Islam
Islam is a system of religious beliefs and an
all encompassing way of life. Muslims believe that God (Allah) revealed to
the Prophet Muhammad the rules governing society and the proper conduct of
society's members. It is incumbent on the individual therefore to live in
a manner prescribed by the revealed law and on the community to build the
perfect human society on earth according to holy injunctions. Islam
recognizes no distinctions between church and state. The distinction
between religious and secular law is a recent development that reflects
the more pronounced role of the state in society, and Western economic and
cultural penetration. The impact of religion on daily life in Muslim
countries is far greater than that found in the West since the Middle
Ages.
The Ottoman Empire organized society around the concept
of the millet, or autonomous religious community. The non Muslim
"People of the Book" (Christians and Jews) owed taxes to the government;
in return they were permitted to govern themselves according to their own
religious law in matters that did not concern Muslims. The religious
communities were thus able to preserve a large measure of identity and
autonomy.
The Iraqi Ba'ath Party has been a proponent of
secularism. This attitude has been maintained despite the fact that the
mass of Iraqis are deeply religious. At the same time, the Ba'athists have
not hesitated to exploit religion as a mobilizing agent; and from the
first months of the war with Iran, prominent Ba'athists have made a public
show of attending religious observances. Iraq's President Saddam Husayn is
depicted in prayer in posters displayed throughout the country. Moreover,
the Ba'ath has provided large sums of money to refurbish important mosques;
this has proved a useful tactic in encouraging support from the Shias.
Islam came to Iraq by way of the Arabian Peninsula,
where in A.D.610, Muhammad--a merchant of the Hashimite branch of the
ruling Quraysh tribe in the Arabian town of Mecca--began to preach the
first of a series of revelations granted him by God through the angel
Gabriel. A fervent monotheist, Muhammad denounced the polytheism of his
fellow Meccans. Because the town's economy was based in part on a thriving
pilgrimage business to the shrine called the Ka'aba and numerous other
pagan religious sites in the area, his censure earned him the enmity of
the town's leaders. In A.D.622 he and a group of followers accepted an
invitation to settle in the town of Yathrib, later known as Medina (the
city), because it was the center of Muhammad's activities. The move, or
hijra, known in the West as the hegira, marks the
beginning of the Islamic era and of Islam as a force in history; the
Muslim calendar begins in A.D.622. In Medina Muhammad continued to preach
and eventually defeated his detractors in battle. He consolidated the
temporal and the spiritual leadership in his person before his death in
A.D.632. After Muhammad's death, his followers compiled those of his words
regarded as coming directly from God into the Quran, the holy scriptures
of Islam. Others of his sayings and teachings, recalled by those who had
known him, became the Hadith. The precedent of Muhammad's personal
behavior is called the Sunna. Together they form a comprehensive guide to
the spiritual, ethical, and social life of the orthodox Sunni Muslim.
The duties of Muslims form the five pillars of Islam,
which set forth the acts necessary to demonstrate and reinforce the faith.
These are the recitation of the shahada ("There is no God but God
[Allah], and Muhammad is his prophet"), daily prayer (salat),
almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage
(hajj). The believer is to pray in a prescribed manner after purification
through ritual ablutions each day at dawn, midday, mid afternoon, sunset,
and nightfall. Prescribed genuflections and prostrations accompany the
prayers, which the worshiper recites facing toward Mecca. Whenever
possible men pray in congregation at the mosque with an imam, and on
Fridays make a special effort to do so. The Friday noon prayers provide
the occasion for weekly sermons by religious leaders. Women may also
attend public worship at the mosque, where they are segregated from the
men, although most frequently women pray at home. A special functionary,
the muezzin, intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the
appropriate hour. Those out of earshot determine the time by the sun.
The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan, a
period of obligatory fasting in commemoration of Muhammad's receipt of
God's revelation. Throughout the month all but the sick and weak, pregnant
or lactating women, soldiers on duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and
young children are enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, or sexual
intercourse during the daylight hours. Those adults excused are obliged to
endure an equivalent fast at their earliest opportunity. A festive meal
breaks the daily fast and inaugurates a night of feasting and celebration.
The pious well-to-do usually do little or no work during this period, and
some businesses close for all or part of the day. Since the months of the
lunar year revolve through the solar year, Ramadan falls at various
seasons in different years. A considerable test of discipline at any time
of the year, a fast that falls in summertime imposes severe hardship on
those who must do physical work.
