Faleh Abdul Jabbar's work garnered significant attention throughout his life which persisted after his passing. With the exception of Ali al-Wardi, very few Iraqi sociologists have rivalled his impact.

Faleh Abdul Jabbar was at the height of his career when he died on February 26, 2018.  Born in Baghdad in 1946, his passing marked the end of a life which was committed to nuanced research, marked by staunch opposition to binary narratives and oversimplification. 

His scholarly works exhibited a unique blend of scientific rigor and literary inspiration. Drawing from literary masterpieces, he eloquently explained sociopolitical phenomena. For instance, he referenced Kafka’s ‘The Penal Colony’ to dissect the actions of ISIS, drew on Dostoevsky’s ‘Humiliated and Insulted’ to portray marginalisation under authoritarian regimes in Iraq, and he used Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold as a metaphor for the narrative of Iraqi society spanning over a century. 

Although Faleh Abdul Jabbar was initially affiliated with the Iraqi Communist Party, he later chose to resign while still retaining the insights of Marxist ideology. His dedication to this intellectual tradition inspired him to translate Karl Marx’s seminal work, Das Kapital, seen by many as one of the most important contributions to the history of economic and political thought. 

It can be said that the notoriety that Abdul Jabbar gained – during and after his life – was only exceeded by one other Iraqi sociologist, the pioneer Ali Al-Wardi, who made significant contributions to the development of sociology within Iraqi academia. 

Throughout his tumultuous life, marked by numerous periods of exile, academic pursuits, fieldwork, and theoretical engagements, Abdul Jabbar meticulously studied the fabric of Iraqi society. He dissected its complexities, analysing myriad elements and hyperlocal detail using sophisticated methodologies. 

Reflecting on Abdul Jabbar’s journey, one wonders: Where did it begin, and where did it end? 

The Rise of the Iraqi Leviathan  

Faleh Abdul Jabbar appropriated the term “Leviathan” to depict a greedy state, one that consumes without nurturing, drawing inspiration from ancient Christian literature where a Leviathan symbolises a sea monster devouring all in its path. This concept gained prominence in political discourse, particularly through the renowned philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his work Leviathan. 

At the core of Faleh Abdul Jabbar’s sociological framework – which brings together all his theses – lies the dichotomy between state formation and nation–building. The former signifies a coercive apparatus of governance, whereas the latter embodies a voluntary expression of societal unity. He argued that although these two processus are interrelated, they remain theoretically distinct when applied to the comprehending of society. 

He encapsulated the ongoing Middle Eastern crisis with his “Turban and Fez” metaphor, illustrating the state’s expansion at the expense of society. Any imbalance between the two entities signifies the emergence of a failed state. 

In the Iraqi context, Faleh Abdul Jabbar observed a lack of societal representation across political, economic, and cultural spheres throughout various stages of the state’s evolution, from the monarchical era to the final reign of the Ba’athist regime, with varying degrees of severity. 

Faleh Abdul Jabbar believed that during the period of the monarchy in Iraq, social movements that emerged because of the actions of regimes were met with neglect. This resulted in the emergence of new social classes—middle and lower—rising from processes of national integration. These classes remained marginalised politically and economically due to the monarchy’s feudal tendencies, which concentrated power and benefits in the upper-class elites. Consequently, these excluded classes, which included workers, students, farmers, and craftsmen, became the vanguards of resistance. Professional army generals who opposed the monarchy played a leading role. 

According to Faleh Abdul Jabbar, the rise of military governments, exemplified by the Qasim and Arif regimes, saw the abolition of constitutional institutions, eradicating any remnants of the monarchy’s limited positive aspects. This shift prioritised the interests of the middle class, albeit within regional boundaries, as military rule provided a sanctuary for the generals who assumed leadership roles. However, the absence of strong institutions fostered internal divisions within the middle class, intensifying conflicts and rivalries. Consequently, coup attempts became widespread, leading to the rise of the Ba’athist government, which aimed to alleviate internal discord by expanding the state disproportionately at the expense of social cohesion. 

