Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Title | Grand Ayatollah |
| Personal life | |
| Born | (1935-03-01)March 1, 1935 |
| Died | April 9, 1980(1980-04-09) (aged 45) |
| Resting place |  Wadi-us-Salaam,Najaf,Najaf Governorate,Iraq |
| Nationality | Iraqi |
| Citizenship | Iraq |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Islam |
| Sect | UsuliTwelverShia Islam |
| Muslim leader | |
| Based in | Najaf,Iraq |
| Post | Grand Ayatollah |
| Part ofa series onShia Islam |
| Twelver Shi'ism |
|---|
Other practices |
Other related sects and groups |
Related topics |
 Shia Islam portal |
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (Arabic:محمد باقر الصدر,romanized: Muḥammad Bāqir aṣ-Ṣadr; March 1, 1935 – April 9, 1980), also known asal-Shahid al-Khamis (Arabic:الشهيد الخامس,romanized: al-Shahīd al-Khāmis,lit. 'the fifth martyr'), was an Iraqi Islamic scholar, philosopher, and the ideological founder of theIslamic Dawa Party. He was the father-in-law toMuqtada al-Sadr, a cousin ofMuhammad Sadiq al-Sadr andMusa al-Sadr. His fatherHaydar al-Sadr was a well-respected high-ranking Shi'a cleric. His lineage can be traced back toMuhammad through the seventh Shia ImamMusa al-Kazim. Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was executed in 1980 by the regime ofSaddam Hussein along with his sister,Amina Sadr bint al-Huda.
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was born inal-Kazimiya, Iraq, into the prominental-Sadr family, which originated inJabal 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 ofNajaf, where al-Sadr spent the remainder of his life.
Al-Sadr was regarded as achild prodigy. By the age of ten, he was delivering lectures onIslamic history, and at eleven he had begun formal studies in logic. At the age of 24, he authored a work critical of materialist philosophy.[1][self-published source][non-primary source needed] He completed his religious studies at the seminaries of Najaf underal-Khoei andMuhsin al-Hakim, and began teaching at the age of 25.
Al-Sadr's works attracted the ire of theBaath Party, leading to repeated imprisonment where he was often tortured. Despite this, he continued his work after being released.[2][failed verification] When the Ba'athists arrested Al-Sadr in 1977, his sisterAmina 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 inIraq's Shia areas by groups who were working toward an Islamic revolution in their country.[3] Hussein and his deputies believed that the riots had been inspired by theIranian Revolution and instigated by Iran's government.[4][page needed] In the aftermath of Iran's revolution, Iraq's Shia community called on Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr to be their "IraqiAyatollah Khomeini", leading a revolt against the Ba'ath regime.[5][6] Community leaders, tribal heads, and hundreds of ordinary members of the public paid their allegiance to al-Sadr.[5] Protests then erupted inBaghdad and the predominantly Shia provinces of the south in May 1979.[5] For nine days, protests against the regime unfolded, but were suppressed by the regime.[5] 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.[5] Al-Sadr issued a fatwa prohibiting membership in the ruling Ba'ath party. Called upon by the government to retract it he refused.[7]
Baqir al-Sadr was arrested on April 5, 1980, with his sister, Sayyidah bint al-Huda.[8] They had formed a powerful militant movement in opposition toSaddam Hussein's regime.[9]
On April 9, 1980, Al-Sadr and his sister were killed after being severely tortured by their captors.[2] Signs of torture could be seen on the bodies.[9][10][11]
An iron nail was hammered into Al-Sadr's head and he was then set on fire in Najaf.[2][8] It has been reported that Saddam Hussein himself killed them.[9] The Baathists delivered the bodies of Baqir al-Sadr and Bint al-Huda to their cousin SayyidMohammad al-Sadr.[9]
They were buried in theWadi-us-Salaam graveyard in the holy city ofNajaf the same night.[8] His execution raised no criticism from Western countries because Al-Sadr had openly supportedAyatollah Khomeini in Iran.[10] In 2024, Saadoun Sabri Jamil Jumaa al-Qaisi, a senior security official during Saddam's regime, was arrested inErbil for overseeing Al-Sadr's detention and killing.[12] He was subsequently convicted for the Al-Sadr killings and executed in 2026.[13]
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 areIqtisaduna onIslamic economics, andFalsafatuna (Our Philosophy).[14] They were detailed critiques ofMarxism that presented his early ideas on an alternative Islamic form of government. They were critiques of bothsocialism andcapitalism. 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 onIslamic banking, which still forms the basis for modern Islamic banks.[15]
