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The Shi'ite-Sunni
divide
Part 1: How real and how
deep?
By Sultan Shahin
NEW DELHI -The majority Shi'ite backlash against
the traditional dominance of the Sunni minority in Iraq
that the United States hoped would bail it out of the
Iraqi quagmire has not materialized. Instead, two of the
main Shi'ite and Sunni leaders, known to have mass
support in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr
and Ahmed Kubeisi respectively, have come together to
oppose the US occupation.
Expectations of a
Sunni-Shi'ite showdown in Iraq take on some credibility
when one looks at the situation in Pakistan, where the
two groups have been involved in sectarian violence for
many years, although in this case the Shi'ites
constitute the minority. Only last month, the Muslim
sectarian divide claimed scores of lives in several
incidents in Pakistan. Afghanistan, too, has a history
of sectarian troubles, with the Taliban in particular
coming down hard on Shi'ites.
On the other hand,
in India, Muslims, the second largest Islamic community
in the world after Indonesia, seldom quarrel on
sectarian lines. Similarly, in other countries with
Muslim communities, there is little evidence of
Shi'ite-Sunni violence. Indeed, in recent years there
has been significant cooperation between the two groups
in Lebanon.
With the US, or at lest a section of
its administration, seriously considering the creation
of separate Shi'ite states around southern Saudi Arabian
and Iraqi oil fields - that would be small enough to be
run as protectorates - the Islamic world would face a
major challenge in reconciling Shi'ite-Sunni ideological
differences in a hurry.
And even if such a
hare-brained idea was not implemented, the very real
possibility of a Shi'ite fundamentalist regime a la Iran
eventually rising in Iraq on the ashes of the secular
Sunni-led administration of Saddam has the potential to
overturn the delicate sectarian balance of power in the
Arab, if not the Muslim world. Which raises the
question, will the world Muslim ummah (community)
be able to rise to the challenge?
Ultimately, it
all comes down to one question: how real and how deep is
the Shi'ite-Sunni divide? How much of it is ideological,
and how much caused by political and social vested
interests? Is there an element of tribal, ethnic and
class struggle also involved? On the other hand, how
much of apparent sectarian harmony is promoted by
external factors - the threat from Hindu fundamentalism
in the case of India, and the need to drive out the US
occupation forces in Iraq?
Both Shi'ites, who
constitute a 15 percent-strong minority of the world's
Muslims, and the rest of the Muslims who are Sunnis,
follow basically the same ideology. Minor ideological
differences and major misunderstandings have, however,
crept into their perceptions of each other in the course
of the history of their quarrels that spans almost the
entire Islamic history of about 1,400 years.
The
genesis of the Shi'ite-Sunni divide lies in a dispute
over succession to the Prophet Mohammed that started
soon after his death in 632 AD, even before his funeral,
and culminated in the brutal killing of his grandsons
and other family members at Karbala, in modern-day Iraq.
The Shi'ite-Sunni divide would have made some
sense if any Sunnis justified the massacre at Karbala.
No Sunnis do. The victims of Karbala are universally
treated as martyrs. Both Sunnis and Shi'ites mourn their
deaths in the month of Moharram and commemorate the 40th
day (chehlum) of the grisly event. During the
10-day long Ashura, when each evening Shi'ites
commemorate the Battle of Karbala, with a wailing imam
whipping the congregation into a frenzy of tears and
chest beating, the Sunnis, too, perform similar rituals.
The only difference is that of intensity. While the
Sunnis merely shed tears, listening to graphic
descriptions of what happened at Karbala and beat their
breasts with their own fists, the Shi'ites shed blood,
beating their breasts and shoulders with little knives
and other sharp implements.
The Shi'ite-Sunni
split occurred in the decades immediately following the
death of the Prophet and has deepened since. Sunnis
regard Hazrat Ali, a son-in-law of the Prophet, as the
fourth and last of the Khulafa-e-Rashedeen
(rightly-guided caliphs) - successors to Hazrat Mohammed
as leader of the Muslims). He followed the first caliph
Hazrat Abu Bakr (632-634), the second Hazrat Umar
(634-644) and the third Hazrat Usman (644-656). Shi'ites
feel that Ali should have been the first caliph and that
the caliphate should pass down only to direct
descendants of Mohammed via Ali and Fatima. They often
refer to themselves as ahl al bayt or "people of
the house" (of the Prophet).
The flash points
for riots, as in Pakistan at times, are usually provided
by the extremist Shi'ite insistence on abusing the first
three caliphs publicly, even while passing through Sunni
areas in a procession during Moharram, and the Sunni
insistence in turn of trying to stop this provocative
practice.
