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Sheikh Qassim, the Bahraini Shi'a, and Iran

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Sheikh Qassim, the Bahraini Shi'a, and Iran k o No. 4 • July 2012 o l Between Reform and Revolution: Sheikh Qassim, t the Bahraini Shi’a, and Iran u O By Ali Alfoneh The political stability of the small island state of Bahrain—home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet—matters to the n United States. And Sheikh Qassim, who simultaneously leads the Bahraini Shi’a majority’s just struggle for a more r democratic society and acts as an agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran, matters to the future of Bahrain. A survey e of the history of Shi’a activism in Bahrain, including Sheikh Qassim’s political life, shows two tendencies: reform and t revolution. Regardless of Sheikh Qassim’s dual roles and the Shi’a protest movement’s periodic ties to the regime in Tehran, the United States should do its utmost to reconcile the rulers and the ruled in Bahrain by defending the s civil rights of the Bahraini Shi’a. This action would not only conform to the United States’ principle of promoting a democracy and human rights abroad, but also help stabilize Bahrain and the broader Persian Gulf region and under- mine the ability of the regime in Tehran to continue to exploit the sectarian conflict in Bahrain in a way that broadens E its sphere of influence and foments anti-Americanism. e Every Friday, the elderly Ayatollah Isa Ahmad The Sunni ruling elites of Bahrain, however, l Qassim al-Dirazi al-Bahrani, more commonly see Sheikh Qassim not as a reformer but as d known as Sheikh Qassim, climbs the stairs to the a zealous revolutionary serving the Islamic pulpit at the Imam al-Sadiq mosque in Diraz, d Bahrain, to deliver his sermon. Wearing a white i turban and cloak matching his white beard and Key points in this Outlook: reading his handwritten sermon on ethics aloud M in a monotonous voice, the spectacled sheikh • Bahrain’s history is fraught with Shi’a resembles the scholarly imam after whom the marginalization that, as the nation’s ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran grow mosque is named rather than a revolutionary stronger, has fomented a radical strain in leader. However, every week, hundreds of the nation’s politics. Bahraini Shi’a line up to pray behind Sheikh Qassim in Diraz, and thousands find political • Political and clerical leader Sheikh Qassim’s inspiration in his sermons, which they follow transition from moderate reformist to on the Internet or radio and television broadcasts zealous revolutionary serves as a broader warning to the United States of the sponsored by the regime in Tehran and the shifting tides in Bahrain. Lebanese Hezbollah. Sheikh Qassim’s persistent demand for political reforms and his call for • To ensure stability in the Persian Gulf, active resistance to the Sunni ruling elites of which is critical for oil transportation, the Bahrain have made him the preeminent Shi’a United States must work with the current leader in Bahrain. government in Bahrain to encourage gradual reforms and civil rights for the Ali Alfoneh ([email protected]) is a resident fellow Shi’a majority. at AEI. 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 202.862.5800 www.aei.org - 2 - Republic of Iran. They accuse him of trying to over- teachers.13 After primary school, Sheikh Qassim throw rather than reform the political order in Bahrain. enrolled at the secondary school in Manama, along Instead of bridging the gap between the Shi’a and Sunni, with his two brothers.14 After graduation, he immedi- they claim, Sheikh Qassim widens the sectarian divide ately began his career as a teacher at his old school in in society. Budaiya—a position he continued in until the beginning There is some truth to both perceptions of Sheikh of the 1960s—while also studying Islamic jurisprudence Qassim. The history of the struggle of the Bahraini Shi’a, with Sheikh Abd al-Husein al-Hilli,15 an Iraqi Shi’a with which Sheikh Qassim’s political life is intertwined, who was invited to Bahrain by its Sunni rulers to create illustrates his dual role. Sheikh Qassim expresses the just a Shi’a legal system for the Bahraini Shi’a.16 None of grievances of the Shi’a protest movement and demands these moves shows an early interest in politics. Indeed, civil rights for the Shi’a majority, but increasingly he— they suggest that Sheikh Qassim, in his early school and the Shi’a protest movement—1act like revolutionar- years, chose school and Islamic jurisprudence over the ies rather than reformists. There is also unquestionably political tumults of the time. a relationship between Sheikh Qassim and the regime in Tehran, which he denies, but whose propaganda Sheikh Qassim was integrated, at an early machinery he skillfully employs to spread his message. age, into an international network of Shi’a Early Youth