The internal division within Islam between the Sunni and Shia sects lies at the heart of the current maelstrom in the Middle East. Unless we understand this aspect, we cannot grasp the geo-politics of the region, or find solutions to them.
In brief, Sunnis constitute the majority umma (community) in most Muslim countries, other than Iran where adherents to Shia (Shiites or Shias) predominate. Around 85 per cent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are Sunni.
The split in the cauldron of the Middle East varies significantly between countries. Around two thirds of Iraqis are Shia. About three quarters of Syrians are Sunni. Saudi Arabia is 95 per cent Sunni, but in Iran 90 per cent of the population is Shia. Lebanon is extremely mixed consisting of Sunni, Shia, Druze and Christians, the latter comprising 40 per cent of the population. Although there are Shia majorities in Iraq, Iran and Bahrain, two – Iraq and Bahrein – are traditionally governed by a Sunni minority.
There is a so-called ‘Shia Crescent’ in the Middle East stretching from Lebanon to Syria, Iraq and Iran and tapering into Bahrain. Understandably, this crescent is of great concern to Sunni Saudi Arabia which feels – echoing Russia’s concerns in eastern Europe – half encircled and threatened.
The two major players around the crescent are Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, which are today fighting proxy wars in Syria and Iraq. Shia Iran has backed President Assad in Syria, while Sunni Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are backing the rebels. There are flash-points of instability wherever you look in the Sunni/Shia divide.
To understand how this schism in Islam came about, you have to go back 1,335 years to the year 680 and a place called Karbala in the desert in central Iraq. (To relate this to Malta’s own encounter with Islam, keep in mind that our domination by the Arabs began in 870 at a time when the Islamic caliphate was at its most enlightened.)
In 680, there was only one Islam, the religion which was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed in the year 610 on a mountainside above Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Mohammed died in 632. Half a century after his death there was a power struggle over who should rule the Muslim world. It was at the Battle of Karbala in 680 – a pivotal moment in the history of Islam – that the forces of the caliph Yazid, from the dynasty based in Damascus, met a tiny army of 110 soldiers led by Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet and the son of Ali, who was the fourth caliph.
Hussein’s army was formed from the Shiat Ali (the Followers of Ali), in what became known in abbreviated form as the Shia. The Followers of Hussein’s father, Ali, who was also the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet – the closest living male relative on Mohammed’s death – had wanted Ali to succeed Mohammed. They believed he had appointed him as his heir.
The forces of the caliph Yazid, consisting of several thousand Umayyad soldiers, destroyed Hussein’s outnumbered army at Karbala. His family, including his baby son, was slaughtered. Hussein himself was killed and beheaded.
Whereas Catholics and Protestants have advanced and largely reconciled their differences, Sunni and Shia tragically have not
At Karbala and across the Muslim world, Shia continue to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein and the day called Ashura with mourning rituals, passion plays and much self-flagellation to this day.
Hussein was not the only fighter to lose his head at Karbala. His followers were also decapitated. The emerging tradition of decapitating one’s enemies lives on with today’s jihadists.
For the Shia, the Battle of Karbala remains until today a defining moment of cataclysmic importance. So far as Shias are concerned, Ali was the first caliph and the leaders of the Islamic world should all have been his direct descendants. To this day, over a thousand years later, Shias around the world dispute the succession after Ali and, therefore, who should rightfully be the rulers of Islam.
For the Sunni, however, who regard themselves as “The People of the Traditions of the Prophet and the Consensus of the Community”, Ali was merely the fourth caliph and the last of the Rashidun (“The Rightly Guided Caliphs”). For Sunnis it was not a matter of blood-line, but of meritocracy and the will of the majority.
This difference lies at the very root of the continuing Sunni/Shia schism. It matters deeply because it affects – and has affected for centuries – all that happens in the vortex of the Middle East today.
The divide between Sunni and Shia is deep-seated. But the differences, in religious terms, are small.
Sunni Islam differs from Shia in its understanding of the Sunna (the body of traditional customs and practices based on the Prophet Mohammed’s words).It also differs in its interpretationof Mohammed’s first successor. Sunnis recognise the order of succession ofthe first four caliphs, while the Shias believe authority begins with Ali, the fourth caliph.
Although there are other differences between the two sects, for example in the interpretation of the hadiths (the sayings of the Prophet), community organisation and sharia law on how Muslims should govern themselves, doctrinally Sunni and Shia Muslims adhere to the same body of tenets.
The religious differences are superficial. They share beliefs in the five Pillars of Islam (the Declaration of Faith; praying five times a day; making the pilgrimage to Mecca; fasting during the holy month of Ramadan; and giving alms to the poor). They also share a belief, obviously, in the Koran and that the Prophet Mohammed is the last messenger of God.
There is one clear organisational and structural difference. Sunni Islam, unlike the Shia form, has no pre-eminent doctrinal authority. Nor, since Ataturk of Turkey ended the already weakened caliphate in 1922, does it have anything resembling a single leader. Shias, however, have the Supreme Leader of Iran in both these roles.
Why then is there this hatred between Sunnis and Shias?
Essentially, the crux of the schism is straightforward. It is about who was the legitimate successor to the Prophet. The Shias felt they were cheated out of power.
Like so much in religion, it all comes down ultimately to politics and power. As Christians we recognise it in the clash for power between Catholics and Protestants in the religious persecutions of Europe and the hundreds martyred on both sides several centuries ago. As Catholics, we see it still in the serpentine, but bloodless, politics of the Vatican today.
The essential difference is that whereas Catholics and Protestants have advanced and largely reconciled their differences, Sunni and Shia tragically have not.
Iraq is at the heart of the Sunni/Shia divide in the Muslim world. It all began there at Karbala. The sectarian divideis the great fault-line in Iraq and theMiddle East and the principal reasonfor the region’s bloody history and current instability.
Sectarianism in the Middle East – represented by the centuries-old schism between Sunni and Shia – has intensified the savagery of Islamism which we see exemplified by Al-Qaeda and, now, Islamic State. Spreading like a cancer, it is a potent and toxic mix of history, politics and religion.
Next week, the threat from Islamic State, or Daesh as I shall call it.