A report on two mosques in Baghdad and the elections

Countdown to Voting in Iraq: The Mosques Are Clashing, Too
by Sandro Magiste

The Shiite mosques preach in favor of peaceful elections. Some of the Sunni ones are preaching against them, and justifying the bombings.

The Holy See has repeatedly encouraged the birth of a democratic Iraq: it did so most explicitly last November 4, when it received at the Vatican the head of Baghdad's provisional government, Iyad Allawi.

...as the voting draws near, Iraqi Muslims are profoundly divided.

And there is one principal arena in which this division is being expressed: the mosques.

But the point is, there's preaching and then there's preaching. On the same Friday in Baghdad, one can hear two diametrically opposed sermons about the imminent elections.

The Baratha mosque, for example, which belongs to the Shiite Muslims, is decisively in favor of the vote. The Um al-Qura mosque, which is Sunni, is against it.

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