Speaking of Sadr.
In doing some searching around on a recent topic, I came across this [link|http://timelines.ws/countries/SAUDIARABIA.HTML|timeline]:
1979 Nov 16, Some 200 armed men and women, Mahadi-ists, seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. They denounced the monarchy and demanded an end to corrupting modernization and "foreign ways." French special forces shot dead all the Wahhabi extremists. (SSFC, 10/21/01, p.C3)(WSJ, 11/12/03, p.A18)
The [link|http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=ab1af369b732d8446bf5f80f6d045916|Mahadi-ists] are "followers of a messiah or guide to a purer faith". Sadr's militia is called the [link|http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/al-sadr.htm|Mahdi Army]. "The Mahdi prepares the way for the second coming of the Prophet Isa (Jesus) and the impending end of the world." Surely the groups share some sort of kinship of belief (I don't know enough about English translation of Arabic to know if they're actually using the same term).
I had forgotten about that incident in Mecca in 1979. Can it be a coincidence that that happened only [link|http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/hostages.phtml|12 days after the US Embassy was stormed in Tehran]?
I thought the connections were rather [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burke_%28science_historian%29|James Burke-ish]...
Cheers,
Scott.