The Dialogue
within - Part I
Shia versus Sunni, the World’s Longest Running
Feud
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
A hundred years from today,
when a chronicler writes about the presence of
Islam in North America, he may well record that
one of the principal achievements of this presence
was the healing of the Shia-Sunni split. It will
be recorded that America brought together Shias
and Sunnis in its embrace and made them rediscover
the commonality of their faith transcending the
distractions of history and tradition.
The world’s longest running feud is not
over Kashmir or Palestine or Chechnya, nor is
it the Catholic-Protestant schism. It is the Shia-Sunni
conflict. Measured in terms of historical longevity,
it beats the Catholic-Protestant schism by a factor
of three and the Palestinian conflict by a factor
of more than twenty.
If a traveler from outer space were to visit planet
earth, he/she would be astonished at the sheer
tenacity of the passions and prejudices that govern
human life. And the Shia-Sunni conflict would
easily top the list of issues that arouse ugly
passions.
Muslims vehemently deny it, but they have made
Islam a parochial religion mired in the past.
Islam was revealed as a universal deen from the
heavens. Muslims have made it a religion based
on history. What is preached is different from
what is practiced. The transcendence of the Qur’an
and the universality of the message of the Prophet
have been replaced by the parochialism of those
who claim to practice them. The contrast between
Islamic precepts and Muslim practices is the most
convincing illustration of how divine ideas get
compromised when they are introduced into the
matrix of human affairs.
The mutual misconceptions between Shias and Sunnis
are mind-boggling. Talk to a taxi driver in Johannesburg
or a porter in Kuala Lumpur, and you will hear
an earful of misinformation about Shia and Sunni
beliefs. Some Sunnis believe that the Shias have
their own version of the Qur’an. The word
Rafzi (a derogatory term meaning deviant) is repeatedly
invoked in conversations. On the other hand many
Shias believe that the Sunnis are turncoats and
apostates who revel in the tragedy of Karbala.
The animosities and scornful labels have been
there since the assassination of Ali (r) in the
year 661 CE. For a long time thereafter some (Sunni)
Umayyads used to take the name of Ali (r) with
derision. Caliph Omar bin Abdel Azeez (d 719)
put an end to this abhorrent practice. On the
other hand, some Shias continue to send tabarra
on the names of Abu Bakr (r) and Omar (r) to this
day and to show disrespect to the name of Aisha
(r ).
The endless dispute is even more astonishing when
you consider that it has its basis in history,
not in doctrine. The origins of the dispute were
forgotten, bitterness was entrenched and became
a tool for politics and power. History was later
elevated to dogma.
Much of the often bloody history of Shia-Sunni
conflicts is well known. The Sunnis believe in
the Ijmah of the companions. The Shias believe
in the primacy of succession through Ahl e Bait.
The former resulted in the institution of Khilafat,
the latter in the evolution of Imamat and Wilayat.
And the feud has continued long after either institution
has ceased to have relevance to the contemporary
world.
These differences were contained during the Khilafat
of Abu Bakr (r) and Omar (r) but burst into the
open with the assassination of Uthman (r). The
ensuing civil wars were inconclusive and ended
only after the assassination of Ali (r) and the
abdication of Hassan (r) in favor of Amir Muawiya.
The conversion of the Khilafat into a dynasty
brought on the tragedy of Karbala, which is a
benchmark in Islamic historiography.
Thereafter, the Shia movement went underground,
focusing primarily on the social and the spiritual.
The Abbasid revolution (750-51 CE) gave some hope
for Shia-Sunni reconciliation. This was not to
be. The Abbasids deftly used the Shias in the
uprising but abandoned them once they were in
power. The persecution of the Shias continued.
The subsequent centuries have been a continuous
saga of political rivalries between these two
groups. The Sunnis have been the dominant political
group but on occasions the Shias have challenged
the political primacy of the Sunnis. In 945 CE,
the Ithna Ashari Buyids briefly occupied Baghdad
only to be expelled by the Seljuk Turks. In the
tenth and eleventh centuries, the Fatimids, another
branch of Shia Islam, successfully challenged
the military primary of the Sunni Abbasids in
Baghdad and ruled an empire extending from Morocco
to Syria from their capital of Cairo. For over
a hundred years, it was Sunni Islam that was on
the defensive. There were Shia kingdoms as far
away as Multan (Pakistan) and Samarqand (Uzbekistan).
The Fatimid power shriveled from within due to
its narrow social base (they were not successful
in proselytizing the Sunnis) and received its
coup de grace at the hands of Salahuddin Ayyubi
(1171 CE).
With their political power fading, the Fatimids
launched the deadly assassin movement. Many a
stalwart historical figure fell to the dagger
of the assassin. Included among these were the
brilliant grand vizier Nizamul Mulk of Baghdad
(1091 CE), Mohammed Ghori , conqueror of Delhi
(1206 CE), the Atabeks Maudud (1127 CE) and Zengi
(1146 CE) of Mosul. Salahuddin himself narrowly
escaped the assassin’s dagger on several
occasions.