All Muslims, at least once in their lifetime, should
make the hajj to Mecca to participate in special rites held there during
the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Muhammad instituted this
requirement, modifying pre-Islamic custom, to emphasize sites associated
with God and Abraham (Ibrahim), founder of monotheism and father of the
Arabs through his son Ismail.
The lesser pillars of the faith, which all Muslims
share, are jihad, or the crusade to protect Islamic lands,
beliefs, and institutions; and the requirement to do good works and to
avoid all evil thoughts, words, and deeds. In addition, Muslims agree on
certain basic principles of faith based on the teachings of the Prophet
Muhammad: there is one God, who is a unitary divine being in contrast to
the Trinitarian belief of Christians; Muhammad, the last of a line of
prophets beginning with Abraham and including Moses and Jesus, was chosen
by God to present His message to humanity; and there is a general
resurrection on the last or judgment day.
During his lifetime, Muhammad held both spiritual and
temporal leadership of the Muslim community. Religious and secular law
merged, and all Muslims have traditionally been subject to sharia, or
religious law. A comprehensive legal system, sharia developed gradually
through the first four centuries of Islam, primarily through the accretion
of precedent and interpretation by various judges and scholars. During the
tenth century, legal opinion began to harden into authoritative rulings,
and the figurative bab al ijtihad (gate of
interpretation) closed. Thereafter, rather than encouraging flexibility,
Islamic law emphasized maintenance of the status quo.
After Muhammad's death the leaders of the Muslim
community consensually chose Abu Bakr, the Prophet's father-in-law and one
of his earliest followers, to succeed him. At that time some persons
favored Ali, Muhammad's cousin and the husband of his daughter Fatima, but
Ali and his supporters (the Shiat Ali, or Party of Ali) eventually
recognized the community's choice. The next two caliphs (successors)--Umar,
who succeeded in A.D.634, and Uthman, who took power in A.D.644--enjoyed
the recognition of the entire community. When Ali finally succeeded to the
caliphate in A.D.656, Muawiyah, governor of Syria, rebelled in the name of
his murdered kinsman Uthman. After the ensuing civil war, Ali moved his
capital to Iraq, where he was murdered shortly there after.
Ali's death ended the last of the so-called four
orthodox caliphates and the period in which the entire community of Islam
recognized a single caliph. Muawiyah proclaimed himself caliph from
Damascus. The Shiat Ali refused to recognize him or his line, the Umayyad
caliphs, and withdrew in the first great schism to establish the dissident
sect, known as the Shias, supporting the claims of Ali's line to the
caliphate based on descent from the Prophet. The larger faction, the
Sunnis, adhered to the position that the caliph must be elected, and over
the centuries they have represented themselves as the orthodox branch.
Originally political, the differences between Sunni and
Shia interpretations rapidly took on theological and metaphysical
overtones. In principle a Sunni approaches God directly; there is no
clerical hierarchy. Some duly appointed religious figures, however, exert
considerable social and political power. Imams usually are men of
importance in their communities but they need not have any formal
training; among the Bedouins, for example, any tribal member may lead
communal prayers. Committees of socially prominent worshipers usually run
the major mosque-owned land and gifts. In Iraq, as in many other Arab
countries, the administration of waqfs (religious endowments) has
come under the influence of the state. Qadis (judges) and imams are
appointed by the government.
The Muslim year has two religious festivals--Id al
Adha, a sacrificial festival on the tenth of Dhu al Hijjah, the
twelfth month; and Id al Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast, which
celebrates the end of Ramadan on the first of Shawwal, the tenth month. To
Sunnis these are the most important festivals of the year. Each lasts
three or four days, during which people put on their best clothes, visit,
congratulate, and bestow gifts on each other. In addition, cemeteries are
visited. Eid al Fiter is celebrated more joyfully, as it marks the end of
the hardships of Ramadan. Celebrations also take place, though less
extensively, on the Prophet's birthday, which falls on the twelfth of Rabi
al Awwal, the third month, and on the first of Muharram, the beginning of
the new year.