The Shi'ites believe that the first
three caliphs usurped power which legitimately belonged
to Hazrat Ali. The Sunnis revere Hazrat Ali as much as
they respect the first three caliphs, and do not like
the Shi'ite practice of tabarra (ritual slander
of the first three caliphs). Shi'ite scholars say that
tabarra is not a part of their customary practice
and only misguided people indulge in it. "If some
Shi'ites do slander the three caliphs, they do it out of
ignorance and should ask God's forgiveness," says
US-based Islamic scholar Dr Shahid Athar.
Shi'ites consider that the first three caliphs
as companions of the Prophet (sahaba) and
administrators, though not spiritual leaders (imams).
Shi'ite imam Jafar Sadiq himself was a scion of the
family of first caliph Abu Bakr. But Sunnis object as
they believe, wrongly, that all Shi'ites indulge
in this odious practice of cursing and ridiculing the
first three caliphs, if not in the streets in Sunni
areas, then at their homes.
It seems that Hazrat
Ali himself accepted the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and
Hazrat Umar, without any reservations, though he may
have differed with some of their policies. He became a
candidate for khilafat (caliphate) only after the
assassination of the second caliph. He could not
reconcile himself to the elevation of Hazrat Usman as
the third caliph and joined the ranks of the opposition
almost immediately. A man of rigorous piety, he differed
in his perceptions and interpretations of the Holy Koran
and Hadith with all the three caliphs, but especially
with Hazrat Usman.
Khilafat was
essentially an administrative position, requiring
statesmanship and pragmatism more than piety and valor,
even though a khalifa was both the spiritual and
temporal head of state. These traits are not mutually
exclusive, but they are certainly rare. Also, Sunnis
believe that the Prophet could not have possibly
promoted the hereditary principle as the Koran that he
brought to this world repeatedly insists that heredity
or race or wealth or any quality other than piety cannot
bestow any superiority on any person.
Hazrat Ali
was held in universal esteem. The Prophet himself had
described him as Babul Ilm, the Gateway to Knowledge.
But one can see why the Quraish, the ruling tribe, had
reservations about his elevation to khilafat
following the Prophet's death when one studies the
history of his own reign.
Hazrat Ali's rule was
marked by internecine conflict, vacillation and marked
errors of judgment on his part. He became embroiled in
conflict from the very first day. He had been chosen as
khalifa in an extraordinary situation. The third
khalifa, Hazrat Usman, had been killed by rebels,
including a son of the second khalifa , Hazrat
Umar, as he was reading the Koran in a mosque. He had
been under siege for some time. During riots preceding
the assassination, Hazrat Ali largely kept aloof and did
not defend the khalifa, while acting as a
spokesman for the rebels at times.
Thus, when he
was appointed khalifa, the very first question he
faced was what to do with the killers of his
predecessor. He decided not to act against them. He was,
however, opposed by Hazrat Aisha, wife of the Prophet
and daughter of the first caliph Hazrat Abu Bakr, who
accused him of being lax in bringing Hazrat Usman's
killers to justice. After Ali's army defeated Aisha's
forces at the Battle of the Camel in 656, she apologized
to Ali and was allowed to return to her home in Medina,
where she withdrew from public life.
One of
Hazrat Usman's relatives, the powerful governor of
Syria, Muawiya, however, would not accept this
situation. He wanted the killers to be brought to
justice. He also refused to pay homage to the new
khalifa. Hazrat Ali marched out with his army to
enforce obedience. Muawiya stopped him at Siffin. After
facing each other for several months, a famous battle
took place. Hazrat Ali was on the verge of victory when
the treacherous Muawiya hoisted copies of the Koran on
lances as a request for peace and settling the dispute
through arbitration. Hazrat Ali accepted arbitration.
But some of his followers thought that this was against
the guidance given in the Koran and changed loyalties.
These dissidents were called kharjis (rebels).
Hazrat Ali's vacillation at this point proved
disastrous. He agreed for arbitration against the best
judgment of some of his more orthodox and pious
followers, at a time when victory after a long and hard
battle was in sight, but did not accept the verdict when
it went against him. The arbiters appointed by both the
parties decided that Hazrat Usman had been killed
unjustly and, therefore, his killers should be punished.
Before marching on to try and resume his campaign
against Muawiya, however, he appealed to the rebels to
come back.
But the kharjis, most of them
pious Muslims, decided that as Hazrat Ali had disobeyed
the Koran by accepting arbitration, he did not deserve
their obedience. When the kharjis did not listen
to his appeals, Hazrat Ali proceeded to massacre them,
thus turning many of his erstwhile followers into bitter
enemies. He could not march against Muawiya as his
followers deserted him in large numbers, accusing him of
un-Islamic behavior in violating the agreement for
arbitration. Subsequently, the task of appointing a
khalifa was left to the same two arbiters, one of
whom had been earlier nominated by Hazrat Ali himself.
