¹ Daʿwa, Islamic party, Istishhād al-Imām Muḥammad Bāqir al-Ṣadr min Manẓūr Hadhari (n.p., 1981), 36–37Google Scholar.

² These groups included Fedaian Islam founded by Nawab Safavi in the late 1940s and later headed by Sadiq Khilkhili, the head of the Revolutionary Courts in 1979–80; Mujahidin Khalq, a Socialist Islamic organization supported by the late Ayatollah Talaqani; and Nahzat Azadi, a liberal-Islamic group, founded by Mahdi Bazargan, the first prime minister of the revolution appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini.

³ For a full account of Qasim's regime, see Dann, Uriel, Iraq under Qassem (New York: Praeger, 1969)Google Scholar.

⁴ On the influence and the atrocities of the Iraqi Communist party, see Zaher, U., “The Oppression,” in Saddam's Iraq, Revolution or Reaction?, ed. Cardri, (Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq), (London: Zed, 1986), 148–50Google Scholar.

⁵ Shubār, Hassān, “Dawr Ḥizb al-Daʿwa al-Islāmiyya fī al-Taghyīr wa-Ḥālat al-Istirkhāʾ al-Sībiqa,” al-Jihād, 24 October 1988, 8Google Scholar.

⁶ According to Talib al-Rifaʿi, a colleague of Sadr and a well-known jurist activist in the 1950s and 1960s, Jamāʿat al-ʿUlamāʾ consisted of ten mujtahids: Murtada Al-Yasin, ʿAbbas al-Rumaythi, Ismaʿil al-Sadr, Muhammad Tahir Shaykh Radi, Muhammad Jawad Shaykh Radi, Muhammad Taqi Bahr al-ʿUlum, Musa Bahr al-ʿUlum, Muhammad Rida al-Muzaffar, Husayn al-Hamadani, and Muhammad Baqir Shakhs.

⁷ interview with al-Hakam, Mohammad Baqir, al-Jihād, Summer 1980, 7–9Google Scholar.

⁸ Allāh, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍl, “Taqdīm,” preface to al-Ṣadr, Muḥammad Bāqir, Risālatunā (Beirut: al-Dār al-Islāmiyya, 1981), 16Google Scholar.

⁹ An interview with one of the leading figures in the Jamaʿat al-ʿUlamaʾ and the Daʿwa party, on 1 January 1990; he requested anonymity and will be referred to here as A.H.F.

¹⁰ Interview with Talib al-Rifaʿi, 16–18 July 1989.

¹¹ However, al-Aḍwāʿ, according to Talib al-Rifaʿi, was later to become the voice of the Islamic Daʿwa party; it published party doctrine in editorials and articles.

¹² Fadl Allah, “Taqdim,” 17.

¹³ Talib al-Rifaʿi told me that Sadr did not have the money to buy books on Western philosophy, but a friend, an Arab nationalist and an owner of a bookstore, generously let him borrow them.

¹⁴ However, according to A.H.F., the al-Siwaki brothers, Hadi and Mahdi, who were members of the Tahrir party, proposed forming a political party to Murtada al-ʿAskari, who in turn contacted Sadr to set up the party's structure and write its doctrine. According to A.H.F., Mahdi al-Hakim and Talib al-Rifaʿi were among the first to be contacted and to join.

¹⁵ Al-Asadi, , “Ḥizb al-Daʿwa al-Islāmiyya,” Ṭarīq al-Ḥaqq, August 1980, 46Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Sadr, according to the Daʿwa party, wrote four articles in the official journey of the party, Ṣawt al-Daʿwa, explaining the name, the structure, the goals, and the nature of the political struggle to build up the party. The articles are published in the Daʿwa party publication (no. 13), Min Filer al-Daʿwa al-Islāmiyya: al-Shāhid al Rābiʿ, al-Imām al-Ṣadr (n.d., n.p.).

¹⁷ Al-Asadī, , “Ḥizb al-Daʿwa al-Islāmiyya,” 48Google Scholar.

¹⁸ According to al-Rifaʿi, Sadr decided to resign from the party at Samarra, where the shrines of the Imams al-ʿAskariyyūn are located, after randomly selecting a verse from the Qurʾan and using it as a basis for his decision.

¹⁹ Husayn al-Safi was the head of the Baʿth party in Najaf, which cooperated with the Islamic forces to counter the communist surge. Jamaʿat al-ʿUlamaʾ used Muhammad Rida Sheikh Radi as a link between them and al-Safi's nationalist and Baʿthist forces, and was well aware of Sadr's activities. When the Baʿthists came to power in 1963, al-Safi was appointed governor of Diwaniyya, a principality near Najaf. He later retired from politics, and emigrated to Morocco in the 1970s to become a businessman. Saddam invited him to Iraq in 1985 and later executed him.

