians focused on the national
interest -- provided the United States doesn't
alienate them by limiting the new National
Assembly's power.
''The marjaiya will settle for an Iraq that is
neither a theocracy like the Islamic Republic of
Iran nor the secular Turkey of Ataturk," said Nakash,
a Brandeis University professor and fellow at the
Woodrow Wilson Center.
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