Michigan Shi'ite Muslims mourn Iraqi leaders death
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
Memorials are planned for tonight and Friday in Dearborn as local Shiite Muslims mourn the death of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, an Iraqi religious and political leader who is well-known in metro Detroits Shiite communities.
Hakim, who once headed Iraqs biggest political party, visited Michigan in December 2006, speaking at local Lebanese Shiite, Iraqi and Chaldean centers after meeting with then President George W. Bush. Hakim, 59, died Wednesday.
s a great loss, said Imam Husham Al-Husainy, head of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn. s very sad. People are crying and coming into the center.
Hundreds are expected to attend the services at the Karbalaa center in Dearborn. And many are watching the funeral services in Iran on satellite TV
stations, Al-Husainy said.
Hakim was head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, formerly known as SCIRI, Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He hailed from a prominent Shiite family of scholars and teachers.
Hakim was a prominent supporter of the Iraq war and met often with U.S. leaders.
Al-Husainy compared the death of Hakim to the death this week of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, in that both came from noted political families.
As the Kennedy family is to America the Hakim family is to Iraq, Al-Husainy said.
Many of Hakims family members were killed by the former regime of Saddam Hussein, and he spent his life trying to win freedom for Iraqis, Al-Husainy said.
In metro Detroit, Shiites of Iraqi descent admired him, as did Lebanese-American Shiites.
In December 2006, Hakim spoke to Shiite Muslims at Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn, a hall named after a town in southern Lebanon largely populated by Shi'ite Muslims.
He told the crowd that Al Qaeda and remnants of the former regime of Saddam Hussein are behind the terrorist violence in Iraq.
It's not the Shi'ites doing this, Hakim said through a translator. It's not the Sunnis doing this. It's the terrorists, the outsiders.
Hakim also spoke to Chaldeans, Iraqi Catholics, in Southfield and West Bloomfield, and at the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn.
Hakim stressed religious and ethnic unity in his talk, noting that Shi'ites, Sunnis, Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen and
Christians have long lived together in Iraq.
The recent violence between the groups is an aberration -- not the historical norm -- he said.
We have nothing against each other, Hakim said. We go back hundreds of years, living together.s son, Amar al-Hakim, viewed as a popular successor, also visited metro Detroit, speaking at local centers in August 2005. And decades ago, Hakims
older brother, Mahdi Al-Hakim, also visited metro Detroit, meeting with local imams, Al-Husainy recalled.
Similar posts: military dating sites