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Samuel Helfont

Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq Hardcover – Unabridged, April 23, 2018

by Samuel Helfont (Author)

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Samuel Helfont draws on extensive research with Ba'thist archives to investigate the roots of the religious insurgencies that erupted in Iraq following the American-led invasion in 2003. In looking at Saddam Hussein's policies in the 1990s, many have interpreted his support for state-sponsored religion as evidence of a dramatic shift away from Arab nationalism toward political Islam. While Islam did play a greater role in the regime's symbols and Saddam's statements in the 1990s than it had in earlier decades, the regime's internal documents challenge this theory.

The "Faith Campaign" Saddam launched during this period was the culmination of a plan to use religion for political ends, begun upon his assumption of the Iraqi presidency in 1979. At this time, Saddam began constructing the institutional capacity to control and monitor Iraqi religious institutions. The resulting authoritarian structures allowed him to employ Islamic symbols and rhetoric in public policy, but in a controlled manner. Saddam ultimately promoted a Ba'thist interpretation of religion that subordinated it to Arab nationalism, rather than depicting it as an independent or primary political identity.

The point of this examination of Iraqi history, other than to correct the current understanding of Saddam Hussein's political use of religion throughout his presidency, is to examine how Saddam's controlled use of religion was dismantled during the US-Iraq war, and consequently set free extremists that were suppressed under his regime. When the American-led invasion destroyed the regime's authoritarian structures, it unwittingly unhinged the forces that these structures were designed to contain, creating an atmosphere infused with religion, but lacking the checks provided by the former regime. Groups such as the Sadrists, al-Qaida, and eventually the Islamic State emerged out of this context to unleash the insurgencies that have plagued post-2003 Iraq.

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304 pages
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English
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

April 23, 2018
Dimensions

9.3 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches
ISBN-10

0190843314
ISBN-13

978-0190843311
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This work is indispensable for scholars of religion and authoritarianism as a hypothesis-generating case study and is a welcome contribution to the field of religion and politics in particular." -- Ann Wainscott, Perspectives in Politics

"[S]cholars have been hard at work refining and challenging conventional narratives regarding Ba'thist Iraq. ... Compulsion in Religion forms a significant contribution to this more general effort. � [It] will be of great interest to students of Iraqi history and modern Iraqi politics alike." -- Cole Bunzel, Yale Law School, Orbis

"[A] fascinating new book."--Gareth Smyth, The Arab

"Samuel Helfont has provided us with groundbreaking insights into the way Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party used Islam to control the Iraqi population during his dictatorship-and how the abrupt removal of that control influenced the insurgencies that erupted in the wake of the American invasion in 2003. Most importantly, this book illuminates why those insurgencies were so virulent, and how the wake of Saddam Hussein's use of Islamic institutions to control the Iraqi population will continue to ignite conflict in the Middle East for generations to come."
--John Nagl, Lieutenant Colonel, USA (Retired), and author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
"Samuel Helfont tackles an important subject that is significant

"Samuel Helfont tackles an important subject that is significant not only for its historical aspects but also for its relevance to current affairs given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and ISIL. He has tapped the Iraqi archives, providing a real contribution to the literature on Iraq's history and issues related to current politics."
--Joseph Sassoon, author of The Iraqi Refugees: The New Crisis in the Middle East

About the Author

Samuel Helfont is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

Product details

Publisher : Oxford University Press; Unabridged edition (April 23, 2018)
Language: : English
Hardcover : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0190843314
ISBN-13 : 978-0190843311
Item Weight : 1.17 pounds
Dimensions : 9.3 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,708,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,322 in African Politics
- #2,810 in Middle Eastern Politics
- #3,845 in General History of Religion

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Iraq, Saddam politics 1980-1990s

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2019

“Compulsion in Religion” by Samuel Helfont (2018). Following are limited, partial comments by Ban Ali al-Maliki and Amatzia Baram in their review in the Spring 2019 “Middle East Quarterly”:

“The book has merits. Its novel treatment of Saddam's approach to the Iraqi Christian community adds to our knowledge. Likewise, it provides good information on the regime's approach to the Shiite clerical class in the 1990s. Despite these merits, there remain six substantive issues with Helfont's central thesis and his treatment of the evidence.

