Iraqi Sunnis warn of ‘religious tumult’ in Samarra

Sectarian violence looms between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq over the renaming of a Sunni mosque by the administration of the Shiite Al-Askari Holy Shrine in the city of Samarra in Saladin governorate, which has a Sunni majority.

The Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars accused the General Authority of the Shiite Al-Askari Shrine of seizing the 9th-century Great Mosque of Samarra and the school associated with it and changing the mosque’s name to “Saheb Al-Amr” under the pretext of restoring the mosque’s dome.

It “is another dangerous step in the project of systematic seizure of Islamic endowments in Iraq, and the imposition of sectarian tutelage with the power of military force,” the association said, adding, “The Great Mosque of Samarra and the Scientific School, which are an Islamic endowment that expresses the identity of the city, were subjected to gradual steps of closure and confinement, starting with the bombing of the al-Askarian shrine next to them in February 2006, and continuing with the second bombing the following year.”

Furthermore, the Iraqi Alliance of Sovereignty described the “unprecedented and unwise” change of the mosque as a “demographic change” with the aim of making a disturbance among components of the Iraqi people. The Alliance called upon Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al-Sudani to urgently put an end to “attempts of inciting tumult.”

The Sunni Endowment Office denounced the change of the name after being inaugurated by the Shiite side, saying that the endowments that are affiliated to the Sunni office are being “openly assaulted over the past years without accountability or supervision.”

Meanwhile, neither the Shiite Endowment Office nor Al-Askari Holy Shrine published a statement regarding their decision of renaming the mosque.

The head of the Iraqi parliament’s Endowments and Clans Committee, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, described the change of the name and ownership of the Great Mosque of Samarra as an “illegal procedure and a violation of custom and Sharia rule, as it is an endowment and its historical school belongs to the Shafi'i school, one of the main four Sunni jurists in Islam,” Baghdad Today reported on March 7.

In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi Ministry of Endowments changed into several separated offices that independently run the affairs of Sunni, Shiite, and Christian religious sites, besides other offices for the religious minorities. 

The Sunni city of Samarra, which was built by Caliph al-Mu’tasim in the Abbasid Empire, hosts the two famous shrines of the Shiite Imam Ali al-Hadi [the 10th Imam for Shiites] and Imam Hasan al-Askari [the 11th Imam], besides other Shiite shrines. After the 2006 bombings of the two holy shrines, they came under the administration of Al-Askari Holy Shrine affiliated with the Shiite Endowment Office. However, the Great Mosque, which is located in the vicinity of the two shrines, comes under the administration of the Sunni Endowment Office.

“The current economic and political situation does not allow the Iraqis themselves to create any other strife, but there are outside hands,” Abdel-Halim Mahgoub, an Egyptian expert in Iraqi affairs, told Jusoor Post.

Mahgoub added that Iran has the strongest influence in Iraq despite other international efforts, like Egyptian-Iraqi attempts to steer Iraq in another direction away from Iran.

“Whatever happens in Iraq, it is not Iraqi-Iraqi. However, if Iran wants to fuel the situation in a way that serves its interests, it will fuel it,” whether through targeting the mosque or something else, he noted, adding that “the situation is detonable.”