The evolution of Iraqi society 

The shift from traditional to urban society incurred significant costs and contributed to the state’s downfall. Prior to the monarchy, Iraqi society consisted of diverse social groups including tribes, craftsmen, nobles, and landowners, who formed distinct pre- nation state blocs. 

The advent of the nation state project aimed to foster social integration. While this project succeeded in stripping society of its traditional characteristics, it failed to nurture the development of a civil societ. It instead dismantled traditional blocs, resulting in a fragmented social landscape described by Abdul Jabbar as an “atomised mass society,” where individuals are atoms which are equal to one another when confronting authority. 

Faleh Abdul Jabbar argues that confining social, economic, and political power to the elite class  fueled the development of a fractured Iraqi society. Measures like land reform which limited land ownership and government attempts to weaken tribal affiliations transformed tribal leaders into opportunistic contractors, exacerbating societal discord. Moreover, the dissolution of parliamentary structures removed tribal representation in governance, further weakening societal cohesion. 

Efforts such as land reform aimed to transition agriculture towards commercial exchanges, favouring the so-called free farmer model. However, this initiative failed, intensifying the control of centralised authority. Despite their flaws, landowners, as a result of their independence, created a form of resistance. It is crucial to note that this description does not seek to portray them in a positive light, but rather to highlight the impact they had, as well as the vacuum created by their absence, which necessitated alternative mechanisms. 

The state also targeted contractors, capitalists, and real estate owners, favouring the lower segments of the middle class, such as salaried consumers, while subduing the upper factions. Accompanying this was the expansion of urban populations due to significant migration from rural areas during the late monarchy era. This migration trend continued to escalate under subsequent governments. However, the resulting urban sprawl proved tragic as migrants left their impoverished communities without the prospect of return, while cities continued to be ill-equipped to accommodate them. Consequently, they became marginalised, settling on the outskirts of cities, and have long been exploited to serve populist movements. 

The expansion of urban society witnesses the rise of classes equipped with modern education, reliant on selling their expertise in the market, thereby inevitably 

 falling under the sway of the centralised state. While the growth of this class isn’t inherently detrimental, its expansion within the context of state dominance perpetuates societal fragmentation. 

Mass Society 

Instead of transitioning into urban society, Iraq experienced the rise of a mass society, which facilitated tyranny and totalitarianism due to its lack of intermediary mechanisms that could mediate between public and authority. The absence of civil society institutions such as unions, associations, political parties, and parliaments left society vulnerable, without protections against oppressive power, and without channels for participation in or influence over governance 

In his 2017 book, The State: Neo-Leviathan, Faleh Abdul Jabbar sought to map the fault lines between the rise of state formation and the decline of national unity. 

In his 2016 book Civil Society in Post-War Iraq, Abdul Jabbar outlined four conditions that shaped the mechanisms of state independence. The first condition was the expansion of the state’s bureaucratic arm, with a surge in job opportunities on the one hand, and an increase in coercive measures directed towards society on the other. This manifested in the military, particularly getting significant attention, along with the broader security apparatus. This expansion occurred within both administrative and security spheres, resulting in the establishment of a formidable and dominant beast. With no unions or associations to mitigate its power, this growing apparatus left individuals vulnerable to central authority, leaving them with little choice between submitting or facing repression. 

Second, oil rentierism, driven by the oil revenue boom of the 1970s, prompted the state to adoptan economic policy that relied on oil revenue rather than a system of taxation, which had no organic relationship to society. Consequently, the state assumed control of the economy, distributing resources as gifts and favors to its supporters, nurturing a clientelist class. This patronage was not evenly distributed within the middle class; it favoured individuals loyal to the ruling authority and closely connected to the ruling tribe. As a result, the salaried middle class expanded at the expense of the property-owning middle class, significantly weakening their cohesion and its drive toward modernisation and stability. 

