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The Shi'ite-Sunni
divide
Part 2: Slowly
building bridges
By Sultan Shahin
Part 1: How real and how
deep?
NEW DELHI - Many Muslims
throughout the world, both Sunni and Shi'ite, are
working towards dialogue and reconciliation between the
two sects. They argue that it is just not possible to
fully comprehend and much less to judge the historical
figures of Islam and their motivations today, 13 or 14
centuries after the event, that led to the schism in
Islam. Indeed, it is not possible to judge people even
when events take place now in full view of the world
media.
If one cannot say for sure, for instance,
whether Saddam Hussein did indeed pose an imminent
threat to the Western (civilized?) world, how can one
judge whether Hazrat Ali was at all involved in the
murder of Hazrat Usman in 656, even though he continued
to shield the killers throughout his caliphate? And do
we even need to judge them today?, many ask.
The
ideological differences between the two sects that arose
from these distant events have continued to bedevil
relations, yet they are hardly of any vital significance
to the practice of the religion of Islam. In fact, these
are no more significant than the differences in the four
recognized schools of thought among Sunnis themselves.
Yet, many Sunnis complain that Shi'ites seem to take the
fundamentals of Islam very much for granted, mainly
focusing on glorification of Ali and martyrdom of
Hussein and his family members.
The strong theme
of martyrdom and suffering in Shi'ite Islam does tend to
exasperate many Sunnis. Shi'ites are believed to harbor
a deep-seated disdain towards Sunni Islam. But anyone
who knows about the bitterness with which Sunni sects
like Barelvis and Wahhabi Deobandis in South Asia fight
among themselves, each calling the other kafir
(non-believer), for instance, these Shi'ite-Sunni
differences would appear to be quite insignificant.
In fact, in the early days of Islam, mainstream
Shi'ites were not excluded from the life of the Muslim
community, even though Sunni and Shi'ite scholars used
to engage in quite heated debates even then. Both Imam
Abu Hanifa and Imam Shafii, who together hold the
allegiance of an overwhelming majority of Sunnis, were
supporters of various Shi'ite causes. Imam Shafii
actively participated in a Shi'ite uprising in Yemen,
and Imam Abu Hanifa was involved in a Zaydi Shi'ite
rebellion in Iraq. Indeed, Imam Abu Hanifa has openly
acknowledged his indebtedness to the sixth Imam of the
Shi'ites, Ja'afar as-Sadiq, for his own education in
matters of hadith (sayings of the Prophet
Mohammed) and fiqh (Islamic law).
For all
the centuries-old bitterness, however, Sunnis and
Shi'ites agree on the core fundamentals of Islam - the
Five Pillars - and recognize each other as Muslims. Some
obscurantist Wahhabi mullahs in Pakistan, however,
buoyed by their success in the case of the Sunni Ahmadi
sect, have now started demanding that Shi'ites, too, be
declared to be non-Muslim. Shaykh bin Baz of Saudi
Arabia, whose Wahhabi rulers are in the forefront of
spreading sectarian hatred, is said to have gone to the
extent of declaring in an edict that the meat of the
people of the book (Jews and Christians) is permissible
for Sunni Muslims to eat, but not the meat slaughtered
by Shi'ites.
The main Wahhabi complaint is that
the Shi'ites have changed even their basic declaration
of faith, the shahadah. The Sunni shahadah
is: "There is no god but Allah, Mohammed is the
Messenger of Allah."
But the Shi'ites add the
following: "Ali is the Friend of Allah. The Successor of
the Messenger of Allah and his first caliph."
Some practical differences have also crept into
the religious rituals of Shi'ite-Sunni sects. Shi'ites
have a slightly different call to prayer, with some
additional words glorifying Ali. They perform ablutions
and say their prayers somewhat differently. For
instance, they place their forehead onto a piece of
hardened clay from Karbala, not directly onto the prayer
mat when prostrating. They also tend to combine prayers,
at times praying just three times a day instead of five.
But this is mostly an individual practice based on
convenience and is certainly better than not praying at
all. In any case, Shi'ite mosques perform
five-times-a-day prayers, as in Sunni mosques.
While the basic scripture, the Holy Koran, is
the same in the case of both sects, the Shi'ites prefer
to rely on some different sayings of the Prophet and
different narrators. They prefer sayings narrated by Ali
and Fatima to those related by other companions of the
Prophet, particularly Aisha. Shi'ite Islam also permits
fixed-term temporary marriage called mutah, which
is now banned by the Sunnis. Mutah was originally
permitted at the time of the Prophet and is now being
promoted in Iran, according to Islamic scholar Hussein
Abdul Waheed Amin by "an unlikely alliance of
conservative clerics and feminists, the latter group
seeking to downplay the obsession with female virginity
which is prevalent in both forms of Islam, pointing out
that only one of the Prophet's 13 wives was a virgin
when he married them".
There are contradictions
galore in the claims and accusations made by all the
parties concerned. The most important charge against
Hazrat Usman was that of making innovations and going
beyond the Holy Koran and the Prophet's guidance. Hazrat
Ali fought against these innovations. But he himself
faced the same charge by his supporters-turned-rebels,
the Kharjis, on the question of arbitration.
Shi'ites rightly criticize the Umayyads for
establishing their dynasty. Anyone who knows anything
about Islam knows that the religion preaches complete
equality among all human beings, except on grounds of
piety. But Shi'ites also believe that the Prophet's
dynasty should have continued to rule for ever,
regardless of the merits of the individuals who would
inherit the mantle. Many Sunnis consider as blasphemous
the very idea that Prophet Mohammed wanted to establish
a dynasty of his own.
