The purpose of this post is to provide a background of inter-sect relations between the two main denominations of Islam, Sunni and Shia, from the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to the modern day, and how they contribute to instability in the region.
Most readers may be familiar with the migration of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and the nascent Muslim community to Madinah in the year 622 to escape persecution from the people of Makkah. Once settled in their new home, the Muslim community in the city could be divided into two camps: the Muhajireen (Emigrants) who were the migrants from Makkah, and the Ansar (Helpers) who were the native population of Madinah who clothed, fed and sheltered the Muhajireen till the latter could stand on their own feet.
The Muhajireen integrated remarkably well into Madinah's environment and there was little, if any tension between the two. However, after the death of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), there was a disagreement between the two regarding his successor:
The Muhajireen believed that as the Prophet (PBUH) had been one of them and they had been his earliest supporters, the successor should also be one of them whereas the Ansar argued that they without their taking in of the Muhajireen and the aid they provided to the cause of Islam, the religion may well have been crushed and thus, they were deserving of the succession. To discuss who to nominate as Caliph, the leaders of the Ansar met at the Saqifa Banu Saidah, the house of one of the Ansar leaders, while the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was dying.
Just as he passed away, his companions found out about the meeting. Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Khattab and Abu Ubaidah bin Jarrah, three of the Prophet'S (PBUH) closest companions, made their way to Saqifa, where Umar nominated Abu Bakr; all present agreed and Abu Bakr was elected the first of the Rightly Guided Caliphs in Sunni belief.
This was where the first split in the Muslim community formed. Ali, the Prophet's (PBUH) cousin, son-in-law and close companion, was bathing the Prophet's (PBUH) body in preparation for the funeral and was not informed of these events till they had already transpired. While subsequent Sunni and Shia accounts of his reaction differ, there is a wide consensus that he was disappointed in not being consulted and that several of the Prophet's (PBUH) companions did not initially give bayah (oath of allegiance) to Abu Bakr as they supported Ali.
Ali's supporters, the Shiatu Ali (Party of Ali) claimed that the Prophet (PBUH) had indicated Ali as his successor, based on numerous instances such as the Hadith of Khumm, which is accepted by both Sunnis and Shias as valid. However, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) had delegated Abu Bakr to lead the prayers during his final illness and most Muslims were content to consider this as sufficient to endorse Abu Bakr; Ali himself gave Bayah to Abu Bakr not much later and was a close advisor on matters of state to Abu Bakr, Umar and Usman, all three of his predecessors as Caliph.
However, there is much controversy over the death of Fatima, Ali's wife, who died not much after her father, the Prophet (PBUH) with the general Shia view alleging that she died from injuries sustained at the hands of Umar and other supporters of Abu Bakr trying to get Ali to give bayah, a view rejected by most Sunni scholars who claim she died due to grief for her father.
Ali eventually became Caliph in 656 after Usman's assassination, but his short rule was mostly occupied with civil wars, the major one of which was the rebellion by Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan, the governor of Syria. Muawiya belonged to the Banu Umayya clan, rivals of the Banu Hashim to which the Prophet (PBUH) and Ali belonged, and his father Abu Sufyan was one of the Prophet's (PBUH) fiercest enemies, surviving only due to the amnesty declared when Makkah surrendered to the Muslims.
Muawiya used anger over the assassination of Uthman to drum up support for a rebellion; during the major battle at Siffin, Ali's forces appeared ascendant but the former ordered his troops to mount verses of the Quran on their lances, signifying a call for arbitration according to the Quran; this move caused a significant portion of Ali's army to stop fighting, forcing him to agree.
The result of the arbitration was that both should vacate their posts, a decision against Ali due to his higher position and the fact that Muawiyah was a rebel. He refused to step down and was martyred not long after at the hands of the Kharjites, a group of fanatics with views not unlike today's ISIS.
After his martyrdom, his son, Hasan ibn Ali, the grandson of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) became the lesser-known fifth Rightly Guided Caliph and only ruled for a few months, before abdicating in favour of Muawiya on some conditions, including that he would not form a dynasty to rule the Caliphate; Hasan retired to Medina where nine years later in 670, he was poisoned by one of his wives at Muawiyah's instigation.
