The son of the late Grand Ayatollah Moham­mad Sadiq Al-Sadr, and son-in-law of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr, Muqtada is a highly influential leader who inherited con­trol over large social institutions that serve mil­lions in the slums of Baghdad.

Serving the Poor: He has focussed on serving Iraq’s poor Shia Muslims and has had complete free­dom to work in many parts of Iraq, especially Sadr City, a district in Baghdad named after his father. He provides access to healthcare, food, and clean water. He has raised issues of corruption, high unem­ployment and poor government services.

Politics: He gained prominence after the US in­vasion of Iraq by creating the Mahdi Army, an armed insurgency movement that formed its own courts and system of law enforcement. This is now known as Saraya Al-Salam. Through it he has concentrated on campaigning against corruption in Iraq, criticising the government openly about this. He has worked for Shia-Sunni unity, and in 2017 called for Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad to step down, and also met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Power-Broker: The Sadirist-led coalition won 73 seats in the 2021 elections, beating the Iranian-backed coalition, but he was unable to form a government, and so Sadr withdrew his coalition and quit politics a year later. There were violent clashes between the supporters of the two coalitions which led to fears of an all-out, intra-Shia civil war, but Sadr played a prominent role in preventing this. He still influences policies through his power on the streets. With parliamentary elections in 2025, there are signs that he will re-enter the political field.