Author name:
حميد سيلاوي لفتة المالكي
Supervisor name:
ياسين طه ياسين الهارون
Abstract:
Studying secular, intellectual and political personalities is important to remove ambiguity in historical studies on one hand and to investigate the roles those personalities play to make history on the other hand. Modern and contemporary history of Iraq witnessed appearance of too many personalities who played that role and who were concerned to help and awaken their people, to find the suitable solutions by examining the events and realities, to benefit from the experience of others and to encourage thinking in the different aspects of life to achieve those objectives. It is important to study the social, political and intellectual aspects of life of Mohammad Mahdi Al - Sewaich who was bold enough to tell the truth and the false without fear or flattery to any side both during the royal and the republican eras in Iraq. He preferred the public interest and not his own one. He was a well - known orator, not only in Iraq but also in all the Islamic world. He was particularly genius and distinguished by his varied intellectual production in all religious and non - religious sciences so as to treat retardation and failure in social, cultural and political issues in the Islamic world in general Consequently, he had his own influence on the Youth who were looking forward to a one unified state. The researcher chose 1941 as the start of the time under study because it was the year of Al - Sewaich's appearance on the Iraqi, regional and international arena particularly in his reforms and social activities like opening libraries and associations, lecturing in religious occasions… etc. On the other hand, 2002 was chosen as the end of the time under study because at that year, Al - Sewaich isolated himself from people and started writing his books until he died in Syria in 2002. The study attempts to answer the following : To what extent did the public situation in Iraq in general and Basrah in particular lead to appearance of Al - Sewaich on the arena? Were his different cultural and intellectual abilities able to change and reform the society? Why did he transform his social and intellectual reforms from Iraq to other Arab and foreign countries? Was he able overcome the difficulties he faced from the royal and republican regimes in Iraq? Was he obliged to transform his activities to other countries and was he successful to do this? The social, political and intellectual activities of Mohammad Mahdi Al - Sewaich were not academically and independently studies niether inside or outside Iraq. Furthermore, this personality was not (if not very rarely) mentioned in the academic studies that studied the clergymen in karbala and Najaf. Besides, there was no mentioning of his activities when talking about activities of other clergymen. The reason, as the researcher thinks was the special nature of the personality of Al - Sewaich who did not want to show himself and because he was busy to build himself without help of others whether socially, intellectually or economically. That put him in a Kind of isolation away of suspicion and duplicity. The study consists of an introduction, four chapters and conclusion. Chapter one studies the scientific and social upbringing of Mohammad Mahdi Al - Sewaich. It sheds light on his family, Kinship, sources of thinking, teachers, students and different works in philology, Quran commentary, history, literature, poetry… etc. Chapter two discusses his social role and activities that were represented by his reforms and travels to study and spread Islam as a preacher and orator. He went to India and Pakistan for this purpose and to Egypt to complete his study of religion. He had a special role to spread teachings of prophet Mohammad's Kins (Peace be upon them), to urge to maintain the Islamic unity and to reject sectarian conflict. He also travelled to Bahrain to teach religion, to preach and to start Hussaini mourning assemblies. He was also active in other different social aspect inside and outside Iraq and that was represented by his role in Iraqi Writers Association in Basrah and Orphan Care Association, in his opening libraries, arranging ceremonies, lecturing, teaching in courses in addition to his encouragement to sport, acting and other social activities. He was behind conversion of many foreigners to Islami causes. Chapter three highlights his political role inside and outside Iraq during the royal and republican eras. It tackles his attitude towards the different political ideas and trends of the communists, the nationalists, the socialists and the sectarians as well as his position of the regional political and military developments of the Iranian Revolution 1979, the Iraqi opposition outside Iraq, the triple aggression on Egypt in 1956, Arab - Israeli war in 1967, First Gulf war 1980 - 1988, Second Gulf war 1991 and the economic sanction on Iraq. Chapter four discusses his intellectual role and achievements in Islamic thinking and Quran commentary, doctrines and rules, Hussain's Renaissance, moderation, compromising and his jurisprudence, his views and opinions of Islamic approaches and trends like Al - Bahism, Qadianism, Sheikhism and his refuting wahabism in addition to his position of the different Islamic creeds, his style and his speeches. He was a spiritualist, a philosopher, a poet and a historian. He wrote in Iraqi and Arab newspapers and journals about different scientific and human topics. The conclusion is devoted to show the most important results arrived at by the researcher. The conclusion reflects his social, political and intellectual role inside and outside Iraq where he practiced his different activities. Finally, the researcher hopes that this humble effort of him achieves his aim of contributing something to the Iraqi and Arabic library to study prominent personalities and particularly this Basri one.
