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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktzVUkrrY1M&mode=related&search=

February 26, 2007

Nation of Islam at a Crossroad as Leader Exits

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

DETROIT, Feb. 25 — Louis Farrakhan, the departing leader of the Nation of Islam, gave what was billed as his last major public address here on Sunday, with his extended illness throwing into sharp focus the question of whether the group will shift toward more mainstream Islamic teachings to survive once it loses its central charismatic figure.

Mr. Farrakhan, 73, looking fairly robust for a man who emerged from major surgery six weeks ago, spent most of his two-hour address denouncing the war in Iraq and calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

“If you don’t want to impeach him,” Mr. Farrakhan said, “censure him, say to the world something went wrong with our leadership and we repent after our wrongdoing.”

He also made an appeal for religious unity in the address before thousands at Ford Field, home to the Detroit Lions football team, capping an annual convention of Nation of Islam members.

It was his first major speech since August, when health problems forced him to turn over control of the Nation of Islam to an executive committee. His health problems stemmed from radiation seeds implanted a decade ago to combat prostate cancer, said Ishmael Muhammad, the organization’s national assistant minister. The treatment obliterated the cancer but also damaged nearby organs.

Given his age and health problems, and the lack of an obvious successor, questions loom large about the future and direction of the Nation of Islam.

Nation members dismiss the notion that the organization’s viability is linked to one man. But academic experts and Muslim leaders say they believe that without Mr. Farrakhan’s leadership, the Nation — which has been divided over its teachings in the past — will shrink even more dramatically unless it shifts toward mainstream Islam’s beliefs.

The 77-year-old Nation of Islam once enjoyed a near monopoly over interpreting Islam for black Americans, using the faith as a vehicle to promote black separatism.

But it now competes with sects that branched away, and with groups ascribing to the more traditional and inclusive Islam followed by millions of Muslim immigrants and their offspring.

Along with a significant bloc of former Nation members, many of these Muslim branches oppose crucial aspects of the organization’s beliefs, which some consider blasphemy.

Leadership changes have altered the Nation’s direction in the past. Elijah Muhammad, the organization’s leader for more than 40 years until his death in 1975, was succeeded by one of his sons, Warith Deen, who broke with his father over the issue of Islamic orthodoxy (and changed his last name to Mohammed). Following Warith Deen Mohammed, this branch embraced diversity and traditional Sunni Islam’s teachings on unity.

Although members of his branch and Mr. Farrakhan’s now profess to respect each other and display less public animosity than in the early days of their split, they still spar over their beliefs.

Imam Muhammad Siddeeq, an Indianapolis cleric and senior aide to Mr. Mohammed, said that for the Nation of Islam to survive, it must turn more toward mainstream Islam.

“In the final analysis they have no option but to move in the direction we are or to just dissipate or disappear,” Mr. Siddeeq said. “This community is going to reconcile itself to pure Islam and reconcile itself to being American citizens who are part of a multicultural society.”

He echoes many others in arguing that the Nation should abandon some of its teachings. The Nation holds, among other teachings, that the group’s founder, W. Fard Muhammad, was the Mahdi, or savior, sent by God to Detroit around 1930 and that spaceships hovering above the earth will eventually play a major role in smiting sinners and rescuing the righteous.

“Those are ideas for kindergarten, a trip to Oz,” Mr. Siddeeq said. “Those are not ideas for people living in the real world.”

Ishmael Muhammad, 42, the Nation’s national assistant minister, who said he was among the youngest of Elijah Muhammad’s 21 children, said the Nation’s message of social reform still resonated, especially its call for black economic empowerment.

“There are a few black politicians and a few millionaires and a couple billionaires, but the fact is that our people are dying,” he said in an interview. “Our struggle to integrate and be accepted has left the masses behind.”

Ishmael Muhammad has sometimes been named as a possible successor to Mr. Farrakhan, as have a couple of Mr. Farrakhan’s sons, but none of them enjoy the same wide following as the departing leader.

