Encyclopedia of Islam

Iraq

  

369  J

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Safavid and Ottoman Turkish empires and was 

often controlled by local clients of these powers. 

Although Najaf and Karbala prospered as centers 

of Shii learning and pilgrimage, the region as a 

whole continued to stagnate until the Ottomans 

initiated far-reaching administrative reforms in 

the 19th century.

IrAQ IN ThE 19Th AND 20Th 

CENTurIES

The Ottomans divided Iraq into three provinces—

Mosul in the north, Baghdad in the center, and 

Basra in the south; repaired and expanded the irri-

gation system; and legislated land tenure reforms 

that promoted the settlement of Arab pastoral 

tribes in the south. These changes fostered urban 

growth and enhanced the status of Shii religious 

authorities in their shrine cities. Ottoman rulers, 

upholders of s

Unnism

, wished to placate Iraq’s Shii 

Ulama

 and their supporters in order to keep rival 

powers at bay, including Persians and Europeans. 

The ulama seized the opportunity to win the 

con

-

version

 of southern Iraq’s tribal population. Con-

sequently, the majority of Iraq’s population became 

Shii by the early 1920s. Ottoman dominion over 

Iraq ended because of their alliance with Germany 

during World War I, which was defeated by the 

Allied Powers, including Britain and France, in 

1918. Britain ruled Iraq as a mandate territory 

from 1918 to 1932 under the authority of the 

secret Sykes-Picot Agreement it had made with 

France during the war, later upheld at the postwar 

international San Remo Conference (1920). The 

Shia of southern Iraq led a tribal uprising (intifada) 

that was decisively ended by the British the same 

year. Attempting to legitimate their mandate, the 

British installed Faysal ibn Husayn (d. 1933), the 

son of the ruler of Hijaz, as monarch. In fact, they 

only succeeded in creating a Sunni monarchy that 

failed to win the loyalty of most Iraqis. It survived 

a number of coup attempts and demonstrations 

until 1958, when it was violently ended by a revolt 

led by Iraqi Free Officers under the command of 

Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim.

The  b

aath

  p

arty

, which had established a 

branch in Iraq in the 1950s, first came to power 

in Iraq in 1963, when it deposed Qasim’s govern-

ment and executed him. It conducted a bloody 

purge of Qasim’s supporters, particularly leftists 

and communists. The first Baath regime lasted 

only a few months before it was in turn over-

thrown by non-Baath Arab nationalist officers. In 

1968, after the stunning defeat of Arab forces by 

Israel in 1967, the Baath Party returned and was 

quickly able to gain nearly absolute control of the 

country. One of the most prominent figures in the 

new regime was s

addam

  h

Usayn

 (d. 2006), who 

had risen through the ranks of the party, often 

by violent means. He became Iraq’s president in 

1979. The Baath government, composed mostly 

of Sunnis, espoused a secular Arab identity. With 

growing revenues from oil exports, it was able to 

modernize and expand Iraq’s infrastructure and 

educational system as well as its military. The cost 

of this was dear, however, as the Shii majority was 

denied full political participation, leftist move-

ments were eradicated, Jews were persecuted, 

and Kurds were repressed. Shii political move-

ments, such as the d

aaWa

 p

arty

 (founded in the 

late 1950s) and the Supreme Council for Islamic 

Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI, founded in the early 

1980s), arose, but their leaders were imprisoned, 

assassinated, or driven into exile. Iran’s Ayatollah 

r

Uhollah

 k

homeini

 was granted asylum from the 

shah’s security forces in 1964, but he was forced 

to leave Iraq by Saddam Husayn in 1978.