Neither of them was prepared to even consider him as a
candidate.
Ali's performance as a caliph makes
it difficult to question the judgment of the early
Muslims who did not consider him for the post of the
first khalifa in the most trying situation in which
Islam found itself with the death of the Prophet. In any
case, the Prophet had virtually shown his preference for
his close friend and companion Hazrat Abu Bakr during
his last illness by asking him to lead the prayers which
he was himself going to join for the last time before
his death.
After Ali's death, Muawiya declared
himself caliph. Ali's elder son Hasan accepted a pension
in return for not pursuing his claim to the caliphate.
He died within a year, allegedly poisoned. Ali's younger
son Hussein agreed to put his claim to the caliphate on
hold until Muawiya's death. However, when Muawiya died
in 680, his son Yazid usurped the caliphate. Hussein led
an army against Yazid but, hopelessly outnumbered, he
and his men were slaughtered at the Battle of Karbala.
Hussein's infant son, Ali, survived, so the Prophet's
line continued. Yazid formed the hereditary Umayyad
dynasty. The few Muslims who remained supporters and
followers of these martyrs, even under Yazid's brutal
rule, called themselves Shi'iaan-e-Ali (partisans of
Ali) or just Shi'ite. The silent majority of Muslims who
acquiesced in Yazid's caliphate were called Sunnis.
Shi'ites continued to revere those born in
Mohammad's family through Ali and Hasan as imams or
spiritual teachers. But the hereditary line became
extinct in 873 when the last Shi'ite imam, al-Askari,
disappeared within days of inheriting the title at the
age of four. He had no brothers. The Shi'ites refused,
however, to accept that he had died, preferring to
believe that he was merely "hidden" and would return.
When after several centuries he failed to return,
spiritual power passed to the ulema, a council of 12
scholars who elected a supreme imam. The best known
modern example of the Shi'ite supreme imam is the late
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of
Iran who ushered in the Islamic revolution overthrowing
the US-supported Shah in 1979.
The Shi'ite-Sunni
split in Islam has gradually come to resemble in some
ways the Catholic-Protestant split in Christianity, with
the Shi'ites developing along the Catholic lines and
Sunnis resembling Protestants in some respects. The
Shi'ite imam has come to be imbued with Pope-like
infallibility and the Shi'ite religious hierarchy is not
dissimilar in structure and religious power to that of
the Catholic Church. Sunni Islam, on the other hand, is
even less hide-bound than the independent Protestant
churches.
Unlike the Shi'ites, Sunnis do not
have a formal clergy. They do respect Islamic scholars
and jurists, but do not feel bound by their
fatwas (religious edicts). Shi'ites believe that
their supreme imam is a fully spiritual guide, who has
inherited some of Mohammed's inspiration ("light").
Shi'ite imams are believed to be infallible interpreters
of law and tradition. Sunnis use the term imam with a
small "i" to denote the prayer-leaders in their mosques.
Racial and ethnic pride, too, entered into the
picture later to further exacerbate relations between
the sects. Inheritors of non-Arab, mainly Persian and
Indian civilizations, turned to Shi'ism largely to
create for themselves a separate identity and
occasionally to express dissent if they felt Arab rulers
were not treating them fairly.
The spread of
Shi'ism was not always voluntary either. Indeed, the
Shi'ite Safavid dynasty in Iran imposed Shi'ism on the
Sunni population in the early 16th century. R M Savory
of the University of Toronto writes in the Cambridge
History of Islam: "The imposition of Shi'ism on a
country which, officially at least, was still
predominantly Sunni, obviously could not be achieved
without incurring opposition, or without a measure of
persecution of those who refused to conform.
Disobedience was punishable by death, and the threat of
force was there from the beginning. As far as the
ordinary people were concerned, the existence of this
threat seems to have been sufficient. The ulema
were more stubborn. Some were put to death; many more
fled to areas where Sunnism still prevailed - to the
Timurid court at Herat and, after the conquest of
Khurasan by the Safavids, to the Ozbeg capital at
Bukhara."
Though there are Shi'ites everywhere
in the Muslim world, the only overwhelmingly Shi'ite
country is Iran. The majority of the population of Iraq,
Yemen and Azerbaijan, too, is Shi'ite. There are also
sizeable Shi'ite communities in Bahrain, the east coast
of Saudi Arabia and in Lebanon. Hizbollah, which forced
the Israelis out of southern Lebanon in 2000, is
Shi'ite.
Next: A bridge over the
divide
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