written a letter to al-Khui and had sought a clarification of his position on the right to governance for a marja al-taqlid. In accordance with his view of the quietist role for the jurist, restricted to providing religious and moral guidance to the community, he argued that there was no documentary evidence, in the well-attestedjuridical sources, to support Khomeinis interpretation of a constitutional role for a jurist in a modem nation-state. In fact, he firmly believed that Shiite men of religion should keep away from state affairs in which they have to compromise with political powers in matters over which they have little control. Moreover, although fully aware of the success of some prominent members of the religious class in combating Communist influences among educated Shiites in Iraq in the ١٩٤٠s and ١٩٥٠s, al-Khui was also aware of the dangers of political activism under the increasingly authoritarian regime in Baghdad. Many of the militant Communists of the ١٩٥٠s were sons and relatives of men in the lower ranks of the religious class, who had suffered a decline in prestige and prosperity because of the new and remote economic and political forces that were transforming the shape of Iraqi commerce and industry. ١٠ The Communist uprisings of the ١٩٥٠s thus coincided with the declining role of the Shiite men of religion, whose appeal to the common people to abide by the commands of religion had no effect on either the Communists or the Nationalists, influenced as they were by modem secularideologies. ١١
In other words, al-Khur: in line with long tradition among senior ayatollahs in
Najaf, advocated a limited role for the marja al-taqlid in the area of spiritual-moral guidance, a role resembling that of the politically quietist leadership of the Shiite Imams under various de facto Sunni governments in the classical age (ninth-eleventh centuries). Avoiding politics was not just a prudent way of surviving the unpredict‌able behavior of the political actors in the region; it was a religious and a moral ob‌ ligation to keep Islam and Muslims safe from the factional entanglement of the tur‌bulent Middle East politics.
In the ١٩٥٠s and ١٩٦٠s, Islamic education and the leadership it had nurtured in the past in Iraq became considerably enfeebled. Increasing numbers of young stu‌dents in the seminaries, dissatisfied with the intellectually impoverished and socially irrelevant traditional curriculum, abandoned Najaf to pursue modem education and to acquaint themselves with modem thinking in the universities. Meanwhile, in spite of the economic prominence of many Shiites, the vast majority remained economi‌cally underprivileged, even as the influence of religious leaders dwindled. The Shiites suffered the hardships attendant on their lot as the "poorest of the poor."١٢
In the early ١٩٧٠s, a new generation of activist and militant Shiite organizations and leaders emerged in response to this situation. Their initial raison detre was the development and implementation of programs by which social and economic hardships could be eased. ١٣ The rise of these groups followed a period in which Aya‌tollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr promulgated his activist interpretation of the Shiite ideals of justice and equity among learned scholars, as well as lay believers. In the early ١٩٧٠s, al-Sadr and his disciples interpreted sacred Shiite history in such a way as to mobilize the Shiite masses to form and join socially and politically activist Shiite organizations such as al-dawa al-islamiyya (the Islamic Call) and al-Mujahidin (the Islamic Fighters).١٤ Most of the prominent mujtahids, however, remained bound to the traditional restraints of Shrism that required them to maintain their probity by shunning politics.