Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr


Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, also known as al-Shahid al-Khamis, was an Iraqi Islamic scholar, philosopher, and the ideological founder of the Islamic Dawa Party. He was the father-in-law to Muqtada al-Sadr, a cousin of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and Musa al-Sadr. His father Haydar al-Sadr was a well-respected high-ranking Shi'a cleric. His lineage can be traced back to Muhammad through the seventh Shia Imam Musa al-Kazim. Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was executed in 1980 by the regime of Saddam Hussein along with his sister, Amina Sadr bint al-Huda.

Biography

Early life and education

Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was born in al-Kazimiya, Iraq, into the prominent al-Sadr family, which originated in Jabal Amel in present-day Lebanon. His father died in 1937, leaving the family in difficult economic circumstances. In 1945, the family relocated to the holy city of Najaf, where al-Sadr spent the remainder of his life.
Al-Sadr was regarded as a child prodigy. By the age of ten, he was delivering lectures on Islamic history, and at eleven he had begun formal studies in logic. At the age of 24, he authored a work critical of materialist philosophy. He completed his religious studies at the seminaries of Najaf under al-Khoei and Muhsin al-Hakim, and began teaching at the age of 25.

Struggle against Saddam Hussein

Al-Sadr's works attracted the ire of the Baath Party, leading to repeated imprisonment where he was often tortured. Despite this, he continued his work after being released. When the Ba'athists arrested Al-Sadr in 1977, his sister Amina Sadr bint al-Huda made a speech in the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf inviting the people to demonstrate. Many demonstrations were held, forcing the Ba'athists to release Al-Sadr who was placed under house arrest.
In 1979–1980, anti-Ba'ath riots arose in Iraq's Shia areas by groups who were working toward an Islamic revolution in their country. Hussein and his deputies believed that the riots had been inspired by the Iranian Revolution and instigated by Iran's government. In the aftermath of Iran's revolution, Iraq's Shia community called on Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr to be their "Iraqi Ayatollah Khomeini", leading a revolt against the Ba'ath regime. Community leaders, tribal heads, and hundreds of ordinary members of the public paid their allegiance to al-Sadr. Protests then erupted in Baghdad and the predominantly Shia provinces of the south in May 1979. For nine days, protests against the regime unfolded, but were suppressed by the regime. The cleric's imprisonment led to another wave of protests in June after a seminal, powerful appeal from al-Sadr's sister, Bint al-Huda. Further clashes unfolded between the security forces and protestors. Najaf was put under siege and thousands were tortured and executed. Al-Sadr issued a fatwa prohibiting membership in the ruling Ba'ath party. Called upon by the government to retract it he refused.

Execution

Baqir al-Sadr was arrested on April 5, 1980, with his sister, Sayyidah bint al-Huda. They had formed a powerful militant movement in opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime.
On April 9, 1980, Al-Sadr and his sister were killed after being severely tortured by their captors. Signs of torture could be seen on the bodies.
An iron nail was hammered into Al-Sadr's head and he was then set on fire in Najaf. It has been reported that Saddam Hussein himself killed them. The Baathists delivered the bodies of Baqir al-Sadr and Bint al-Huda to their cousin Sayyid Mohammad al-Sadr.
They were buried in the Wadi-us-Salaam graveyard in the holy city of Najaf the same night. His execution raised no criticism from Western countries because Al-Sadr had openly supported Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. In 2024, Saadoun Sabri Jamil Jumaa al-Qaisi, a senior security official during Saddam's regime, was arrested in Erbil for overseeing Al-Sadr's detention and killing.

