ABSTRACT
Prologue One of the problems that hurt Iraq as a state, let alone the current process of democratization, is sectarianism. It’s not a new problem; the British faced it when they were trying to establish the new state back in the 1920s. The Shia opposed the British occupation and fought alongside their former oppressors, the Ottomans, against the British occupiers who were regarded as ‘infidels’ while the Ottomans were their coreligionists.1 At the outset of WWI, in November 1914, Shia religious leaders (mujtahids) issued fatwas declaring jihad against the British in defence of the Ottoman Empire. Following the war and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the Shia of Iraq rose up in an armed rebellion against the British. Sunni scholar Muhammed Al-Aloosi regards the Shia position as ‘honourable’ and describes the Ottoman Empire’s policy as ‘extremist in (pursuing) ignorant Sunnism’ and as a result, the Shia situation was ‘no good’ due to sectarian directions of state policy.2 Having crushed the mainly Shia 1920 rebellion, the British didn’t pay enough attention to the sectarian makeup of Iraq when forming the first government of Abdur-Rahman An-Naqeeb, who was not an ordinary Sunni citizen but a Sunni sect leader. He was the head of the Gailani religious clan, the decedents of Imam Abdul-Qadir Al-Gailani, a revered Sunni Imam and leader of a Sufi order, with a big shrine in Bagdad. His name, An-Naqeeb, meaning the head, clearly reveals he is the head of this distinguished religious Sunni family as well as all the ashraf (Sunni nobles) of Baghdad. His mere presence as the leader of the new government of Iraq, especially when it came immediately after the bitter defeat of the Shia 1920 revolution, gave the mainstream Iraqi Shia the impression that the British were in effect building a Sunni state and were penalizing them for their opposition to their rule.3 When the first Iraqi government was formed by An-Naqeeb, the Sunnis dominated and held the most important posts.4 An-Naqeeb was known to have disdain for Shia clerics and for those who participated in the 1920 revolution against the British.5 He also had a lot of admiration for the English as he told Amin Rihani, the Lebanese writer and poet.6 ‘The English have the knowledge, wealth and wisdom. What do the (Iraqi) nationalists have? Do they love the country more
than us, when it’s our country before it’s theirs? Most of them are still foreigners’.7 Due to these critical views of his fellow countrymen, An-Naqeeb’s reputation among Iraqis deteriorated considerably, and the British were soon trying to find a replacement leader for all Iraqis. King Feisal, before them was not happy with him and sought to replace him and he was replaced against his wishes, by Abdul-Muhsin As-Sadoon.8 Some senior Iraqi politicians of the monarchy era believed the British preferred to deal with the Sunni minority because ‘they will always need to rely on a (foreign) power for support, and they were always ready to cooperate with it’.9 The Sunnis, who had accumulated lots of administrative experience during the Ottoman period, also provided the British with a bureaucratic class capable of running the administrative bodies of the new state.10 The Shia, in contrast, were disadvantaged in this regard as they were marginalized under the Ottomans, who distrusted them and practiced systematic discrimination against them in many ways, while Sunnis were selected for virtually all administrative posts in the governorates which would be merged to become Iraq following WWI, namely Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. By appointing AnNaqeeb’s cabinet, which had some Shia ministers, the British followed in the Ottomans’ footsteps, although there was a difference in the sense that the Shia rose against the British, not the Ottomans.11 The British followed this by bringing a non-Iraqi Sunni king, Feisal, the son of Hussein bin Ali, the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca and leader of the anti-Ottoman Arab Revolt (1916-1918), to rule Iraq where the Shia constitute more than half of population.12 Some Shia notables, including those hosted by Sharif Hussein in Mecca, such as Noor Al-Yassiri, welcomed the selection of the Sharif ’s son as king of Iraq.13 They joined Sunni community leaders in sending letters to Sharif Hussein requesting that one of his sons become the king of Iraq.14