Beginning in 1980, Iraq became involved in 

a continuous series of g

UlF

 W

ars

 of national, 

regional, and global scope that have continued to 

afflict it in the first decades of the 21st century. In 

1980, it went to war with Khomeini’s newly estab-

lished Islamic Republic of Iran to gain control of 

the Shatt al-Arab and Iran’s oil fields nearby. That 

conflict ended only after more than eight years 

with a truce when Khomeini died in 1989. Dur-

ing the war, Iraqi forces used chemical weapons 

against Iranians and against their own Kurdish 

population in the north. It was a very costly 

K  370  

Iraq

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conflict in terms of loss of life and economic 

damage for both countries. Iraq then invaded 

Kuwait in 1990 because of a dispute over oil, 

precipitating the next major Gulf War. In 1991, 

after an extended campaign of aerial bombing 

that destroyed much of Iraq’s infrastructure, an 

international coalition of forces led by the United 

States expelled Iraq from Kuwait. Thinking they 

might be able to overthrow the government, Shiis 

in the south and Kurds in the north revolted. The 

coalition powers allowed Iraq’s military to quell 

the uprisings. However, they forced the govern-

ment to give up its high-grade weapons programs 

and stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. 

A UN-sponsored embargo was also imposed to 

gain Iraq’s compliance, at great cost to ordinary 

Iraqis. U.S. and British warplanes enforced no-fly 

zones over the northern and southern parts of the 

country and periodically bombed Iraqi military 

installations during the 1990s.

EArly 21ST-CENTury IrAQ

Saddam Husayn’s Baath dictatorship finally fell in 

April 2003 when U.S. and British forces invaded 

Iraq on the premises that Iraq was stockpiling 

weapons of mass destruction and supporting radi-

cal Islamic terrorism. With the fall of Baghdad, 

the army was disbanded, Baath Party members 

were dismissed from their jobs, and the occupying 

powers created an interim government to rule the 

country. It was led by a council composed of rep-

resentatives from different sectors of Iraq’s popula-

tion. The Arab Shia and the Kurds took advantage 

of the situation to maximize their political inter-

ests against those of the Arab Sunnis, who had 

controlled the country since the days of Ottoman 

rule. The Daawa Party and the Supreme Council 

for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI; now called 

the Supreme Islamic Council) returned from exile 

in Iran, while many Shiis turned to the ulama in 

Najaf for guidance. Three religious figures became 

particularly prominent at this time—Ayatollah Ali 

Sistani (b. 1930), a senior Iranian-born cleric; Abd 

al-Aziz al-Hakim (b. 1950), head of SCIRI and a 

cleric; and Muqtada al-Sadr (b. 1973), a militant 

young cleric and member of the widely beloved 

Sadr family. The U.S.-led invasion of 2003, there-

fore, helped give Iraq’s Shia a dominant position 

in the government. Their position was confirmed 

in the January 2005 elections, when a coalition 

of Shii parties gained a parliamentary majority, 

and the first two prime ministers they appointed 

were members of the Daawa Party. Moreover, in 

refutation of the previous Baath regime’s secular 

outlook, the new Iraqi constitution stipulated that 

Islam was the national religion and the basis of the 

country’s laws, although freedom of religion was 

also recognized.

Since the U.S. and British occupation began 

in 2003, many parts of the country have seen 

increasing levels of violence. Indeed, some experts 

have observed that Iraq has become afflicted with 

at least five wars, often overlapping with each 

other. These are the war of Iraqi opposition to 

U.S. occupation forces and their allies; the war 

between government and Baathist militias; the war 

of foreign jihadis affiliated with 

al

-q

aida

 against 

occupation forces and the Shia (who are seen as 

infidels); the war between rival Shii militias; and 

the border war between Kurdish guerrillas and 

Turkey. Iran is also reported to be involved in 

these conflicts by providing support for Shii mili-

tias and Shii blocs in the government. According 

to some estimates, more than half a million Iraqis 

have lost their lives in this violence, and about 

4 million have become 

reFUgees

. Many observ-

ers are pessimistic about the chances for an end 

to the violence in the near future. As a solution, 

some recommend that the country be partitioned 

into three semiautonomous states—Kurdish in 

the north, Shii in the south, and Sunni in the 

middle.