Scholarship and ideas

The works by Baqir al-Sadr contains traditional Shia thoughts, while they also suggest ways Shia could "accommodate modernity".
The two major works by him are Iqtisaduna on Islamic economics, and Falsafatuna. They were detailed critiques of Marxism that presented his early ideas on an alternative Islamic form of government. They were critiques of both socialism and capitalism. He was subsequently commissioned by the government of Kuwait to assess how that country's oil wealth could be managed in keeping with Islamic principles. This led to a major work on Islamic banking, which still forms the basis for modern Islamic banks.
Using his knowledge of the Quran and a subject-based approach to Quranic exegesis, Al-Sadr extracted two concepts from the Holy text in relation to governance:
  • khilafat al-insan andshahadat al-anbiya.
Al-Sadr explained that throughout history there have been "...two lines. Man's line and the Prophet's line. The line of Man is the khalifa who inherits the earth from God; the line of the Prophet is the shahid ".
Al-Sadr demonstrated that khilafa is "a right given to the whole of humanity" and defined it as an obligation given from God to the human race to "tend the globe and administer human affairs". This was a major advancement of Islamic political theory.
While Al-Sadr identified khilafa as the obligation and right of the people, he used a broad-based explanation of Quranic verse 5:44 to identify who held the responsibility of shahada in an Islamic state. First were the Prophets. Second were the Imams who are considered a divine continuation of the Prophets in this line. The last were the marja'iyya.
While the two functions of khilafa and shahada were united during the times of the Prophets, they diverged during the occultation so that khilafa returned to the people and shahada to the scholars.
Al-Sadr 's practical application of how
khilafa, would be returned to the people in the absence of the twelfth Imam was with the establishment of a democratic system, whereby the people regularly elect their representatives in government:
Islamic theory rejects monarchy as well as the various forms of dictatorial government; it also rejects the aristocratic regimes and proposes a form of government, which contains all the positive aspects of the democratic system.

He continued to champion this point until his final days:
Lastly, I demand, in the name of all of you and in the name of the values you uphold, to allow the people the opportunity truly to exercise their right in running the affairs of the country by holding elections in which a council representing the ummah could truly emerge.

Al-Sadr was executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980 before he was able to provide any details of the mechanism for the practical application of the shahada concept in an Islamic state. A few elaborations of shahada can be found in Al-Sadr's works. In his text Role of the Shiah Imams in the Reconstruction of Islamic Society, Al-Sadr illustrates the scope and limitations of shahada by using the example of the third Shi'i Imam, Hussein ibn Ali, who defied Yazid, the ruler at the time. Al-Sadr explained that Yazid was not simply acting counter to Islamic teachings, as many rulers before and after him had done, but he was distorting the teachings and traditions of Islam and presenting his deviant ideas as representative of Islam itself. This, therefore, is what led Imam Hussein to intervene challenging Yazid in order to restore the true teachings of Islam, and consequently laying down his own life. In Al-Sadr's own words, the shahid's duties are "to protect the correct doctrines and to see that deviations do not grow to the extent of threatening the ideology itself".

The Logical Foundations of Induction

One notable book that is considered by scholars to be a great achievement of al-Sadr is his book entitled The Logical Foundations of Induction. This book represents the core of al-Sadr's attempt to give a rational logical foundation for growing knowledge by inductive means, and ultimately establish a new inductive logic termed by al-Sadr as the "Subjectivist Logic", that sets the logical rules for this type of knowledge growth.

List of works

Al-Sadr engaged Western philosophical ideas, challenging them as necessary and incorporating them where appropriate, with the ultimate goal of demonstrating that religious knowledge was not antithetical to scientific knowledge. The following is a list of his work:

Jurisprudence

  • Buhuth fi Sharh al- 'Urwah al' Wuthqa, four volumes
  • Al-Ta'liqah 'ala Minhaj al-Salihin, two volumes
  • Al-Fatawa al-Wadhihah.
  • Mujaz Ahkam al-Hajj
  • Al-Ta'liqah 'ala Manasik al-Hajj
  • ''Al-Ta'liqah 'ala Salah al-Jumu'ah''

Fundamentals of the law

  • Durus fi Ilm al-Usul, 3 Parts.
  • Al-Ma'alim al-Jadidah lil-Usul
  • ''Ghayat al-Fikr''

Philosophy

Logic

  • ''Al-Usus al-Mantiqiyyah lil-Istiqra''

Theology

  • Al-Mujaz fi Usul al-Din: al-Mursil, al-Rasul, al-Risalah
  • Al-Tashayyu' wa al-Islam - Bahth Hawl al-Wilayah
  • ''Bahth Hawl al-Mahdi''

Economics

  • Iqtisaduna
  • Al-Bank al-la Ribawi fi al-Islam
  • ''Maqalat Iqtisadiyyah''

Qur'anic commentaries

  • Al-Tafsir al-Mawzu'i lil-Qur'an al-Karim - al-Madrasah al-Qur'aniyyah
  • Buhuth fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an
  • ''Maqalat Qur'aniyyah''

History

  • Ahl al-Bayt Tanawwu' Ahdaf wa Wahdah Hadaf
  • ''Fadak fi al-Tarikh''

Islamic culture

  • Al-Islam Yaqud al-Hayah
  • Al-Madrasah al-Islamiyyah
  • Risalatuna
  • Nazrah Ammah fi al-Ibadat
  • ''Maqalat wa Muhazrat''