Following the destruction wrought by the invasions
of Timur (1375-1402 CE) and his conquest of India,
Persia, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, there were
social and spiritual convulsions in the region
of eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan. Several political-religious
movements were born in this caldron. Towards the
end of the fifteenth century, Safiuddin, a Persian-speaking
Turk, established a military-religious cult around
himself and founded the Safavid dynasty of Persia
(1499). The Safavids waged a relentless war against
the neighboring Sunnis in Samarqand to the North
and the Ottomans to the West. Safiuddin adopted
the Ithna Ashari version of Islam, persecuted
the Sunnis and reduced them to a small minority
in the Persian heartland. The Safavids were contained
only after the Ottoman Turks defeated them at
the battle of Chaldiron (1524). However, warfare
continued with the Great Moguls of India over
control of Afghanistan (1605-1655) and the Ottoman
Turks over control of Azerbaijan (1595-1639).
The Safavid-Mogul rivalry, which was an echo of
the Shia-Sunni rivalry, extended even to the Sultanates
of the Deccan and was a primary reason for the
advance of Mogul armies into southern India under
Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb (1640-1707).
The Shia-Sunni split takes its deadly toll even
today. In Iraq, not a day goes by when rival Shia-Sunni
groups take the lives of hundreds of innocent
people. Even assuming there are hidden hands behind
this anarchy, the carnage is historic in its magnitude
and can only result in the death of a nation.
In Pakistan, intermittent attacks on Shia and
Sunni mosques and places of congregation continue,
hardening the ill will between the two communities.
Islam in America has a unique opportunity to heal
these wounds. There are over three million Muslims
in America. And there are over a million Iranians,
a large majority of whom is Muslim. America has
produced Muslim scholars of the first rank who
have transcended Shia or Sunni labels and have
made lasting contributions to Islamic sciences.
The name of the eminent scholar Seyyed Hussein
Nasr immediately springs to mind. America is the
melting pot of nations. Muslims here are cosmopolitan.
Shia-Sunni marriages and familial relations are
commonplace in this land.
There are also pressures from modern geopolitics.
Shias and Sunnis realize that they face common
challenges. With this realization there have been
attempts on the international scene to reconcile
the opposing points of view. In 1959, the eminent
scholar Shaikh Mahmoud Shaltoot of Al Azhar issued
a fatwa that “the Ja'fari school of thought,
which is also known as ‘al-Shia al- Imamiyyah
al-Ithna Ashariyyah’ (i.e., The Twelver
Imami Shi'ites) is a school of thought that is
religiously correct to follow in worship as are
other Sunni schools of thought”. It is also
recognized that the Zaidiyah school of fiqh is
also historically valid. In numerous writings
Imam Khomeini encouraged the Ithna Ashari Shias
to pray with the Sunnis. Unfortunately, such voices
of reason were drowned out in the oil politics
of the Gulf and the drum beats of the Iran-Iraq
war.
This is not to minimize the obstacles to a Shia-Sunni
reconciliation. There are religious leaders on
both sides who are so mired in their own rote
learning that they cannot separate what is history
from what is doctrine. Many a mufti, when asked
why it is not possible to have a common Shia-Sunni
school of fiqh will throw up his hands in the
air and declare: “Their sources are different.
How can we even begin?” The process of fiqh
is so institutionalized that a solution is unlikely
to emerge from the traditional scholars.
Instead, reconciliation will emerge from the educated
masses, the men and women of the soil who have
their faith in the Qur’an and who love the
Prophet. They will find the Shia and Sunni labels
to be irrelevant. They will bypass the processes
of the different schools of fiqh, but will find
commonality in the conclusions, the ethics and
the injunctions for akhlaq (good character) derived
therefrom. Does it matter what sources were used
and what process of deduction was followed to
establish the pre-eminence of Adl (justice) and
Ehsan (the most beautiful deeds) in social relations?
Aren’t Adl and Ehsan dictated by the Divine
Word? In the emergence of a common Muslim ethic,
transcending the Shia and Sunni brands, the Internet
can play a vital role. I urge the educated and
qualified Muslim youth in North America to undertake
this noble but challenging task using guidance
from broad-minded ulema, Shaikhs and Imams wherever
they may live and whatever their title may be.
Such a consensus emerged at least once before
in Islamic history. Faced with the prospect of
near annihilation from the Mongol invasions (1219-1302),
the Islamic world turned its vision inwards. Nasiruddin
al Tusi (d 1274), a distinguished scientist and
man of letters, compiled his famous treatise Akhlaq
e Nasiri (1273) as an ethical guide for Muslims.
This book, written by a Shia scholar became required
reading in the Sunni Mogul courts of India (1526-1707)
and to a large extent governed their administration.
This then is our vision: Men and women arriving
in America from distant shores wherein they faced
prejudice and persecution will fuse together a
new personality in this new land on the basis
of Adl and Ehsan. They will enjoin that which
is good and beautiful and forbid that which is
extreme and offensive to others. They will be
neither Sunni nor Shia but universal in character
and uniquely Islamic believing in and practicing
Adl and Ehsan. In Ehsan there is healing. In Ehsan
there is forgiveness. In Ehsan there is love.
In it there is divine presence.
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