abstract:Hawza (Arabic/Persian: حوزة) or ḥawza ʻilmiyya (Arabic/Persian: حوزة علمیة) is a seminary of traditional Islamic school of higher learning. It is a term used mostly by the Shi'a Muslims communities to refer to a traditional Shi'a centre where clerics are trained.
Sparked by America's liberation of the hawza in Najaf itself, the historic nerve-centre of the world's 170m or so Shias, Lebanese Shias are re-examining their attitudes to clerical power.
These were the people who swept through the nicer parts of Baghdad after Saddam's fall, looting in the name of the Hawza (the Shia Vatican), to the horror of mainstream ayatollahs and middle-class Iraqis.