Articles

  • "Al-'Amal wa al-Ahdaf" : Min Fikr al- Da'wah. No. 13. Islamic Da'wah Party, central propagation, place and date of publication unknown.
  • "Al-'Amal al-Salih fi al-Quran" : Ikhtrna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1982
  • "Ahl al-Bayt: Tanawu' Adwar wa-Wihdat Hadaf". Beirut: Dar al-Ta'ruf, 1985.
  • "Bahth Hawla al-Mahdi". Beirut: Dar al- Ta'ruf, 1983.
  • "Bahth Hawla al-Wilayah". Kuwait: Dar al- Tawhid, 1977.
  • "Da'watana il al-Islam Yajeb an Takun Enqilabiyah," : Fikr al-Da'wah, No. 13. Islamic Da'wah Party, central propagation, place and date of publication unknown.
  • "Dawr al-A'imah fi al-Hayat al-Islamiyah" : Ikhtarna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1982
  • "al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah", al-Jihad : 5
  • "Hawla al-Marhala al-Ula min 'Amal al-Da'wah" : Min Fikr al-Da'wah. No. 13. Islamic Da'wah Party, central propagation, place and date of publishing unknown.
  • "Hawla al-Ism wa-al-Shakl al-Tanzimi li-Hizb al-Da'wah al- Islamiyah" : Min Fikr al-Da'wah. No. 13. Islamic Da'wah Party, central propagation, place and date of publication unknown.
  • "al-Huriyah fi al-Quran" : Ikhtarna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1982
  • "al-Itijahat al-Mustaqbaliyah li-Harakat al-Ijtihad" : Ikhtarna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1980.
  • "al-Insan al-Mu'asir wa-al-Mushkilah al-Ijtima'yah"
  • "al-Janib al-Iqtisadi Min al-Nizam al-Islami" : Ikhtarna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1982
  • "Khalafat al-Insan wa-Shahadat al-Anbia" : al-Islam Yaqwod al-Hayat. Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "Khatut Tafsiliyah 'An Iqtisad al-Mujtama' al-Islami : al-Islam Yaqud al-Hayah. Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "Lamha fiqhiyah Hawla Dustur al-Jumhuriyah al-Islamiyah" : al-Islam Yaqwod al-Hayat Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "Madha Ta'ruf 'an al-Iqtisad al-Islami". al-Islam Yaqwod al-Hayat Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "Manabi' al-Qudra fi al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah". al-Islam Yaqwod al-Hayat Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "al-Mihna". Sawt al-Wihdah, Nos. 5, 6, 7.
  • "Minhaj al-Salihin". Beirut: Dar al- Ta'aruf, 1980.
  • "Muqaddimat fi al-Tafsir al-Mawdu'i Lil-Quran". Kuwait: Dar al- Tawjyyh al-Islami, 1980.
  • "Nazarah 'Amah fi al-'Ibadat" : al-Fatawa al-Wadhiha. Beirut: Dar al-Ta'aruf, 1981.
  • "al-Nazriyah al-Islamiyah li-Tawzi' al-Masadr al-Tabi'iyah" : Ikhtarna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1982.
  • "al-Nizam al-Islami Muqaranan bil-Nizam al-Ra'smali wa-al- Markisi". Ikhtarna Lak. Beirut: Dar-al Zahra', 1982.
  • "Risalatuna wa-al-Da'wah". Risalatuna. Beirut: al-Dar al-Islamiyah, 1981.
  • "Al-Shakhsiyah al-Islamiyah" : Min Fikr al-Da'wah al-Islamiyah. No. 13. Islamic Da'wah Party, central propagation, place and date of publication unknown.
  • "Surah 'An Iqtisad al-Mujtama' al-Islami". al-Islam Yaqwod al-Hayat Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "al-Usus al-Amah li-al-Bank fi al-Mujtam al-Islami". in al-Islam Yaqwod al-Hayat Iran: Islamic Ministry of Guidance, n.d.
  • "Utruhat al-Marja'iyah al-Salihah". In Kazim al-Ha'iri, Mabahith fi 'Ilm al-Usul.Qum, Iran: n.p., 1988.
  • "al-Yaqin al-Riyadi wa-al-Mantiq al-Waz'i" : Ikhtrna Lak. Beirut: Dar al-Zahra', 1982.
  • "Preface to al-Sahifah al-Sajadiyah" Tehran: al-Maktabah al-Islamiyah al-Kubra, n.d.

Notable colleagues and students