MAHMOUDIYA, Iraq — As women pick through a vendor's basket of ripe tomatoes near a burnt-out Iraqi tank on this busy stretch of road a few miles south of Baghdad, the sense that life is resuming after war is inescapable.
All seems normal -- except for the music blaring from the loudspeaker of the nearby mosque.
It is a rhythmic song honoring Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, and it alternates with a message to the people from Iraq's senior Shiite Muslim leader, 73-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. "Do no harm to the Sunnis," it tells them. "But if they harm you, you may defend yourselves."
A few short weeks ago, only the Sunni-dominated Baath Party would have dared to issue edicts to the Iraqi people -- in the name of President Saddam Hussein.
But in the absence of a government since Hussein's ouster April 9, the voice of Sistani and the network of Shiite seminaries that he heads -- the Hawza I-Ilima -- is increasingly the authority that Iraqis heed.
And the unstated message to Sunni Muslims and Christians is that the era of Shiite power has come in Iraq, commensurate with their two-thirds share of the population.
After being suppressed for 35 years by Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, the leaders and faithful of the Shiite branch of Islam, who represent perhaps 16 million Iraqis, are asserting themselves and moving into the power vacuum left by the almost overnight collapse of Iraq's secular government.
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Neighborhood Rule
The U.S. military may control the roads, ports and skies of Iraq, but in any neighborhood where Shiites are in the majority, one is likely to find white-turbaned sheiks and imams who have begun making the day-to-day decisions and policies.
The Shiites' emerging power will be on display this week, when they converge in massive numbers on Karbala, where Hussein was martyred in a decisive 7th century battle that became the symbol for suffering and self-sacrifice among Shiites for 1,300 years.
Bands of pilgrims with green and black flags, singing and beating themselves with religious fervor, have been walking to Karbala for days to gather Tuesday, which marks the end of the annual 40 days of mourning for Hussein's death.
For miles and miles, the Shiites have been streaming toward Karbala, their numbers swelling so much that two lanes of a highway have been cleared for their use. Along the way, other Shiites have handed out tea and food and provided places to sleep.
