On Prophet Street, between the arcade pillars that line the road to Shiite Muslims' holiest shrine, hangs a long black banner. In neatly hand-painted script, it lists members of the Hursan family executed by Saddam Hussein's security men. The memorial stretches over three columns. They contain 22 carefully numbered names.

The former Iraqi dictator's slaughter of Shiite Muslims was particularly brutal. But in a land where rulers have repressed, ignored, or marginalized the Shiite majority for decades, their aspirations pose possibly the greatest single challenge facing the next Iraqi government. Threats from some Shiite leaders of holy war against the Americans could present an even more immediate danger.

The Shiites have not been shy about asserting themselves in the new Iraq. Following orders from their religious leaders, they have taken over neighborhoods in cities across the country, set up armed militias, organized public services and established long-banned political parties in an anxious bid to make their presence felt.

"The Shiite are divided at one level into different political and social orientations," says Ali Allawi, a prominent London-based advocate of Iraqi Shiite rights. But after centuries of domination by Sunni Muslim rulers "they are all united to remove sectarianism from Iraqi politics."

So far, the former Iraqi opposition groups that are expected to form a transitional government under US supervision appear to be taking the same approach, acknowledging the Shiites' 60 percent share of the population. The "leadership council" now drawing up rules for a national conference includes both the major Shiite parties, the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and the Dawa.

The American authorities in Baghdad are also dealing with these parties, even though they are mistrustful of their possible ambitions to establish an Islamic state in Iraq, and of their ties to Iran.

SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim sought to defuse such fears on Tuesday, after his triumphant return from 23 years of exile in Tehran to Najaf.

"We call for an authority that respects Islam and sharia [Islamic law] but not for an Islamic government," he said at a press conference. "We do not believe in copying the Iranian regime."

But in a generally religious country, religious leaders belonging to the Shiite sect have a particularly firm grip on rank-and-file believers.

Shiites, who broke away from the dominant Sunni early in Islam's history in a dispute over the Prophet Muhammad's lineage, are distinguished by their refusal to automatically bow to temporal authority, and by their tradition of ijtihad, whereby sharia is adapted to suit the age.

Shiite Muslims thus rely on religious scholars - ayatollahs and other learned men collectively known as marja - to interpret the Koran and the law in rulings known as fatwas.

The marja, most of whom live in the holy city of Najaf where the founder of Shiism, Ali, is buried, often disagree among themselves on issues of law and religion. But every devout Shiite Muslim must choose his own marja, from whom he takes moral, spiritual, and political guidance.

Such guidance takes on special meaning at such charged and volatile times as Iraq is currently living through.

The most active Shiite religious leader since Hussein's regime collapsed has been Moqtada al-Sadr, a young and relatively inexperienced man who comes from a long line of respected religious authorities. From his base here at the Hawza, the supreme institution of Shiite learning, he has dispatched his agents around the country to try to fill the power vacuum left by the Baath Party.

White-turbaned sheikhs loyal to Mr. Sadr have been active throughout Baghdad and other Iraqi cities for the past month, administering hospitals, organizing garbage collection, trying to restore security, setting up committees to run local neighborhoods in the absence of any meaningful central government, and arranging the return of looted goods to mosques.

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