“The book's starting point is the approach to Islam in Baath ideology and practice from the party's inception in the 1940s to the end of the first decade of Baath rule in Iraq (1968-78)….

“The second problem is also methodological but with larger ramifications: When should the study of the Baath regime begin? By 1970, Vice President Saddam Hussein was already the main decision-maker, and Helfont should have begun his study from 1968, rather than from 1979….

“The third problem is Helfont's misrepresentation of the ideology of Baath party founder Michel Aflaq….Helfont quotes some of Aflaq's texts but ignores others…..

“A fourth problem is Helfont's claim that, in 1968, the regime intended to impose many aspects of Islam but delayed….Helfont's theory is topsy-turvy…..

“A fifth problem is Helfont's interpretation of Saddam's Islamic Faith Campaign…..

“The sixth problem concerns a discussion of the connection between Saddam's state-Islam policies and post-war insurgencies….

“Helfont invested much in the book but did not allow his source materials to speak fully…..Helfont thus misses the difficulty of the party departing in the 1990s from secular pan-Arabism, its most cherished article of faith, and replacing it with the leader's Arab-hegemonic Islamism…..

“Helfont is deaf to the muted opposition to the Islamization inside the party, both in the press and in the archives. He, therefore, misinterprets the hesitations, oscillations, deceptions, contradictions, and equivocations; nor does he recognize Saddam's tactical retreats or his eventual steely resolve to Islamize party and state in order to secure regime survival….”

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How Saddam controlled religion and then was unleashed after US invasion to lead to the insurgency

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2018

Samuel Helfton and Compulsion In Religion, Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies In Iraq deals with the much debated topic of the role of religion during the period of Saddam Hussein. Some have argued that Saddam embraced religion during the last few years of his regime, others believed that the Iraqi state weakened under sanctions allowing for more freedom at mosques and Islamists, others think the Baathists co-opted religion to maintain its control. Helfton takes that latter approach, but in a much more thorough way than previous authors based upon extensive research within the captured Baathist documents that now resident in the United States.

Helfton’s book breaks down into four broad time periods. First, is the Baathist founder Michel Aflaq and how his ideas shaped Saddam’s stance towards Islam. Second, the 1980s when Saddam made his first effort to control the religious sphere in Iraq. Third, the 1990s when that policy came to fruition and the government was confident enough that it launched a Faith Campaign. Finally, how the 2003 U.S. invasion wiped away the institutions and bureaucracy that the Baathists created, which led to the emergence of religious, sectarian groups and an Islamist insurgency.

Michel Aflaq the Syrian founder of the Baath Party argued that Islam was the religion of the Arabs and could be used as part of his Arab nationalist cause. He wrote three essays on the topic in the 1940s and 50s that argued that Islam was the embodiment of Arab nationalism. Aflaq thought it would further the Baathists goals of creating a new Arab world. This is an important point that Helfront brings up because much of the writing about the Baathists believe that they were a secular party and had no interest in religion. To the contrary, Aflaq, who was himself a Christian, thought it was an important part of the Arab past and present that could be used to mobilize the masses. Saddam read Aflaq’s writings and would make it required reading for party members. Saddam felt it necessary to spread Aflaq’s views in Iraq because the country was facing the threat of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and then the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, which both threatened to rally Iraq’s Shiite population against their government. That would set Baghdad’s course for the next thirty odd years.

