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The Sunni / Shi’a Split And Their Current Relationship
Some Background Information
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam, and makes up more than half of the Muslims in the world. Its theological study or doctrine is called Sunnism, while followers are known as Sunni Muslims. Sunni Islam is the world’s second largest religious body (after Christianity) and the largest religious denomination for any religion in the world. Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as the orthodox version of the religion.
Shi’a Islam
Shi’a Islam, or the Shi’ites represent the second largest denomination of Islam. Followers of Shi’a Islam are called Shi’as or Shi’a. Shi’a, meaning “followers,” “faction” or “party” of Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin, Ali, whom the Shi’a believe to be Muhammad’s successor.
Successors Of Muhammad
Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad’s wife, was Muhammad’s rightful successor and that the method of choosing or electing leaders endorsed by the Qur’an, is the consensus of the Muslim community.
Shi’as believe that Muhammad divinely ordained his cousin and son-in-law, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, in accordance with the command of Allāh, to be the next Caliph, making Ali and his direct descendants Muhammad’s successors.
Shi’a-Sunni Relations
The historic background of the Sunni–Shi’a split lies in the division that occurred when the Islamic prophet Muhammad died in the year 632, leading to a dispute over the succession to Muhammad as a Caliph of the Islamic community.
Over the years, Sunni–Shi’a relations have been marked by both cooperation and conflict. Sectarian violence still persists to this day from Pakistan to Yemen and is a major element of friction throughout the Middle East. Tensions between communities have intensified during power struggles, such as the Iraq/Iran war of the 1980’s, the Bahraini uprising (Arab Spring), the Iraq War, and most recently the Syrian Civil War and in the formation of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) and its advancement on Syria and Northern Iraq.
Sunni Islam and Shi’a Islam are the two major denominations of Islam. They chose sides following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in AD 632. A dispute over succession to Islamic prophet Muhammad as a caliph of the Islamic community spread across various parts of the world, which led to the Battle of Jamal and Battle of Siffin. The dispute intensified greatly after the Battle of Karbala, in which Hussein ibn Ali-A and his household were killed by the ruling Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, and the outcry for revenge divided the early Islamic community.
The present demographic breakdown between the two denominations is difficult to assess and varies by source, but a good approximation is that 85 percent of the world’s Muslims are Sunni and ten percent are Shi’a, with most Shi’as belonging to the Twelver tradition and the rest divided between many other groups. Sunnis are a majority in most Muslim communities: in Southeast Asia, China, South Asia, Africa, and most of the Arab world. Shi’a make up the majority of the citizen population in Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon, Iran and Azerbaijan, as well as being a politically significant minority in Pakistan, Syria and Yemen. Azerbaijan is predominantly Shi’a; however, practicing adherents are far fewer.
Today, there are differences in religious practice, traditions, and customs, often related to jurisprudence. Although all Muslim groups consider the Qur’an to be divine, Sunni and Shi’a have different opinions on hadith.
In recent years, Sunni–Shi’a relations have been increasingly marked by conflict, particularly the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict. Sectarian violence persists to this day from Pakistan to Yemen and is a major element of friction throughout the Middle East and South Asia. Tensions between communities have intensified during power struggles, such as the Bahraini uprising, the Iraq War, and most recently the Syrian Civil War and in the formation of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that has launched a genocide against Shi’as.
Numbers
Sunnis are a majority in most Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, China, South Asia, Africa, most of the Arab World, and among Muslims in the United States (of which 85–90 percent are Sunnis). This can also be confusing because the majority of Arab Muslims in the United States are Shi’a, while the majority of Arab Americans are Christians, the conflation of Arab and Muslim being quite common.
Shi’as make up the majority of the Muslim population in Iran (around 95 percent), Azerbaijan (around 90 percent), Iraq (around 75 percent) and Bahrain (around 70 percent). Minority communities are also found in Yemen where over 47 percent of the population are Shi’a (mostly of the Zaidi sect), according to the UNHCR. Others put the numbers of Shi’as at 30 percent. About 15–20 percent of Turkey’s population belong to the Alevi sect. The Shi’a constitute around 30–40 percent of Kuwait, 45–55 percent of the Muslim population in Lebanon, 25 percent of Saudi Arabia, 12 percent of Syria, and 20–25 percent of Pakistan. Around 15–20 percent of Afghanistan, less than 75 percent of the Muslims in Nigeria, and around 5 percent of population of Tajikistan are Shi’a.
Shi’as are about 25-to-30 percent of the entire Muslim world. We don’t have accurate statistics because in much of the Middle East it is not convenient to have them, for ruling regimes in particular. But the estimates are that they are about 25 to 30 percent of the Muslim world, which puts them somewhere between 230 and 320 million people . . . The overwhelming majority of that population lives between Pakistan and Lebanon. Iran always had been a Shi’a country, the largest one, with a population of about 70 million. Pakistan is the second-largest Shi’a country in the world, with about 30 million population. Also potentially, there are as many Shi’as in India as there are in Iraq.
Historical Beliefs And Leadership
Successors Of Muhammad
Mahdi
The Mahdi (al-Mahdi) is the prophesied redeemer of Islam. While Shi’as and Sunnis differ on the nature of the Mahdi, many members of both groups believe that the Mahdi will appear at the end of the world to bring about a perfect and just Islamic society. For more information on the Mahdi and Islamic Eschatology, see section ‘600 – Theology & Eschatology’ under the “What Is Islam” menu.
In Shi’a Islam “the Mahdi symbol has developed into a powerful and central religious idea.” Twelvers believe the Mahdi will be Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Imam returned from the Occultation, where he has been hidden by Allah since 874. In contrast, mainstream Sunnis believe the Mahdi will be named Muhammad, be a descendant of Muhammad, and will revive the faith, but will not necessarily be connected with the end of the world.
Hadith
The Shi’as accept some of the same hadiths used by Sunnis as part of the sunnah to argue their case. In addition, they consider the sayings of Ahl al-Bayt that are not attributed directly to Muhammad as hadiths. Shi’as do not accept many Sunni hadiths unless they are also recorded in Shi’a sources or the methodology can be proven of how they were recorded. Also, some Sunni-accepted hadith are less favored by Shi’as; one example is that because of Aisha’s opposition to Ali, hadiths narrated by Aisha are not given the same authority as those by other companions. Another example is hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah, who is considered by Shi’as as the enemy of Ali. The Shi’a argument is that Abu Hurairah was only a Muslim four years of his life before Muhammad’s death. Although he accompanied Muhammad for four years only, he managed to record ten times as many hadiths as Abu Bakr and Ali each.
Shi’ism And Sufism
Shi’ism and Sufism are said to share a number of hallmarks: Belief in an inner meaning to the Qur’an, special status for some mortals (saints for Sufi, Imams for Shi’as), as well as veneration of Ali and Muhammad’s family.
