BAGHDAD - The Aamriya district is a
Sunni stronghold in the northwestern edges of Baghdad.
Home to many former Iraq military bases as well as
former officers in the army and intelligence services,
it was made famous in the 1991 Gulf War when its bomb
shelter was hit with United States missiles, killing up
to 400 civilians. The shelter still stands, a gaping
hole torn in its roof, its insides still charred, and
outside a gravestone for each immolated
victim. Signs in English direct visitors
to the shelter, once Saddam Hussein's pride.
On
the corner a bronze statue serves as a final monument,
as if the people of the neighborhood, most of whom lost
friends and family, need additional reminders. It is an
immense head screaming in agony, flames surrounding it.
Saddam loved his propaganda, and then, just as now, the
US military provided all the innocent victims necessary
to launch a convincing propaganda campaign. The war
continues in Aamriya today, and the sounds of gun fire
and explosions reverberate through the neighborhood's
walls, ignored by the children playing in the street
until a particularly loud explosion sends them scurrying
inside.
Neighbors talk of the nightly attacks
and raids. Just last week, they say, US soldiers raided
a house, and when the suspect was not found they took
his younger brother. Nearby is the house of a former
intelligence officer. When US soldiers came for him, his
family said he was not home, and he escaped, wisely
trading his conspicuous SUV for a smaller older wreck of
a car. And also last week, they say, on this very street
("we saw them", they laugh) a car pulled over and shot
three artillery rounds at the nearby base where US
soldiers train the new Iraq security forces. One round
landed in a small mosque by the walls of the base,
damaging its tower, one went over and past the base, and
one landed somewhere inside.
The Maluki mosque
adjoins the Aamriya shelter with its gruesome monument
whose flaming head looks like Medusa. The walls of the
mosque are covered in pro-Saddam graffiti that has been
unsuccessfully crossed out. Neighborhood boys wielding
Kalashnikovs surround it at prayer time. As the men
stroll in for their Friday prayers they are searched for
concealed weapons. Slowly, several hundred of the
neighborhood men enter, greeting each other and
gossiping in the courtyard before removing their shoes
and entering the mosque. As the muezzin (servant
of the mosque) finishes his call to prayer, Sheikh
Hussein abu Mustafa, a round, dark man with a black
beard and white turban, carefully steps between the
closely seated worshippers, making his way to the podium
up the stairs.
He begins with blessings and
reminds the people who their god and prophet is, his
voice low, slow and gentle, his arms still. Then he
picks up the pace, arms waving faster, voice getting
higher as he gets more excited, until his voice cracks
and he is nearly crying, chopping the air in a frenzy,
and then placing both hands out in supplication, his
voice exasperated, then slowing down as he answers his
own questions, only to begin the cycle again, from low
raspy rumble to the screaming crescendo that wakes up
those whose heads have sunk lower and lower into their
chest in pious somnambulation.
Sheikh Hussein
begins by discussing Ali, the fourth caliph, or friend
of the prophet who succeeded Mohammed in leadership of
the umma, or Muslim nation. Ali is also revered
by the Shi'ites as the only caliph who should have
followed Mohammed, since he was the prophet's relative.
"Ali was the first feday [fighter willing to
sacrifice his life] in Islam," Sheikh Hussein lectures.
"He taught the nation how to sacrifice oneself. Be like
Ali and sacrifice yourself for Islam, be like Hassan who
tried to unify the people and compromised with Muawiya
for the sake of unity so the Muslim world won't be weak
like our situation now."
This is where it gets
interesting. Hassan was the son of Ali, who expected to
succeed his father as caliph but was turned down for
Muawiya, a man from a family that rivaled the prophet's
Hashem tribe. At first Hassan disputed Muawiya's claim
to leadership, but he finally compromised, and this
reference can only be directed at Iraq's Shi'ites, who
are the descendants of those who wanted Mohammed's
family, starting with Ali, to lead Muslims, asking them
to compromise and let Muawiya's descendants, the Sunnis,
maintain power.
"Mohammed prophesized when
Hassan was a child," Sheikh Hussein explains, "That 'my
grandson will one day reconcile between two sects of
Islam'. Be like Hassan so we will be strong." Then it
seems Sheikh Hussein will skip Hassan's brother,
Hussein, who chose to dispute the claim of Muawiya's
family after Muawiya and Hassan both died and Yazid,
Muawiya's son, was appointed caliph. The sheikh
declares: "We condemn the attacks in Karbala and
Baghdad. The first goal of the enemies of Islam is to
make this country weak. They have a plan to make this
country weak by causing a sectarian war so people will
be busy fighting each other and they can control it and
our enemy the occupier will remain seated on our chests.
So we condemn these attacks that are designed to provoke
a sectarian war in this country."
Sheikh Hussein
mentions an earlier attack in Baghdad that killed a
young Shi'ite cleric, condemning it as well. Then he
continues, with a surprise: "We have to unify and be
like Hussein, the martyr of Karbala because he
sacrificed himself for this country where many warriors
were born. Hussein came to Iraq to fight a tyrant
because he said 'I will not allow a tyrant to rule' and
he did not want oppression. So he came to teach the
people that any Muslim should sacrifice himself to
prevent the creation of tyranny and Hussein defined the
path of martyrdom for the people who followed him and
told them to follow it."
