SISTANI – DEAN, RULER, POPE?

News Analysis | 

By Uwe Siemon-Netto,

UPI Religious Affairs Editor

PARIS, Sept. 2 (UPI) — There is little doubt Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani, 73, is now the most powerful man in Iraq.

But what is he? Some kind of a Shiite Muslim pope? Or perhaps a cleric-statesman comparable to French Prime Minister Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, duke de Richelieu (1585–1642), or the famed Greek-Cypriot Archbishop Khristodoulou Makarios (1913–1977), or the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran (for whose regime, by the way, Sistani had little time)?

This much is certain: He is one of Prophet Mohammed's many descendants, as his title, sayyid, and his black turban indicate (other Shiite clerics wear white ones, though they can also attain the rank of grand ayatollah).

"In a sense Sistani is like a pope to us," suggests Sheikh Mohammed Mohammad Ali, another senior cleric and politician who has returned to Baghdad from exile in London. Ali recently met with Sistani in the holy city of Najaf, where the grey-bearded Sistani persuaded the rebellious mullah Moqtada Sadr to stop fighting the U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

"Then again," the sheikh mused, "he is not really a pope because he was not elected by a conclave of Muslim cardinals."

And at any rate, no Shiite cleric is ever ordained in some splendid liturgy like a Catholic, Orthodox or Anglican priest.

"Some of us give a party when we attain clerical rank," said Ali, "but that's a long shot from a consecration."

True, the Shiites, who make up about 12 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, do have a clergy of sorts. They can be distinguished by their black robes and their turbans, "which one puts not on one's head too early," cautioned Ali.

"Imagine, somebody stops you in the street and asks you a theological question because of your turban, and you do not have an answer — how embarrassing!"

Shiite clerics simply see themselves as vicars of the "hidden imam," a savior on whose return from the realm of the great concealment into the sphere of time and space Shiites focus their eschatological expectations.

"Perhaps it's best to say that for us a grand ayatollah is like the dean of a great university," Ali went on. In the eyes of his coreligionists, a grand ayatollah is a scholar of immense learning and therefore more respected than any other living theologian.

That's what makes Sistani so powerful, even politically, though he had always been known as a quietist who preferred to keep out of politics, unlike other leading ayatollahs, who were tortured and executed under Saddam Hussein.

It took Sistani more than 20 years of formal studies — much more than any Jesuit — to attain his revered level of scholarship, to which he owes his current power. He has used it only sparingly so far, according to Ali.

He is a soft-spoken, withdrawn, intensely pious theologian, jurist and philosopher, who has only now come to the fore politically for fear Shiites, making up 60 percent of Iraq's population, might squander their first opportunity for power since the 1920s, when British forces put down a revolt by Shiite tribes, marginalizing them for eight decades.

So how does one get to be a grand ayatollah referred to as "his eminence" by his followers? A "talib" — one who desires instruction in Islam — must start out young. Sistani was 5 when he began studying the Koran under a renowned woman teacher in Iran.

Any future mullah begins his education at a "maqtab," or place of writing, where he is instructed in classical Arabic and scripture. Then he moves on to a madrassa, which in Shiite Islam is a school of high theology.

There his teacher and supervisor is usually a very senior mullah with the reputation of being a "mujtahid," who has the right to practice "ijtihad," or the independent interpretation of the Koran and the traditions. "Ijtihad" plays a huge part in Shiite thought, whereas most Sunni theologians have for centuries considered "the door to ijtihad closed."

In the madrasa, a future mullah learns religious law, the tradition of Shiite imams, classical commentaries on the Koran and the hadith (tradition), Persian and Arabic grammar, rhetoric and poetry. Those who strive to attain the high ranks of "hujatulislam" (proof of Islam) or ayatollah (sign of God) are also thoroughly instructed in the sciences and philosophy, including the critique of metaphysics and Islamic Gnosticism mixing philosophical rationalism with mystical worldviews.

One might suppose that such intensive education could lead to intellectual hubris. But with Sistani this is not the case, Sheikh Mohammed Mohammed Ali related. Quite to the contrary, Sistani insists that education must include training students in personal piety and love, and — quite unlike Khomeini — demands of his students respect for the opinions of others and courteous theological discourse.

Grand ayatollahs are named by their peers, the ayatollahs. "Each cleric of this exalted rank has a huge following," said Ali. "Some have 10 million, others 20, 30, or 50 million. But Sistani is the spiritual head of at least 100 million in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and even Pakistan."