Sheikh Muqtada Sadr
Scholar and Politician
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Sheikh Muqtada Sadr
Scholar and Politician

The son of the late Grand Ayatollah Moham­mad Sadiq Al-Sadr, and son-in-law of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr, Muqtada is a highly influential leader who inherited con­trol over large social institutions that served mil­lions in the slums of Baghdad.

Birth: 4 August 1974 (Age: 50)

Source of Influence: Political

Influence: Political, Social Issues

School of Thought: Shi‘a

Status: Featured in current year

Influence

The son of the late Grand Ayatollah Moham­mad Sadiq Al-Sadr, and son-in-law of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr, Muqtada is a highly influential leader who inherited con­trol over large social institutions that served mil­lions in the slums of Baghdad.

Serving the Poor: He has focussed on serving Iraq’s poor Shia Muslims and has had complete free­dom to work in many parts of Iraq, especially Sadr City, a district in Baghdad named after his father. He provides healthcare and access to food and clean water. He has raised issues of corruption, high unem­ployment and poor government services.

Politics: He gained prominence after the US in­vasion of Iraq by creating the Mahdi Army, an armed insurgency movement that formed its own courts and system of law enforcement. This is now known as Saraya Al-Salam. Through it he has concentrated on campaigning against corruption in Iraq, criticising the government openly about this. He has worked for Shia-Sunni unity, and in 2017 called for Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad to step down, and also met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Power-Broker: The Sadirist-led coalition won 73 seats in the 2021 elections, beating the Iranian backed coalition, but he was unable to form a government and so Sadr withdrew his coalition and stated he would quit politics. There were violent clashes between the supporters of the two coalitions which led to fears of an all-out intra-Shia civil war, but Sadr played a prominent role in preventing this. He still influences policies through his power on the streets. In July 2023, his supporters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on Thursday and set it on fire in protest against the expected burning of a Qur’an in Sweden. This pressured the Iraqi government to expel the Swedish ambassador to Iraq and revoke work permits for Swedish companies