But Ishmael Muhammad responds that the era of charismatic leaders is over — that one main goal of the Nation is teaching people to be self-sufficient, particularly in their relationship to God.

Despite his frail health, Mr. Farrakhan on Sunday demonstrated the same passion that has held followers rapt and angered his detractors. He assailed the Bush administration for the war in Iraq, which he said was built on lies and had caused great suffering and disunity.

“Sunni and Shiite lived together, Christian and Jews lived together in Iraq, you didn’t hear none of this stuff before America came in,” Mr. Farrakhan said. “There was no bombing of Shiite holy places. You don’t need to look at Shiite and Sunni, you need to look at those who came in. After they came in all hell broke loose.”

Mr. Farrakhan also urged young black Americans not to join the military.

“I am telling you brother and sister that will be the worst mistake you make to join the military today, because you will leave America in one way and you will come back in another,” he said.

Back in the 1950s and ’60s, as the battle for civil rights was growing, the separatist message, and storied converts like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, won the Nation a broad appeal. But Malcolm X quit the movement and was eventually assassinated by Nation members in a fight provoked partly over Islamic orthodoxy.

“We could not continue on this Black supremacist line and be Muslims, be part of the world community of Islam,” said Imam Faheem Shuaibe of the Masjidul Waritheen in Oakland, Calif. “When you say Muhammad is the messenger of God, but you mean Elijah Muhammad, it doesn’t work.”

Reliable statistics are very hard to come by for Muslims in the United States, but the middle range puts the population around six million; some 40 percent of them are African-Americans, a majority of whom follow Warith Deen Mohammed, experts said.

The Nation of Islam will not specify its membership numbers. But Lawrence A. Mamiya, a professor of religion and African studies at Vassar College, puts the number around 50,000, with an ardent following in prisons, where the emphasis on black identity and the struggle against racism, he said, have a pervasive appeal. There are also small branches scattered around the world, particularly in England and the Caribbean.

Breaking away from Warith Deen Mohammed’s reforms, Mr. Farrakhan began rebuilding the Nation based upon its original principles in 1978. He introduced stricter Islamic precepts into the Nation, including prayer five times a day. Members hold that they are just as Muslim as any of the faithful, indeed that North American black slaves were a kind of lost tribe of Muslims forgotten by the faith’s mainstream.

But along with his reforms, Mr. Farrakhan gained notoriety and drew widespread criticism for speeches that were deemed racist against whites, particularly Jews.

In 1995, he organized the Million Man March on Washington, and although he failed to translate that into a sustainable political movement, he became one of the few leaders who appealed to a wide spectrum of black Americans.

Academics who study Islam in America suggest that the followers of Mr. Farrakhan and Warith Deen Mohammed will eventually gravitate elsewhere.

One possible national leader is Siraj Wahhaj, an imam based in Brooklyn. He quit the Nation years ago but came to the convention here to lead Friday prayers, urging Muslim unity in a sermon liberally sprinkled with quotes from the Koran in fluent Arabic.

Many immigrant Muslims question whether Nation members should be called Muslims. Even the followers of Warith Deen Mohammed are criticized by some for giving more weight to his pronouncements than to the holy texts.

“They still haven’t reached the point where there is no color,” said Yassir Chadly, an imam based in Oakland, who immigrated from Morocco 30 years ago. “Islam is universal; it can’t be cut into little sections.”

Such statements make followers of the Nation bristle.

“We are not imitators of Arab culture; that would put us in an inferior position and make them our superiors,” said Muhammad Muhammad, a 40-year-old adherent from Oklahoma City.

In the long run, academic experts said, it is the debate over religion that will most likely relegate the organization to a marginal position after Mr. Farrakhan is gone.

“He talked black, but to join his organization you had to commit yourself to his religion, and the religion has a lot of quirks in it,” said Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky.

Mr. Bagby said that younger Nation members and potential members might find it hard to accept all of the branch’s teachings. “They are realizing that you can be committed to the black community and have a black agenda and still be a Sunni Muslim.”

