“As we approach the season of the Nobel Peace Prize, I would like to nominate the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for this year’s medal. I’m serious,” claims The New York Times’ columnist  Thomas L. Friedman, writing about the accomplishments of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most prominent Shiite cleric in Iraq.

Friedman cites three main reasons that al-Sistani has contributed to the democratization of Iraq and, more broadly, the Middle East: al-Sistani has advocated a political strategy and vision of Iraq that has centered on positively and proactively focusing on the lives of Iraqis without resorting to defaming other movements or individuals; he has encouraged Iraqi voters, and not elite or self-appointed clerics, to have the commanding voice in post-occupation in Iraq; most importantly, in Friedman’s view, al-Sistani supports an understanding of Islam that is amenable to democracy. As Friedman characterizes it, in al-Sistani’s view, politics may be infused with Islamic values, but clerics will not be the dominant political force.

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s most recent and most visible political role in reforming Iraq from beneath the rubble was to encourage his Shia followers to vote in the January 30th elections, whereas some Sunni organizations demanded that potential voters boycott the elections. Voter turnout was a staggeringly low 2 percent in some predominantly Sunni areas, as voters boycotted the elections or were intimated away from the voting booths by rampant violence.

Mimi Hanaoka