Testimonies and Memoirs

The Thinker Izz al‑Din Salim on the Anniversary of His Martyrdom

Mustafa Kamel al‑Kadhimi

Published: 26 October 2022

(These days coincide with the tragic anniversary of the martyrdom of our teacher, the thinker Abdul Zahra "Izz al‑Din", according to the lunar calendar.)

The martyr Izz al‑Din Salim (Abdul Zahra Uthman) said to me one day in Tehran in 1992:

"Last night they prevented me from travelling to Syria because of the mood of an Iranian security officer who refused to hand me my diplomatic passport to carry out a political mission. That drove me to shout at his face: 'I swear by God, as soon as Saddam falls, you will not find me in Iran for a single day!'"

With that statement, the martyr Abu Yassin wanted to make the security officer feel that nothing in this life mattered to him except Iraq. When the idol of the tyrant fell and his regime crumbled, Abu Yassin was in the heart of his country, rallying the determination of the vigilant to build a new Iraq and to rebuild what the Baathist rule had ruined.

A decade and a half of gloomy time has passed since the martyrdom of the Islamic thinker Izz al‑Din Salim. Except for the year 2004, when he and his comrade, the media professor Talib Abu Mohammed al‑Amiri, were martyred, we have found only a handful of very formal memorial services held for them. After that, we have not heard of anyone commemorating the Islamic and national figure of Abu Yassin. We have found no one reminding us of what this thinker gave to religion and the homeland except a few people – perhaps a comrade who was truly loyal to him, or a friend who shed a sincere tear at his parting, with words that do not go beyond a brief summary of this fighter’s life, and perhaps offering verses of condolences to his family and children.

In past years, I found what was almost an orphaned article – I think it was the last one – written by Professor Ibrahim al‑Abadi and published online. It stirred in me the burning of sorrow, and my thoughts flew back to the days of the martyr Abu Yassin, when we knew him closely for many years in our place of exile from 1982 until 2002, after which we parted for Australia.

As I reflected on al‑Abadi’s words, I felt that he was the only one, apart from the grief and sorrow of the martyr’s own family, who was devastated by the martyrdom of his teacher. He wrote lines that bleed the heart and remind us of the muteness that has afflicted the nation due to policies that have blinded the hearts in the chests of Iraqis to remembering such great leaders. Even if we overlook the Da‘wa as being no different from the general party‑political situation – which has only one eye that sees nothing but the immediate and self‑interest – we have observed that most parties, including the Islamic Da‘wa Party, have forgotten one of their most prominent leaders and theorists, the martyr Abdul Zahra, who was among their luminaries, activists, and thinkers.

I do not mean by this the formal manifestations of memorial services. I mean the absence of reviving his ideas.

Even if we come to terms with the current party and excuse its view of the martyrs – what about Basra, the spacious city? Basra – the city of the martyr Izz al‑Din Salim – why does it not commemorate him with an annual conference to which figures are invited to revive the martyr’s ideas and give life to what he dedicated his life to, as a symbol among the nation’s glories? So that the younger generations might feel a living commemoration of an extraordinary man among the men of Islamic thought, a true, fervent martyr of the homeland, for whom we have never found a misstep in conduct or a shadow over his history, which he spent fighting his enemy, the tyranny of the Tikriti dictator?

If we are to be proud as Iraqis, we should be proud of the likes of him – he who defied the tyrant and spent five years in his prisons under bitter torture from 1974 to 1978, not to mention the assassination attempts from which God saved him, enabling him to emigrate and continue his jihad and his pen.

I am astonished at your city, Basra: you have not marked your lost martyr Izz al‑Din Salim, nor called for reviving his books and his intellectual, doctrinal, historical, and political research – of which it is rare to find an equal in Basra. The life of cities and peoples is in their thinkers.

The departed in brief:

The martyr thinker Abdul Zahra Uthman Mohammed (Abu Yassin) was born in Basra, Al‑Huwayr district, in 1943. He graduated from the now‑defunct Dar al‑Mu‘allimin (Teachers’ House) in 1964. He was forced to change his name to Izz al‑Din Salim for security reasons, to avoid being tracked by the tyrant Saddam’s regime, which had tried to assassinate him more than once. Hajj Abdul Zahra was arrested in 1974 and remained in prison until 1978, after which he managed to escape abroad.

In addition to his jihad, the martyr pursued several studies under a number of Islamic scholars and thinkers in Iraq and Kuwait, where he also taught Arabic, history, and Arab society in primary, middle, and secondary schools from 1965 to 1980, except for his prison period.

Early in his life, the thinker Izz al‑Din Salim devoted himself to authorship and journalistic writing from 1967 onward, publishing his first book, Al‑Zahra: Fatima bint Mohammed, in 1969. He continued writing, and dozens of his books appeared on biography, history, politics, and general culture. He also, may God have mercy on him, published a large number of research papers and studies in international journals. From the early 1960s, he was involved in cultural and media work, contributing to several newspapers and cultural magazines in Iraq, Kuwait, and Lebanon.