Apologies, but I won’t be able to get to class in Ripon on Tuesday. We have a candidate visit here in Oshkosh that I am obligated to be a part of. This means for you that there is good news and pretty good news.

The good news is that you won’t have to get up so early on Tuesday.

The pretty good news is that I have a dead interesting alternative assignment. Since much of what you have been writing in reaction papers concerns issues surrounding Islam and terrorism, and since this is my interest in any case, I have an online film I want you to watch: “The Return of the Taliban.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/view/

Be ready to talk about it on Thursday. Each of you must be able to tell me how what you see in the film reflects: 1) the fundamental tenets of Islam; and 2) The material on Afghanistan we talked about in the intro sections.

Then Thursday, in addition to talk about the Taliban and the scheduled lecture, we will go over the midterms.

Temporary 'Enjoyment Marriages' In Vogue Again With Some Iraqis

By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 20, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD -- Fatima Ali was a 24-year-old divorcee with no high school diploma and no job. Shawket al-Rubae was a 34-year-old Shiite sheik with a pregnant wife who, he said, could not have sex with him.

Ali wanted someone to take care of her. Rubae wanted a companion.

They met one afternoon in May at the house he shares with his wife, in the room where he accepts visitors seeking his religious counsel. He had a proposal. Would Ali be his temporary wife? He would pay her 5,000 Iraqi dinars upfront -- about $4 -- in addition to her monthly expenses. About twice a week over the next eight months, he would summon her to a house he would rent.

The negotiations took an hour and ended with an unwritten agreement, the couple recalled. Thus began their "mutaa," or enjoyment marriage, a temporary union believed by Shiite Muslims to be sanctioned by Islamic law.

The Shiite practice began 1,400 years ago, in what is now Iraq and other parts of the region, as a way to provide for war widows. Banned by President Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led government, it has regained popularity since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq brought the majority Shiites to power, said clerics, women's rights activists and mutaa spouses.

"During Saddam's time, there was no religious freedom," said Faris al-Shareef, a sheik who lives in the mainly Shiite city of Hilla.

Opponents of mutaa, most of them Sunni Arabs, say it is less about religious freedom and more about economic exploitation. Thousands of men are dying in the sectarian violence that has followed the invasion, leaving behind widows who must fend for themselves. Many young men are out of work and prefer temporary over permanent wives who require long-term financial commitments. In a mutaa arrangement, the woman is entitled to payment only for the duration of the marriage.

"It's a cover for prostitution," said Um Akram, a women's rights activist in Baghdad. "Some women, because they don't want to be prostitutes, they think that this is legal because it's got some kind of religious cover. But it is wrong, and they're still prostitutes from the society's point of view." Um Akram, like the mutaa spouses interviewed, asked that only parts of her name be published.

Many intellectuals consider ancient traditions such as these an obstacle to Iraq's effort to become a more modern, democratic society. In recent years, extremist religious groups have gained more power in Iraq.

"These steps are taking the whole country backwards and are definitely hurdles to the advancement of the country," said Hamdia Ahmed, a former member of parliament and a women's rights activist in Baghdad. "The only solution is to separate Islam from politics."

Shiite clerics and others who practice mutaa say such marriages are keeping young women from having unwed sex and widowed or divorced women from resorting to prostitution to make money.

They say a mutaa marriage is not much different from a traditional marriage in which the husband pays the wife's family a dowry and provides for her financially.

"It was designed as a humanitarian help for women," said Mahdi al-Shog, a Shiite cleric.

According to Shiite religious law, a mutaa relationship can last for a few minutes or several years. A man can have an unlimited number of mutaa wives and a permanent wife at the same time. A woman can have only one husband at a time, permanent or temporary. No written contract or official ceremony is required in a mutaa. When the time limit ends, the man and woman go their separate ways with none of the messiness of a regular divorce.

Although the temporary arrangements are becoming more common, they are still controversial, and people usually conduct them secretly.