The third condition was the command economy, which emerged from a wave of development projects. In this system, the state expanded beyond its regulatory role to assume ownership and distribution of economic resources. This started during military governments and peaked under the totalitarian Ba’athist regime. The oil boom of the 1970s facilitated the growth of a centrally planned economy, with political authority exercising direct control over federations, unions, banks, general industries, agriculture, trade, services, and other sectors that were nominally independent of the government.  

The fourth condition was the rise of populism, which is an ideological tool wielded by the ruling regime to assert legitimacy. Due to the clash between a strong government apparatus and a fragile society,these strategies enable authorities to gain societal validation through direct methods such as mass mobilisation and nationalist chauvinism, traits commonly associated with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. 

Following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent devastating war on Iraq, the Ba’athist state and society turned to religion and tribal affiliations. This shift was driven by the regime’s suppression of alternative civil associations and traditional bonds. Concurrently, the authorities embraced these tendencies as means of regaining legitimacy after the decline of its oppressive nationalist narrative. 

The Turban and the Fez 

In his book The Turban and the Fez, The Sociology of Religious discourse and Protest Movements, published in 2010, Faleh Abdul Jabbar sought to deeply analyse Iraqi society, adopting an approach known as conditional structuralism. This perspective considers the Shia phenomenon not merely as a reactionary response to oppressive rule or an immutable essence, but rather as the result of local or regional imblances and an interaction with ongoing developments. The analysis includes two dimensions: the first involves a social model that interprets the phenomenon as a reaction to global and regional economic and social transformations. The second dimension, the local model, views it as a response to sectarian discrimination perpetrated by authoritarian regimes. 

Abdul Jabbar argues that the Shia phenomenon in Iraq was influenced by the fundamentalist thinking prevalent in Middle Eastern countries in general. It was also shaped by the local context and the transitions the sect has undergone. 

Regarding the regional aspect, a wave of fundamentalism swept the Middle East, driven by the desire to defend Islamic identity against a perceived cultural invasion represented by secularism, socialism, market economy, and democracy. The trajectory began with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1926, followed by the establishment of the Liberation Party, Jamaati Islami, and eventually Al Da’wa Party after 1958. Over time, the Da’wa Party transitioned from fundamentalism to sectarianism, not only in response to socialist and capitalist ideologies but also due to intensified repression by the Ba’athist regime, which exacerbated sectarian grievances. However, after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the Da’wa party underwent a significant shift towards the radical populist mode.  Why this evolution?  

When examining this shift, one must go back to the local dimension that Abdul Jabbar proposed. He identified three pivotal transformations within Iraqi Shia society over the past century. In the first towards the end of the Ottoman era, Bedouin tribes embraced the Shia faith as a form of resistance against Ottoman attempts to impose authority upon them. The bedouins relocated to Shia holy cities and embraced their faith. Given that, Shias formed a higher percentage of the population but were mostly uneducated, unlike the Sunni minority which had connections with Ottoman empire.  

In the second transformation, during the monarchical era, tribal leaders were granted ownership of rural lands, which limited the movement of Bedouins. The second transformation was the dwindling of the tribes set against to the nonnomadic residents of the countryside during the monarchical era. This was caused by a new feudal orientation and land ownership processes for the heads of the tribes, which restricted them and prevented their traditional nomadic changing of place. 

The third transformation of Shiites followed the Jewish exodus in 1948, when Shia communities assumed commercial dominance relinquished by departing Jewish populations. This bolstered the socioeconomic and political clout of the Shia business owners, and lead to the formation of the Iraqi National Party lead by Jaafar Abu Altimman, and Ennahda Party lead by Amin Al Jaafari. 

