Pope Francis’s overtures to Middle Eastern governments and religious leaders are an attempt to use the biblical patriarch Abraham to bridge sectarian and political boundaries in a region torn by religious violence.
Iraqi President Barhim Salih heralded the Pope’s arrival in Baghdad last week as “an historic opportunity and occasion to reaffirm the values of love, peace, coexistence, acceptance of others.” Salih’s rhetoric suited the pope’s itinerary, playing on the theme of his attendance at an interfaith meeting hosted by the United Arab Emirates, one of the major Sunni Arab powers.
Thus, the pope has made a pair of historic overtures to the chief traditions of the Islamic world, with Abraham (known to Muslims as Ibrahim and identified in the Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic scriptures alike as a “friend” of God) emerging as a name under which the disparate victims of Islamist violence might unite.
“We, the grandchildren of the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him), the followers of the heavenly religions, Iraqis and others, cannot allow terrorism and extremism to be practiced in the name of religion,” Salih said. “We cannot accept oppression. Iraq deserves better, and it deserves a bright future for its people.”
The Washington Institute’s Bilal Wahab called the pope’s tactics “rather new, at least in the Iraqi religious discourse.”
“By bringing up Abraham, the way that it impacts interfaith dialogue in Iraq is that it finds a common denominator,” the Iraqi politics analyst said. “If you go back to Abraham, then you’re automatically predating your relationship back to an era when you agreed, not to where your differences are.”
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The pope’s trip was structured to endow that message with credibility for Muslims and the dwindling Iraqi Christian population. He made an unprecedented trek to meet the world’s most respected Shiite cleric in the sacred city of Najaf, followed by a pilgrimage to the putative birthplace of Abraham and a visit to the ancient city of Mosul, which is ravaged and still in ruins after a haunting period as the co-capital of the Islamic State.
“The Grand Ayatollah Sistani talked about injustice, oppression, poverty, religious and intellectual persecution, the suppression of fundamental freedoms, and the lack of social justice that different countries suffer from,” Sistani’s office said after the meeting in a bulletin that emphasized “the role that religious authorities have played in supporting [Christians] and others involved in the events in recent years, especially during the time when terrorists occupied large areas of several Iraqi provinces and committed shameful criminal acts.”
Analysts caution against overestimating Sistani’s power to curb the violence. “The main drivers for violence are basically looting and predation,” Wahab said. “I don’t think the papal visit changed the core incentive structure for violence. It pays more to be in a militia than to be working for a company.”
The encounter in Najaf between the black-robed ayatollah and the pontiff, decked in white with gold tassels, carried subtle significance for neighboring Iran’s bid to dominate Iraq. Ayatollah Ali Khomeini established an Iranian regime in which a Shiite clerical elite wield both political and religious power — in defiance of the teachings regnant in Najaf, where Sistani and his brethren preach a “quietist” doctrine that supports a “civil state” that is not ruled by religious leaders.
The pope traversed this fault line in the Shiite world en route to the birthplace of Abraham, in the Iraqi region identified with the biblical land of Ur. Sistani’s position is challenged indirectly by certain Shiite militias that take direction from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — the “ideological custodian” of the revolution, entrepreneurial in its effort to establish militias in neighboring countries that gradually pressure the government to align with Tehran’s theopolitical vision.
And yet, the Iranian proxies revealed their unease about his Abrahamic mission. “There’s a conspiracy in Ur city under the facade of interfaith dialogue,” a prominent Iran-backed militia group warned before the pope arrived.
Iranian loyalists believe they have good reason to be wary about Sistani and the pope, given the Shiite leader’s popularity in Iran and the rest of the societies where Tehran seeks political and theological influence.
“For Iraq, it is a recognition of the pivotal role the country can play in building bridges across the region,” said Jawad al Khoei, the grandson of the late ayatollah who mentored Sistani in his quietist tradition. “For Najaf, it will undoubtedly strengthen interfaith dialogue and support the peaceful voices who, despite all the violence around them, continue to work on social cohesion.”
Emirati officials regard the Abrahamic emphasis in the pope’s trip to Iraq as a corollary to his visit to Abu Dhabi, where he signed a “Document of Human Fraternity” with a prominent Sunni Egyptian cleric.
“The document was a message to the world that dialogue between religions and tolerance, social and cultural diversity were our choice and the choice for humanity,” UAE Minister of Culture and Youth Noura al Kaabi wrote this week in a pan-Arab publication. It was the strong human response to the ideology of darkness and terrorism that fuels conflicts between man.”
The pope’s 2019 trip to the UAE presaged a plan to build an Abrahamic Family House, a thrice-religious establishment to house “a mosque, church, synagogue, and educational center” in Abu Dhabi. In Baghdad, Salih said that a plan to build a House of Abraham for Religious Dialogue “will be pursued.” And UAE officials are working with United Nations cultural agency to “revive the spirit of Mosul” by restoring Islamic and Christian landmarks.
UAE officials regard the regime in Tehran as an enemy, such that a shared sense of vulnerability to Iran threw Israeli and leaders of the Gulf Arab state into each other’s arms — under a historic normalization agreement known as the Abraham Accords. Yet, neither they nor their critics describe their promotion of religious pluralism, in the name of Abraham, as a counter-Iran tactic. The culture minister touted the “human fraternity” document as an expression of hope that “humans can become partners in progress, not conflicts, wars, and hatred.”
And yet, it is a testament to the complexity of the theological and political crosscurrents in the Middle East that the same language of Abrahamic pluralism that contradicts Iran’s revolutionary authoritarianism proves convenient for a hereditary aristocracy that places “significant restrictions” on the civil and political rights of their citizens, as Freedom House observes. Emirati leaders fear that religious liberty would generate political power for the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist organization that favors democracy despite tracing its ideology to Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian teacher who commands respect among Sunni terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and the Shiite Iranian revolutionaries who rule in Tehran.
“They are comfortable with some degree of religious pluralism, but not political pluralism, where you might argue the Muslim Brotherhood is more comfortable with political pluralism and less comfortable with religious pluralism,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Shadi Hamid said. “In the religious pluralism that the UAE has in mind, they never include clerics who are critical of the regime. … The UAE is comfortable with apolitical religious discourse.”
Hamid acknowledges uncertainty about how the Muslim Brotherhood would wield power if afforded the opportunity, though he disagrees with the Gulf Arab contention that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group, as the UAE maintains, determined to establish a dangerous Islamist state.
“I think there would be a basic temptation to move in that direction, not so much because they’re Muslim Brotherhood but because they’re human,” Hamid allowed. “The suspicion is that they haven’t fully absorbed these [democratic] ideals, [even though] they can talk about them and maybe see the appeal.”
That temptation grows more powerful in a “high stakes” political context, he suggested. That’s a problem that besets the stability of the Iraqi state, as well, and leaves even observers moved by the pope’s visit skeptical that the “Abrahamic” project will engender peace and stability between peoples.
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“It’s easier to capture a ministry through violence than to win it through elections, and it’s easier to win an election through violence than it is to win it through policy and ideas,” Wahab said. “A papal visit doesn’t really change all those structural issues that drive violence in Iraq. So, I’m cynical about the impact, but I’m hopeful of this opportunity being invested into laws, institutions, and perhaps … a more serious dialogue, a more serious conversation.”