Pillars Of Faith
The Five Pillars of Islam is the term given to the five duties incumbent on every Muslim. These duties are:
- Shahada (profession of faith);
- Salat (prayers);
- Zakāt (giving of alms);
- Sawm (fasting, specifically during Ramadan); and,
- Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
These five practices are essential to Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. Shi’a theology has two concepts that define religion as a whole. There are Roots of Religion (Usūl al-Dīn) and Branches of Religion (Furu al Din).
Practices
Salat
Many distinctions can be made between Sunnis and Shi’aīs through observation alone:
When prostrating during ritual prayer (salat), Shi’as place their forehead onto a piece of naturally occurring material, most often a clay tablet (mohr), soil (turbah) at times from Karbala, the place where Hussein ibn Ali was martyred, instead of directly onto prayer rug.
Some Shi’a perform prayers back to back, sometimes worshipping two times consecutively (1+2+2 i.e. fajr on its own Dhuhr with Asr and Maghrib with Isha’), thus praying five times a day but with a very small break in between the prayer, instead of five prayers with at some gap between them as required by Sunni schools of law.
Shi’as and the followers of the Sunni Maliki school hold their hands at their sides during prayer; Sunnis of other schools cross their arms (right over left) and clasp their hands; it is commonly held by Sunni scholars especially of Maliki school that either is acceptable.
Mut’ah And Misya
Twelvers believe that Mutah (literally “pleasure marriage” is a private and verbal temporary marriage contract that is practiced in Twelver Shia Islam in which the duration of the marriage must be specified and agreed upon in advance. It is a private contract !1made in a verbal or written format.) was permitted until Umar forbade it during his rule. Mutah is not the same as Misyar marriage or ‘Arfi marriage, which has no date of expiration and is permitted by some Sunnis. A Misyar marriage differs from a conventional Islamic marriage in that the man does not have financial responsibility of the woman by her own free will. The man can divorce the woman whenever he wants to in a Misyar marriage.
Hijab And Dress
Thanks Both Sunni and Shi’a women wear the hijab. Devout women of the Shi’a traditionally wear black and yellow as do some Sunni women in the Persian Gulf. Some Shi’a religious leaders also wear a black robe. Mainstream Shi’a and Sunni women wear the hijab differently. Some Sunni scholars emphasize covering of all the body including the face in public whereas some scholars exclude the face from hijab. Shi’as believe that the hijab must cover around the perimeter of the face and up to the chin. Like Sunnis, some Shi’a women, such as those in Iran and Iraq, their hand to hold the black chador, in order to cover their faces when in public.
Given Names
Shi’a are sometimes recognizable by their names, which are often derived from the names of Ahl al-Bayt. In particular, the names Fatima, Zaynab, Ali, Abbas, Hussein, and Hassan are disproportionately common among Shi’as, though they may also be used by Sunnis. Umar, Uthman, Abu Bakr, Aisha, Muawiya, being the names of figures recognized by Sunnis but not Shi’as, are commonly used as names for Sunnis but are very rare, if not virtually absent, for Shi’as.
History
Abbasid Era
The Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by a new dynasty, the Abbasids. The first Abbasid caliph, As-Saffah, recruited Shi’a support in his campaign against the Umayyads by emphasizing his blood relationship to Muhammad’s household through descent from his uncle, ‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib. The Shi’a also believe that he promised them that the Caliphate, or at least religious authority, would be vested in the Shi’a Imam. As-Saffah assumed both the temporal and religious mantle of Caliph himself. He continued the Umayyad dynastic practice of succession, and his brother al-Mansur succeeded him in 754.
Ja’far al-Sadiq, the sixth Shi’a Imam, died during al-Mansur’s reign, and there were claims that he was murdered on the orders of the caliph. (However, Abbasid persecution of Islamic lawyers was not restricted to the Shi’a. Abū Ḥanīfa, for example, was imprisoned by al-Mansur and tortured.)
Shi’a sources further claim that by the orders of the tenth Abbassid caliph, al-Mutawakkil, the tomb of the third Imam, Hussein ibn Ali in Karbala, was completely demolished, and Shi’as were sometimes beheaded in groups, buried alive, or even placed alive within the walls of government buildings still under construction.
The Shi’a believe that their community continued to live for the most part in hiding and followed their religious life secretly without external manifestations.
Iraq
Many Shi’a Iranians migrated to what is now Iraq in the 16th century. “It is said that when modern Iraq was formed, some of the population of Karbala was Iranian.” In time, these immigrants adopted the Arabic language and Arab identity, but their origin has been used to “unfairly cast them as lackeys of Iran.” However many of these Shi’as come from Sayyid families with origins in tribes from Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain, one of said tribes being al-Musawi, and two prevalent families that are descended from it and lived in Iran for some time before settling in Iraq are the al-Qazwini and al-Shahristani families. Other Iraqi Shi’as are ethnic Arabs with roots in Iraq as deep as those of their Sunni counterparts.
Persia
Shafi’i Sunnism was the dominant form of Islam in most of Iran until rise of the Safavid Empire although a significant undercurrent of Ismailism and a very large minority of Twelvers were present all over Persia.
The Sunni hegemony did not undercut the Shi’a presence in Iran. The writers of the Shi’a Four Books were Iranian, as were many other great scholars. According to Morteza Motahhari:
The majority of Iranians turned to Shi’ism from the Safawid period onwards. Of course, it cannot be denied that Iran’s environment was more favorable to the flourishing of the Shi’ism as compared to all other parts of the Muslim world. Shi’ism did not penetrate any land to the extent that it gradually could in Iran. With the passage of time, Iranians’ readiness to practice Shi’ism grew day by day. Had Shi’ism not been deeply rooted in the Iranian spirit, the Safawids (907–1145/1501–1732) would not have succeeded in converting Iranians to the Shi’i creed and making them follow the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt sheerly by capturing political power.
Yavuz Sultan Selim who delivered a devastating blow to the Shi’a Safavids and Ismail I in the Battle of Chaldiran, a battle of historical significance.
Pre-Safavid
The domination of the Sunni creed during the first nine Islamic centuries characterizes the religious history of Iran during this period. There were some exceptions to this general domination which emerged in the form of the Zaidis of Tabaristan, the Buwayhid, the rule of the Sultan Muhammad Khudabandah (r. 1304–1316) and the Sarbedaran. Nevertheless, apart from this domination there existed, firstly, throughout these nine centuries, Shi’a inclinations among many Sunnis of this land and, secondly, Twelver and Zaidi Shi’ism had prevalence in some parts of Iran. During this period, the Shi’a in Iran were nourished from Kufa, Baghdad and later from Najaf and Al Hillah. Shi’a were dominant in Tabaristan, Qom, Kashan, Avaj and Sabzevar. In many other areas the population of Shi’as and Sunni was mixed.