You don't hear words
such as those very often from a Sunni. The divide
between Hussein and Yazid split the Muslim world into
Sunnis and Shi'ites and centuries of fitna, or
strife, between the two communities, with Shi'ites
revering Hussein and hating Hazid while Muawiya and the
Sunnis defended them while disparaging Hussein and his
followers. "We are sorry Hussein," the sheikh cries out,
"We are ashamed to meet you in the next life because
Baghdad has fallen." By the end of the sermon, Sheikh
Hussein has lost his voice and is too exhausted to be
interviewed.
A week later, there is even more
security in front of his mosque and Sheikh Hussein is
true to form. "We accept Allah as god and we accept
Mohammed as messenger and we accept Islam as our
religion," he begins, as always reminding the 800 or so
men what their religion is and what its basic principles
are. "If this is true then how can we accept a
constitution that is not Islamic? This great
constitution which gives the nation rights and every
person his obligations is the great Islam. Islam makes
everybody equal, even the master and the slave and the
rich and the poor. Before Islam there was no equality
between people. Islam is our constitution so how can we
choose a different one? The Islamic constitution gives
rights to women who were nothing before Islam, they
could be killed as infants. So let these people know,
these people who call for the rights of animals and
forget the rights of humans, that Islam even gives
rights to animals but I swear those people give rights
to animals but not to people. A few days ago I saw a
woman on the satellite channel who caged herself to
protest animals not having rights and I tell her to come
to a wounded country and see what her government did to
the people here and not the animals there. Her
government put many innocents in jail, religious leaders
and old people and women, so leave the animals in your
country and come call for the rights of humans here and
see how your government does not respect human rights
here."
Sheikh Hussein pauses to regain his
composure and catch his breath, and resumes in a low
voice, "There is no solution for us except Islam. Our
Islam is the religion that taught you that animals have
rights. Mohammed is the man who founded animal rights.
Even Mohammed once said that a woman went to hell
because she imprisoned a cat." He urges his flock to
"Insist on Islam, insist on your identity. We have to
choose an Islamic constitution and Islamic religion and
never choose something different. The Islamic
constitution will exist until judgment day."
Sheikh Hussein then tells a story, as he always
does, about the days of the prophet: "The prophet
Mohammed had a neighbor who was a Jewish merchant and
the Jew would throw his garbage on Mohammed's land every
day, but Mohammed was patient and behaved well with him.
One day the Jew did not throw his garbage in Mohammed's
land so Mohammed went to see what was wrong and found
the Jew with his son, who was sick and dying. So
Mohammed told him, say 'there is no god but Allah'. So
the son looked at his father, he is a Jew, what should
he do? The father told his son to obey Mohammed."
Perhaps many in the crowd expected a happy
ending, or, at least, a happier ending then the one
Sheikh Hussein provided: "And the son said 'there is no
god but Allah' and he died. And Mohammed said 'praise
god because he is going to paradise!' and they buried
him in a Muslim cemetery."
Sheikh Hussein
explains, "The prophet Mohammed told his army 'don't
kill old men, women or the wounded and take care of
animals' - while now the enemies kill women, children
and old people. I swear that everything that is
happening in our country is because we strayed from our
religion. We strayed from Islam and took the democracy
of the infidels and the freedom of the infidels. There
is no solution except Islam and stability will never
come back without it. So insist on Islam. Insist on your
religion because the enemies of Islam want to remove
this religion. Look what happened to many mosques in
Baghdad, mercenaries came to kill the speakers and imams
of mosques. Why did they kill them, what did they do?
They killed them with bullets, is this Islamic? I swear
the enemies of Islam would love that, so be careful not
to be a tool in the hands of the enemies of Islam. I
swear if our word is unified the enemies of Islam cannot
destroy us and our nation will succeed if we do that so
insist on Islam because you belong to the greatest
religion, people and nation."
Sheikh Hussein
then recites a poem about a woman sitting at home during
the crusades, and the crusaders break into her house and
take her to their jails and rape her. Analogizing the
crusaders and the Americans was not a subtle point lost
on any of the listeners.
After prayer is over,
Sheikh Hussein shakes hands with many of his flock, and
they embrace and kiss in the way Sunnis of western Iraq
do, for Sheikh Hussein is from the Dulaimi tribe, whose
stronghold is the Anbar province of the west. Sheikh
Hussein then retreats to his house inside the mosque,
where he feasts with his guests from the nearby town of
Abu Ghraib as the sheikh's horde of little boys sits in
the corners. American helicopters fly low over head,
shaking the room while Sheikh Hussein and his guests
discuss the latest killings of sheikhs and attacks on
mosques and grumble about the Americans.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
victim. Signs in English direct visitors
to the shelter, once Saddam Hussein's pride. 