However, the exclusion imposed on both political parties, coupled with severe blows dealt to business owners and landowners due to land reform laws, amplified the influence of marginalised mass-based groups with radical inclinations. These groups were completely different from the established political and economic elite. The shutting down of outlets for Shia representation sparked a widespread and potent reaction among the masses, who had migrated from Bedouin to rural areas and subsequently to cities. Disconnected from their traditional roots, these masses found themselves without representation in modern society, due to mechanisms of repression and exclusion enforced by military regimes. This disenfranchisement hindered their integration into the urbanisation process, fostering a countermovement characterised by radical or populist tendencies, rather than elitist inclinations aligned with constitutional and institutional frameworks. They demanded comprehensive change and embraced mass mobilisation ideologies. 

At this juncture, two distinct patterns emerged: traditional clerics – the turban’ on one hand, and leaders of the Husseini rituals committees, predominantly from middle-class backgrounds, on the other. The former represented the religious institution, epitomising the religiosity described by Max Weber as being legalistic, text-bound, and morally stringent. The latter embodied popular religion, as described by Durkheim—centered around the charisma of individuals and focused on ritual practices. The ‘turban’ sought reform by revitalising the relationship between religious authority and its followers, which they believed had stagnated. Conversely, leaders of Husseini rituals committees aimed to infuse political significance into ritual practices such as Ashura ceremonies, mourning gatherings, commemorative rituals, and participation in Arba’in pilgrims. According to Abdul Jabbar, these rituals served both as spaces for expression and tools for mobilisation. 

In advocating for the establishment of modern-style party organisations, the Husseini leaders pushed the clerics beyond the boundaries of the religious institution, contrary to the initial intentions of the ‘turban’ reformers. Nonetheless, qualitative dominance remained with the clerics. 

Decapitated Society 

Following the fall of the Ba’ath regime in 2003, Iraq entered a phase of “statelessness.” While pre-2003 Iraq epitomised Abdul Jabbar’s Leviathan, the aftermath plunged the nation into chaos, where society itself became the de facto alternative to the state, marked by warring factions and fragmented groups. Iraq descended into a state of anarchy, characterised by a war against all, unleashing primal instincts resulting in revenge, looting, and the targeting of essential service institutions. These breakdowns were a direct consequence of US policies aimed at dismantling the previous governance system, compounded by the enduring legacy of bloodshed and simmering violence among Iraqis during prolonged wars. 

Faleh Abdul Jabbar argued that in the 1990s, the United States pursued a containment policy toward the final Ba’athist government through three successive measures, all of which clearly failed. First, enforcing economic sanctions proved ineffective in weakening the totalitarian regime but inflicted significant harm on Iraqi society. Second, the disarmament program orchestrated by the UN commission (UNSCOM) was discredited for espionage activities and subsequently expelled from Iraq. Third, encroachments on Iraqi sovereignty, such as the imposition of no-fly zones in the north and south, yielded minimal results. 

The failure of this containment, coupled with other factors including the September 11, attacks, the swift US victory in toppling the Taliban regime, and the rise of neoconservatives espousing a fresh ideology, all led the US to occupy Iraq. According to Abdul Jabbar, these aspirations were driven by two distinct goals delineated by two different institutions, which Abdul Jabbar considers to be more like tribes: the State Department and the Department of Defense.  

 Two Tribes Destroy Two Villages 

In The Stateless Book, published posthumously in 2021, Abdul Jabbar explores the differing strategies of the Department of Defense and the State Department in post-Ba’athist Iraq. The former’s strategy aims for “maximum democracy” and the complete democratisation and secularisation of Iraq, imagining it potentially as a leading country in the Middle East and positioning it as a reliable alternative to Saudi Arabia. Conversely, the latter pursued “minimum democracy,” aiming for disarmament and limited change, reflecting a pragmatic stance. Abdul Jabbar described the two as Idealists versus Realists.  

