MER Article Iran, the Vatican of Shi'ism? The Iranian state, controlled de facto by the conservatives in the government, promotes the idea that Iran is the center of Shi‘ism. It bases its argument on the fact that Iran is a Shi‘i-run state, whereas Shi‘i Muslims in other parts of the world live in states that are dominated by Sunnis, and so Roschanack Shaery • 11 min read
MER Article Seeking a "Social Contract" for Saudi Arabia For most of its history, the royal family of Saudi Arabia has maintained public order by exercising absolute, at times brutal, control over the people of the country. The House of Saud has tolerated neither resistance nor the questioning of its authority. But in the mayhem of 2003, with war Toby Jones • 19 min read
MER Article The Worldly Roots of Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq April 9, 2003 will go down in Iraqi history as the day of the fall. Barely two days after the anniversary of the founding of the Ba‘th party, and 21 days after the US-led invasion of Iraq began, the battle Saddam Hussein dubbed the Mother of All Decisive Battles Faleh A. Jabar • 18 min read
Current Analysis Shiite Religious Parties Fill Vacuum in Southern Iraq Religious Shiite parties and militias in Iraq have recently stepped into the gap resulting from the collapse of the Baath Party, especially in the sacred shrine cities. This development must have come as a shock to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who in early March preferred Iraqis as US Juan Cole • 9 min read
MER Article The Islamization of Law in Iran The re-Islamization of law by the leadership of the Islamic Republic following the 1979 revolution immediately clashed with the realities of contemporary Iranian society. [1] This clash engendered divisions between the parliament and the Guardian Council (a body of faqihs [2]] tasked with safeguardi Azadeh Niknam • 16 min read
MER Article A Clash of Fundamentalisms During the past two decades, a proselytizing, reformist, “Islamist” movement -- mainly characterized as “Wahhabi” -- has gained increasing popularity throughout Yemen. Wahhabism actively opposes both the main Yemeni schools -- Zaydi Shi‘ism in the north and Shafi‘i Sunnism in the south and in the Ti Shelagh Weir • 6 min read
MER Article The Iraqi Question from the Inside To affirm the existence of an “Iraqi question” has certain implications. People usually speak, referring to the Shi‘a and the Kurds, of minorities and of the necessity of protecting them as such. But this misses the point concerning what is unique about Iraq. Pierre-Jean Luizard • 15 min read
MER Article Ajami, The Vanished Imam Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). As'ad AbuKhalil • 5 min read
MER Article Roots of the Shi'i Movement Many saw the Shi‘i revolt in west Beirut and its southern suburbs in February 1984 as the sudden and unexpected mass uprising of a rapidly expanding social group in the midst of a tumultuous religious revivalism. But the February uprising was a significant social movement, with roots in the profound Salim Nasr • 24 min read
MER Article Religious Ritual and Political Struggle in an Iranian Village The villagers of Aliabad do not presume political stability. They were not especially surprised at the fall of the Shah, nor at the demise of the most powerful person in the village, Seyyid Ibn Ali Askari, some months after the Iranian revolution. “One day the saddle is on the horse, the next day th Mary Hegland • 25 min read
MER Article The Significance of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was born at Najaf in 1930 into an Arab family known for its learning through the Shi‘i world. His fundamental points of departure, and the chief clues to his entire work, are the traditional Muslim propositions that God is the source of all power, the only legislator, and the Hanna Batatu • 2 min read
MER Article Iraq's Underground Shi'i Movements This article is an abridgement, by Joe Stork, of a paper prepared by Hanna Batatu in May 1981 and published in the autumn 1981 issue of Middle East Journal. Two Shi’i parties are active in Iraq’s underground: al-Da‘wa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Call) and al-Mujahidin. The Da‘wa is the older movement. It Hanna Batatu • 21 min read