Ali had a normal marriage once. It lasted only three months because the couple did not get along. Her chances for another permanent marriage, she said, were slim. Men often prefer virgins over widows and divorced women, she said.

She welcomed Rubae's proposal because he was a well-known sheik in her neighborhood. Her family was fond of him. "He was a good guy, and he was a religious man," she said.

Rubae had been in 15 mutaa marriages before. A year ago he entered into a permanent marriage with a woman who had been his mutaa wife for a day. When she became pregnant eight months ago, she suggested he take a temporary wife but asked him not to tell her if he did. She does not know about his involvement with Ali.

"As a pregnant woman, she cannot give me my needs," Rubae said. "She treats me real good and she wants me to be happy."

He chose Ali partly because her blond hair, light brown eyes and petite figure had always attracted him. "When she puts makeup on, it destroys her beauty," he said.

He also liked that she was religiously devout, and he said he wanted to keep her from a relationship outside of marriage.

Ali didn't think of him in a romantic way at first. "After we got married, I started loving him," she said.

The money he gave her helped. Her father owns a bakery but money has always been tight, so much so that she had to end her education after elementary school. But money wasn't her only reason for entering the enjoyment marriage. "I have needs just like any other woman," she said.

Both Shiite and Sunni Muslims allow men to have more than one permanent wife, but they disagree over mutaa.

Most Shiites believe that the prophet Muhammad encouraged the practice as a way to give widows an income. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, has sanctioned it and offers advice on his Web site.

Um Ahmed, a 28-year-old woman from Najaf, lost her husband in 2005 when he was caught in the crossfire of a fight between two Shiite militias.

Soon after his death, she had her first mutaa relationship, with a man who was in a permanent marriage. He paid her 50,000 Iraqi dinars upfront -- or $38 -- and gave her money whenever she needed it during their six-month relationship.

She said she needed it often. She is a tailor and the only one in her family of 10 who works.

"When a human being needs money, the need will make a person do anything," she said. "It's better than doing the wrong things. This is religiously accepted."

Many Sunnis believe that the practice is outdated and ripe for abuse. They also see it as more evidence of Iranian influence on Iraqi life. Mutaa is widespread in Iran's Shiite theocratic state.

"It is a big insult to women," said Ibtsam Z. Alsha, a Sunni lawyer and the head of the organization Women for the Common Good of Women.

Women's rights activists also bemoan what they say is an increase in mutaa on college campuses. Some female students do it for money. Others do it for love when their parents forbid them to marry a man from another sect.

Amani, a 22-year-old Baghdad University engineering student, said she is a Sunni but agreed to enter into a mutaa relationship with her Shiite boyfriend because her parents disapproved of him. "I hated my family because they did not allow this marriage," she said. "I did this to spite my family."

Still, she has not told them about the relationship. "If they find out, it will be my end," she said.

A woman cannot terminate a temporary marriage before it expires unless the man agrees, said four sheiks interviewed for this article.

Once the marriage is over, she has to wait at least two menstrual cycles before she can have another relationship so that paternity can be easily determined if she becomes pregnant, they said.

Most mutaa contracts stipulate that no children be produced. If a woman were to become pregnant anyway, Islamic law would require the man to support the child, the sheiks said. But the clerics disagreed over how much power they have to impose that rule.

Rubae said the man who refuses his child would be whipped or even killed. "We as the sheiks should be sure this thing will stay legitimate," he said.

Shareef, the sheik from Hilla, said some men take advantage of their rights under religious law but refuse to accept their responsibility when a child is born. In some of those cases, he said, a sharia court, using Islamic law, is not as effective as a secular court in enforcing the rules.

"I am supporting the idea of the government regulating mutaa marriages, just like the permanent marriages, so these man cannot run away," he said. "Otherwise the women are losing their rights."

Um Akram, the women's rights activist in Baghdad, said more women are asking her organization for help in getting national identification cards for children born of mutaa relationships. Parents must present a marriage certificate to obtain the identification cards, which are required by schools and employers.

