By Marta Wojtowicz
Description: In May 2003, the most widely followed Shīʿī religious authority in Iraq, ʾAlī al-Sīstānī, issued a fatwā regarding the protection of Iraqi antiquities, in the wake of the US military invasion and the widespread looting of archeological sites and museums in Iraq. The intervention is an example of a reasoning based on Islamic law principles used to protect cultural property, including pre-Islamic objects and sites.
Commentary: In April and May 2003, photographs from the vandalized Iraq Museum in Baghdad featured across international media outlets, illustrating the chaos that characterized the early days of the American occupation in Iraq. While the looting of the Iraq Museum was the most spectacular, heavy damages to hundreds of archaeological sites across Iraq had probably more drastic consequences for the preservation of pre-Islamic heritage in the country and historical research.[1]
Imam ʻAlī al-Sīstānī, issued a fatwā mandating the protection of Iraqi antiquities on May 15, 2003, almost a month after the looting had started, following the collapse of the Iraqi state in early April. Approximately 15,000 artifacts had gone missing from the museum overall, according to estimates based on the museum register, with many times this number likely looted from archaeological sites.[2]
In the crisis caused by the collapse of the state, the explicit condemnation of looting activities by the most widely followed marjaʾ[3] in Najaf created a link between the endangered sites and local communities, changing the social meaning of engaging in looting activities. Although the process continued over the early years of occupation and later, the intervention from Najaf has arguably limited the scale of the phenomenon.
An Iraqi antiquities inspector from the southern province of Dhi Qar, Abdulamir al-Hamdani, presented a series of legal questions to the marjʾa.[4] Dhi Qar was one of the most affected areas due to the high number of archaeological sites, with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage lacking resources to provide basic site security.[5] Other provinces with extensive looting were Diwaniya, Babil and Muthanna, all dominated by the Shīʿī population. [6]
Almost all of the sites affected by the looting dated to the pre-Islamic periods of Iraqi history. By 2003, Mesopotamian antiquities had a well-established position on the international art market, with cuneiform tablets presenting a particularly attractive article of illicit trade, both for their small size and a relatively large number of privately-held tablets already in private collections.[7] Illegal trade in Iraqi antiquities had increased between 1994-2002, driven by the deteriorating economic situation resulting from the sanctions.[8] In addition, the demand for Mesopotamian artifacts had been fueled by Saddam Hussain’s interventions in the southern provinces of the country, including massive irrigation and infrastructure projects such as the draining of the southern marshes, which created opportunities for accidental finds of archaeological material.[9][i] Although the security apparatus limited trading in antiquities before 2003, as regulated by the Iraqi Law for the Antiquities and Heritage, the supply was sufficient to establish a demand on the international art market.[10]
The dire economic situation, chaos resulting from the foreign invasion, and the lack of planning by the occupying forces were among of principal drivers of the looting activity which started in April 2003.[11] It was also argued that the US deliberately intended to damage cultural and intellectual potential of the country.[12] However, the lack of cultural connection between the communities and nearby archaeological sites, as well as the association with the fallen regime were also likely contributing to the scale of the crisis.[13] While the archaeological excavations were conducted by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and foreign academic institutions, pre-Islamic history featured prominently in Saddam’s propaganda projects.[14] Therefore, after the collapse of Iraqi state structures, the Mesopotamian heritage largely lacked the connection to values and social institutions unrelated to the former regime. This shortage had likely contributed to the sudden escalation of the looting, with hundreds of sites affected throughout Iraq.[15] In this context, Sistānī’s fatwā proved an authoritative source of moral and social evaluation.[16]
The fatwā does not specify any sources in the Islamic tradition that provide arguments for the protection of museums and archaeological sites against looting, instead Sistānī relies on reasoning in line with the Shīʿī tradition, framing the question of illegal excavations and trading in antiquities in terms of the transfer of ownership.[17] The three addressed questions relate, respectively, to the transfer of antiquities as gifts, a regular sale, and a purchase with the intention of rescue. According to Sistānī, neither giving or selling produces a valid (sahīh) legal effect under the circumstances. Notably, there is no reference to the non-Islamic character of the majority of archaeological artifacts in question.[18]
In the past years, there were several much-publicized instances when pre-Islamic objects and sites were attacked in the name of religious orthodoxy. In 2001, the Taliban infamously destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.[19] After 2014, the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) militants repeatedly advertised the destruction of heritage sites that they deemed idolatrous or unorthodox.[20] Although referring back to the primary sources of Islamic law, a range of their non-religious motivations were discussed in recent literature, stressing the “complicated nature” of the historic iconoclastic tendencies in Islam.[21] For instance, it is argued that the Bamiyan Buddhas were in part targeted due to their cultural role for the Hazara community, themselves Shīʿi Muslims.[22] Meanwhile, the looting of museums and sites in search of marketable artifacts, which was ongoing on a large scale as a source of income during the ISIS occupation in Iraq and Syria, was hardly advertised by the group, lacking the apparent (if disputed) religious justification of iconoclastic attacks.[23]
In 2003 Iraq, the individuals involved in looting had reportedly circulated information that religious authorities had sanctioned trade in antiquities, “especially pre-Islamic ones”, if the money collected was used to “support the insurrection”.[24] There is little evidence that any notable Iraqi religious scholar issued such a fatwā. However, the dissemination of this report highlighted the potentially effective way to influence the crisis and prompted the request for an opinion from Sistānī.
