A Reading into the Timing of the Assassination of Iraqi Islamic Thinker Izz al-Din Salim

*18 May 2022*

By: Taha al-Dhahiri

Many people, especially among the sons of Iraq, know that the martyr Izz al-Din Salim was a leader, a preacher, and a brilliantly outstanding political thinker.

They also know that he worked in the opposition for nearly thirty years of struggle and patience, making great intellectual, political, and organisational efforts through his work among the founding leaders of the Da‘wa Party, and through his work outside Iraq to bring the opposition together and unify its ranks.

He was subjected to pursuits, harassment, and many attempts on his life.

He returned to Iraq after the American invasion. He returned carrying a clear goal and an enlightened project: the building of a state and a system in the full sense of the word – the foundations of a modern state and system.

From this perspective, we see that there was no determined effort to liquidate the martyr Izz al‑Din Salim during the former regime’s time. But in the transitional phase – the phase of the American occupation, a phase that urgently required enlightened minds and advanced thought to lay the foundations and rules for building a governance system that would fulfil the aspirations of the repressed, oppressed Iraqi people longing for justice, welfare, and development – the presence of people with advanced thought and enlightened minds stood as an obstacle to the greed of the American administration, the lobbies of political corruption, office‑seekers, and the enemies of Iraq.

This condition applies to every people and nation going through a transitional period: they need minds to lay the foundations and rules for building a modern state.

Thus, we see that thinkers, theorists, those with sound theories, and those with promising projects are the most targeted, the most subject to liquidation and assassination in transitional phases. We saw this in Yemen: how the pioneers of political thought, the giants of political theories and promising projects for a modern state, were assassinated – such as Professor Sharaf al‑Din, Al‑Murtada al‑Mahuwari, Al‑Khiwani, Jadban, Hassan Zayd, and the martyr Al‑Samad.

The great Iraqi Islamic thinker, the late Izz al‑Din Salim, like other exceptional thinkers, was a stumbling block in the path of the greedy, the plotters, and the office‑seekers. It seems that everyone – or most – agreed on their opinion and made the decision to assassinate the departed one, carrying out their heinous crime against him and a group of his companions on 17 May 2004.

The dutiful son of Basra, the martyr Izz al‑Din Salim, departed as a noble martyr, leaving behind a cultural legacy of nearly one hundred books, hundreds of lectures, seminars, and human sciences, and an immortal biography of struggle, jihad, and relentless effort for the sake of the interest, dignity, and honour of the Iraqi people.

Peace be upon him among those who abide forever.