The first Zaidi state was established in Daylaman and Tabaristan (northern Iran) in 864 by the Alavids; it lasted until the death of its leader at the hand of the Samanids in 928. Roughly forty years later the state was revived in Gilan (north-western Iran) and survived under Hasanid leaders until 1126. After which from the 12th-13th centuries, the Zaidis of Daylaman, Gilan and Tabaristan then acknowledge the Zaidi Imams of Yemen or rival Zaidi Imams within Iran.
The Buyids, who were Zaidi and had a significant influence not only in the provinces of Persia but also in the capital of the caliphate in Baghdad, and even upon the caliph himself, provided a unique opportunity for the spread and diffusion of Shi’a thought. This spread of Shi’ism to the inner circles of the government enabled the Shi’a to withstand those who opposed them by relying upon the power of the caliphate.
Twelvers came to Iran from Arab regions in the course of four stages. First, through the Asharis tribe at the end of the 7th and during the 8th century. Second through the pupils of Sabzevar, and especially those of Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid, who were from Rey and Sabzawar and resided in those cities. Third, through the school of Hillah under the leadership of Al-Hilli and his son Fakhr al-Muhaqqiqin. Fourth, through the scholars of Jabal Amel residing in that region, or in Iraq, during the 16th and 17thcenturies who later migrated to Iran.
On the other hand, the Ismaili da‘wah (“missionary institution”) sent missionaries during the Fatimid Caliphate to Persia. When the Ismailis divided into two sects, Nizaris established their base in northern Persia. Hassan-i Sabbah conquered fortresses and captured Alamut in 1090. Nizaris used this fortress until the Mongols finally seized and destroyed it in 1256.
After the Mongols and the fall of the Abbasids, the Sunni Ulama suffered greatly. In addition to the destruction of the caliphate there was no official Sunni school of law. Many libraries and madrasahs were destroyed and Sunni scholars migrated to other Islamic areas such as Anatolia and Egypt. In contrast, most Shi’a were largely unaffected as their center was not in Iran at this time. For the first time, the Shi’a could openly convert other Muslims to their movement.
Several local Shi’a dynasties like the Marashi and Sarbadars were established during this time. The kings of the Kara Koyunlu dynasty ruled in Tabriz with a domain extending to Fars and Kerman. In Egypt the Fatimid government ruled.
Muhammad Khudabandah, the famous builder of Soltaniyeh, was among the first of the Mongols to convert to Shi’aism, and his descendants ruled for many years in Persia and were instrumental in spreading Shī‘ī thought. Sufism played a major role in spread of Shi’ism in this time.
After the Mongol invasion Shiims and Sufism once again formed a close association in many ways. Some of the Ismailis whose power had broken by the Mongols, went underground and appeared later within Sufi orders or as new branches of already existing orders. In Twelve-Imam Shi’ism, from the 13th to the 16th century, Sufism began to grow within official Shi’ite circles. The extremist sects of the Hurufis and Shasha’a grew directly out of a background that is both Shi’ite and Sufi. More important in the long run than these sects were the Sufi orders which spread in Persia at this time and aided in the preparing the ground for the Shi’ite movement of Safavids. Two of these orders are of particular significance in this question of the relation of Shi’ism and Sufism: The Nimatullahi order and Nurbakhshi order.
Post-Safavid
Ismail I initiated a religious policy to recognize Shi’ism as the official religion, and the fact that modern Iran and Azerbaijan remain majority-Shi’a states is a direct result of Ismail’s actions.
Shah Ismail I of Safavid dynasty destroyed the tombs of Abū Ḥanīfa and the Sufi Abdul Qadir Gilani in 1508. In 1533, Ottomans restored order, reconquered Iraq and rebuilt Sunni shrines.
Unfortunately for Ismail, most of his subjects were Sunni. He thus had to enforce official Shi’ism violently, putting to death those who opposed him. Under this pressure, Safavid subjects either converted or pretended to convert, but it is safe to say that the majority of the population was probably genuinely Shi’a by the end of the Safavid period in the 18th century, and most Iranians today are Shi’a, although there is still a Sunni minority.
Immediately following the establishment of Safavid power the migration of scholars began and they were invited to Iran. By the side of the immigration of scholars, Shi’i works and writings were also brought to Iran from Arabic-speaking lands, and they performed an important role in the religious development of Iran. In fact, since the time of the leadership of Shaykh Mufid and Shaykh Tusi, Iraq had a central academic position for Shi’ism. This central position was transferred to Iran during the Safavid era for two-and-a-half centuries, after which it partly returned to Najaf. Before the Safavid era Shi’i manuscripts were mainly written in Iraq, with the establishment of the Safavid rule these manuscripts were transferred to Iran.
This led to a wide gap between Iran and its Sunni neighbors, particularly its rival, the Ottoman Empire, in the wake of the Battle of Chaldiran. This gap continued until the 20th century.
Levant
Rashid ad-Din Sinan the Grand Master of the Ismaili Shi’a at Masyaf successfully deterred Saladin, not to assault the minor territories under the control of their sect.
Shi’as claim that despite these advances, many Shi’as in Syria continued to be killed during this period for their faith. One of these was Muhammad Ibn Makki, called Shahid-i Awwal (the First Martyr), one of the great figures in Shi’a jurisprudence, who was killed in Damascus in 1384.
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi was another eminent scholar, killed in Aleppo on charges of cultivating Batini teachings and philosophy.
South Asia
Sunni–Shi’a clashes also occurred occasionally in the 20th century in South Asia. There were many between 1904 and 1908. These clashes revolved around the public cursing of the first three caliphs by Shi’as and the praising of them by Sunnis. To put a stop to the violence, public demonstrations were banned in 1909 on the three most sensitive days: Ashura, Chehlum and Ali’s death on 21 Ramadan. Inter-communal violence resurfaced in 1935–36 and again in 1939 when many thousands of Sunni and Shi’as defied the ban on public demonstrations and took to the streets. Shi’a are estimated to be 21–35 percent of the Muslim population in South Asia, although the total number is difficult to estimate due to the intermingling between the two groups and practice of taqiyya by Shi’a.
Sunni razzias which came to be known as Taarajs (or Tarzan-e-Shi’a) virtually devastated the community. History records ten such Taarajs between the 15th and 19th centuries in 1548, 1585, 1635, 1686, 1719, 1741, 1762, 1801, 1830, 1872 during which the Shi’a habitations were plundered, people slaughtered, libraries burnt and their sacred sites desecrated.
Mughal Empire
Shi’a in South Asia faced persecution by some Sunni rulers and Mughal Emperors which resulted in the killings of Shi’a scholars like Qazi Nurullah Shustari (also known as Shaheed-e-Thaalis, the third Martyr) and Mirza Muhammad Kamil Dehlavi (also known as Shaheed-e- Rabay, the fourth Martyr) who are two of the five martyrs of Shi’a Islam. Shi’as in Kashmir in subsequent years had to pass through the most atrocious period of their history.
