Abdul Aziz al-Hakim

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Sayyed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim

Sayyed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (Arabic: عبد العزيز الحكيم ) (born 1953) is an Iraqi theologian and politician and the leader of SCIRI, the largest political party in the Iraqi Council of Representatives.

He was a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and served as its president in December 2003. Brother of the Shia leader Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, he replaced him as leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq when Mohammed Baqir was assassinated in August 2003 in Najaf.

He was born in 1953, the son of Grand Ayatollah Muhsin Al-Hakim, the spiritual leader of the world's Shi'a from 1955-1970. Raised in Najaf and then received his theological education through the religious school there, known as the Al Hawza. He is now married and is the father of two girls and two boys. Seven of his brothers have been killed, six of them on the orders of Saddam Hussein.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim with Donald Rumsfeld

He played a leading role in the Safar Intifada in 1977 and was imprisoned in 1972, 1977 and 1979. He went into exile in Iran in 1980, where he was a founder member in 1982 of SCIRI and headed their military wing, the Badr Organization. He was the top candidate listed for the United Iraqi Coalition during the first Iraqi legislative election of January 2005 but has not sought a government post because the Alliance had decided not to include theologians in the government^{[citation needed]}.

al-Hakim meeting George W. Bush

On 4 December 2006, al-Hakim met with George W. Bush whereat he made a commitment to help end violence,

We have gone a long way to establish a democratic and pluralistic society in Iraq.... We...[believe in] a government that deals and will deal with all the sources of terrorism regardless where they come from.^[1]

Al-Hakim also gave his assessment of the situation in Iraq:

The Iraqi situation has been subjected to a great deal of defamation, and the true picture is not being presented in order to show a dark side of what's happening in Iraq. We see the attempts to defame and distort the situation in Iraq not taking into consideration the democratic steps that that country has taken, writing the constitution and establishing a state that depends heavily on the constitution, that it is unified and that it is strong. There are attempts to show the sectarian strife in an attempt to weaken the position in Iraq.

On 5 December 2006, on behalf of the Catholic University of America and American University's Center for Global Peace, he spoke at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. The title of his speech was "Freedom and Tolerance in Shi'a Islam and the Future of Iraq". Notable guests at this event included Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Rabbi Professor Ephraim Isaac from the Institute of Semitic Studies in Princeton, N.J..