This passed the Imamate to his brother, Hussain. Imam Hussain and other notable people such as Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr and Abdullah ibn Umar tolerated Muawiyah as he was a competent leader. However, near the end of his reign, Muawiyah nominated his son Yazid as his successor, and started ordering people to take bayah at Yazid's hand. Imam Hussain was among the few who refused to do so, even when threatened, as he viewed it as a violation of the treaty that his brother had signed.
The issue became a full-blown dispute when Muawiyah died and Yazid became Caliph. The people of Kufa seemed receptive to his message and invited the Imam to their city to preach among them. Imam Hussain agreed and dispatched his cousin, Muslim bin Aqeel, to Kufa to gauge support and take bayah on his behalf. Hussain departed from Madinah to Kufa with his family, but in the interim, Yazid replaced the governer of Kufa with one of his own men, Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad, who arrested and executed Muslim, and dispersed the pro-Hussain feeling in the city.
Hussain received this news when he had already commenced his journey and was close to the city. He decided to continue onwards but ibn Ziyad received orders from Yazid to gain bayah from the Imam at any cost and blocked his path with an army at a place called Karbala. They also cut off the supply of water to his camp by preventing access to the nearby Euphrates River. The Imam again refused to bow to Yazid and as a result, the battle of Karbala was fought on the 10th of Muharram, where the Imam and 72 of his companions, including almost all the male descendants of the Prophet (PBUH) at the time were martyred.
The Umayyad army did not even spare the Imam's six month old son, Ali al Asghar. The remainder of the caravan, mostly women and children, were forcefully marched to Damascus where Yazid and his court mocked the Imam, but were silenced by a speech given by Zainab bint Ali, the Imam's sister; among other things, she affirmed that her kin were martyrs in Paradise and vowed that Yazid and his supporters would face justice on the Day of Resurrection. In response, Yazid imprisoned the Ahlul Bayt, the family of the Prophet (PBUH), but was forced to release them when ordinary people started crowding the prison to learn about the events of Karbala.
The events of Karbala were not only some of the most tragic in the history of Islam, but also acted as a catalyst for many others. Imam Hussain's sacrifice and martyrdom inspired many anti-Yazid people to rise in revolt and although the Umayyads crushed them, they would soon be toppled by the Abbasids, who capitalized on the anger among the populace over the treatment of the Ahlul Bayt. More importantly, this brought about a schism in Islam that split it into two.
Overnight, the Shia went from being a politically oriented group to a separate religious sect that laid emphasis on devotion to the Ahlul Bayt and the Imams. The Abbasids did not prove to be any better however; while most Muslims were against the slaughter of the Ahlul Bayt, the Abbasids were suspicious that the Imams would seek to press their claim to the Caliphate and thus, encouraged persecution of the Shia. All of the Imams in the Abbasid period, starting from Imam Jafar al Sadiq till Imam Askari, were poisoned at the instigation of the Abbasid Caliphs.
However, the Shias began to spread slowly, centered around Iraq and spreading outwards, and received a boost from the destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate by the Mongols, which ended state repression. Till the 16th century, many of the Shias in the Middle East belonged to non-Twelver denominations like Ismailis, Bektashis etc. The establishment of the Safavid Empire in Iran changed that. The Safavids imported Shia scholars from the Middle East, provided support for Shia proselytizing and religious works, and heavily persecuted Sunnis; as a result, a majority Sunni land was quickly, if violently, converted to mostly Twelver Shia belief within a few generations.
Due to the power of the Safavids at their height, the neighboring, majority-Sunni Ottoman Empire viewed the Shia in its own lands with suspicion and continued the Abbasid practice of Shia persecution, as did the Mughal Empire in South Asia to a smaller extent. [1] [2]
In the 20th century, Sunni-Shia relations improved due to national struggles and joint pan-Muslim causes such as the Khilafat Movement in South Asia to save the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s and the anti-Zionist struggle against Israel which united many Muslims across the world against a common enemy. However, this progress stalled and in fact, started taking steps backwards due to the spread of Wahhabism and Salafism. Prior to the 1970s, these austere ideologies were primarily confined to the Arabian Peninsula, making up a tiny fraction of Sunni Muslims.