Um Akram said some single women have given up their children for adoption to married couples who can use their marriage certificates to register them.

"The men just hit and run, and they don't want to have a family," she said. "The children are paying the price."

Ali and Rubae agreed not to have children. They simply wanted to enjoy each other.

On the days he could see her, he gave her flowers, perfume, clothing and a watch. They had meals together. Sometimes he could spend the whole day with her. Other times, just five or six hours.

Ali said she cried when the marriage ended early last week. "It's just like a permanent marriage," she said. "When he leaves, I become sad."

Her sorrow did not last long. Rubae said Jan. 12 that he had decided to marry her again. This time, he said, he would marry her for a year, enough time for his wife to fully recover from childbirth.

Please don’t forget that you officially owe me 2 papers:

The midterm

Reaction papers—the fundamentals of Islam

Today we lead off with reaction to the Mohammad reaction papers, and then finish the section on hadith. That means that reaction papers on Topic 4 are due Thursday. We then go on to Topic 5, the Rightly guided Khalifs and the Islamic empires. The Empires seem distant history to us, but they are very much alive and of key importance in the Islamic world. The dream of radical Islamists is to recreate in modern form a single Islamic nation that would have roughly the form and substance of the empires. To understand their dream, you must understand the empires.

Then, in my never ending quest to find a film you guys actually like, I will bring several to sample.

Enshallah.

Saudi Writer Recasts Kingdom's History

By Faiza Saleh Ambah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 4, 2007; A14

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- When university professor Khalid al-Dakhil was growing up, clergymen had a say in everything.

Following the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18th-century preacher who founded the Wahhabi ideology that has inspired Islamic extremism, mosque imams took attendance at dawn prayers; people did not smoke in public or listen to music because it was viewed as sinful; and stick-wielding clerics forced men to pray.

The pervasive religiosity permeating his childhood here, where Wahhabism is the state ideology, sparked a burning question in young Dakhil's mind: How had these Wahhabi clerics come to wield so much power and authority?

After decades of research and a doctoral thesis on the history of the Wahhabi movement, Dakhil came up with an answer. The clerics had inherited their power from Wahhab. The fiery, puritanical preacher had been instrumental in catapulting the House of Saud ahead of others vying for power at the time and became an influential and trusted partner in the first Saudi state. That alliance between the ruling family and the clergy continued down the generations, with the Wahhabis eliminating all other doctrines, taking charge of education and enforcing their strict brand of Islam in mosques and schools.

The religious connection also gave the Saud family legitimacy to oversee Islam's holiest places.

Dakhil's findings offer a new reading of the Wahhabi movement that contradicts the official narrative and could lead to a reduction of the clergy's power. Wahhab was inspired by politics as much as religion, Dakhil said, and he used religious discourse to further his political aim of creating a state in central Arabia, then composed of dozens of city-statelets under the Ottoman sphere of influence.

A more accurate historical reading, which would decrease the role of religion and highlight the political context, should reduce the clout of the clergy and give ordinary Saudis more of a say in how the country is run, Dakhil said.

"Rewriting the history would be a trigger to widening the political system's basis of legitimacy to include not only the religious institute and the ruling class," said Dakhil, 54, an assistant professor of political sociology. "The political formula should involve the people as well."

Dakhil's work, laid out in a series of articles published in November and December, was the first attempt by a Saudi-based scholar to revise the prevailing religious account of the birth of Saudi Arabia.

By mainstream Muslim standards of his time, Wahhab used an extremist interpretation of Islam -- and particularly jihad, or holy war -- to rally people around the first Saudi state. He castigated those who did not believe in his interpretation, declaring local emirs and the Ottoman Empire infidels. The concepts were later used by the Saud family to conquer new territory. But that Wahhabi doctrine came back to haunt the royal family when it inspired armed militant groups, such as al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, to label them infidels and wage war against them.

Though Saudi Arabia has enjoyed a freer press since the reign of King Abdullah began in 2005, two topics remain off-limits: the religious legitimacy of the state and succession within the royal family. Dakhil has brought up both.