In 1979 Saddam held a meeting with his advisers and decided that the government would take control of the religious sphere to protect the regime from threats not only emerging from Iran, but also from Wahabis and Salafis. In the 1980s Baghdad set about educating the public about the Baath Party’s view on religion, that it believed in faith, and that it was part of the drive for Arab unity. He ordered surveys and studies of all the religious men in the country to identify who was a potential threat and who could be brought into the government’s plans. Saddam then began setting up an infrastructure to monitor and use religion for the regime. That included turning the Endowments Ministry into the Religious Affairs and Endowments Ministry and putting it directly under the president’s office. Passing laws and rules that made all religious leaders and scholars pass tests to practice. Making imams and clerics clear all of their sermons with the authorities and make sure they followed government themes such as the evil of Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq War. Religious committees were created throughout each province that gave another means to observe religious leaders. Iraq would expand this program internationally with the Popular Islamic Conference that brought together clerics and religious scholars from around the world to meet in Baghdad. Another institution was the Saddam University for Islamic Studies created in 1988. All the students were given extensive background checks to make sure they would be pliant to the regime’s themes. When they graduated they would go out to mosques and communities and spread those messages. Imams and clerics were offered funding as another way to bring them into the fold. Finally, the security agencies were sent into the mosques to check what they were doing, and infiltrated religious groups to spy upon them. This was a calculated and long term program, meant to inform the government about the state of religion in the country. Then to co-opt and control the religious men over a series of years by making them pass tests, have their sermons checked, create a new cadre that were educated under the government, and monitor their activities.

There also a violent aspect to the campaign. As Helfont and other recent scholars that have looked at the Baath documents have found, Saddam preferred co-option as the first choice, but when that didn’t work he was perfectly willing to stomp out those that would not comply. The Muslim Brotherhood for example, was nearly wiped out by the security agencies, and most of its leadership either had to work secretly or went into exile. The Shiite community was harder to deal with initially because the clerics relied upon tithes, making them economically independent, had long standing religious schools, and a set hierarchy that promoted clerics. Even then, by the 1990s the government had been able to achieve widespread compliance at least, some supporters, and others that would not openly challenge the government. Those that did such as the Hakim and Sadr families had their leaders executed and others forced to leave Iraq.

By the 1990s, Saddam was confident enough that religion had been brought under control that he used it in the Gulf War and afterward launched a Faith Campaign. The West was shocked when Saddam made two speeches in 1990 calling on the Muslim world to rise up against the United States and declared a jihad. There was even more surprise when the Faith Campaign began in 1993. Many believed that either Saddam had become a committed Muslim or the government was so weakened after the war and due to sanctions that it could not stop the rise of Islamism which was sweeping across the Arab world at the time. Helfton dispels both of those showing that Saddam always had faith, but it was one shaped by Aflaq and the Baath Party, and two, the government had spent the last decade building up an entire system to control religion and get rid of any opponents that might come from that area. The jihad speeches and Faith Campaign did not come out of the blue then, but as the book clearly shows were the fruition of years of work.

The last section of Compulsion In Religion adds another new element to the history of Iraq. When the Americans invaded in 2003 they wiped out the Baathist state and the system that was in place to control religion. Without that groups that had been forced underground like the Sadrists emerged. Shiite exile groups like Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq returned. Foreign Islamists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came as well. None of these groups could openly operate under Saddam, but now had the freedom to do so under the Americans who were unprepared to rule Iraq. All added a new level of sectarianism and violence that would eventually throw the country into civil war by 2006, and seized nearly one-third of the country in 2014. The U.S. came into Iraq with little to no knowledge of what was going on within the country. Many believed that the Iraqi state was weak, the war would wipe it away, and the rest of Iraqi society would then be free. There was also the belief that the Shiite south would welcome the Americans and even rejoice being free of the dictatorship. Instead the Baath were still strong, and exerted control over all different aspects of society not just religion right up to 2003. The Americans would not only destroy its infrastructure but through a series of decisions like deBaathification and disbanding the military would enrage many people giving more room for militants to operate and sow dissension.

Compulsion In Religion is one of a series of recent books to use the Baathist documents to shed new light on the former regime. Helfont provides a totally original look at how Saddam observed, co-opted, repressed, and then operationalized religion to secure his rule and use it as another means to control society. He counters much of the previous research that largely dismissed religion in Iraq under the Baath. The book could also lead to a whole new range of research into how the insurgency and militias emerged in post-2003 Iraq. It’s therefore essential reading for Iraq researchers.

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