Sentence examples for mainstream cleric from inspiring English sources

The fighting this week coincides with the rare absence from Najaf of the most revered Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who is a mainstream cleric wary of the American role but not in violent opposition to it as Mr. Sadr is.

Some Iraqi leaders suggested that the National Council could be used to bring into the mainstream some Iraqis, like the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who have turned to violence.

Forty years ago, Egypt's leading cleric of the time even declared mainstream Shiism to be an accepted branch of the faith.

Such a panel might include a Jewish rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest, a mainstream Protestant minister, an evangelical pastor, a Muslim cleric and a nonreligious person known for a strong understanding of ethics.

Mainstream Iraqi leaders roundly condemned the announcement by the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr.

The leaflets were distributed a day after Sadr al-Din al-Kubanchi, a top cleric in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a mainstream Islamic political party and a rival to Mr. Sadr's more militant group, called for the people of Najaf to take power back from Mr. Sadr, who has taken over key Shiite shrines there.

Lebanon's mainstream political leaders, residents said, appeared powerless or unwilling to rein in the cleric or address his followers' concerns, leading to a clash they called more dangerous and destabilizing than the perennial battles between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government in the northern city of Tripoli, which have largely been confined to two neighborhoods.

The rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr's budding campaign to insert himself into the mainstream political landscape continued on Saturday, with a demonstration by the women's wing of his organization in his Baghdad stronghold.

Mr. Saleh has been under increasing pressure: a powerful tribal sheik declared his support for the protesters, the mainstream opposition said it would send its own followers to join the demonstrations and a prominent radical cleric joined the calls for the president's ouster.

The cleric pressed him.

"Moktada and those people around him, they know nothing," said an Iraqi cleric who had studied under Mr. Sadr's father, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, a cleric who was widely respected by the mainstream Shiite establishment.