The Islamic Dawa Party is an Iraqi political organization. It is one if the main Shi'ite parties. In the lead-up to the 2005 Iraqi election it cooperated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and other Shi'ite groups in the United Iraqi Alliance. The party is led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a doctor, who is one of Iraq's interim Vice-Presidents and the leading candidate for Prime Minister.
The party was formed in the late 1950s by a group of Shi'ite leaders, with Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr, the uncle of Muqtada al-Sadr, playing a prominent role. It was created to combat atheistic communism and Baathist Arab socialism which were then ascendant in Iraq. While founded and led by Shi'ites it worked closely with Sunni Islamic groups and a significant minority of the group's members were Sunnis. Al-Dawa rose to prominence in the 1970s when it waged a terrorist campaign against the Iraqi government. It supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran and in turn received support from the Iranian government, especially during the Iran-Iraq War. Despite this cooperation the Islamic Republic envisioned by al-Sadr differed sharply from that of Khomeini. While Khomeini, and the SCIRI, argued the power of the state should rest with the ulema al-Dawa supported the notion of power resting with the ummah.
In 1982 the group attempted to assassinate Saddam Hussein. After this attack the Iraqi authorities cracked down on the group forcing its remaining members into exile in Iran, where it was in a secondary role to the SCIRI. After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq al-Dawa returned, basing itself in the city of Nasiriya which the party now runs and controls.
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