British historian Robert Lacey, author of "The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud," said the religious purpose of the Saudi state has always been a principle beyond question. "It's the founding article of faith for . . . the state. To suggest otherwise is to question the roots of Saudi legitimacy. It's akin to saying that the Pilgrim Fathers were atheists," said Lacey, who is in the kingdom working on a sequel.

Dakhil was allowed to publish only the first two of a set of three articles, and a rebuttal to attacks in the Saudi press on his work, before his newspaper, al-Ittihad, asked him to stop writing on the subject and then put him on indefinite leave. The paper is based in the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally.

He tackled the subject of succession after the royal family announced in October that it had formed a council of senior members to formalize procedures and vote on the eligibility of future kings. The throne has passed to the eldest sons of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who forged most of the Arabian Peninsula's disparate regions into a country he named after himself in 1932. Abdullah, in his early 80s, is the fifth of his sons to take the throne.

In an article in the Dubai-based Forbes Arabia, Dakhil suggested that members of the appointed consultative Shoura Council, especially if it becomes an elected body, join the royal council to weigh in on who becomes king. Local censors ripped out Dakhil's column in the December issue before allowing it into the kingdom.

Sitting in his comfortable home near King Saud University, where he taught until last year, Dakhil said it was his duty to raise sensitive topics.

"I'm doing this because I'm an intellectual and an academic, and I have to be faithful to my job," said Dakhil, who had just returned from his daily walk around campus and was wearing running shoes under his traditional long, white robe. "I'm convinced this is not against the interests of the state; in fact, allowing diversity and critical thinking strengthens the state."

Dakhil has written for publications in the United Arab Emirates and the London-based Web site Saudi Debate since his column in al-Hayat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper, was stopped in 2003. Though the topics open for discussion in the Saudi media have expanded, those who cross red lines may not write in the Saudi-owned press or appear on Saudi-owned satellite channels, the largest in the Arab world. A 2004 ruling making it a punishable offense for government employees, like Dakhil, who taught at a public university, to criticize government policy so inflamed him that he wrote an op-ed article against it in the New York Times.

Dakhil's fight for free expression has received some local support. In December, a form letter on the Muntdiatna Web site urged readers to fax the government-appointed human rights committee and ask it to help lift the ban on Dakhil and another prominent Saudi writer, Qenan al-Ghamdi.

Despite the censorship, Dakhil's articles on the history of the Saudi state and succession, and parts of his doctoral thesis on the Wahhabi movement, which he wrote at UCLA, have been reprinted and discussed on the main Web sites frequented by Saudis.

Some have applauded his courage. Others have accused him of stirring up trouble. But many Saudis, brought up on the official story, were incensed by his assertion that the Wahhabis were not purely a religious movement, as Wahhab's historians had laid out.

Dakhil said he was not surprised. When he had shared his findings with his seniors at King Saud University, many had been shocked and offended. The university later asked him to keep to the curriculum.

The Wahhabi version claims that the movement was created to save the region from declining faith, polytheism and widespread idolatry. But his research indicates that there was no change in people's beliefs at the time the Wahhabi movement was born and that polytheism was not rampant in the region, and therefore was not the trigger for the foundation of the movement, he said.

In a chapter he has written for the book "Understanding Wahhabism," to be published this year by the University of Michigan Press, Dakhil argues that Wahhab's goal was to create a strong state to make up for the disintegrating tribal system and that the preacher found his first willing sponsor in Muhammad bin Saud, first head of the House of Saud.

The mosque was a place to exert authority; the call to prayer and enforcing communal prayers were symbols of authority, Dakhil said. Wahhab labeled as apostates all the villages that broke away from the first Saudi state or refused to join it, he said.

"Religion is a much more powerful enforcer. Wahhabis made being a good Muslim contingent on obeying the ruler. That's a naked political statement," Dakhil said.

Despite what his detractors say, his intention is not to malign Wahhabism, Dakhil said.

