Mosque And State: Just How Close?

Is Iraq on its way toward becoming an Islamic state? As the vote-counting winds down from the country's Jan. 30 election, the broad outlines of the outcome seem clear. The largely Shiite group called the United Iraqi Alliance, blessed by Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, will be the largest by far in the 275-seat National Assembly. That puts the Shiites in prime position to influence the choice of a new government and the writing of Iraq's permanent constitution.

But don't expect an Iran-style government dominated by mullahs-turned-politicians. The reclusive 74-year-old Sistani comes from the Quietist school of Shiite scholars, who think it's a mistake for clerics to run the affairs of state -- a view reinforced by the shortcomings of the regime next door in Iran. But the degree to which religion will govern future Iraqi society is still far from decided. Even if the clerics stay out of politics, Iraq may be on the way to a system where religion and religious laws play a bigger role than U.S. policymakers anticipate, possibly thwarting cherished American goals such as broadening women's rights and creating a freewheeling capitalist economy. "The main goal in political Islam hasn't been clerical rule. It has been the replacement of civil law with Shariah, or Islamic canon law. And that is where Iraq is headed," says Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. "The only question is how wide-ranging the substitution will be."