Rebellion suppressed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr The 1979–1980 Shia uprising in Iraq, also known as the First Sadr Uprising, took place as a followup to the Iranian Revolution (1978–1979) in neighbouring Iran, as the Shia Iraqi clerics vowed to overthrow Ba'athist Iraq, dominated by (secular) Sunni Muslims - specifically the Saddam Hussein family.

[2] When the Baathists arrested Ayatollah Al-Sadr in 1977, his sister Amina Sadr bint al-Huda made a speech in the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf inviting the people to demonstrate.

[1] In the aftermath of Iran’s revolution, Iraq’s Shiite community called on Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr to be their “Iraqi Ayatollah Khomeini”, leading a revolt against the Ba'ath regime.

[4][better source needed] Community leaders, tribal heads, and hundreds of ordinary members of the public paid their allegiance to al-Sadr.

[4] The cleric’s imprisonment led to another wave of protests in June after a seminal, powerful appeal from al-Sadr’s sister, Bint al-Huda.

[10] The protests and ensuing violence were strongest in the heavily Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, as well as southern majority Shiite cities such as Karbala, Nasiriyah, Kufa, Najaf, and Basra.