An opportunity for
Shi'ite-Sunni unity did arise in 750. Following a
Shi'ite-supported revolt led by Abu al-Abbass al-Saffah,
almost the entire Umayyad aristocracy was wiped out in
the Battle of Zab in Egypt. It was envisaged that the
Shi'ite spiritual leader Jafar As-Siddiq, the
great-grandson of Hussein, be installed as caliph. But
when Abbas died in 754, this arrangement had not yet
been finalized and Abbas' son al-Mansur murdered Jafar,
seized the caliphate and founded the Baghdad-based
Abbasid dynasty which prevailed until the sack of
Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258.
Another
opportunity came much later. In 1959, Sheikh Mahmood
Shaltoot, head of the school of theology at al-Azhar
University in Cairo, the most august seat of learning of
Sunni Islam and the oldest university in the world,
issued a fatwa (ruling) recognizing the
legitimacy of the Jafari school of law to which most
Shi'ites subscribe.
The fatwa made two
points:
1) Islam does not require a Muslim to follow
a particular madh'hab (school of thought).
Rather, we say: every Muslim has the right to follow one
of the schools of thought which has been correctly
narrated and its verdicts have been compiled in its
books. And, everyone who is following such
madhahib [schools of thought] can transfer to
another school, and there shall be no crime on him for
doing so.
2) The Jafari school of thought, which
is also known as "al-Shi'ite al-Imamiyyah al-Ithna
Ashariyyah" (ie, The Twelve Imami Shi'ites) is a school
of thought that is religiously correct to follow in
worship as are other Sunni schools of thought. Muslims
must know this, and ought to refrain from unjust
prejudice to any particular school of thought, since the
religion of Allah and His Divine Law (Sharia) was never
restricted to a particular school of thought. Their
jurists (mujtahidoon) are accepted by Almighty
Allah, and it is permissible to the "non-mujtahid" to
follow them and to accord with their teaching whether in
worship (ibadaat) or transactions
(mu'amilaat).
Many believe that this
fatwa can be made the basis of dialogue and
reconciliation. It can at least constitute a bridge over
the Shi'ite-Sunni divide. The late Imam Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran had shown promise in moving in
this direction. His revolution in 1979 to oust the Shah
was never called a Shi'ite revolution: it was always
referred to as an Islamic revolution.
Khomeini's
1989 edict (fatwa) of death on Salman Rushdie for
his book The Satanic Verses is widely disputed,
and on several counts. But the fact remains that it was
in defense of the Prophet's wives, including Aisha, who
had fought with Hazrat Ali and is therefore not regarded
highly by Shi'ites. Rushdie had not "denigrated", even
according to his Shi'ite critics, Ali or his sons or
Shi'ism. He had trained his guns on Islam, Mohammed and
his wives.
Apart from many negative
ramifications of Khomeini's fatwa - the identification
of Muslims with bigotry in the West, for instance, began
at this point - this had the positive fallout of
bringing religious-minded Shi'ites and Sunnis together.
But the opportunity was lost. Even those among Muslims
who opposed the fatwa have to agree that there
was nothing particularly Shi'ite about it.
Under
the circumstances created by renewed United States
intervention in the Arab world, an urgent need for
reconciliation is again being felt. If the discussions
in the Islamic media and Internet chat-rooms are any
indication, there may soon be some movement in this
direction. Many Sunnis and Shi'ites are expressing
dissatisfaction at the unnecessary and basically
meaningless split. The tentative coalition being formed
by Iraqi spiritual leaders Muqtada al-Sadr (Shi'ite) and
Ahmad Kubaisi (Sunni) to jointly oppose the US-led
occupation of Iraq may be a pointer to the future
direction that the Shi'ite-Sunni dialogue and
reconciliation movement may take.
But there is
also a realization that this is not going to be an easy
task. It is common knowledge that the militant Pakistani
organization Sipah-e-Sahaba, that is accused of targeted
killing of Shi'ites, has for years been financed by the
Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia. Iran is said to be
financing Tehrike-Nifaze-Fiqhe-Jafria, a militant
Shi'ite organization in Pakistan. These two
organizations have kept fanning the flames of growing
Shi'ite-Sunni enmity in Pakistan.
As for the
Arab world, renowned US-based Islamic scholar Seyyed
Hossein Nasr says, "A great deal of money and effort has
been spent in the last few years to fan the fire of
hatred between Shi'ites and Sunnis in the Persian Gulf
region, with obvious political and economic fruits for
the powers-to-be."
It was not too long ago that
Arabs conferred "near-unanimous legitimacy" to Saddam's
invasion of Iran in the 1980s on the specious plea that
the growing Shi'ite power in the neighborhood was a
danger to the Sunni Arab rulers of the Gulf region. The
eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war, that did more than
anything else to widen the Shi'ite-Sunni divide, was
supported to the hilt by the Western powers.
It
is this unholy alliance of secular Arab nationalism of
Saddam's Iraq, the Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalism of
Saudi Arabia and Western imperialism with its massive
media resources that has created the present perception
of a vast Shi'ite-Sunni divide. It is not for nothing
that the Western media seldom mention an Iraqi as
Muslim. There are no Muslims in Iraq, only Shi'ites,
Sunnis or Kurds; just as there were no Muslims in
Kosovo, only ethnic Albanians.
The fact that the
widely predicted Shi'ite backlash against the
decades-long Sunni domination of Iraq has not
materialized may mean that the imperialist project of
divide and rule has not succeeded in that country, at
least so far. Now it is for Shi'ites and Sunnis in other
parts of the world to build on the Iraqi example and
seek to bridge the gulf separating the two sects to
promote harmony and peace undeterred by the bigotry of
extremists and the machinations of imperialist powers.
Part 1: How real and how
deep?
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