"Whether you talk about succession, history of the state or Wahhabism, they all form one [problem]. I want to lift the censorship on this way of approaching the history of the state. I want to make opening it up for discussion normal," he said.

By Joshua Partlow and Saad Sarhan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD, Jan. 29 -- A Shiite cult leader, who claimed to be a revered Muslim figure who vanished in the 10th century, was killed Sunday along with scores of fighters who were poised to attack a holy city in southern Iraq and assassinate the country's Shiite religious leadership, Iraqi officials said Monday.

Information about the scope of the fighters' encampment and their aspirations emerged as Iraqi and U.S. troops inspected the rural battleground and hauled out those captured and killed during the day-long siege that began Sunday.

The discovery of a heavily armed Shiite-led cult, intent on attacking venerated Shiite symbols and leaders, startled Iraqi security officials who were already contending with rival religious factions battling for supremacy in the country.

"This is a new step in the annals of terrorism," Iraq's minister of national security, Shirwan al-Wahli, said in an interview. Wahli said the fighters were led by a man known as the Judge of Heaven, who claimed to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali. Wahli said the man also declared himself the Mahdi, the reappearance of the 12th imam, or leader of the faithful, who many Shiites believe vanished in the 10th century and whose return will mark an era of redemption and peace.

The cult leader killed Sunday probably sought to assassinate conservative Shiite religious leaders because they likely would have disputed his claim to be the Mahdi, said John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University, in a telephone interview.

The most recent comparable event occurred in 1979 in Saudi Arabia, Voll said, when a man claiming to be the Mahdi took over the holy sanctuary in Mecca. He and his followers were killed.

Wahli said the cult leader came from southern Iraq and had written a book laying out his "supernatural, unbelievable" ideas. Over a matter of months, he recruited the estimated 700 people, known as the Soldiers of Heaven, who lived in tents and huts on farmland near Zarqaa, about eight miles northeast of Najaf, Wahli said.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the man's name was Samer Abu Kamar, but other Iraqi officials assigned him different names.

Iraqi officials said Monday that they had not finished removing explosives or counting casualties from the siege, and their estimates of the number of fighters killed ranged from 200 to more than 400. The U.S. military, which provided backup ground troops along with helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft support, said more than 100 fighters were captured. Two U.S. soldiers died when their helicopter crashed during the operation.

Wahli said the structure of the group was Shiite, but it involved Sunni fighters and "based on the level of training, support and financing, it obviously has received support from outside Iraq."

About 10 Iraqi soldiers and police officers also died in the battle, the Reuters news service cited Wahli as saying.

A Washington Post special correspondent who approached the farm where the fighters had hidden witnessed 10 ambulances travel into the encampment and saw Iraqi soldiers drive out corpses and lead away women and children among the captured.

Ayad Abu Gilel, the brother of the governor of Najaf, showed the correspondent a 53-minute videotape recorded inside the compound.

The footage showed a wide trench ringing the encampment and a series of tunnels or bunkers dug into earthen mounds to offer protection. The video showed at least eight vehicles mounted with antiaircraft machine guns. Dozens of dead bodies, some burned, could be seen lying amid mortars, AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weaponry.

Iraqi and U.S. military officials characterized the attack as a positive signal that the Iraqi security forces were able to lead a major battle and were willing to target extremists from the same Muslim sect that runs the central government. The U.S. military handed over primary control of Najaf province to Iraqi security forces last month.

"This is a very clear message from the government that no one except the government carrying arms is acceptable, whether Shia or Sunni," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "It reveals the firm commitment of the prime minister that any outlaw will be dealt with very strongly."

According to a statement issued by the U.S. military, Iraqi army and police forces deployed to the area of the encampment following a tip that gunmen were moving toward Najaf among Shiite pilgrims traveling to observe the religious holiday of Ashura, which culminates Tuesday. More than 200 gunmen attacked the joint patrol using small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades, the military said. U.S. ground troops and aircraft were called in for support.

