To Karbala: Surveying Religious Shi’a from Iran and Iraq Fotini Christia, Elizabeth Dekeyser, Dean Knox∗ October 20, 2016 ∗Fotini Christia ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor and Elizabeth Dekeyser ([email protected]) and Dean Knox ([email protected]) are Ph.D. candidates, in the Political Science Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This survey would not have been possible without the advice and guidance from several colleagues from academia and from members of our team in the field. First, we would like to thank Abdullah Hammadi, our survey manager, for going above and beyond in facilitating and overseeing the conduct of this survey. His great instinct for social science and his logistical genius were instrumental to the success of this project. Great thanks also go to Kufa University President Dr. Aqeel Abd Yassin Al-Kufi for his hospitality throughout the survey and particularly to Professor Hassan Nadhem, who holds the UNESCO Chair for Inter-Religious Dialogue Studies in The Islamic World, for identifying a terrific group of Kufa University students for survey training and enumeration. Our enumerators demonstrated great energy, integrity and attention to detail throughout the survey and all fifty one of them are named in a separate section of this report. We are also truly grateful to our survey supervisors Faris Kamil Hasan, Maytham Hasan Machi, Wael Adnan Kadhim, Faris Najem Harram and Nidhal J. Gdhadab for their leadership and relentless work ethic. For advice on surveying in Iraq, our great thanks go to Professor Amaney Jamal and to Michael Robbins who generously shared their experience from the ArabBarometer; to Nandini Krishnan, for sharing the instruments and data from the World Bank household economic survey for Iraq; and to Neha Sahgal for discussing her experience with the work of the Pew Research Center in Iraq. We are also truly grateful to all the scholars and practitioners who provided input on the survey along the way, with special thanks to Professor Roy Mottahedeh. For early input on the project, we would also like to thank Dr. Sabrina Mervin and Geraldine Chatelard. For help in translating the Arabic survey instrument, we want to thank Sora Hamedi. For the Farsi survey instrument our thanks go to Nikoo Saber for her assistance with translation and to Sajedeh Goudarzi for her overall input. We also want to recognize Atiyeh Vahidmanesh from the Virginia Tech Economics Department for her generosity in sharing her cleaned version of the data originating from the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI). Great thanks also go to Marsin Alshamary and to Ramisa Shaikh for research assistance at the early stages of this project. Fotini Christia carried out the data collection associated with this project while on an Andrew Carnegie fellowship and gratefully recognizes their support. She also recognizes support from ARO MURI award No. W911NF-121-0509. 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This survey captures the attitudes the Middle East, including Syria and and beliefs of religiously observant Iraq; Shi’a religious belief and religious Shiites by surveying Iranians and practice; the rise of ISIS; and the Iraqis on pilgrimage to Karbala for the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Shiite holy day of Arba’een. When We also used innovative sampling we conducted this survey in the days techniques and experimental methods leading up to and during the Arba’een to elicit more representative and celebrations of 2015, 22 million reliable responses to potentially pilgrims reportedly participated in the sensitive questions. This allowed ritual procession to the Imam Hussein us to not only glean information Shrine in the southern Iraqi city of on respondents’ stated opinions and Karbala—over ten times as many beliefs, but to also get at their visitors as the Hajj in Saudi Arabia that implicit and latent preferences so as year. We sampled 2410 Iraqi pilgrims to better understand the Shi’a world and 1668 Iranian pilgrims from today—including the roots of conflict governorates and provinces across and the possibilities for reconciliation. Iraq and Iran, closely examining the As anticipated, the overwhelming opinions of practicing Shiites in these majority of survey respondents two countries. This gave us access to self-declared as religiously observant. a politically and socially influential There were, however, clear differences subgroup in the Middle East that between Iranians and Iraqis in remains largely understudied. their modes of religious expression. The unique context of the Iranians engaged in notably more pilgrimage not only afforded us access communal religious practice than to this politically relevant sample of Iraqis and were considerably more people from two important countries likely to believe that religion should with majority Shi’a populations, but inform all political decisions. They also allowed us to ask sensitive also indicated very high levels of questions about topics that would support for the current regime, though be difficult to address in traditional experimental questions pointed to survey contexts. Our survey asked some underlying concerns about pilgrims their views on their respective corruption, as well as to a desire for governments, the United States, and change. Iraqis, on the other hand, the West; sectarian conflicts across exhibited pronounced frustration with 2 political authority, including religious international community, and many political authority, largely claiming saw the United States and Iran as that no party was suitable to lead having divergent interests. Despite Iraq, and that Islamic political parties this, they favored increased interaction were no better than their secular between the two countries, including counterparts. Yet, despite the years peaceful exchange on tourism, of instability and violence that have journalism, culture, and sports. More plagued their country, Iraqis were than half of the Iranian respondents generally positive about democracy. further supported military cooperation Iraqi and Iranian respondents with the US in the fight against showed more agreement on regional ISIS. While overwhelmingly in favor politics. The vast majority of of developing nuclear energy for respondents saw Iran as a guardian civilian use, Iranian respondents were of Shi’a interests in conflicts across divided on whether Iran should the region. Respondents strongly develop nuclear weapons, as well supported the provision of financial as on the religious implications of assistance to all Shiite groups that decision. They were, however, mentioned, including the Houthis supportive of Iran’s nuclear agreement in Yemen, Syria’s government army, and optimistic about its successful Hezbollah, the Shiite volunteer groups implementation. in Iraq known as Hashd al-Shaabi, In addition to survey responses, the Shiite opposition in Bahrain, and varying levels of nonresponse allowed Afghan Shiite groups, highlighting us to better understand sensitive issues the relevance of this population to for Iranians and Iraqis. Iranians were conflicts across the Middle East. In the less likely to respond to questions international realm, Iraqi and Iranian about democracy and the relationship respondents were most likely to see the between government and religion, US favoring traditional Shiite enemies while Iraqis were less likely to respond rather than Shiite allies. They also to questions that focused on regional preferred minimal US involvement politics and Iranian foreign policy in the Middle East across a variety involvement. of conflicts, particularly in Iraq, even Throughout the report, we when non-military interventions were reference variation in responses based proposed. on gender, age, income, education and Notably, Iranians valued their religiosity when these are significant at country’s search for self-sufficiency the 0.05 level once controlling for other over its integration into the factors in a regression.1 1See Appendix A for a detailed explanation of the regression setup and interpretation. 3 RESULTS Sunni-Shi’a interaction, they remain less personally supportive of the policy’s underlying principles. Media, News and Social Ties: Over 75% of Iranians and Iraqis Religion: Consistent with our received the majority of their sampling expectations, respondents information from TV, and around exhibited high levels of religiosity. 60% also mentioned friends and Iranians, however, were significantly family. Overall, Iranians tended to more likely to engage in communal get their news from a wider set of religious practice, with religious sources than Iraqis, with the second Iranian women being over twice as most popular news source being engaged as their Iraqi counterparts. the mosque. Iranians were also Emulation, or the practice of following significantly more engaged in local the writings and interpretations of community-based activities and civil an established religious authority, society organizations, both religious continues to be an important part and secular. About half of Iranians of Shi’a religious practice, with and Iraqis used the internet at least most Iranians emulating Khamenei, a few times a month, with instant and most Iraqis emulating Sistani. messaging/videoconferencing apps Respondents showed significant such as Skype, Whatsapp, or Viber variation in their attitudes towards being popular in both countries. religion and the state, with Iranians Sectarianism: This survey looks favoring more religious involvement at both overt and latent sectarian in politics than Iraqis.