Iraq's Shadow Ruler

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Sistani excelled in Najaf and soon became a disciple of Grand Ayatullah Abul Qassim al-Khoei. At the unusually young age of 31, Sistani reached the senior level of accomplishment called ijtihad, which entitled him to pass his own judgments on religious questions.

Sistani kept his distance from Khomeini, who was then in exile in Najaf and already honing his militant philosophy of temporal clerical rule. Al-Khoei, Sistani's mentor, preached the "quietist" approach, in which religious leaders address matters of spirituality and behavior but stay out of politics. Sistani embraced that philosophy.

For 50 years, Sistani has devoted his waking hours to solitary prayer, reading and teaching. He has acquired legions of students, attracted by his charisma, sound logic, prodigious research and quick wit. On social issues Sistani has always been an Islamic conservative. But unlike many fellow clerics, he possesses a keen appetite for subjects ranging far beyond theology—modern science, history, political philosophy, biography, comparative religions, current events—and employs an unusual freedom of expression in reinterpreting religious questions. "He merges Islamic principles and modern life," says al-Rudaie, the Baghdad professor. "His rules are not frozen in time." Groomed by al-Khoei for supreme religious authority, Sistani took on the mantle of marja, or object of emulation, the highest rank among Shi'ite clerics, soon after al-Khoei's death in 1992.

Sistani proved himself an assertive competitor among the jostling senior ayatullahs, including Muqtada al-Sadr's influential father, who was assassinated by Saddam in 1999. Perhaps even more important, Sistani inherited the treasure chest of religious tithes and pilgrim's donations that al-Khoei had amassed, a fortune soon augmented by his own popularity. That enabled Sistani to fund a vast and flourishing network of agents and allies. From his shabby Najaf office, he runs a formidable array of schools, libraries, hospitals, charities and even technology centers spread across Iraq and Iran, as well as outreach offices from the Middle East to Western Europe.

Though the marja is akin to a Roman Catholic Pope in religious authority, no college of mullahs elects him. Every one of the faithful chooses a cleric as his spiritual guide, whose rulings he will follow. Clerics rise to the top on the basis of their popular following as well as the esteem of their colleagues. In a country given to flash and corruption, Sistani has earned widespread admiration for his ascetic lifestyle and upright reputation. For decades, he has lived out of public view with his wife, two sons and several daughters. They inhabit a humble rented house a few hundred yards from the golden-domed shrine of Imam Ali, the Shi'ites' most venerated martyr. His meals are the frugal fare of the poor: tea, bread, yogurt, a bit of cheese, vegetables. As a result of the meager diet, he suffers on and off from anemia as well as the blocked arteries treated in London. Tall but never robust, he now looks frail and old.

Sistani's invisibility is in part cultivated, some aides and rivals say, to enhance the aura of mystery that contributes to his appeal.