"The aggressive manner in which the Iraqi soldiers performed north of [Najaf] going after the anti-Iraqi forces was impressive," said Col. Michael Garrett, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, in the statement.

During a news conference in Najaf, the deputy provincial governor, Abdul Hussein Abtan, said the fighters were able to amass the vehicles and weaponry under the pretext that they were moving building materials destined for the Najaf airport, which is under construction. He said the group surged in numbers over the past 10 days in preparation for attacks on pilgrims, shrines in Najaf and clerics on the last day of Ashura. Among the fighters captured or killed were two Egyptians, a Lebanese and a Sudanese, he said.

"There were extensive preparations, they were highly trained, and they fought in an orderly way," said Wahli. "Their leader kept insisting through a loudspeaker that they keep fighting, despite repeated attempts by the Iraqi security forces to get them to stop."

Elsewhere in Iraq, national police patrols found 47 bodies over the past day, including 43 from around Baghdad, said Maj. Gen. Sami Mahmoud of the Interior Ministry, who said all of the unidentified people were shot to death.

Also, an insurgent threw a hand grenade at an Iraqi police patrol in the Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding four others, Mahmoud said.

A car bomb exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk targeting a Kurdish militia commander, killing one person and injuring seven others, said Brig. Gen. Turhan Yousif, the Kirkuk police chief.

Sarhan reported from Najaf. Staff writer Ernesto Londoño and special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

I have added 4 new files under Course Files. They are all New York Times articles following the journey of a Muslim Imam in America. Interesting stuff, and a fun read. See An Imam in America 1-3 and A Cleric’s Journey.

Besides the 2 reaction papers you owe me (due bright and early at 8:00 AM), we have 2 things on the agenda for Tuesday. First, we finish the Muhammad lecture. Then, with all the remaining time, I want to show you a film that I just got, haven’t completely seen myself, and frankly, which totally mystifies me. I so don’t understand it that you are going to have to explain it to me. The film is about contemporary Afghanistan, and fits into both the Diversity of Islam lecture and into the Behind the Walls lecture. It also has much to do with the Islamic renewal lecture. So it fits anywhere in the schedule. You figure the thing out and tell me why the people depicted are doing what they are doing. See you Tuesday.

OK, we are permanent in the new room (114) and Group Fusion is working. The bandwidth problem is being addressed and we now are in position to go forward.

 First, here is the link for the video from Somalia: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/world/africa/22somalia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin it is another interesting diversity of Islam piece, but pay special attention to the guy who talks about life under the Islamic Courts government. His quote about Islam being an ocean is really good.  I also have a link under the Class Links in a folder called Iraq. The class is not about Iraq really, but it was such an interesting piece that I put it there for those interested.

 The Diversity of Islam powerpoint is being loaded on Group Fusion as we speak. It was too big to put up all at once so I cut it down to 3 individual files that you should see: 1) Saudi Arabia with links; 2) Sudan with a link; and 3) Indonesia (the last section of pictures in this file are the Dayaks, which I took long ago).

 Thursday we do jahaliy’a Arabia.

 For Tuesday, 30 January, two things due:

1. Reaction papers for Topic 1, Diversity of Islam. See the syllabus for details of how to do reaction papers.

2. We talk about your presentations

 That’s it. See you not so bright and early on Thursday.

Group Fusion is now up and running. It took a bit of doing, but I ma now listed as administrator for the site, so we can start using it for communication and to archive documents.

The next issue is not so easily solved. The problem with the streaming media is a lack of bandwidth, which may or may not be solvable. The IT people are working on it for us.  Meanwhile, we can move forward with what we have.

For Tuesday, I want to get through the intro section of the course. Then, I will post the powerpoint on Group Fusion and you can go through it yourselves, using the links to check out the media and web sites linked to the slides.

Speaking of links, one of the students sent this and it would be a good start on Group Fusion. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/17/warwithin.overview/index.html As I find interesting and relevant news stories or web sites, I will put them up. If you find something interesting, please send it along.

That’s it, see you in the morning.