Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Badri, one of Iraq's most prominent Sunni preachers. He was known for his courageous and bold stances against presidents and rulers, and his opposition to communist movements, and participated in the Palestine war, before he was arrested and tortured, and died in detention in the late sixties of the last century.

Birth and upbringing

Iraqi preacher Abdul Aziz Abdul Latif al-Badri was born in the Samarra district, north of Baghdad, in 1929, and grew up in a family of scholars, and married his cousin, with whom he has 4 sons and 4 daughters.

The lineage of the Badri tribe ends with Imam Hussein bin Ali bin Abi Talib, may God be pleased with them.

His father, Hajj Abdul Latif Al-Samarrai, was a fruit and vegetable merchant between Samarra, Baghdad and Diyala, and moved with his family to live in the capital Baghdad in the late thirties of the last century.

Study and training

Abdul Aziz al-Badri completed his primary education in Samarra, then received religious lessons from a group of Baghdad scholars, most notably Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Khatib, Sheikh Amjad al-Zahawi and the scholar Muhammad Fouad al-Alusi.

Al-Badri was granted a religious preacher license, under the age of 20, after discovering his oratorical talents and genius in thought, language and history, and was then appointed imam of the Al-Sur Mosque in Baghdad in 1949.

In 1950, he was appointed as a preacher in the mosque of "Al-Khafafin", and continued to hold the secretariat of the pulpit until 1954, when the authority in the royal era realized his activity and influence on the people, so it deported him to a remote village in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.

Intellectual orientation

Sheikh al-Badri belonged in his youth to Hizb ut-Tahrir, but soon withdrew from it in 1956, and did not want to announce his withdrawal, so he remained bearing the consequences of the party and its statements until the revolution of Abdul Karim Qassem in 1958.

The party estimated Badri his work not to announce his withdrawal, and then announced that he withdrew from the party, and then Nahed Badri communism and nationalism, where he attacked on the platforms Abdul Karim Qassem for his support for the communists.

The challenge reached its extent when Qassem executed a group of army leaders, including Nazim Tabaqjali, and Rifaat al-Hajj Sari, Sheikh Badri raised the masses and led the demonstrations, which were estimated at more than 40 thousand demonstrators, all of whom chanted the fall of Qassem, and issued a fatwa to infidelity communists supporters of Qassem and his supporters.

During the reign of President Abdul Salam Arif, al-Badri was appointed imam of an unfinished mosque, the "Adila Khatun" mosque in Baghdad.

Badri sermons Friday on the opening day of the mosque, entered Aref Abdul Salam (former Iraqi president), and after the prayer Badri said to Aref "Listen, Abdul Salam, if you approached Islam sold bring us closer to you arm, listen O Abdul Salam applied Islam, listen O Abdul Salam nationalism does not fit."

Badri began bashing Abdul Salam in front of the worshipers, and at the end of the sermon did not pay attention to him Sheikh and then got up to him Abdul Salam and said, "O Sheikh, I thank you for this boldness."

After a while, al-Badri was transferred and appointed imam and preacher to the "caliphs" mosque, which was closed from 1964 to 1966.

After pressure and threat by Badri to the authority that he will preach in the street in front of the mosque "caliphs", appointed imam and preacher and preacher in the mosque "housing west of Baghdad" after he was only an imam in the mosque mentioned, in order to prevent him from preaching, which is the last mosque became his imam before his recent arrest and death.

Functions and responsibilities

Badri stood early on the pulpits of Baghdad mosques when he was under the age of 20, and his first job was as an imam in the mosque "Al-Sur" in Baghdad from 1949 to 1954.

When the royal authorities realized his activity and influence on the people, they deported him to the village of Al-Hadid, a suburb of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

During his work in the village of "Al-Hadid" as an imam and preacher of the village mosque, he played a role in turning that village into a "radiation point", where a large number of its sons graduated preachers, imams and preachers.

After the fall of the monarchy and the proclamation of the republic on July 14, 1958, he was appointed imam and preacher of the Haj Amin mosque in Baghdad's Karkh district.

In 1959, during the spread of the communist tide, Badri confronted the communists on the pulpit, after which he was placed under house arrest for two years, before issuing a general amnesty for politicians in 1961.

Political experience

After the setback of June 1967, Sheikh al-Badri decided to go to Palestine for jihad and join the group of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam, without the knowledge of any of his family members of the intention to travel, and left a will with his friend Dr. Wajih Zain al-Abidin and recommended him to hand over the will to his family if he was martyred.

When he went to occupied Palestine, the mujahideen, after he had shared jihad with them for a while, asked him to return to his country and spread the Palestinian cause in Islamic countries.

After that, the intention was to form a popular Islamic delegation to circumambulate the Islamic world in order to mobilize Muslims, and to transfer the issue to the Islamic scope under the title "For Palestine, the journey of the Iraqi Islamic delegation", and Al-Badri was part of the delegation consisting of 6 people.

The delegation visited Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan to convey the Palestinian cause and the suffering of the Palestinian people and the occupation of Arab lands in Sinai, the Golan and the West Bank.

After the delegation's return to Baghdad in the same year 1967, Sheikh al-Badri held a press conference, in which he explained what he saw in the Islamic world, of wasted energies that should have been directed to serve the Palestinian cause, denouncing its limitation to the Arab sphere, rather than the broad Islamic sphere.

Literature

Sheikh Al-Badri left a number of books related to history, Islamic jurisprudence and socialism in Islam, most notably:

  • Islam among scholars and rulers.
  • The rule of Islam in socialism.
  • Islam is a war on socialism and capitalism.
  • Islam is the guarantor of the basic needs of every individual.
  • The Eternal Book of God, the Holy Quran.

In addition to dozens of sermons and sermons in a number of mosques that were circulating among the public, before the Baath regime confiscated its audio library, including recordings during his arrest in 1969.

Death

Al-Badri died in Baghdad on June 26, 1969, after being tortured inside the detention center known as the "End Palace" by the Baath Party regime and security chief Nazim Kazar.

After his death, he was transferred to Al-Rashid Military Hospital and placed in a coffin thrown by soldiers in front of his house in the Daoudi area, west of Baghdad, and then fled, and asked his family not to open the coffin, and buried it in Baghdad, and not in his hometown next to his father's grave in the city of Samarra, according to some accounts.

The security forces then imposed a cordon on the city of Baghdad and the surrounding streets to prevent his relatives from taking his coffin to Samarra, and he was buried near the grave of his sheikh Amjad Al-Zahawi in the cemetery of the "Great Imam Abu Hanifa Al-Numan" in Al-Adhamiya, north of the capital, Baghdad.