Powerful Iraqi Cleric was Once Known as "Mulla Atari"

I heard he bought a Virtual Game Boy, a 3DO, a Sega Saturn, and an Atari Jaguar. It was all downhill from there... No wonder he's such an angry Mulla.

[...] wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptGamePolitics has previously reported that the powerful and militant Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is a hardcore gamer. USA Today sheds a bit more light on al-Sadr’s gaming chops with news that, as a religious student, his video game play earned him a unique nickname: As a young seminary student, his nickname was Mulla Atari, because he preferred video games to studying the Quran. Now, Muqtada al-Sadr is a radical cleric revered by millions of poor Shiites as a modern-day Robin Hood. He also may be the most powerful man in Iraq. [...]

Hmmm nothing like getting non-news from the fine piece of journalistic integrity that is USA Today.

I think he's currently taking shelter in Iran. So he's the most powerful Iraqi in Iran.

I'm curious to see if Faux News grabs this one..

He's probably just tensed up because he has been cut off from any newer games/systems. Maybe buying an X-Box will make him more relaxed?

@WarOtter

I could see someone starting a war after thousands of lost games of QBert…

Did you ever play the 80s game Impossible Mission? According to the manual the lead villain, Elvin Atombender, went supervillain/Jack Thompson crazy after a power failure on a game he was a few points off the high score on. It's possibly the earliest conclusive evidence of Games=Violence...

Correction for USA Today: Al Sadr WAS a very powerful man in Iraq, US troops and Iraqi Special Forces.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/04/how_did_sadr_win_in_...

@ SrA Grandpa

Well, lets say 100 per usage, meaning for Tack alone thats at least 100 grand in USD, so lets say 10%? We'll hagle it out later.

And maybe these anti-game critics have it backwards, maybe it's the consols that make people violent. God knows all those cartridge readers pissed me off trying to get it to work just right. Those things where more secure than a Fort Knox safe. 34.756 degrees to the left 92.88 degrees to the right, 3 taps in the exact mathmaticle center, and then draw a picture of a pony in the air creating extreme detail then it would work. Now that was the ONLY way to get my Famicon to work, what was the way you guys got it to work?

[...] Conocemos hoy a través de Gamepolitics.com, una página web que suele unir lo político y lo videojueguil, y al parecer de vez en cuando salir indemne del embrollo donde se han metido, que al parecer existe en Irak un tipo que se lia la manta a la cabeza, bueno más concretamente es una especie de clérigo o jefe religioso de la zona, cuyo nombre es Muqtada al-Sadr que fue conocido en sus años mozos con el sobrenombre de Mulla Atari. Este buen tipo aunque con pinta de terrorista, se define como un perfecto hardcore-gamer que prefiere jugar a leer el Corán. Este tipo es seguido en su pais por millones de fieles pobres quienes ven en él como una especie de moderno Robin Hood de corte árabe. En definitiva uno de los hombres más poderosos de eso llamado hoy como Irak. [...]

Oh no! Jack Thompson was right! Pong causes holy wars!

@Rhade

NO!!! Last thing I want to see is Faux News making another failure "report" on gaming...

@ Carlos

If you believe that, then Jack Thompson is one of the biggest fans of shooters ever born. Come out of bizarro world.

I'm not sure gaming is on the top of the list of concerns in Iraq, but it is likely that the Sadr coalition will control a good portion of the country when the US leaves. In Shia Islam, I believe Sadr still needs further official study to be able to issue fatwas or religious edicts which is one of the reasons he has been largely absent in public(he is trying to gain Ayatollah status). I wouldn't be surprised either way if he bans gaming or sanctions it.

Let's give all the mulla's an xbox360 or ps3, they will never want to blow themselves up.