Modernity
In addition to Iran, Iraq has emerged as a major Shi’a government when the Twelvers achieved political dominance in 2005 under American occupation. The two communities have often remained separate, mingling regularly only during the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. In some countries like Iraq, Syria, Kuwait and Bahrain, communities have mingled and intermarried. Some Shi’a have complained of mistreatment in countries dominated by Sunnis, especially in Saudi Arabia, while some Sunnis have complained of discrimination in the Twelver-dominated states of Iraq and Iran.
Some tension developed between Sunnis and Shi’a as a result of clashes over Iranian pilgrims and Saudi police at the hajj. Millions of Saudi adhere to the school of Salafism which is a branch of Sunni Islam.
According to some reports, as of mid-2013, the Syrian Civil War has become “overtly sectarian” with the “sectarian lines fall most sharply” between Alawites and Sunnis. With the involvement of Lebanese Shi’a paramilitary group Hezbollah, the fighting in Syria has reignited “long-simmering tensions between Sunnis and Shi’ites” spilling over into Lebanon and Iraq. Ex-Ambassador Dimitar Mihaylov further claims that the current post-Arab Spring situation (encompassing ISIS, the Syrian civil war, Yemen, Iraq and others) represents a “qualitatively new” development in the history of Shi’a-Sunni dynamics. Historically, the inner rifts within Islamic ideology were to be hidden from the public sphere, while the new violent outbreaks highlight said rift in an obvious manner and is nourished by the two extremes of their mutual rivalry which will strongly affect both globally and regionally.
1919–1970
At least one scholar sees the period from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire through the decline of Arab nationalism as a time of relative unity and harmony between traditionalist Sunni and Shi’a Muslims—unity brought on by a feeling of being under siege from a common threat, secularism, first of the European colonial variety and then Arab nationalist.
An example of Sunni–Shi’a cooperation was the Khilafat Movement which swept South Asia following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the seat of the Caliphate, in World War I. Shi’a scholars “came to the caliphate’s defence” by attending the 1931 Caliphate Conference in Jerusalem, although they were theologically opposed to the idea that non-imams could be caliphs or successors to Muhammad, and that the caliphate was “the flagship institution” of Sunni, not Shi’a, authority. This has been described as unity of traditionalists in the face of the twin threats of “secularism and colonialism.”
In these years Allama Muhammad Taqi Qummi travelled to Cairo and started his efforts for reforming Islamic unity at Al-Azhar University, since 1938. Finally, his efforts and contacting with scholars such as Mahmud Shaltut and Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi led to the founding of Dar-al-Taghrib (community for reforming unity between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims).
Another example of unity was a fatwā issued by the rector of Al-Azhar University, Mahmud Shaltut, recognizing Shi’a Islamic law as the fifth school of Islamic law. In 1959, al-Azhar University in Cairo, the most influential center of Sunni learning, authorized the teaching of courses of Shi’a jurisprudence as part of its curriculum.
The year of the Iranian Islamic Revolution was “one of great ecumenical discourse,” and shared enthusiasm by both Shi’a and Sunni Islamists. After the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini endeavored to bridge the gap between Shi’ites and Sunnis by declaring it permissible for Twelvers to pray behind Sunni imams and by forbidding criticizing the Caliphs who preceded Ali—an issue that had caused much animosity between the two groups. In addition, he designated the period of Prophet’s Birthday celebrations from 12th to the 17th of Rabi Al-Awwal as the Islamic Unity Week, there being a gap in the dates of when Shi’ites and Sunnis celebrate Muhammad’s birthday.
Post-1980 – Iran–Iraq War
Damage To A Mosque In Khoramshahr, Iran
Following this period, Sunni–Shi’a strife has seen a major upturn, particularly in Iraq and Pakistan, leading to thousands of deaths. Among the explanations for the increase are conspiracies by outside forces to divide Muslims, the recent Islamic revival and increased religious purity and consequent takfir, upheaval, destruction and loss of power of Sunni caused by the US invasion of Iraq, and sectarianism generated by Arab regimes defending themselves against the mass uprisings of the Arab Spring.
Outside Conspiracies
Many in the Muslim world explain the bloodshed as the work of conspiracies by outside forces—”the forces of hegemony and Zionism which aim to weaken Arabs” (Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Yusuf al-Qaradawi); unspecified “enemies” (Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad); or “oppressive pressure by the imperialist front” (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).
Some Western analysts assert that the US is practicing divide and rule strategy through the escalation of Sunni-Shi’a conflict. Nafeez Ahmed cites a 2008 RAND Corporation study for the American military which recommended “divide and rule” as a possible strategy against the Muslim world in “the Long War.” Dr. Christopher Davidson argues that the current crisis in Yemen is being “egged on” by the US, and could be part of a wider covert strategy to “spur fragmentation in Iran allies and allow Israel to be surrounded by weak states”.
Islamic Revival
Others lay the blame for the strife at a very different source, the unintended effects of the Islamic revival. According to scholar Vali Nasr, as the Muslim world was decolonialized and Arab nationalism lost its appeal, fundamentalism blossomed and reasserted the differences and conflicts between the two movements, particularly in the strict teachings of Sunni scholar Ibn Taymiyyah. The Iranian Islamic revolution changed the Shi’a–Sunni power equation in Muslim countries “from Lebanon to India” arousing the traditionally subservient Shi’a to the alarm of traditionally dominant and very non-revolutionary Sunni. “Where Iranian revolutionaries saw Islamic revolutionary stirrings, Sunnis saw mostly Shi’a mischief and a threat to Sunni predominance.”
Although the Iranian revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, was very much in favor of Shi’a–Sunni unity, he also challenged Saudi Arabia, in his view an “unpopular and corrupt dictatorship” and an “American lackey” ripe for revolution. In part because Saudi Arabia was the world’s major international funder of Islamic schools, scholarships, and fellowships, this angered not only Saudi Arabia but its many fundamentalist allies and benefactors throughout the Arab world, according to Nasr.
Another effect noted by political scientist Gilles Kepel, is that the initial attraction of the Islamic Revolution to Sunnis as well as Shi’a, and Khomeini’s desire to export his revolution motivated the Saudi establishment to shore up its “religious legitimacy” with more strictness in religion (and with jihad in Afghanistan) to compete with Iran’s revolutionary ideology. But doing so in Saudi meant a more anti-Shi’a policies because Saudi’s own native Sunni school of Islam is Wahhabism, which includes the prohibition of Shi’a Islam itself, as strict Wahhabis do not consider Shi’a to be Islamic. This new strictness was spread not only among Saudis in the kingdom but thousands of students and Saudi funded schools and international Islamist volunteers who came to training camps in Peshawar, Pakistan in the 1980s to learn to fight jihad in Afghanistan and went home in the 1990s to fight jihad. Both groups (especially in Iraq and Pakistan) saw Shi’a as the enemy. Thus, although the Iranian revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, was very much in favor of Shi’a–Sunni unity, and “the leadership position that went with it,” his revolution worked against it.
