Iraq's leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, struggled yesterday to retain his relevance as his call for a peaceful transition to a democratic sovereign Iraq was overtaken by a violent bid for control of southern Iraq by Moqtada al-Sadr.
Yesterday the ayatollah, a 74-year-old recluse, appealed for calm, calling on Sheikh al-Sadr's followers to exercise self-restraint, while denouncing "the provocation" by US troops. "Ayatollah al-Sistani does not support blood-letting and heated gatherings in the streets, but he supports the freedom of speech and the right to express one's opinion publicly as long as it is logical," said Mohammed Haqqani, a Najaf-based adviser to Ayatollah Sistani.
By contrast, Sheikh al-Sadr urged his supporters "to terrorise the enemy", saying peaceful protests had become useless. He also rejected the call by the ayatollah to renounce violence.
Until now, millions of Iraq's Shias who make up Iraq's urban poor have recognised Ayatollah Sistani as their paramount spiritual guide, but sympathise increasingly with the radical way of Sheikh al-Sadr.
They are now faced with the dilemma of whom to follow.
The power struggle risks breaking what have been the relatively united ranks of the country's Shia majority.
The Shia Islamic parties in the Governing Council who depend on Ayatollah Sistani for legitimacy appealed for an immediate cessation of violence.
"Confrontation is rejected by the religious authorities, Al-Hawza [the Shia religious seminary led by Ayatollah Sistani, a name also claimed by Sheikh al-Sadr] and the Governing Council," said Sadr al-Din al-Qabbanji, a Najaf-based official with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iranian-backed party represented on the Governing Council.
But television broadcasts from outside Iraq portrayed the uprising as already shifting in Sheikh al-Sadr's favour. Hizbullah television's al-Manar claimed that Sheikh al-Sadr's militias in conjunction with local tribes had taken over government buildings in Kut and in Nasiriyah, saying Ukrainian and Italian forces had pulled out of the town.
"The struggle of Islam is bigger than Sistani and bigger than Sadr," said a militiaman in Sheikh al-Sadr's Mahdi's Army. "Sistani has no choice but to support Sheikh al-Sadr's struggle."
As events threaten to spin out of control, Ayatollah Sistani's appeal for US administrator Paul Bremer to amend the Transitional Administrative Law seems almost prosaic.
Ayatollah Sistani's posters appealing for the amendments are plastered across government offices, but he is rarely seen in Sadr city, and other strongholds of Sheikh al-Sadr.
In an apparent effort to retain his constituency, in recent weeks Ayatollah Sistani began issuing increasingly critical statements against the US-led transition.
But he has failed to shrug off accusation from Sheikh al-Sadr's more radical acolytes that he is providing the cover for Washington to continue its occupation of Iraq.
Sheikh al-Sadr's followers accuse Ayatollah Sistani of deflating an uprising against Saddam Hussein which followed the 1999 assassination of Sheikh al-Sadr's father, Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, a long-standing rival of Ayatollah Sistani's, by refusing to bless the insurrection.
Ayatollah Sistani will not be allowed to spoil their revolt a second time, they say.