in Diraz scholars and radical leaders that undoubtedly Tracing Sheikh Qassim’s early influences helps us influences his thoughts and actions today. understand his current beliefs and political alliances. According to a short biographic note on Sheikh Qassim released by Al-Wasat, he was born in the village of Theological Studies in Najaf Diraz, west of the capital (Manama) along Bahrain’s northern coastline, around 1940.2 However, the exact In the early 1960s,17 Sheikh Qassim decided to leave year of his birth is disputed.3 His father, Ahmad al- Bahrain and continue his theological studies in the holy Bahrani,4 was a modest fisherman and did not belong Shi’a city of Najaf, Iraq—then the leading center of to the prominent families in the village.5 Sheikh Qassim Shi’a learning—where he remained for four years.18 was born into a rural Arab Shi’a family6 who, as their The open-source material does not provide any detailed family name (Bahrani) suggests, consider themselves information about Sheikh Qassim’s first years in Najaf. the original inhabitants of the country.7 This identity In the mid 1960s, Sheikh Qassim returned to Bahrain distinguishes them from the Khalifa ruling family, whom to continue teaching for two years but later traveled the Baharna consider to be foreign invaders,8 but also back to Najaf to continue his theological studies under from Ajam, or ethnically Iranian and Persian-speaking Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr.19 Shi’a of Bahrain. Apart from being the preeminent center of Shi’a Sheikh Qassim’s childhood and early youth coincided learning, Najaf was also a hotbed of Shi’a political with the emergence of modern political movements in awakening in the 1960s. The post–World War II nation- Bahrain9 unleashed by British-sponsored judicial reforms alist and anti-imperialist struggles in the developing of the 1920s.10 By 1934, the Baharna regularly demon- world, emergence of Nasser’s Arab socialism, and grow- strated for their civil rights,11 at times clashing with the ing presence of Ba’athist movements and communist Sunni (for example, in the Ashura procession in 1953) parties in the Middle East all challenged both the politi- and at times cooperating with the Sunni protest move- cal order and the worldview of the Shi’a. Therefore, ments, as in the 1956 rally to support Egyptian president Shi’a theoreticians of state such as Ayatollah Sadr and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal.12 Grand Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, who at the time The turbulent events of the time do not seem to was living in exile in Iraq, were busy formulating a Shi’a have influenced Sheikh Qassim, who preferred school theory of state to counter the Marxist and nationalist to street politics. He enrolled in the Budaiya primary tendencies of the era.20 school, where his intellectual curiosity and high acade- Ayatollah Sadr, with the tacit support of the mic marks earned him the acclaim and respect of his Shi’a clerical establishment, founded Hezb al-Da’wa - 3 - al-Islamiyya [Party of the Islamic Call], commonly member Constituent Assembly by the end of 1972.29 known as al-Da’wa, in response to the popularity of Twenty-two members of the assembly were elected by so-called scientific socialism. Inspired by Egypt’s Muslim Bahraini male citizens, eight appointed by the ruler of Brotherhood’s political program,21 Ayatollah Sadr Bahrain, and fourteen appointed from cabinet ministers, divided the political struggle into four stages: propaga- which preserved the balance between elected and tion, organization and training of the activists, seizure appointed officials.30 After the constitution was ratified, of power through revolution, and establishment of the new elections were held in 1973 to determine the Islamic polity.22 Thus, studying under Ayatollah Sadr, composition of the first parliament.31 Sheikh Qassim was also indoctrinated into the ideology Sheikh Qassim, who was living in Najaf with his wife and operational code of al-Da’wa. and children at the time, preferred to devote his life to Sheikh Qassim’s early network shaped his later career scholarship. Devout Shi’a villagers in Diraz, however, and political worldview today. Because Shi’a theological desperately needed qualified candidates to counter seminaries attracted Shi’a students from Lebanon in the Nasserist, Ba’athist, and Communist candidates. Ja’far al- West to Southeast Asia, Sheikh Qassim was also inte- Shihabi, founder of a religious network that later became grated, at an early age, into an international network of known as the Islamic Enlightenment Society (Jama’iyyat Shi’a scholars and radical leaders while studying under al-Tawu’iyya al-Islamiyya),32 urged Sheikh Qassim to Ayatollah Sadr that undoubtedly influences his thoughts represent the Budaiya District in the elections.33 Sheikh and actions today.
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