Meanwhile, Al Qaeda had increased its attacks, striking U.S. soldiers as well as politicians cooperating with the United States and prominent Shia figures. The sectarian violence reached an apex with the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, the head of the group that is now called the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, who was killed along with 125 others when a car bomb exploded as he was leaving the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf in late August. The Islamic Supreme Council belonged to the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, and his role as a respected religious leader gave the U.S. occupation authority much-needed credibility. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his terrorist network later claimed responsibility for the attack.
I realized that if I wanted to understand Iraq’s sectarian divide, I had to go to Najaf, one of the holiest places on earth for Shia, where Ali is buried, where Shia clerics revolted against British colonial forces in 1918, and where Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini prepared the Iranian revolution during his exile there in the 1970s. Najaf was where Khomeini wrote his anticolonial polemic Islamic Government, in which he explained the impiety of monarchies and the need for an Islamic republic. In 1978, Khomeini was expelled from Najaf by Saddam Hussein, who was being pressured by the shah of Iran, but he left many supporters behind. A highly symbolic place of Shia resistance and militancy—many members of the founding generation of Hezbollah had also studied there—Najaf was now the site of a major terrorist attack. Security was very tight following Hakim’s assassination. Shia militias had made it clear that they wanted to protect their own holy sites, and U.S. and British soldiers stood aside as the militias took over what had once been the job of the Iraqi army and police.
Guy had talked to American and Iraqi officials, and they all said it would be best to visit one of the leading Shia groups before going to Najaf, to ensure that we wouldn’t run into problems with the militias there. Abu Aara, our stringer, said that Hizb ul’Dawaa was one of the most influential Shia political groups and that I should go there first. They had an office in Baghdad.
There were metal detectors at the entrance, but women were winked through. Not good, I thought.
Hizb ul’Dawaa was a religious party. Many of its members had spent years in Iran and saw no distinction between religion and politics. We were told that one of the leaders of the party was waiting for us. He had visitors but invited us in.
He was in his late fifties or early sixties, with a neatly trimmed beard and striking light brown eyes. He wore an Iranian-style black turban that, along with his title, sayyid, indicated he was a descendant of the Prophet.
I introduced Abu Aara and our driver, Abu Ali, who was Shia, and explained that I wanted to go to Najaf to report on the changing relationship between Sunni and Shia and to explore the question of whether there would be some kind of Sunni-Shia war. I also wanted to know how much influence Iran had in that area, but I didn’t tell the sayyid that.
He listened and smiled. “Where are you from?”
I told him that my father was Moroccan but that I had been born in Germany.
“And who are you?”
I’d just introduced myself, I thought. Why was he asking again? “I am Souad Mekhennet. I am a journalist.”
“No, no. I understand what your name is and who you are representing,” he said. “What I’m asking is, whose descendant are you?”
“Why?”
“Because I think you and I share some of the same blood lineage.”
“How do you know this? How could you know?”
He said he felt it, that it was written in my eyes. He was not only a religious scholar but deeply spiritual. “I think you are a sayyida, or how do you say it in Morocco, sharifa?” he said with a smile.
I felt unnerved but also intrigued. I suddenly wanted to talk to him about everything that was happening in Iraq, and to Islam in general. I couldn’t change who I was and saw no reason to conceal it. I told him about my parents, their intersectarian marriage, and how angry my grandparents had been when they found out. I wondered aloud if the Sunni-Shia divide would cause more bloodshed in Iraq.
He agreed that trouble lay ahead. In his youth, he’d been active in some secular political movements, but he told me that his whole family had come under attack when one of his brothers opposed Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“I had no choice but to go to Iran, live there in exile, and study religion.”
I cut to the question that was foremost in my mind. “Why are Sunnis and Shia still accusing and killing each other over things that happened hundreds of years ago?” I asked.
“Politics,” he whispered, and smiled. “But you must know that you cannot discuss such things with everybody. There are some who could misunderstand your critical and philosophical mind-set and take it personally.” He asked me when I planned to go to Najaf; I told him I was leaving in two days.
He took out a piece of paper and wrote something on it. “You will go in the morning and come back the same day, right?” he asked. I nodded. He folded the paper and gave it to me. “Whenever you reach a checkpoint, show them this paper.” He then turned to a man who was among the others sitting at the far end of the room. “Hassan, call Najaf, tell them a journalist called Souad Mekhennet will be visiting. She and her team should get any help and support they need.”
I was stunned by how easy it had been, and I thanked him.
“You know what you are doing is dangerous?” he asked. “Even going to Najaf now is dangerous. There could be bombs. Why are you doing it?”
“Because it’s my work.”
“No. You could have become an arts writer, a lawyer, or anything else, but you’re going into the most difficult areas in the Islamic world, risking your life.” He stopped, and I saw that his eyes were wet. He seemed moved. “You have chosen a very hard life. May Allah bring you a man in your life who will be worth your big heart and searching mind. That’s what I am wishing for you.”
I felt a mix of sadness and vulnerability. He had raised questions I myself couldn’t answer. Most of my colleagues were married or at least had steady partners. I had my parents, but that was different. Lots of people also dated in Baghdad. But I wasn’t interested in casual relationships. I felt that I might want to get married to somebody of Arab descent, and I knew that reputation was everything. If my Iraqi translators or drivers got the impression that I was one of these women sneaking around the Hamra Hotel with a man, they would lose all respect for me. I was a German reporter, but in their eyes I was first and foremost an Arab woman.
In the car Abu Aara, Abu Ali, and I read what the sayyid had written: “Souad Mekhennet is a journalist and she is a descendant of the Prophet’s family. As such, she and those with her should receive full protection and be treated with the highest respect.” It was dated and signed and bore his party’s seal.
And it was incredible how well the paper worked. While other reporters had to park their cars far from the Imam Ali mosque, we were allowed to park right in front. All the militiamen and mosque personnel who read the paper went out of their way to help us.