Al Sadr
{Americans are so used to single issue plot lines, the way no two characters on TV have the same name, or when two people in a movie look alike it's because it's part of the story. So it's going to be easy for Imam Moussa Al Sadr, the martyred hero of present-day Lebanon, to be absorbed into the expanding reputation of Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr. Who the news media consistently call a young 'cleric'. Al-Sadr's father was an important ayatollah, also called al-Sadr, who was assassinated in 1999, presumably by Saddam Hussein's regime:
'Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr, age 66, was killed in February 1999 along with two of his sons. Former UN Commission Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Iraq, Max Van Der Stoel, sent a letter in 1999 to the Baath Government expressing his concern that the killings might be part of an organized attack by the Baath Government against the independent leadership of the Shi�a community. The Baath Government did not respond to Van Der Stoel�s inquiries.
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The al-Sadr killing intensified Shi�a anger at the ruling Sunni minority and led to more severe government repression of the Shi�a. The Shi'a resistance also took the form of bolder actions against the regime, including hand grenade and rocket attacks on security headquarters, Ba�ath Party offices, and presidential residences in Baghdad, as well as small arms attacks in many parts of the capital. The al-Amin, Nuwab ad-Dubbat, and al-Nafth districts of Baghdad reportedly have remained in a heightened state of alert every Friday since al-Sadr�s death.'
�Global Security.org
Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr is what could be called a 'firebrand'. He's barely 30, a proven leader, and is considered by some of his followers to be the Arab messiah, the Mahdi. He's easily the most dangerous man in Iraq, now that Donald Rumsfeld's left.}
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Imam Moussa Al Sadr was born in Iran in 1928 into a family whose roots are Lebanese. He studied in Iran and Iraq before going to Lebanon in 1959, when he was in his early twenties.
"...Science has committed no sin save the discovery of the truth. A man of faith who opposes science and is threatened by it should revise his own views and doubt them. Fearing the truth means nothing but that he is afraid of the encounter of his religion with realities, while true belief, in fact, causes a scientific renaissance."{He disappeared in Libya, in 1978, while trying to negotiate an end to the war in Lebanon. He was a man of peace, like Jesus, like Martin Luther King, and as such, probably the most dangerous man in the Middle East.}
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He worked hard to put an end to the war in Lebanon, he went on a hunger strike in opposition to the ongoing war '�arms build neither human beings nor nations�.' He opposed force for sake of political and social changes and politicians who exploited religion. He believed in solving all issues by reason and dialogue.
�Imam Sayyed Moussa Al-Sadr Center
Imam Al-Sadr Foundation