From the Iranian Revolution to 2015, Shi’a groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, supported by Iran have recently won “important political victories” which have boosted Iran’s regional influence. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’a militia and political movement is the “strongest political actor” in the country. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq removed Saddam Hussein from power and instituted elected government, the Shi’a majority has dominated the parliament and its prime ministers have been Shi’a. In Syria, a Shi’a minority—the heterodox Alawi sect that makes up only about 13 percent of the population—dominate the upper reaches of the government, military and security services in Syria, and are the “backbone” of the forces fighting to protect the Bashir al-Assad regime in Syria’s civil war. In Yemen, Houthi rebels have expanded their territory south of Saudi Arabia, and become the country’s “dominant power.”
Olivier Roy, research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, sees the “Shi’a awakening and its instrumentalization by Iran” as leading to a “very violent Sunni reaction,” starting first in Pakistan before spreading to “the rest of the Muslim world, without necessarily being as violent.” According to Roy, “two events created a sea change in the balance of power between Shi’a and Sunnis: the Islamic revolution in Iran and the American military intervention in Iraq” in 2003. “Today, Azerbaijan is probably the only country where there are still mixed mosques and Shi’a and Sunnis pray together.”
From 1994 to 2014 satellite television and high-speed Internet has spread “hate speech” against both Sunni and Shi’a. Fundamentalist Sunni clerics have popularized slurs against Shi’a such as “Safawis” (from the Safavid empire, thus implying their being an Iranian agents), or even worse rafidha (rejecters of the faith), and majus (Zoroastrian or crypto Persian). In turn, Shi’a religious scholars have “mocked and cursed” the first three caliphs and Aisha, Mohammed’s youngest wife who fought against Ali.
U.S. Invasion Of Iraq
Among those blaming the US invasion of Iraq are Fawaz Gerges, who writes in his book, ISIS: A History:
By destroying state institutions and establishing a sectarian-based political system, the 2003 US-led invasion polarized the country along Sunni-Shi’a lines and set the stage for a fierce, prolonged struggle driven by identity politics. Anger against the United States was also fueled by the humiliating disbandment of the Iraqi army and the de-Ba’athification law, which was first introduced as a provision and then turned into a permanent article of the constitution.
The post invasion de-Ba’athification by the US occupiers deprived Iraq of “the officer class and administrative cadres that had ruled under Saddam Hussein, leaving the field to sectarian-based militias.” Many of officers joined the anti-Shi’a takfiri (a Muslim who accuses another Muslim of apostasy) ISIL group.
The US-led invasion also “tilted the regional balance of power decisively” in favor of Shi’a Iran, alarming Sunni and leading to talk of a “Shi’a Crescent.”
Counter-Revolutionary Tactic
Marc Lynch in his book, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East, argues that as old regimes or political forces sought to control “the revolutionary upsurge” of the Arab Spring, sectarianism became “a key weapon” to undermine unity among the anti-regime masses. Christians were pitted “against Muslims in Egypt, Jordanians against Palestinians in Jordan, and, above all, Sunnis against Shi’ites wherever possible.”
Iraq
Shi’a–Sunni discord in Iraq starts with disagreement over the relative population of the two groups. According to most sources, including the CIA’s World Factbook, the majority of Iraqis are Shi’a Arab Muslims (60 percent-70 percent), and Sunni Arab Muslims represent between 32 percent and 37 percent of the population. However, Sunni are split ethnically among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Many Sunnis hotly dispute their minority status, including ex-Iraqi Ambassador Faruq Ziada, and many believe Shi’a majority is “a myth spread by America.” One Sunni belief shared by Jordan’s King Abdullah as well as his then Defense Minister Shaalan is that Shi’a numbers in Iraq were inflated by Iranian Shi’as crossing the border. Shi’a scholar Vali Nasr believes the election turnout in summer and December 2005 confirmed a strong Shi’a majority in Iraq.
The British, having put down a Shi’a rebellion against their rule in the 1920s, “confirmed their reliance on a corps of Sunni ex-officers of the collapsed Ottoman empire.” The British colonial rule ended after the Sunni and Shi’a united against it.
The Shi’a suffered indirect and direct persecution under post-colonial Iraqi governments since 1932, erupting into full-scale rebellions in 1935 and 1936. Shi’as were also persecuted during the Ba’ath Party rule, especially under Saddam Hussein. It is said that every Shi’a clerical family of note in Iraq had tales of torture and murder to recount. In 1969 the son of Iraq’s highest Shi’a Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim was arrested and allegedly tortured. From 1979–1983 Saddam’s regime executed 48 major Shi’a clerics in Iraq. They included Shi’a leader Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister. Tens of thousands of Iranians and Arabs of Iranian origin were expelled in 1979 and 1980 and a further 75,000 in 1989.
The Shi’as openly revolted against Saddam following the Gulf War in 1991 and were encouraged by Saddam’s defeat in Kuwait and by simultaneous Kurdish uprising in the north. However, Shi’a opposition to the government was brutally suppressed, resulting in some 50,000 to 100,000 casualties and successive repression by Saddam’s forces. The governing regimes of Iraq were composed mainly of Sunnis for nearly a century until the 2003 Iraq War.
Iraq War
Some of the worst sectarian strife ever has occurred after the start of the Iraq War, steadily building up to the present. The war has featured a cycle of Sunni–Shi’a revenge killing—Sunni often used car bombs, while Shi’a favored death squads.
According to one estimate, as of early 2008, 1,121 suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. Sunni suicide bombers have targeted not only thousands of civilians, but mosques, shrines, wedding and funeral processions, markets, hospitals, offices, and streets. Sunni insurgent organizations include Ansar al-Islam. Radical groups include Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, Jaish al-Ta’ifa al-Mansurah, Jeish Muhammad, and Black Banner Organization.
Takfir motivation for many of these killings may come from Sunni insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Before his death Zarqawi was one to quote Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, especially his infamous statement urging followers to kill the Shi’a of Iraq, and calling the Shi’as “snakes.” An al-Qaeda-affiliated website posted a call for “a full-scale war on Shi’ites all over Iraq, whenever and wherever they are found.” Suicide bombers continue to attack Iraqi Shi’a civilians, and the Shi’a ulama have in response declared suicide bombing as haraam:
Even those who kill people with suicide bombing, these shall meet the flames of hell.
— Ayatollah Yousef Saanei
Some believe the war has strengthened the takfir thinking and may spread Sunni–Shi’a strife elsewhere.
On the Shi’a side, in early February 2006 militia-dominated government death squads were reportedly “torturing to death or summarily” executing “hundreds” of Sunnis “every month in Baghdad alone,” many arrested at random. According to the British television Channel 4, from 2005 through early 2006, commandos of the Ministry of the Interior which is controlled by the Badr Organization, and who are almost exclusively Shi’a Muslims—have been implicated in rounding up and killing thousands of ordinary Sunni civilians.