According to Faleh Abdul Jabbar, the Pentagon possesses boldness and vision, yet its limited understanding of the intricacies of Iraq and the broader Middle East impedes the successful realisation of its visions. Conversely, the State Department (the realists), possesses extensive knowledge through its research institutions, where many experts have been employed. However, this knowledge is often inflated to the point of randomness and lacks a coherent vision. It is rooted in an outdated orientalist perspective that perceives the Arab world as inherently authoritarian, resistant to and incapable of achieving democracy. 

The Department of Defense adopted, almost literally, the so-called Purge and Reform plan, which combined elements from two historical precedents: the first followed by Germany after the Nazi era, and the second followed by Japan after World War II. Initially, this plan seemed promising, but it suffered from flaws in timing and implementation, primarily due to the Department of Defense’s lack of knowledge about Iraq. The plan targeted several axes, the most crucial being the eradication of the Ba’ath Party. Here, political players were divided based on three distinct approaches:  

The first approach was the totalitarian-ideological one, represented by Ahmed  

Al Chalabi, which advocated for dismantling all violent apparatuses to completely expel Ba’athists from all sectors.  

The second approach was the moderate-pragmatic one, adopted by Ayad Allawi, which sought to purge the violent apparatuses without dismantling them entirely.  

The third approach was the institutional-legal one, embraced by the Kurds and the Iraqi Communist Party, which advocated for a partial and phased dismantling of violent apparatuses. 

Faleh Abdul Jabbar’s alternative  is the composite approach, which reconciles between the mechanisms of “purge,” used by Germany against the Nazis for major criminals, the mechanism of “reconciliation and apology,” employed by South Africa regarding senior Baathists who are not implicated, and the mechanism of “forgetting the past,” reminiscent of Chile under Pinochet, concerning junior party members who are not directly implicated in crimes. 

The reason for this alternative stems from the catastrophic outcomes experienced with the totalitarian option, akin to those resulting from the dismantling of security apparatuses in general. The decision to disband the Iraqi army, driven by an ideological conviction within the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), equating it with the Nazi army and deeming it irreparable due to Ba’athist infiltration, was particularly detrimental. The disbandment of military formations led resistance leaders to believe that Ba’athist influence had vanished. However, it was overlooked that the army had remained apolitical since the 1980s, even less so in the 1990s. This dismantling created a terrifying vacuum, turning former soldiers into impoverished and potential rebels, while also placing 4.5 million worth of weapons within reach of insurgents and the public. Ultimately, this exacerbated the sense of national loss among the public, which insurgents capitalised on to sway their emotions toward comprehensive retaliatory violence, resulting in a state of complete “statelessness.” 

One of the central objectives of the purge and reform program was to restructure the political system. While the plan aimed at decentralising power from Baghdad to the provinces, this decentralisation appeared to be more symbolic than substantive. Additionally, a symbolic body known as The Iraqi Governing Council was established, lacking any real authority. It functioned as a middle ground between the promised provisional government and the CPA, which wielded actual and comprehensive power. 

The CPA faced significant challenges due to language and cultural barriers. None of the members were proficient in Arabic, and Iraqi expectations from the coalition were high regarding the delivery of services they were accustomed to. 

Finally, the CPA launched an initiative aimed at separating economic power from political power, with dual objectives: reconstruction and market reform. However, this initiative ultimately failed. It collided with the legacy of the government’s welfare policy, which prioritised social gains over freedoms, and statism over market economics. It also clashed with the command economy policy, which permitted some space for the private sector but predominantly favoured a private sector aligned with the ruling party and those closely affiliated with it. 

Delayed Sunni sectarianism  

The troubled Shia movement, characterised by sectarian grievances over the course of the twentieth century and its populist radicalism, may be attributed to neglectful statist tendencies. Conversely, the emergence of Sunni sectarianism and its rapid evolution into the formation of ISIS can be attributed to the statelessness that ensued after 2003. 

Iraq underwent a profound shift from a totalitarian, state-centric ideology during the Ba’athist era to a country where identity politics focused on sectarian identity, which under the new government led to conflict at times and appeasement at others. 