²⁰ For a full account of the situation, see al-Hakim's, Muhammad Baqir interview in al-Jihād, Jumādā al-Thānī 1401 (March 1980), 5Google Scholar. Al-Hakim referred to a letter explaining the whole episode that Sadr sent to him when the latter was in Lebanon.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Allah, Fadl, “Taqdīm,” 17Google Scholar.

²³ A famous saying of Sadr, “Mujtamaʿunā lā yataḥammal Mujtamaʿunā” (Our society cannot bear Our Society).

²⁴ Interview with A.H.F., 1 January 1990.

²⁵ Conversation with Muhammad H. Fadl Allah in St. Louis, December 1982; also see his “Taqdīm,” 17.

²⁶ al-Nūrī, Fāḍil, al-Shāhid al-Ṣadr Faḍāʾiluhu wa-Shamāʾiluhu (Qum: Mahmūd al-Hāshimi Office, 1984), 93Google Scholar.

²⁷ The Sadr book in uṣūl is al-Maʿālim al-Jadīda fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh. See al-Nūri, Fāḍil, al-Shūhid al-Ṣadr, 64Google Scholar; al-Qubanchī, S. D., al-Jihād al-Siyāsī, 79Google Scholar.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ The association headed by Hadi al-Hakim and Murtada al-ʾAskari. In the late 1960s, Mahdi al-Hakim became the best and most outspoken member of the association. See “Interview with al-Askari,” Liwāʾ al-Ṣladr, al-Thāni, Jumādā 7, 1409 (14 January 1989), 6Google Scholar.

³⁰ The meeting was held in al-Karada al-Sharqiyya, a suburb of Baghdad, attended by sixty religious scholars from Baghdad and Kadhimiyya; see al-Shahāda, al-Thānī, Jumādā 2, 1409 (14 January 1989)Google Scholar.

³¹ Liwāʾ al-Ṣadr, Shaʿban, 29, 1409 (6 April 1989)Google Scholar.

³² al-ʿAskari, Murtaḍa, “Judhūr wa-Khalfiyyat al-Taharruk al-Islāmī fī Muwājahat al-Baʿth alʿAflaqī,” Liwāʾ al-Ṣadr, Muharam 22, 1409 (3 September 1989), 10Google Scholar.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ The Baʿthist government tried to influence the selection of the Supreme Mujtahid of the Shiʿi through a campaign on behalf of Sheikh ʿAli Kashif al-Ghitaʾ who publicly endorsed the regime. However, Sadr and Muhsin al-Hakim's eldest son Yusuf put their weight behind Khoei. On the selection of Ayatollah Khoei, see also Ajami, Fouad, The Vanished Imam, Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), 194Google Scholar.

³⁵ Qubanchī, , al-Jihād al-Siyāsī, 74Google Scholar.

³⁶ Daʿwa party, Lamaḥāt min maṣīrat ḥizb al-Daʿwa al-Islāmiyya (n.p., n.d.), 25Google Scholar.

³⁷ al-Adīb, Ṣāliḥ, “Mawākib al-Ṭalaba,” al-Jihād, 29 February 1988, 12Google Scholar.

³⁸ Dakhīl, Ṣāḥib, editor of the Daʿwa party's underground journal, Ṣawt al-Daʿwa, was detained on 28 September 1971 and later executedGoogle Scholar; al-Jihād, 3 January 1983, 5Google Scholar.

³⁹ The five sentenced to death were Sheikh ʿArif al-Basri, ʿIzz al-Din al-Qubanchi, ʿImad al-Tabrizi, Hussayn Chalukhan, and Nuri Tuʿma. See Daʿwa, Islamic party, Shuhadāʾ Baghdād (Tehran: Islamic Daʿwa, 1982)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ On the reaction of Ayatollah Khomeini to the execution of five “martyrs,” see al-Jihād, Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1404, 44.

⁴¹ Qubanchi is the only one to mention that Sadr was detained by the government in 1971, but was not imprisoned because of his poor health; he was, however, tied to his hospital bed (see al-Jihād al-Siyāsī, 53).

⁴² Another marjaʿ in Najaf was Ruḥ Allah Khumayni; there were others such as Gulpaygani, Shariʿat-Madari (d. 1985), Marʿashi-Najafi (d. 1989) in Qum; and ʿAbd Allah Shirazi in Mashhad (d. 1986).

⁴³ For detailed accounts of the uprising, see al-Mūsawī, Raʿd, Intifāḍat Safr al-Islāmiyya fī ʿlrāq, 2nd ed. (Qum: Amiyr al-Muʾminīn, 1983), 66–68Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 71–73.

⁴⁵ Ibid., 68–69.

⁴⁶ Ibid., 95–99.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 101.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 102–3.

⁴⁹ The three members of the court were ʿIzzat Mustafa, minister of health, Hasan ʿAli, and Falayh Jasim, all members of the regional command of the Baʿth party.

