29 May، 2021
Al-Rafidain Center for Dialogue held a panel discussion under the title “Shiite Identity in Iraq: Meaning and Politics”, at its headquarters in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, March 1, 2019. During the panel, the independent politician and researcher at Doha Institute for Studies, Dr. Haider Saeed, has delivered a lecture tackled the origins of Shiism and its connection to political factors more than religious ones, as well as its regularity within a doctrinal framework and jurisprudential origins that distinguish it from other faiths, according to the researcher point of view. He also said that “Shia” name has witnessed profound changes, throughout the near centuries, towards the leadership of Twelver Imamite, and its unification as a band, with the demographic expansion. He added that the early formation of the Shiite identity as a collective bond goes back to the beginning of the modern age as a historically developed formulation of the modern system, and it collected the definitions and parallels in a political and social frame, and it is identified through matches and discrepancies in the fabric of other emerging identities.

Dr. Saeed went on to say that, the British have deepened the sectarian regional division and tried to undermine and exile the religious leaderships in Najaf and Karbala. Moreover, he stated that a project to develop a Hawza with Iraqi identity culminated in the time of Mr. Muhsin Al-Hakim. He also said that the expression of “Shia” did not refer to a closed religious group in the literature to state formation at that time. Furthermore, Dr. Saeed got into details of the societal and political movements throughout the important historical eras that contributed all together and through several factors to build and develop Shiite identity. He also said that Najaf has adopted a methodical distinguish between two types; the religious effectiveness, which is “cosmic” implying that the relations between the leader and the committed surpasses the homeland boundaries, and the political effectiveness that is limited to the Iraqi national frame, that has promoted the Shiite Iraqi Hawza Identity. He stated that after 1950s, political movements appeared under the leadership of clerics and leaders’ young sons, which is a step towards strengthening that identity, although some of these political directions refused to distinguish between the religious and political natures in early 1970s.

During the panel, which attended by an elite group of academics, professors, scientific researchers, clerics and politicians, divergent views were expressed as to whether accept the research content or refuse to engage in a meaningful, constructive and effective dialogue that enriches the researchers with its outcomes to be a reference to stakeholders and those interested.