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As promised, a piece summarizing some aspects of my dissertation research kindly published by @IraqiThoughts ... with a thread below on some additional details, elaborating and grounding the piece: https://1001iraqithoughts.com/2020/06/24/the-hawza-in-protest-what-1920-teaches-us-about-2020/
Where is my data from? I rely on interviews ( & “non-participant” obs.) with clerics (in Kerbala, Najaf, & Baghdad), protestors & opposition actors. I also rely on biographical dictionaries, the Ba’ath party archives, some Najaf archives, @ArabBarometer & event data ( @Benrobinz )
I have three case chapters: 1917 & 1920 (colonial), 1977 & 1979 (Baathist, pre & post Saddam and also bordering Iranian Revolution) and 2017-2020 (with different data going towards different chapters)...
What is common across all cases is mediation by the highest elites of the religious establishment when protests hit a tipping point (e.g when they become huge or violent). Different ideologies doesn’t fully explain this. Nor does regime type.
Event data from @Benrobinz & text analysis of Friday sermons from Kerbala from 2017 to 2020 show that in Friday’s following a protest in southern Iraq, marjayya more likely to discuss topics w/ key words: “unemployment” & “ignorance” & less likely to discuss familial affairs
Interesting however- there is very little rhetoric of overcoming oppression during protest time (e.g. “Kerbala” & “tyrant” statistically insignificant) I will share the actual graphics in August for those interested but suffice it to say, no instigation here
Data from all three chapters also suggests that elite clerics aren’t opportunistic leaders of protest (ya3ni, they don’t take over when it looks potentially successful at accomplishing its goals ) see: Shirazi in 1920 and Khoei in 1991.
In addition, when you look at all elites (including advanced students) from 1910+, participation in politics is not the norm (taking a very general definition to include; being a judge or working for an opposition newspaper)
Fun fact: Lebanese students in Najaf frequently ended up being judges in 
& were also frequently those who sought formal education in Islam as well as the Hawza
& were also frequently those who sought formal education in Islam as well as the Hawza
Hawza of Najaf was mostly Iranian students up until Grand Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim’s time who tried to bring in more Iraqis (according to various internal Hawza sources )
Entire seminaries were devoted to students from particular countries (madrasat al-amiliyeen for those form Jabal Amel, for example) today tho there are international seminaries with students from all over the world
That being said, the Hawza’s numbers have skyrocketed since 2003 with an estimated 15-20k students today. What’s lesser known is that the faith campaign launched by Saddam Hussein also had an impact on the Hawza’s Iraqi numbers
In the 1990s & as Samuel Helfont’s book on the archives show us - there was more space to join religious institutions, including the Hawza. This was confirmed to me by young Hawza clerics who had previously been discouraged by their families in the 80s
As @DrAbbasKadhim ‘s classic work on the Ba’ath archives shows, there was a genuine desire to co-opt the Hawza & groom an Arab marja’a (head of the religious establishment)...
This desire coincided with the Iran-Iraq war & a bloody anti-clerical & anti-Iraqi-of-Iranian origin campaign in the 1980s... in which 1000s were imprisoned, executed, or exiled. This experience shapes political views of many older clerics today
Specifically it impacts how they view democratization potential... Most older generation elite clerics vote, for example. Most also view the marjayya as a political “safety valve.” There is some generational difference in political views amongst clerics...
In the 1970s, there were direct & indirect govt attempts to clamp down on Shia practices - particularly the pilgrimages - for fear of mobilization. The 1977 uprising was a result of attempting to suppress a pilgrimage.
Despite these pilgrimages having clear religious roots & originating from the holy cities - they didn’t often include the involvement of clerics (who actually had other duties to perform during the religious holidays away from protest sites)
During other protest movements in Iraqi history that were more nationally representative & cross sectarian (1920& today) - Hawza elites are still unlikely to instigate and are much more likely to push for “avoiding chaos” & maintaining “law and order”
I’m eager to learn how unique the Hawza is in its protest behavior. My theory is that all clerics are driven by institutional motivations and constraints. The expansion of my work will look at other religious institutions in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon beyond Shiism.
I’ll keep it to this for now. Thank you for reading and do let me know if you’re interested in future threads on the details of different historical protest movements, the Hawza’s contemporary challenges, or anything else! Did lots of research & excited to share with everyone.
P.s. Iraqis: any recs for where to publish summaries of findings / analysis in Arabic? Don’t want this to be confined to an English-Speaking audience 
