Al-Sistani mixes tradition with modern outlook

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MASHAD, Iran -- The modest mud-brick hut where Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani was born is now a modern home with a doorbell and indoor garage. The narrow dirt alleyway where Iraq's most important Shi'ite Muslim cleric took his first steps has become a busy commercial street with souvenir shops and cheap hotels catering to the pilgrims who descend on the holy tomb of Imam Reza nearby.

And although he adheres to the traditions of a bygone era, Ayatollah al-Sistani today the grand ayatollah in Najaf, Iraq, and the man who many say could make or break Washington's plans for post-Saddam Hussein Iraq also has evolved with the times, adopting a modern outlook for his faith and his multinational, multimillion-dollar organization, say relatives and clerical colleagues in Iran and Iraq.

"It's good for a cleric to know his religion, but if he doesn't understand the world, he won't get far," says Fazel Maybodi, a liberal cleric based in the Iranian seminary city of Qom. "Sistani is familiar with the issues of the world."

The ayatollah showed his central role in Iraq's shaky political transition again yesterday. While lifting his objections to the signing of a new U.S.-backed interim constitution in Baghdad, the Shi'ite cleric cast a new cloud over the signing ceremony by warning bluntly that the document "will lack legitimacy" until it can be ratified by an elected national assembly.

The good-humored, grandfatherly ayatollah's reservations greatly have complicated U.S. plans for a quick turnover of authority in Iraq to a transitional government.

After last week's attacks on Iraqi holy sites that killed at least 180 pilgrims visiting tombs in Iraq, Ayatollah al-Sistani slammed the U.S.-led authority for failing to safeguard Iraq's borders and to train security forces in a rare, direct public statement.

But clerics, relatives and Iraqi leaders who know the ayatollah say he adamantly opposes the kind of direct religious rule that prevails in his native Iran, where clergy exercise control over all aspects of social and political life.

"Not only will he not take part in politics, but he won't allow the other Najaf clergy to take part in politics," said Mohammad Ali Rahbani, a former student now based in Mashad.

Born into a famous clerical family, the 73-year-old ayatollah has devoted his life to theological study. After spending his early years in Mashad and Qom, he settled in Najaf 40 years ago. There he fell under the tutelage of Ayatollah Abul-Qasim Khoei, an advocate of the school of "quietist" Islam in which clerics are urged to refrain from political activity.

The approach was in stark contrast to the militant theology espoused by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who arrived in Najaf in the mid-1960s after he was exiled by the Shah of Iran.