Using his knowledge of theQuran and a subject-based approach toQuranic exegesis, Al-Sadr extracted two concepts from the Holy text in relation to governance:
Al-Sadr explained that throughout history there have been "...two lines. Man's line and the Prophet's line. The line of Man is thekhalifa (trustee) who inherits the earth from God; the line of the Prophet is theshahid (witness)".[16]
Al-Sadr demonstrated thatkhilafa (governance) 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 ofIslamic political theory.[17]
While Al-Sadr identifiedkhilafa as the obligation and right of the people, he used a broad-based explanation of Quranic verse 5:44[18] to identify who held the responsibility ofshahada in an Islamic state. First were the Prophets (anbiya'). Second were the Imams who are considered a divine (rabbani) continuation of the Prophets in this line. The last were themarja'iyya (seeMarja).[19]
While the two functions ofkhilafa andshahada (supervision and witness ) were united during the times of the Prophets, they diverged duringthe occultation so thatkhilafa returned to the people (umma) andshahada to the scholars.[20]
Al-Sadr 's practical application of howkhilafa, would be returned to the [Muslim] 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.[21]
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 (people) could truly emerge.[22]
Al-Sadr was executed bySaddam Hussein in 1980 before he was able to provide any details of the mechanism for the practical application of theshahada concept in an Islamic state. A few elaborations ofshahada can be found in Al-Sadr's works. In his textRole of the Shiah Imams in the Reconstruction of Islamic Society, Al-Sadr illustrates the scope and limitations ofshahada by using the example of the third Shi'i Imam,Hussein ibn Ali (the grandson of Muhammad), who defiedYazid, 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, theshahid's (witness – person performingshahada or supervision) duties are "to protect the correct doctrines and to see that deviations do not grow to the extent of threatening the ideology itself".[23]
One notable book that is considered by scholars to be a great achievement of al-Sadr is his book entitledThe Logical Foundations of Induction.[24][25][26] This book represents the core of al-Sadr's attempt to give a rational logical foundation for growing knowledge byinductive means, and ultimately establish a new inductive logic termed by al-Sadr as the "Subjectivist Logic" (Arabic:المنطق الذاتي), that sets the logical rules for this type of knowledge growth.[27]
Al-Sadr engagedWestern 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.[28] The following is a list of his work:[29]
كذلك يمتلك الشهيد الصّدر مدرسة في الفلسفة، وقد نوقس فكره في المجال الفلسفي في مباحثه الأصوليّة إضافة إلى كتاب فلسفتنا، وبشكل خاصّ الإبداع المُذهل في الساحة المعرفية، أعني كتاب "الأسس المنطقية للاستقراء"، الكتاب الذي أذهل وأثار دهشة الكثيرين من المفكرين من بينهم زكي نجيب محمود الذي يُعدّ أحد أشهر أساتذة الفلسفة في العالم العربي ومن شخصيّات الأزهر الشريف، حيث كان يدعو بعض تلامذته إلى الشهيد الصدر ما دام حيّاً ليواصلوا العمل على أبحاث الدكتوراه الخاصّة بهم تحت إشرافه ويجعلوا الموضوع "الأسس المنطقية للاستقراء" الذي كان حدثاً جديداً للغاية تمكّن من فتح مجال جديد في مجال الفلسفة على المستوى العالمي. هذا الكتاب شديد التعقيد وفيه الكثير من الأفكار الإبداعيّة الحديثة التي تعالج مشكلات بقيت لقرون في دائرة الفلسفة، وقد فتح أبواباً جديدة في الفكر الفلسفي وفي معرض الردّ على الأسئلة الجذريّة.
هذه بعض التأملات والاثارات التي أشير اليها فيما يرتبط بكتاب (الأسس المنطقية للإستقراء) لاستاذنا الشهيد الصدر (والذي لعلّه يعد أضخم مجهود فكري على مستوى نظرية المعرفة في التأريخ الاسلامي).
تمركز المشروع الفكري الأساسي في أعمال الشهيد الصدر! على إعادة تشكيل النظام المعرفي الذي تستند إليه مجموعة الرؤى والأفكار، حيث تمثّل هذا المشروع في كتاب «الأسس المنطقيّة للاستقراء»، الذي خصّص الإمام الصدر! سنواتٍ عديدةً من عمره الشريف للتفكير في بنائه النظريّ[6]، وإشادة أركانه، وإكمال صياغته، بعد أن درّسه للنابهين من تلامذته، ووجّههم نحو الدور الكبير الذي ينبغي أن يناط بالمذهب المعرفيّ الذي بشّر به هذا الكتاب[7]، حيث يشتمل هذا الكتاب «على أبدع أفكار وابتكارات الشهيد الإمام محمد باقر الصدر! وهو من أحلى ثمار ذهن الشهيد الصدر!، الذهن الوقّاد الباحث والمبدع، ويمكن القول بجرأة إنّ هذا الكتاب أوّل كتاب في تاريخ الثقافة الإسلامية حرّره فقيهٌ مسلمٌ متناولاً فيه إحدى أهمّ مشكلات «فلسفة العلم والمنهج العلميّ» المصيريّة، مع وضوح وبصيرة وشمول في عرض ونقد نظريّات حكماء الغرب والشرق..»[8]، مضافاً إلى أنّه «كتابٌ تحقيقيٌّ علميٌّ لفقيه فيلسوف، أثبت عمق بصيرته ودقّة فكره، في ميدان قضايا الفلسفة الحديثة، ويشتمل الكتاب على ابتكارات وإبداعات تليق لطرحها على مستوى النوادي العلميّة العالميّة. إنّ هجمات الشهيد الصدر! الجريئة والمدروسة على أغوال نظير «لاپلاس» و«كينـز» و«رسل»، وفي قضيّة في غاية التعقيد والدقّة، أثبتت شجاعته الفكريّة، واقتداره العلمي..»[9].
