Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsen Hakim and the Socio-political Developments of Iraq during 1958-1968

The decade of 1958-1968 is one of the most important periods in Iraq's contemporary history, during which important events took place and led to the successive transfer of political power between parties and groups. The basic questions of this research are as follows: What was the position and role of Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsen Hakim as the head and leader of the Najaf seminary in the political developments of this decade? How are his achievements and legacy for the Iraqi Shia community and the Shia authority institution evaluated? The groups and parties active in the socio-political arena of Iraq in this period, despite all the differences in intellectual and ideological bases, were unanimous in confronting and suppressing the Shiites. In these years, Ayatollah Hakim, the most prominent scholar of Iraqi Shiites and the leader of Najaf seminary, appeared as an influential activist in the socio-political atmosphere. His most significant achievement was ending the Najaf seminary's half-century of inaction and silence regarding the socio-political developments of the Islamic world and preventing the political systems ruling Iraq from isolating the Shia community and the Shia authority. Relying on historical sources, the present research explores this issue with a descriptive and analytical approach.