Demagogue

In this second post on the Sistani article in today's Washington Post, I'm going to get more serious. After all, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani will exert significant influence over the new Iraq.

Although Sistani is not the most fire-and-brimstone cleric that Shia Islam has to offer, his core views are, nonetheless, repugnant:

... [Professor Abdulaziz A. Sachedina] met with Sachedina met with Sistani several times in the 1990s, and on one occasion Sistani criticized his writings and issued a ruling against Sachedina's public comments on matters of faith ... Sachedina's inside view of Sistani and Sistani's organization lead him to consider the ayatollah more conservative than do other observers.

Sistani's views on women "are restrictive and in his personal communication to me in 1998 he made it very clear that he abides by the age-old opinions regarding women's inequality with men, and that he regards their testimony, as extrapolated from the Qu'ran, half of a man's testimony in value," the scholar writes.

... and Sistani offers this disgusting bit of guidance to Muslims:

If, for example, a "person commits sodomy with a boy, the mother, sister and daughter of the boy become haraam for him," begins one ruling.