Islamic Dawa Party

The Dawa movement coalesced in the years around 1960 in Shia holy cities in southern Iraq. At the time, its primary goal was to counterbalance the intellectual hold that Marxism and other secular ideologies had on Iraqi Shia. Seminarian Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr quickly emerged as its leading figure and wrote its manifesto, al-Usus, probably in 1960. The group argued for the creation of an Islamic polity and a modern political movement, with a disciplined, cell-based structure inspired by Leninist organizational ideas, to propagate its beliefs. It defined its mission as to "establish an Islamic government and install a ruling apparatus until favorable conditions arise to enable the nation to give its opinion in a referendum.".[12] Party leaders and scholars have given different dates for the foundation of the movement, with estimates ranging from 1957 through the late 1960s. They also differ on when it adopted its name, when it started to be considered a party, and in which city - Najaf, or Karbala - it was founded.[13]

A twin party was also founded in Lebanon by clerics who had studied in Najaf and supported Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr's vision of a resurgent Islam.

Hizb Al-Dawa gained strength in the 1970s recruiting from among the Shi'a ulama and youth. During the 1970s, the government shut down the Shi'a journal Risalat al-Islam and closed several religious educational institutions. The government passed a law obligating Iraqi students of the hawza to undertake national military service. The Ba'athists then began specifically targeting Al-Dawa members, arresting and imprisoning them from 1972 onwards.

In 1973, someone killed the alleged head of Al-Dawa's Baghdad branch in prison.

In 1974, 75 members of the party, were arrested and sentenced to death by the Ba'athist revolutionary court. This included 5 of the party's most preeminent members, who where Shaykh Aref al-Basri, Sayyid Izz al-Din al-Qubanchi, Sayyid Imad al-Din al-Tabatabaei, and the two Fa'izids, Nuri Tumah, and Husayn Jelokhan.[14] They were sentenced to death in December of that year.[15]

In 1975, the government canceled the annual procession from Najaf to Karbala, known as marad al-ras. Although subject to repressive measures throughout the 1970s, large-scale opposition to the government by Al-Dawa goes back to the Safar Intifada of February 1977.

Despite the government's ban on the celebration of marad al-ras, Al-Dawa organized the procession in 1977. They were subsequently attacked by police.[16] After this period it also interacted with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the future dictator of Iran, during his exile in Najaf in Iraq.

Widely viewed in the West as a terrorist organization at the time, the Dawa party was banned in 1980 and its members sentenced to death in absentia by the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council.[17]

The political ideology of Al-Dawa is heavily influenced by work done by Baqr al-Sadr, who laid out four mandatory principles of governance in his 1975 work, Islamic Political System. These are:

1. Absolute sovereignty belongs to God.
2. Islamic injunctions are the basis of legislation. The legislative authority may enact any law not repugnant to Islam.
3. The people, as vice-regents of Allah, are entrusted with legislative and executive powers.
4. The jurist holding religious authority represents Islam. By confirming legislative and executive actions, he gives them legality.[27]

In his Islamic political system, Sadr sought "a balance" between the two forces of "consultation" (shura, the role of "the people") and the oversight role of the ‘ulama, specifically "the jurist holding religious authority represents Islam". He thought that political control should be

“. . .exercised through the election by the people of the head of the executive power, after confirmation by the marja’iyya, [i.e. the most highly regarded scholarly sources of emulation or maraji3] and through the election of a parliament, which is in charge of confirming the members of government appointed by the Executive, and passing appropriate legislation to fill up the discretionary area.”[28]

Upon joining the party, allegiance must be sworn to the party.[29]

• 1968–1969: Al-Dawa founded by Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr in response to repression of Shi'i religious academies in Najaf by the Iraqi Ba'ath regime.[30]
• 1974: Ba'athist revolutionary court arrests and sentences 75 Al-Dawa members to death.
• 1975: Annual pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala – called the Marad al-Ras – is cancelled by the Ba'ath government.
• 1977 February: The Safar Intifada. Al-Dawa organizes Marad al-Ras, in spite of government ban. Event is attacked by police.
• 1979: Iranian Revolution. Al-Dawa creates a military wing, later called Shahid al-Sadr.
• 1980 30 March: Ba'athist Revolutionary Command Council retroactively bans Al-Dawa; membership was made punishable by death. 96 Al-Dawa members are allegedly executed this month.
• 1980 1 April: Al-Dawa unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Tariq Aziz, Foreign Minister at the time.
• 1980 9 April: Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Amina Sadr bint al-Huda are arrested and executed.
• 1981 Mid-December: Iraqi embassy in Beirut is leveled by a suicide bomber. Iraqi Al-Dawa party claims credit for the attack, citing Iraq's invasion of Iran. Perhaps the first Shia suicide bombing, the attack was an "oft-noticed precedent" for the 1983 bombing of the American Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut.[31]
• 1982: Al-Dawa assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein in Dujail fails. Heavy crack-downs on Al-Dawa by Hussein's regime follow, leading to the Dujail Massacre. Many flee to Iran, where it suffers from competition with SCIRI.
• 1983 12 December: In Kuwait, the American and French embassies, Kuwait airport, the main oil refinery in Kuwait, and a residential area for Raytheon employees are bombed. 17 suspects were soon arrested, mostly Al-Dawa members, including Jamal Jafaar Mohammed (currently member of Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition). Jamal Jafaar Mohammed escapes from Kuwait before the trial starts and is sentenced to death in absentia in 1984.
• 1987: Al-Dawa attacks Saddam's motorcade but again fails to kill him.
• 1996: Attempt made on the life of Saddam's son, Uday. Al-Dawa blamed.
• 2003: After the Invasion of Iraq Al-Dawa returns to Iraq, basing itself in the city of Nasiriya which the party now runs and controls.
• 2005 January: The United Iraqi Alliance, triumphs in the January 2005 Elections; Dawa leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari becomes Prime Minister.
• 2005 December: The United Iraqi Alliance, triumphs in the December 2005 Elections.
• 2006: Al-Dawa deputy leader Nouri al-Maliki replaces Ibrahim al-Jaafari as Prime Minister.

• Dawa
• Da'wa
• Daawa

(Original Arabic is دعوة with pharyngeal consonant—see Dawah.)

• Official website