The violence shows little sign of getting opposite sides to back down. Iran’s Shi’a leaders are said to become “more determined” the more violent the anti-Shi’a attacks in Iraq become. One Shi’a Grand Ayatollah, Yousef Saanei, who has been described as a moderate, reacted to the 2005 suicide bombings of Shi’a targets in Iraq by saying the bombers were “wolves without pity” and that “sooner rather than later, Iran will have to put them down.”
Iran
Iran is unique in the Muslim world because its population is overwhelmingly more Shi’a than Sunni (Shi’a constitute 95 percent of the population) and because its constitution is theocratic republic based on rule by a Shi’a jurist.
Although the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, supported good Sunni–Shi’a relations, there have been complaints by Sunni of discrimination, particularly in important government positions. In a joint appearance with former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani calling for Shi’a-Sunni unity, Sunni Shiekh Yusuf al-Qaradawi complained that no ministers in Iran have been Sunni for a long time, that Sunni officials are scarce and despite the presence of Christian churches, as a prominent example of this discrimination. Although reformist President Mohammad Khatami promised during his election campaign to build a Sunni mosque in Tehran, none was built during his eight years in office. The president explained the situation by saying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would not agree to the proposal. As in other parts of the Muslim world, other issues may play a part in the conflict, since most Sunnis in Iran are also ethnic minorities.
Soon after the 1979 revolution, Sunni leaders from Kurdistan, Balouchistan, and Khorassan, set up a new party known as Shams, which is short for Shora-ye Markaz-e al Sunaat, to unite Sunnis and lobby for their rights. But six months after that they were closed down, bank accounts suspended and had their leaders arrested by the government on charges that they were backed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
A UN human rights report states that:
. . . information indicates Sunnis, along with other religious minorities, are denied by law or practice access to such government positions as cabinet minister, ambassador, provincial governor, mayor and the like, Sunni schools and mosques have been destroyed, and Sunni leaders have been imprisoned, executed and assassinated. The report notes that while some of the information received may be difficult to corroborate there is a clear impression that the right of freedom of religion is not being respected with regard to the Sunni minority.
Members of the ‘Balochistan Peoples Front’ claim that Sunnis are o]Official media refers to the fighting as armed clashes between the police and “bandits,” “drug-smugglers,” and “thugs,” to disguise what many believe is essentially a political-religious conflict. Revolutionary Guards have stationed several brigades in Balouchi cities, and have allegedly tracked down and assassinated Sunni leaders both inside Iran and in neighboring Pakistan. In 1996 a leading Sunni, Abdulmalek Mollahzadeh, was gunned down by hitmen, allegedly hired by Tehran, as he was leaving his house in Karachi.
Members of Sunni groups in Iran however have been active in what the authorities describe as terrorist activities. Balochi Sunni Abdolmalek Rigi continue to declare the Shi’a as Kafir and Mushrik. These Sunni groups have been involved in violent activities in Iran and have waged terrorist attacks against civilian centers, including an attack next to a girls’ school according to government sources. The “shadowy Sunni militant group Jundallah” has reportedly been receiving weaponry from the United States for these attacks according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. The United Nations and several countries worldwide have condemned the bombings.
Non-Sunni Iranian opposition parties, and Shi’a like Ayatollah Jalal Gange’i have criticised the regime’s treatment of Sunnis and confirmed many Sunni complaints.
Following the 2005 elections, much of the leadership of Iran has been described as more “staunchly committed to core Shi’a values” and lacking Ayatollah Khomeini’s commitment to Shi’a–Sunni unity. Polemics critical of Sunnis were reportedly being produced in Arabic for dissemination in the Arab Muslim world by Hojjatieh-alig elements in the Iranian regime.
Iranian government denies any allegations of discrimination against its Sunni citizens citing facts that there are Sunni mayors, police officers, judges, lawyers, clerics. Sunnis in Iran run multiple religious schools and own mosques that can accommodate thousands of worshipers at any given time. There are 10,000–15,000 Sunni mosques all over Iran, with nine in Tehran alone. According to the Iranian law, Shi’as are not allowed to build mosques in Sunni majority areas and vice versa.
Syria
Syria is approximately three quarters Sunni, but its government is predominantly Alawite, a Shi’a sect that makes up less than 15 percent of the population. Under Hafez al-Assad, Alawites dominated the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, a secular Arab nationalist party which had ruled Syria under a state of emergency from 1963 to 2011. Alawites are often considered a form of Shi’a Islam, that differs somewhat from the larger Twelver Shi’a sect.
During the 20th century, an Islamic uprising in Syria occurred with sectarian religious overtones between the Alawite-dominated Assad government and the Islamist Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, culminating with the 1982 Hama massacre. An estimated 10,000 to 40,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed by Syrian military in the city. During the uprising, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood attacked military cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo, performed car bomb attacks in Damascus, as well as bomb attacks against the government and its officials, including Hafez al-Assad himself, and had killed several hundred.
How much of the conflict was sparked by Sunni versus Shi’a divisions and how much by Islamism versus secular-Arab-nationalism, is in question, but according to scholar Vali Nasr the failure of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran to support the Muslim Brotherhood against the Baathists “earned [Khomeini] the Brotherhood’s lasting contempt.” It proved to the satisfaction of the Brotherhood that sectarian loyalty trumped Islamist solidarity for Khomeini and eliminated whatever appeal Khomeini might have had to the MB movement as a pan-Islamic leader.
Syria Civil War
The Syrian Civil War, though it started as a political conflict, developed into a struggle between the Alawite-dominated Army and government on the one hand, and the mainly Sunni rebels and former members of the regular army on the other. The casualty toll of the war’s first three years has exceeded that of Iraq’s decade-long conflict, and the fight has “amplified sectarian tensions to unprecedented levels.” Rebel groups with 10,000s of Sunni Syrian fighters such as Ahrar ash-Sham, the Islamic Front, and al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front, employ anti-Shi’a rhetoric and foreign Arab and Western Sunni fighters have joined the rebels. On the other side Shi’a from Hezbollah in Lebanon and from Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah militias from Iraq have backed the Syrian government. “Even Afghan Shi’a refugees in Iran,” driven from Afghanistan by Sunni extremism, have “reportedly been recruited by Tehran for the war in Syria.”
Saudi Arabia
While Shi’a make up roughly 15 percent of Saudi Arabia’s population, they form a large portion of the residents of the eastern province of Hasa—by some estimates a majority—where much of the petroleum industry is based. Between 500,000 and a million Shi’a live there, concentrated especially around the oases of Qatif and Al-Hasa. The Majority of Saudi Shi’a belong to the sect of the Twelvers.
The Saudi conflict of Shi’a and Sunni extends beyond the borders of the kingdom because of international Saudi “Petro-Islam” influence. Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980–1988 war with Iran and sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who—though primarily targeting the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979—also fought to suppress Shi’a movements.
