Al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr: Difference between revisions

'''Al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Ṣādiq al-Ṣadr''' (Arabic: {{ia|سید محمد بن محمدصادق الصد}}) (b. [[1362]]/1943 d. [[1419]]/1999) was a [[Shiite]] authority in [[Iraq]] in the 14th/[[20th century]]. He was an opponent of [[Saddam]]’s government.

Sayyid Muhammad’s father, [[Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr]] was a Shiite clergy. His maternal grandfather was [[Shaykh Muhammad Rida Al Yasin]]. Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was his cousin.

Sayyid Muhammad Sadr married the daughter of his father’s brother, and they had 2 daughters and 4 sons. All of his sons were clergymen, and 3 of his sons were Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr’s sons in laws. Two of his sons, Mustafa and Mu'ammal, were martyred together with their father in 1377/1999. [[Muqtada al-Sadr]], the leader of [[Jaysh al-Mahdi]] in Iraq, and Murtada are his two other sons.

Sayyid Muhammad Sadr was born on [[Rabi' al-Awwal]] 17, 1362 (March 24, 1943). It is said that his mother could not get pregnant at first. She [[nadhr|vowed]] to call her son “Muhammad” if she had a son. The similarity of his name (Muhammad) with his father’s (Muhammad Sadiq) led to him being sometimes called “Muhammad Sadiq Sadr”.

* Reviving mourning ceremonies of [[Imam al-Husayn (a)]] and other [[Shiite Imams (a)]] after they were forbidden by Saddam’s Ba'ath regime. He recited elegies at the [[martyrdom]] anniversary of [[Amir al-Mu'minin (a)]] on the [[minbar]] of the [[Kufa Mosque]].

Sadr was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned by the Ba'ath government of Iraq. He was first imprisoned in 1351SH/1972. In 1353SH/1974, he was imprisoned for the second time together with 150 students of Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Sadr and members of [[Hizb al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya]] (Islamic Da'wa Party). In 1370SH/1991, after [[al-Intifada al-Sha'baniyya]], he was imprisoned because of his cultural activities and speeches against the Ba'ath government together with 106 other people. However, after the events of 1991, the Ba'ath government of Iraq introduced him as the official authority of Iraqi Shi'as and appointed him as the administrator of the Shiite Seminary of Najaf. When he accepted the Shiite authority, he was criticized by many people who accused him of having relations with the Ba'ath government. Some others maintain that he turned the military movement of Intifada into a reformist movement in Iraq, which was encouraged by [[Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadl Allah]] and welcomed by Saddam’s regime.

In the second half of 1377SH/1999, Ayatollah Sadr’s attitude changed and he started criticizing the Ba'ath government. He harshly criticized the regime in his sermons at Friday Prayers. He attended Friday Prayers with shrouds, refused to pray for Saddam in his sermons, and tried to revive some Shiite ceremonies on Sha'ban 15.

Most of Sadr’s writings and lecture notes are concerned with fiqh and usul al-fiqh. He has an eclectic approach to fiqh. On the one hand, his fiqh is traditional, and on the other hand, it is directed at the needs of contemporary human beings. Sadr has written work regarding [[demonstrative fiqh]] as well as fatwas, and has written commentaries on his own earlier work in fiqh.

Some of Sadr’s works are notes from his teachers’ lectures concerning fiqh and usul al-fiqh or notes written by his students from his own lectures or work written by himself. Some of his works are his lecture notes edited by researchers of “Mu'assisa al-Muntazar li Ihya' Athar Al al-Sadr” in [[Qom]]. Here are some of his works:

[[Noor Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences]] has provided a software version of the work of Sayyid Muhammad Sadr under “The Heritage of Ayatollah al-'Uzma al-Sayyid al-Shahid Muhammad al-Sadr” at the request of Mu'assisa al-Muntazar li Ihua' Turath Al al-Sadr (al-Muntazar Institute for the Revival of the Heritage of al-Sadr Family). The software contains the full texts of 62 books in 98 volumes by Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr in Arabic, Persian, and English regarding the exegesis of the Quran and Quranic sciences, ethics, principles of beliefs, Mahdawiyya, history, rulings of sharia, usul al-fiqh, fiqh, law, family, poetry, and physics. It also contains audio files of al-Sadr’s lectures and speeches.