The imbalance in nation-building following the fall of the Ba’ath regime was evident in the Shia-Kurdish consensus, leaving out the Sunni population. The Sunni community suffered military losses with the collapse of the Ba’athist regime, social setbacks due to the surge of Shia religious fervor, which harboured long-standing grievances, and political marginalisation stemming from the Kurdish-Shia consensus. 

One of the ironies highlighted by Abdul Jabbar is that Iraq, following its defeat in the 1967 war, remained one of the few bastions of secularism and nationalist sentiment in the Middle East amidst the general rise of Islamic fundamentalism. However, as secular trends waned across the Arab world in the early 2000s, Iraq found itself overwhelmed and particularly susceptible to the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, enduring significant suffering as a result. 

In his book The Caliphate – Progressing Towards the Past, published in 2016, Abdul Jabbar delves into the study of local community, particularly the Sunni community, by examining the ideology of the relatively autonomous Takfiri movement and analysing the statelessness that prevailed after the fall of the regime. 

The author of On Conditions and Horrors posits that society, including the Sunni community, is not a monolithic entity but rather exhibits differentiation and complexity, both temporally and spatially. Thus, labeling the Sunni community as a singular breeding ground for ISIS is misleading and fails to acknowledge the fragmentation within the local Sunni community in Iraq. This pluralism is evident through the examination of the imagination of various groups, a concept derived from Max Weber’s “methodology of understanding”, which underscores how societal categories are understood differently based on varying times, places, and class interests. 

Abdul Jabbar revisited the trajectory of regime legitimisation in the late Ba’athist era, viewing it as a precursor to the emergence of the Takfiri trend. The regime sought legitimacy in the 1990s by appealing to tribalism and religious sentiments, particularly through the faith campaign, which entailed extensive efforts to attract Salafis from abroad, construct mosques for them, and allocate resources. Following the Ba’athist regime’s fall, many disenchanted Ba’athist insurgents gravitated towards these Salafis, forming a broad coalition that garnered support from segments of the local community many of whom harboured resentment towards the Shia-majority government and the “al-Maliki Sunnis”—those Sunni factions cooperating with the Shia in the political process. Additionally, there is a category of individuals, neither peaceful nor violent, but who opted for avenues of opposition through protest. However, severe repression of these protests, particularly in 2013, prompted many to join the ranks of violent extremists. Others resorted to sarcasm and satire as a form of dissent. 

The Sunni community found itself devoid of adequate defenses, not only against power due to insufficient political representation or peaceful protest avenues, but against the pervasive influence of the Takfiri trend, which gained traction following the disbandment of the “Awakening Movements.” These movements represented the Sunni community’s resistance to    attacks from the Takfiri trend since 2004. 

In contrast, Shiite elites often perceive democracy solely as majority rule, interpreting the pluralistic constitution in a manner that transforms “majority” from a political concept to an identity-based one. This policy of identity politics can foster the dominance of identities through their contention for political power and access to state resources. With economic rentierism persisting, the economy remains intricately entwined with political power, facilitating the manipulation of identity grievances by Shiite elites to mobilise the masses. Consequently, the concept of victimhood is deeply ingrained within the Sunni community’s collective imagination, despite its internal fragmentation into various categories and segments. It is that concept which will shape its destiny post-ISIS, as stated previously. 

Abdul Jabbar’s analysis underscores the inherently fragmented nature of identity politics, which not only marginalises and antagonises The Other but also generates internal divisions within the same group. This fragmentation is evident in the splintering of the Shiite community into competing subgroups vying for representation and influence, intensifying conflict over who represents a given identity. This phenomenon mirrors the pitfalls of statism, which prioritises state formation at the expense of nation-building, ultimately leading to the collapse of the state apparatus, not just at the national level but specifically within the ruling elite—a profound irony indeed.