Relations between the Shi’a and the Wahhabis are inherently strained because the Wahhabis consider the rituals of the Shi’a to be the epitome of shirk, or polytheism. In the late 1920s, the Ikhwan (Ibn Saud’s fighting force of converted Wahhabi Bedouin Muslims) were particularly hostile to the Shi’a and demanded that Abd al Aziz forcibly convert them. In response, Abd al Aziz sent Wahhabi missionaries to the Eastern Province, but he did not carry through with attempts at forced conversion. In recent decades the late leading Saudi cleric, Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz, issued fatwa denouncing Shi’a as apostates, and according to Shi’a scholar Vali Nasr “Abdul-Rahman al-Jibrin, a member of the Higher Council of Ulama, even sanctioned the killing of Shi’as, a call that was reiterated by Wahhabi religious literature as late as 2002.”
Government policy has been to allow Shi’a their own mosques and to exempt Shi’a from Hanbali inheritance practices. Nevertheless, Shi’a have been forbidden all but the most modest displays on their principal festivals, which are often occasions of sectarian strife in the Persian Gulf region, with its mixed Sunni–Shi’a populations.
According to a report by the Human Rights Watch:
“Shi’a Muslims, who constitute about eight percent of the Saudi population, faced discrimination in employment as well as limitations on religious practices. Shi’a jurisprudence books were banned, the traditional annual Shi’a mourning procession of Ashura was discouraged, and operating independent Islamic religious establishments remained illegal. At least seven Shi’a religious leaders-Abd al-Latif Muhammad Ali, Habib al-Hamid, Abd al-Latif al-Samin, Abdallah Ramadan, Sa’id al-Bahaar, Muhammad Abd al-Khidair, and Habib Hamdah Sayid Hashim al-Sadah-reportedly remained in prison for violating these restrictions.”
And Amnesty International adds:
Members of the Shi‘a Muslim community (estimated at between seven and ten per cent of Saudi Arabia’s population of about 19 million) suffer systematic political, social, cultural as well as religious discrimination.
As of 2006 four of the 150 members of Saudi Arabia’s “handpicked” parliament were Shi’a, but no city had a Shi’a mayor or police chief, and none of the 300 girls schools for Shi’a in the Eastern Province had a Shi’a principal. According to scholar Vali Nasr, Saudi textbooks “characterize Shi’ism as a form of heresy . . . worse than Christianity and Judaism.”
Forced into exile in the 1970s, Saudi Shi’a leader Hassan al-Saffar is said to have been “powerfully influenced” by the works of Sunni Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami and by their call for Islamic revolution and an Islamic state.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Shi’a in Hasa ignored the ban on mourning ceremonies commemorating Ashura. When police broke them up three days of rampage ensued—burned cars, attacked banks, looted shops—centered around Qatif. At least 17 Shi’a were killed. In February 1980 disturbances were “less spontaneous” and even bloodier. Meanwhile, broadcasts from Iran in the name of the Islamic Revolutionary Organization attacked the monarchy, telling listeners, “Kings despoil a country when they enter it and make the noblest of its people its meanest. This is the nature of monarchy, which is rejected by Islam.”
By 1993, Saudi Shi’a had abandoned uncompromising demands and some of al-Saffar’s followers met with King Fahd with promises made for reform. In 2005 the new King Abdullah also relaxed some restrictions on the Shi’a. However, Shi’a continue to be arrested for commemorating Ashura as of 2006. In December 2006, amidst escalating tensions in Iraq, 38 high ranking Saudi clerics called on Sunni Muslims around the world to “mobilize against Shi’ites.”
Shi’a Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi is reported to have responded:
The Wahhabis ignore the occupation of Islam’s first Qiblah by Israel, and instead focus on declaring Takfiring fatwas against Shi’as.
A large fraction of the foreign Sunni extremists who have entered Iraq to fight against Shi’a and the American occupation are thought to be Saudis. According to one estimate, of the approximately 1,200 foreign fighters captured in Syria between summer 2003 and summer 2005, 85 percent were Saudis.
Another reflection of grassroots Wahhabi or Saudi antipathy to Shi’a was a statement by Saudi cleric Nasir al-Umar, who accused Iraqi Shi’as of close ties to the United States and argued that both were enemies of Muslims everywhere.
Al-Qaeda
Some Wahhabi groups, often labeled as takfiri and sometimes linked to Al-Qaeda, have even advocated the persecution of the Shi’a as heretics. Such groups have been allegedly responsible for violent attacks and suicide bombings at Shi’a gatherings at mosques and shrines, most notably in Iraq during the Ashura mourning ceremonies where hundreds of Shi’as were killed in coordinated suicide bombings, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, in a video message, Al-Qaeda deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri directed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, not to attack civilian targets but to focus on the occupation troops. His call seems to have been ignored, or swept away in the increasing tensions of Iraq under occupation.
Lebanon
Though sectarian tensions in Lebanon were at their height during the Lebanese Civil War, the Shi’a–Sunni relations were not the main conflict of the war. The Shi’a party/militia of Hezbollah emerged in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War as one of the strongest forces following the Israeli withdrawal in the year 2000, and the collapse of the South Lebanese Army in the South. The tensions blew into a limited warfare between Shi’a dominated and Sunni dominated political alliances in 2008.
With the eruption of the Syrian Civil War, tensions increased between the Shi’a-affiliated Alawites and Sunnis of Tripoli, erupting twice into deadly violence—in June 2011, and the second time in February 2012. The Syrian war has affected Hezbollah, which was once lauded by both Sunnis and Shi’ites for its battles against Israel, but now has lost support from many Sunnis for its military assistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The bombings are thought to be in retaliation for a large car bomb which detonated on August 15th and killed at least 24 and wounded hundreds in a part of Beirut controlled by the Hezbollah.
Jordan
Although the country of Jordan is 95 percent Sunni and has not seen any Shi’a–Sunni fighting within, it has played a part in the recent Shi’a-Sunni strife. It is the home country of anti-Shi’a insurgent Raed Mansour al-Banna, who died perpetrating one of Iraq’s worst suicide bombings in the city of Al-Hillah. Al-Banna killed 125 Shi’a and wounded another 150 in the 2005 Al Hillah bombing of a police recruiting station and adjacent open air market. In March 2005 Salt, al-Banna’s home town, saw a three-day wake for al-Banna who Jordanian newspapers and celebrants proclaimed a martyr to Islam, which by definition made the Shi’a victims “infidels whose murder was justified.” Following the wake Shi’a mobs in Iraq attacked the Jordanian embassy on March 20, 2005. Ambassadors were withdrawn from both countries. All this resulted despite the strong filial bonds, ties of commerce, and traditional friendship between the two neighboring countries.
Egypt
Although according to some sources, almost all of Egypt’s Muslims are Sunni, others put the number of Shi’as somewhere between 800,000 to about two to three million. The Syrian Civil War has brought on an increase in anti-Shi’a rhetoric, and what Human Rights Watch states is “anti-Shi’a hate speech by Salafis.” In 2013 a mob of several hundred attacked a house in the village of Abu Musallim near Cairo, dragging four Shi’a worshipers through the street before lynching them. Eight other Shi’a were injured.