With regard to legal matters, Sunni Islam has four
orthodox schools that give different weight in legal opinions to
prescriptions in the Quran, the Hadith or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad,
the consensus of legal scholars, analogy (to similar situations at the
time of the Prophet), and reason or opinion. Named for their founders, the
Hanafi school of Imam Abu Hanifa, born in Kufa, Iraq about A.D.700, is the
major school of Iraqi Sunni Arabs. It makes considerable use of reason or
opinion in legal decisions. The dominant school for Iraqi Sunni Kurds is
that of Imam Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Shafii of the Quraysh tribe of the
Prophet, born in A.D.767 and brought up in Mecca. He later taught in both
Baghdad and Cairo and followed a somewhat eclectic legal path, laying down
the rules for analogy that were later adopted by other legal schools. The
other two legal schools in Islam, the Maliki and the Hanbali, lack a
significant number of adherents in Iraq.
Shia Muslims hold the fundamental beliefs of
other Muslims. But, in addition to these tenets, the distinctive
institution of Shia Islam is the Imamate--a much more exalted position
than the Sunni imam, who is primarily a prayer leader. In contrast to
Sunni Muslims, who view the caliph only as a temporal leader and who lack
a hereditary view of Muslim leadership, Shia Muslims believe the Prophet
Muhammad designated Ali to be his successor as Imam, exercising both
spiritual and temporal leadership. Such an Imam must have knowledge, both
in a general and a religious sense, and spiritual guidance or walayat,
the ability to interpret the inner mysteries of the Quran and the sharia.
Only those who have walayat are free from error and sin and have
been chosen by God through the Prophet. Each Imam in turn designated his
successor--through twelve Imams--each holding the same powers.
The Imamate began with Ali, who is also accepted by
Sunni Muslims as the fourth of the "rightly guided caliphs" to succeed the
Prophet. Shias revere Ali as the First Imam, and his descendants,
beginning with his sons Hasan and Husayn, continue the line of the Imams
until the twelfth, who is believed to have ascended into a supernatural
state to return to earth on Judgment Day. Shias point to the close
lifetime association of the Prophet with Ali. When Ali was six years old,
he was invited by the Prophet to live with him, and Shias believe Ali was
the first person to make the declaration of faith in Islam. Ali also slept
in the Prophet's bed on the night of the hijra or migration from
Mecca to Medina when it was feared that the house would be attacked by
unbelievers and the Prophet stabbed to death. He fought in all the battles
the Prophet did except one, and the Prophet chose him to be the husband of
his favorite daughter, Fatima.
Among Shias the term imam traditionally has
been used only for Ali and his eleven descendants. None of the twelve
Imams, with the exception of Ali, ever ruled an Islamic government. During
their lifetimes, their followers hoped that they would assume the
ruler ship of the Islamic community, a rule that was believed to have been
wrongfully usurped. Because the Sunni caliphs were cognizant of this hope,
the Imams generally were persecuted during the Umayyad and Abbasid
dynasties. Therefore, the Imams tried to be as unobtrusive as possible and
to live as far as was reasonable from the successive capitals of the
Islamic empire.
During the eighth century the Caliph Mamun, son and
successor to Harun ar Rashid, was favorably disposed toward the
descendants of Ali and their followers. He invited the Eighth Imam, Reza
(A.D. 765-816), to come from Medina (in the Arabian Peninsula) to his
court at Marv (Mary in the present-day Soviet Union). While Reza was
residing at Marv, Mamun designated him as his successor in an apparent
effort to avoid conflict among Muslims. Reza's sister Fatima journeyed
from Medina to be with her brother, but took ill and died at Qom, in
present-day Iran. A major shrine developed around her tomb and over the
centuries Qom has become a major Shia pilgrimage and theological center.
Mamun took Reza on his military campaign to retake
Baghdad from political rivals. On this trip Reza died unexpectedly in
Khorasan. Reza was the only Imam to reside or die in what in now Iran. A
major shrine, and eventually the city of Mashhad, grew up around his tomb,
which has become the most important pilgrimage center in Iran. Several
important theological schools are located in Mashhad, associated with the
shrine to the Eighth Imam.
Reza's sudden death was a shock to his followers, many
of whom believed that Mamun, out of jealousy for Reza's increasing
popularity, had the Imam poisoned. Mamun's suspected treachery against
Imam Reza and his family tended to reinforce a feeling already prevalent
among his followers that the Sunni rulers were untrustworthy.
