Eid-e Ghadir-e-Khum.
For any who are looking for information about Eid-e Ghadir e-Khum,
do look at my entry from last year. I am quite late this year in honoring the occassion on my blog, mostly because our celebration in real life was far more pressing.
Salam Pax has a
fascinating entry about the first celebration of Eid--e-Ghadir in Iraq by the long-oppressed Shi'a (Ithna Ashari) majority, finally free of Saddam. I am pleased to see mention of
Qur'an-e-Natiq. It is a reference to the other famous hadith, "I am the city of knowledge, and Ali is the gate."
This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen Islam as your religion' (5:3)
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
empty symbolism.
via Bill, I see that one of Irshad Manji's recommendations to "fix" Islam is to
open the Hajj to adherents all religions, not just Muslims. The argument is that the pan-Abrahamic hajj would somehow achieve a universality that is currently lacking. She also speaks glowingly of "globalism" as an ideal but fails to define it. Anyone who has actually attended Hajj can attest that it is already universal, in fact perhaps the epitome of a collective human shared experience that transcends all boundaries of caste, race, nation, or tribe. Perhaps Manji wants to expand "globalism" from its essentially demographic definition to include diversity of beliefs, but if so then it's not clear why someone who doesn't share belief in Islam would find value in performing it.
I see Manji's suggestion as hopelessly idealistic and blind in two directions. First, she draws on her Islamic roots to simply assume that hajj has value that is universal (in the pan-belief sense). I think non-muslims would differ. Second, she draws on her progressive-left roots to simply assume that numerical diversity equates to quality of diversity. Thus she is is blind to the universalism of hajj that already exists and prescribes a meaningless expansion to solve a perceived shortcoming that there aren't enough "beliefs" being represented in the hajji collective.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
Sistani escapes assasination.
story at
Reuters.
Ask yourself who benefits from killing the most influential and powerful Shi'a cleric in Iraq?
1. Moqtada Sadr. He wants to be the symbolic face of Iraqi's Shi'a, to inherit the mantle of his also-assasinated father. However, he has no political base capable of exerting real control countrywide.
2. Al-Qaeda. Shi'a are the essence of evil - accorded more hatred than Jews in the Salafist-Wahabi mindset. The threat of a Shi'a-dominated Iraq is an anathema to them, marking the end of Sunni dominance.
3. The pro-Ba'ath resistance. They know that Saddam is gone but they remember their power as the ruling monoparty of an autocratic state. They also have great reason to fear political ascendance of the long-oppressed Shi'a majority.
4. The Interim Governing Council. The IGC is full of former exiles and power brokers, who have been appointed to the supremem position of sovereign power within Iraq by the US forces. They also expect that, given the Bush Administration's election-driven timetable of sovereignity transfer by the end of the summer, they will be in a good position to retain most of the political power they now wield. They have been making their plans at feverish rates accordingly to cement their advantage.
5. The Bush Administration. Sistani's call for elections is a massive obstacle, which is ot easily circumvented because it appropriates the very language of democracy-building that formed the basis for war's rationale, especially in light of the fact that the WMD premise has been definitively shown to have been a sham.
With enemies like these, you might want to wonder who Sistani's friends are. That answer is simple: the theocrats of Iran. It would be irony indeed if Sistani's vision of direct democracy for Iraq could only occur via alliance with the theocracy of Iran. It gets more irony-laden when you consider the history of the US and Iran, and how the theocracy came to power there in the first place.
UPDATE: Don't miss the report from Juan Cole, on how
Iran's reformers look to Sistani for support, and
more background on the role that each of the power players have in the jockeying for Iraq's future. Sistani is the key to a truly free and democratic Iraq. He also personifies the
difference between an acceptable outcome for neo-conservatives vs neo-wilsonians.
UPDATE 2: seems that there is
doubt as to whether the assassination attempt actually occurred. Juan Cole mentions via email this report from a correspondent in Iraq:
"I just returned from 3 days in Najaf, Kufa, and Karbala. I did not hear anything about Sistani being attacked, and this certainly would have been news. I actually went by Sistani's house Thursday evening (around 6:30pm) and things were very calm."
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