⁵⁰ In a letter to his former pupils and disciples in Iran, Sadr expressed his admiration for Khomeini, and demanded they support him. Sadr said that Khomeini's marjaʿiyya had achieved the goals of the “objective marjaʿiyya,” which he had theorized years ago. For the text of the letter, see al-Haʾirī, , Mabāḥith ʿilm al-uṣul (Qum, 1988), 145–46Google Scholar.

⁵¹ The message was not publicized because Sadr's disciple living in Iran thought such a statement would endanger Sadr's life. For the full text of the message, see al-Hāʾirī, , Mabāḥith, 142–45Google Scholar.

⁵² Ibid., 114.

⁵³ Because of the 1975 agreement between Iraq and Iran, the Baʿth government supported the Shah. Saddam, then the vice president, had declared in one of the party meetings in Basra, “al-Shāh, baqī, baqī, baqī” (The Shah will survive, will survive, will survive).

⁵⁴ For the text, see Hāʾirī, Mabāḥith, 147.

⁵⁵ For texts of Khomeini's message to Sadr, see Ibid., 117–18. Khomeini insulted Sadr by addressing him as Ḥujjat al-Islām wa-al-Muslimīn, a title used for a low-ranking ʿālim; Sadr was then a marjaʿ of well-known reputation and usually addressed as āyat Allah al-ʿuẓma (grand ayatollah). Only after Sadr's death did Khomeini start referring to him as Ayatollah Sadr.

⁵⁶ Conversation with Sayyid M. H. Fadl Allah in 1982.

⁵⁷ For the text of Sadr's reply to Khomeini, see al-Hāʾirī Mabāḥith, 123.

⁵⁸ A1-Nuʿmani quoted in al-Hāḥirī, Mabāḥith, 119.

⁵⁹ Al-Jihād, 2 May 1983.

⁶⁰ Ibid.

⁶¹ A1-Nuʿmani as quoted in al-Hāʾirī, , Mabāḥith, 162–63Google Scholar.

⁶² Munaẓẓamat al-ʿAmal al-Islāmī (Islamic Task Organization) is a splinter group of the Daʿwa party. Their leader, Muhammad Mahdi al-Shirazi, was one of the first group, according to Mahdi al-Hakim, to joint the Daʿwa party. In the early 1970s he and his brother Hasan (assassinated in Lebanon in 1980) formed their own organization, al-ʿAmal al-Islami, as a result of disagreement with Daʿwa over an issue of leadership of the party and political tactics. When al-Shirazi announced his marjaʿiyya in 1970, Muhammad Taqi al-Mudrisi and Hadi al-Mudrisi headed al-ʿAmal, while Shirazi assumed the role of spiritual leader of the organization.

⁶³ Mallat, Chibli, “Religious Militancy in Contemporary Iraq: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr and the Sunni-Shia Paradigm,” Third World Quarterly, April 1988, 728Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ According to Daʿwa party members, these recorded messages were supposed to be published and distributed to people inside and outside Iraq, but they were censored by his associates fearing the regime's reprisal on Sadr's life and were not made public until after his death.

⁶⁵ For the full text of Sadr's three messages to the Iraqi people in Arabic; see al-Hāʾirī, , Mabāḥith, 147–53Google Scholar; for an English translation, see Ali, Abu, A Glimpse of the Life of the Martyred Imam: Muhammad Baqer al-Sadr and His Last Three Messages (n.d., n.p.), 16–19Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ According to one of Sadr's cousins, the family of Sadr still hopes that the regime has spared the life of Amina al-Sadr, but the Islamic movement always refers to her as a martyr.

⁶⁷ See an interview with Mahdi al-Hakim on the history of the Islamic movement in Iraq in Liwāʾ al-Sadr, 12 January 1990, 12Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ One of the examples of how Sadr was pushed into unplanned direct confrontation against the government was when he was hospitalized in 1979, and one of the Iranian ulama asked Talib al-Rifaʿi to write a get-well telegram in Arabic to Sadr. However, the draft was rejected on the basis that its language was too mild and did not include a harsh statement against Saddam and the Baʿth party. Al-Rifaʿi refused to write such a statement because it would endanger Sadr's life.

⁶⁹ An interview with Ahmad Kubba, one of the Daʿwa members who initiated the first demonstration after the Friday sermon of Ayatollah Khoei in the Masjid al-Khadra in Najaf, in 1978. He said that he had no orders from the party to start the demonstration. Rather the party officials discouraged such a move. They then had supported public protests only after the success of the revolution in Iran.

⁷⁰ Ayatollah Khoei advised Sadr, via the latter's representative in Kuwait, that he should not involve himself in a political struggle then because the Baʿthist government would certainly kill him at a time when the ḥawza needed his services.