Since his arrival, he has transformed the mosque into a nexus of an efficient political movement that works in the name of Sistani and under the loose umbrella of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the main Shiite political parties.
In a small shop near the worship hall, compact discs of Saghir's sermons line shelves along two walls. Each costs about 50 cents, and as many as 400 are sold each week. On any Friday, worshipers crowd the counter with money in one hand, the shoes they take off before prayer in the other. Minutes after his sermon ends, the CDs are available for sale.
A man kisses Saghir at the Baratha mosque after his 2003 return. How he fares in politics could help clarify the Shiite clergy's still-ambiguous role.
(AP Television News Photo)
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Wooden scaffolding climbs up the mosque's wall, and workers lay brick for new additions that will cost $600,000. They will house, in part, committees organized over the past year for charity, women's issues, culture, information and education.
"There are those who are lazy, and there are those who like to work all the time, with both their mind and body," said Majid Saadi, dressed in a brown suit with no tie, his gray beard neatly trimmed.
Saadi is Saghir's point man in the information campaign at which his followers have become so adept. On religious occasions, the literature they produce celebrates Shiite ritual that was discouraged for decades; during this year's elections, it was avowedly political.
"We worked day and night," said Saadi. "The people were thirsty for information."
In the month before the vote, the mosque printed more than 1 million posters supporting the Shiite coalition, Saadi said. For a time, they seemed to grace every wall in Baghdad. More than 1,500 volunteers loyal to Saghir also helped produce 20,000 hand-written banners, he said. Twenty seminars were organized at the mosque during the campaign, recorded on CDs and distributed by the thousands. As many as 100,000 leaflets were printed.
"The biggest efforts to support [the Shiite coalition] came from the Baratha mosque," Saghir said.
'The Anger of the Gentle'
When Saghir returned to Baghdad in 2003, he preached to 2,000 people. Now he estimates there are three times that many. His ambition: 30,000 worshipers drawn to the mosque for Friday prayers and a sermon as political as it is religious.
In today's Iraq, Saghir is what passes for a showman.
At a podium draped in black and adorned in arabesque and calligraphy, Saghir starts slowly, as though weary. His low voice is almost a whisper. The blink of his half-closed eyes is exaggerated. Then he runs his hand slowly through his beard as he scans the crowd.
On this day, the topic was the members of Iraq's new parliament -- Saghir among them -- convening for the first time since the election. "When I entered the room," he said, "the word of God was on my tongue, my heart quivered, and my eyes were tearing."
At the words, the crowd erupted: "Victory for Islam! Death to Saddam!"
He went on, invoking the names of prominent Iraqi clerics killed under Hussein's rule: "I saw the blood of the two Sadrs and the Hakim family, the blood of Iraq, north and south, from its center, east and west. My heart quaked."
