The Healing Iraq blog (Aug. 17 post) profiles a new power force in Karbala. Could be interesting if he challenges the Mahdi-goons.
Who is Mahmoud Al-Hassani?
Mahmoud Al-Hassani is a former disciple of Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Al-Sadr (MuqtadaÂ’s father) based in Karbala, briefly imprisoned by SaddamÂ’s regime in 1999 following SadrÂ’s assassination. He initially pledged allegiance to the remnants of the Sadrist movement that emerged directly after the 2003 war - as did other former representatives and followers of the second Sadr (such as Abdul Sattar Al-Bahadili, Ahmed Al-Fartousi, and Hazim Al-AÂ’raji.) By the time Muqtada Al-Sadr assumed a central role in the leadership of the Sadrist current, Al-Hassani broke off and headed his own Sadrist fringe movement with a limited hardcore following, mainly in Karbala, Basrah and Nasiriya.
By mid 2004, he unilaterally elevated his religious standing and proclaimed himself Grand Ayatollah Mahmoud Al-Sarkhi Al-Hassani. He also issued theological challenges to more established and senior clerics in the Hawza, boasting that he is the most knowledgeable or foremost cleric (al-marjaÂ’ al-aÂ’lam) and is capable of solving the most intricate jurisprudential issues (ishkalat).
These declarations were often met with ridicule and disdain from the ShiÂ’ite clerical establishment in both Iraq and Iran. His faction never sought to participate actively in post-war Iraqi politics and, as far as I know, he was not represented with any electoral slate in the 2005 elections. In fact, his movement can be more identified as a religious cult, rather than an active politico-social group.
He exhibits fanatical obsession with the reappearance of Imam Al-Mahdi (the hidden 12th Imam, and a descendant of Mohammed through his son-in-law Ali bin Abi Talib, in the beliefs of ShiÂ’ite Twelvers), often alluding to current developments in Iraq as signs of his imminent return. Many of these signs were detailed in Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Al-SadrÂ’s writings, such as the operation of Western spies in Iraq against Saddam HusseinÂ’s regime prior to the war.
Al-Hassani often points out that the al-messiah al-dajjal, or the antichrist, has entered Iraq in the form of the U.S., heralding the reemergence of the 12th Imam, and that HassaniÂ’s followers will act as the ImamÂ’s foot soldiers to restore justice to the world and, more significantly, to fight the corrupt clerical establishment (in reference to false clerics in Iraq and Iran). This claim is often reverberated by SadrÂ’s Mahdi army, as Omar noted in a recent post...
|