The Twelfth Imam is believed to have been only five
years old when the Imamate descended upon him in A.D.874 at the death of
his father. Because his followers feared he might be assassinated, the
Twelfth Imam was hidden from public view and was seen only by a few of his
closest deputies. Sunnis claim that he never existed or that he died while
still a child. Shias believe that the Twelfth Imam never died, but
disappeared from earth in about A.D. 939. Since that time, the greater
occultation of the Twelfth Imam has been in force and will last until God
commands the Twelfth Imam to manifest himself on earth again as the Mahdi
or Messiah. Shias believe that during the occultation of the Twelfth Imam,
he is spiritually present--some believe that he is materially present as
well--and he is besought to reappear in various invocations and prayers.
His name is mentioned in wedding invitations, and his birthday is one of
the most jubilant of all Shia religious observances.
The Shia doctrine of the Imamate was not fully
elaborated until the tenth century. Other dogmas were developed still
later. A characteristic of Shia Islam is the continual exposition and
reinterpretation of doctrine.
A further belief of Shia Muslims concerns divine
justice and the individual's responsibility for his acts, which are judged
by a just God. This contrasts with the Sunni view that God's creation of
man allows minimal possibility for the exercise of free will.
A significant practice of Shia Islam is that of
visiting the shrines of Imams both in Iraq and in Iran. These include the
tomb of Imam Ali in An Najaf and that of his son Imam Husayn in Karbala
since both are considered major Shia martyrs. Before the 1980 Iran-Iraq
War, tens of thousands went each year. The Iranians have made it a central
aim of their war effort to wrest these holy cities from the Iraqis. Other
principal pilgrimage sites in Iraq are the tombs of the Seventh and Ninth
Imams at Kazimayn, near Baghdad, and in Iran, the tomb of the Eighth Imam
in Mashhad and that of his sister in Qom. Such pilgrimages originated in
part from the difficulty and expense in the early days of making the hajj
to Mecca.
Commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn, killed near
Karbala in A.D. 680 during a battle with troops supporting the Ummayad
caliph, there are processions in the Shia towns and villages of southern
Iraq on the tenth of Muharram (Ashura), the anniversary of his death.
Ritual mourning (taaziya) is performed by groups of men of five
to twenty each. Contributions are solicited in the community to pay
transportation for a local group to go to Karbala for taaziya
celebrations forty days after Ashura. There is a great rivalry among
groups from different places for the best performance of the passion
plays.
In the villages, religious readings occur throughout
Ramadan and Muharram. The men may gather in the mudhif (tribal
guesthouse), the suq (market), or a private house. Women meet in
homes. The readings are led either by a mumin (a man trained in a
religious school in An Najaf) or by a mullah who has apprenticed with an
older specialist. It is considered the duty of shaykhs, elders, prosperous
merchants, and the like to sponsor these readings, or qirayas.
Under the monarchy these public manifestations were discouraged, as they
emphasized grievances against the Sunnis.
Two distinctive and frequently misunderstood Shia
practices are mutah, temporary marriage, and taqiyah,
religious dissimulation. Mutah is a fixed-term contract that is
subject to renewal. It was practiced by the first community of Muslims at
Medina but was banned by the second caliph. Mutah differs from
permanent marriage in that it does not require divorce to terminate it. It
can be for a period as short as an evening or as long as a lifetime. The
offspring of such an arrangement are the legitimate heirs of the man.
Taqiyah, condemned by the Sunnis as cowardly
and irreligious, is the hiding or disavowal of one's religion or its
practices to escape the danger of death from those opposed to the faith.
Persecution of Shia Imams during the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates
reinforced the need for taqiyah.
Shia practice differs from that of the Sunnis
concerning both divorce and inheritance in that it is more favorable to
women. The reason for this reputedly is the high esteem in which Fatima,
the wife of Ali and the daughter of the Prophet, was held.
Like Sunni Islam, Shia Islam has developed several
sects. The most important of these is the Twelver or Ithna-Ashari sect,
which predominates not only in Iraq but in the Shia world generally.
Broadly speaking, the Twelvers are considered political quietists as
opposed to the Zaydis who favor political activism, and the Ismailis who
are identified with esoteric and Gnostic religious doctrines. Within
Twelver Shia Islam there are two major legal schools, the Usuli and the
Akhbari. Akhbaris constitute a very small group and are found primarily
around Basra and in southern Iraq as well as around Khorramshahr in Iran.
The dominant Usuli school is more liberal in its legal outlook and allows
greater use of interpretation (ijtihad) in reaching legal
decisions, and considers that one must obey a mujtahid (learned
interpreter of the law) as well as an Imam.