However, new-found oil wealth allowed the Gulf States, primarily Saudi Arabia, to pour petrodollars into Wahhabi literature, mosques, madrassas and aid programs, especially in South Asia and the West. This caused the two inter-linked movements to grow rapidly, contributing to the increasing conservatism of many Muslim and Arab societies in comparison to the 60s and 70s. The rise of these movements contributed to deteriorating inter-sect relations as they do not believe in the concept of shrines, which on the other hand are a staple of Shia religious thinking.
Also, these movements are far more liberal in the application of takfir or excommunication than mainstream Sunnis and have often labeled Shias to be murtad (apostates), often worse than non-Muslims. Interestingly, many Salafists in the West are new converts rather than already Muslim and most of the Muslims involved in terror acts there are self-taught and generally religiously illiterate.[3]
The Gulf nations were generous patrons of Wahhabism for two main reasons: Firstly, it enabled the Gulf regimes to move firebrand or troublesome clerics out of their countries and into others, allowing them to rule more freely with a more subservient clergy. Secondly, the Islamic Revolution in Iran shook the Middle East, showing that even the most powerful of the monarchs in the region could be toppled. Terrified of this being repeated in their countries and suspicious of their own Shia populations, the Gulf rulers found it convenient to paint the Shias as the enemy and use the spectre of the Persian Safavids coming to violently spread Shia ideology in a way to drum up support and divert their populations from thinking too deeply about the illegitimacy of kingdoms in Islam and stifling restrictions at home.
As a result, inter-sect harmony has deteriorated in virtually every country around the world, though current relations vary: for instance, in the Persian Gulf region and the Levant, there are tensions between the communities and even open war as in Syria, where Sunni rebels fight a generally Shia-backed government. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the rise of extremist groups such as the Taliban,Sipah e Sahaba and Lashkar e Jhangvi have resulted in the targeting of Shia intellectuals, mourning processions in Muharram, and imambargahs/mosques. However, support for such attacks is confined to a minority and the majority of Sunnis and Shias in South Asia continue to coexist in relative harmony. [4]
Some may continue to wonder why rivalries in this region are so deeply rooted in religion and events that occurred centuries ago. To understand that, we must look at the concept of the Ummah. In Islam, all followers of the religion are declared to be one nation, in other words deconstructing national and racial boundaries in favor of a more inclusive system where race and origin do not matter, at least in theory.[5]
Since the Muslim conquest of the Middle East took place so rapidly, and subsequent conquests and proselytizing engaged a diverse range of geographically separated peoples, the only common identity with which to bind empires and nation-states together was the concept of Islamic brotherhood. Thus, religion has always been the tool of choice with which rulers have enforced their will upon the region and have also been toppled. With the Shia, a further incentive for cohesion is their status as a minority; Of the 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, only 200 million or 15% are estimated to be Shias. [6]
To sum up, the Shia-Sunni relationship is less a victim of theological differences and more that of political games and power hungry leaders on both sides. In the end, it is not that Muslims or savages or Islam is dangerous, but that the Middle East and Muslims are victims, earlier of colonialist mindsets among foreign powers and now, of their own ignorance and narrow-mindedness. Most members of each group do live in harmony with each other across the world and where they don't, one can hope that technology and open minds can achieve that soon.
Sources:
- http://www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176#!/?cid=otr-marketing_url-sunni_shia_infoguide
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia%E2%80%93Sunni_relations
- http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/10/end-alone-0
- http://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2014/12/20/the-radicalization-of-south-asian-islam-saudi-money-and-the-spread-of-wahhabism/
- http://eng.dar-alifta.org/foreign/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=367&CategoryID=3
- http://www.pewforum.org/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/
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