The fatwā on antiquities was one of his first significant interventions following the fall of the Ba’athist state structures, which seemed to have had a broader objective of preserving law and order. As such, it would coincide with the beginning of Sistānī’s more active involvement in public affairs of the country, even more apparent with his role in the process of drafting the constitution, as well as later interventions in the course of the US occupation and the formation of the new state institutions.[25]
Notes:
[1] Milbry Polk & Angela M. H. Schuster, The looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: the lost legacy of ancient Mesopotamia (2005).
[2] Lawrence Rothfield, The rape of Mesopotamia:behind the looting of the Iraq Museum 116 (2009).
[3] Hamid Dabashi & Joyce N. Wiley, Marjaʿ al-Taqlīd The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/opr/t236/e0505.
[4] Abdulamir al-Hamdani, Protecting and Recording our Archaeological Heritage in Southern Iraq, 71 Near Eastern Archaeology 221–230, 224 (2008).
[5] Raymond Baker, Shereen Ismael & Tareq Ismael, Ending the Iraqi State, in Cultural cleansing in Iraq: why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered 3–48, 28 (Raymond Baker, Shereen Ismael, & Tareq Ismael eds., 2010).
[6] Abbas al-Hussainy, Current Status of Archaeological Heritage in Iraq, in Cultural cleansing in Iraq: why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered 82–92, 86–87 (Raymond William Baker, Shereen T. Ismael, & Tareq Y. Ismael eds., 2010).
[7] McGuire Gibson, Fate of Iraqi Archaeology, 299 Science 1848–1849, 1848 (2003), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3833855 (last visited Nov 12, 2018).
[8] Friedrich T. Schipper, The Protection and Preservation of Iraq’s Archaeological Heritage, Spring 1991-2003, 109 American Journal of Archaeology 251–272, 252 (2005), http://www.jstor.org/stable/40024511 (last visited Nov 14, 2018).
[9] al-Hamdani, supra note 4 at 229.
[10] Friedrich T. Schipper, The Protection and Preservation of Iraq’s Archaeological Heritage, Spring 1991-2003, 109 American Journal of Archaeology 251–272, 252 (2005), http://www.jstor.org/stable/40024511 (last visited Nov 14, 2018).
[11] Micah Garen & Marie-Helene Carleton, Erasing the Past: Looting of Archaeological Sites in Southern Iraq, in The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia 15–19, 17 (Milbry Polk & Angela M. H. Schuster eds., 2005).
[12] Raymond Baker, Shereen Ismael & Tareq Ismael, Ending the Iraqi State, in Cultural cleansing in Iraq: why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered 3–48, 25 (Raymond Baker, Shereen Ismael, & Tareq Ismael eds., 2010); Zainab Bahrani, Archaeology and the Strategies of War, in Cultural cleansing in Iraq: why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered 67–81, 70 (Raymond William Baker, Shereen T. Ismael, & Tareq Y. Ismael eds., 2010).
[13] Abdulamir al-Hamdani, Protecting and Recording our Archaeological Heritage in Southern Iraq, 71 Near Eastern Archaeology 221–230, 222 (2008).
[14] Amatzia Baram, Mesopotamian Identity in Ba’thi Iraq, 19 Middle Eastern Studies 426–455 (1983), http://www.jstor.org/stable/4282964 (last visited Dec 2, 2018).
[15] al-Hamdani, supra note 13.
[16] Morag M. Kersel, A focus on the demand side of the antiquities equation, 71 Near Eastern Archaeology 230–233, 231 (2008).
[17] I am indebted to Aaron Spevack for his comments on the fatwā and its relation to the Islamic law principles in regard to the transfer of property.
[18]In another intervention related to the antiquities market, Sīstānī opined on commercial transactions regarding objects of religious importance, such as rare copies of the Qurʾān: ʾAlī al-Sīstānī, Istaftāʾāt: biyʾa al-āthar, https://www.sistani.org/arabic/qa/0359/ [https://perma.cc/3S38-ZTKN].
[19] Marina Lostal, International cultural heritage law in armed conflict: case-studies of Syria, Libya, Mali, the invasion of Iraq, and the Buddhas of Bamiyan 157–160 (2017).
[20] Earl Lane, Scientists work to save antiquities from Islamic State destruction, 350 Science 1485–1486 (2015), http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6267/1485 (last visited Dec 3, 2018).
[21] Finbarr Barry Flood, Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum, 84 The Art Bulletin 641–659, 641 (2002), https://caa.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00043079.2002.10787045 (last visited Dec 4, 2018).
[22] Said Reza “Husseini,” Destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas, Taliban Iconoclasm and Hazara Response, 16 Himalayan and Central Asian Studies 15–50, 16 (2012).
[23] Patty Gerstenblith, The destruction of cultural heritage: a crime against property or a crime against people?, 15 The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law 336–393, 360 (2016).
[24] al-Hamdani, supra note 13 at 224.
[25] Caroleen Marji Sayej, Patriotic ayatollahs: nationalism in post-Saddam Iraq (2018).
[i] Abbas al-Hussainy, Current Status of Archaeological Heritage in Iraq, in Cultural cleansing in Iraq: why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered 82–92, 83 (Raymond William Baker, Shereen T. Ismael, & Tareq Y. Ismael eds., 2010).