Yemen
Muslims in Yemen include the majority Shafi’i (Sunni) and the minority Zaidi (Shi’a). Zaidi are sometimes called “Fiver Shi’a” instead of Twelver Shi’a because they recognize the first four of the Twelve Imams but accept Zayd ibn Ali as their “Fifth Imām” rather than his brother Muhammad al-Baqir. Shi’a–Sunni conflict in Yemen involves the Shi’a insurgency in northern Yemen.
Both Shi’a and Sunni dissidents in Yemen have similar complaints about the government — cooperation with the American government and an alleged failure to following Shari’a law — but it’s the Shi’a who have allegedly been singled out for government crackdown.
During and after the US-led invasion of Iraq, members of the Zaidi-Shi’a community protested after Friday prayers every week outside mosques, particularly the Grand Mosque in Sana’a, during which they shouted anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans, and criticised the government’s close ties to America. These protests were led by ex-parliament member and Imam, Bader Eddine al-Houthi. In response the Yemeni government has implemented a campaign to crush the Zaidi-Shi’a rebellion” and harass journalists.
These latest measures come as the government faces a Sunni rebellion with a similar motivation to the Zaidi discontent.
A March 2015 suicide bombing of two mosques (used mainly by supporters of the Zaidi Shi’a-led Houthi rebel movement), in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, killed at least 137 people and wounded 300 more. The Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) movement claimed responsibility, issuing a statement saying: “Let the polytheist Houthis know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest until we have uprooted them.” Both the Sunni al-Qaeda and “Islamic State” consider Shi’a Muslims to be heretics.
Bahrain
The small Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain has a Shi’a majority but is ruled byc Sunni Al Khalifa family as a constitutional monarchy, with Sunni dominating the ruling class and military and disproportionately represented in the business and landownership. According to the CIA World Factbook, Al Wefaq the largest Shi’a political society, won the largest number of seats in the elected chamber of the legislature. However, Shi’a discontent has resurfaced in recent years with street demonstrations and occasional low-level violence. Bahrain has many disaffected unemployed youths and many have protested Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s efforts to create a parliament as merely a group of traditional elders and notables. Bahrain’s 2002 election was widely boycotted by Shi’a. Mass demonstrations have been held in favor of full-fledged democracy in March and June 2005, against an alleged insult to Ayatollah Khamenei in July 2005.
Pakistan
Pakistan’s citizens have had serious Shi’a-Sunni discord. Almost 80 percent of Pakistan’s Muslim population is Sunni, with 20 percent being Shi’a, but this Shi’a minority forms the second largest Shi’a population of any country, larger than the Shi’a majority in Iraq.
Until recently Shi’a–Sunni relations have been cordial, and a majority of people of both sects participated in the creation of the state of Pakistan in the 1940s. Despite the fact that Pakistan is a Sunni majority country, Shi’as have been elected to top offices and played an important part in the country’s politics. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the father of the nation who served as the first Governor-General of Pakistan was a Shi’a. Several other top Pakistani Generals such as General Muhammad Musa and Pakistan’s President Yahya Khan were Shi’a. Former President Asif Ali Zardari is a Shi’a. There are many intermarriages between Shi’a and Sunnis in Pakistan.
Unfortunately, from 1987–2007, “as many as 4,000 people are estimated to have died” in Shi’a-Sunni sectarian fighting in Pakistan,” 300 being killed in 2006. Amongst the culprits blamed for the killing are Al-Qaeda working “with local sectarian groups” to kill what they perceive as Shi’a apostates, and “foreign powers trying to sow discord.” Most violence takes place in the largest province of Punjab and the country’s commercial and financial capital, Karachi. There have also been conflagrations in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Azad Kashmir, with several hundreds of Shi’a Hazara killed in Balochistan killed since 2008.
Arab states especially Saudi Arabia and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC states) have been funding extremist Deobandi Sunnis and Wahhabis in Pakistan, since the Afghan Jihad. Whereas Iran has been funding Shi’a militant groups such as Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, resulting in tit-for-tat attacks on each other. Pakistan has become a battleground between Saudi Arabia-funded Deobandi Sunni and Wahhabis and Iran-funded Shi’a resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims.
Background
Some see a precursor of Pakistani Shi’a–Sunni strife in the April 1979 execution of deposed President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on questionable charges by Islamic fundamentalist General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Ali Bhutto was Shi’a, Zia ul-Haq a Sunni.
Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization that followed was resisted by Shi’a who saw it as “Sunnification” as the laws and regulations were based on Sunni fiqh. In July 1980, 25,000 Shi’a protested the Islamization laws in the capital Islamabad. Further exacerbating the situation was the dislike between Shi’a leader Imam Khomeini and General Zia ul-Haq.
Shi’a formed student associations and a Shi’a party, Sunni began to form sectarian militias recruited from Deobandi and Ahl al-Hadith madrasahs. Preaching against the Shi’a in Pakistan was cleric Israr Ahmed. Muhammad Manzour Numani, a senior Indian cleric with close ties to Saudi Arabia published a book entitled Iranian Revolution: Imam Khomeini and Shi’ism. The book, which “became the gospel of Deobandi militants” in the 1980s, attacked Khomeini and argued the excesses of the Islamic revolution were proof that Shi’ism was not the doctrine of misguided brothers, but beyond the Islamic pale.
Anti-Shi’a groups in Pakistan include the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, offshoots of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). The groups demand the expulsion of all Shi’as from Pakistan and have killed hundreds of Pakistani Shi’as between 1996 and 1999. As in Iraq they “targeted Shi’a in their holy places and mosques, especially during times of communal prayer.” From January to May 1997, Sunni terror groups assassinated 75 Shi’a community leaders “in a systematic attempt to remove Shi’as from positions of authority.” Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has declared Shi’a to be “American agents” and the “near enemy” in global jihad.
An example of an early Shi’a–Sunni fitna shootout occurred in Kurram, one of the tribal agencies of the Northwest Pakistan, where the Pushtun population was split between Sunnis and Shi’a. In September 1996 more than 200 people were killed when a gun battle between teenage Shi’a and Sunni escalated into a communal war that lasted five days. Women and children were kidnapped and gunmen even executed out-of-towners who were staying at a local hotel.
“Over 80,000 Pakistani Islamic militants have trained and fought with the Taliban since 1994. They form a hardcore of Islamic activists, ever-ready to carry out a similar Taliban-style Islamic revolution in Pakistan,” according to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid.
Afghanistan
Shi’a–Sunni strife in Pakistan is strongly intertwined with that in Afghanistan. Though now deposed, the anti-Shi’a Afghan Taliban regime helped anti-Shi’a Pakistani groups and vice versa. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, have sent thousands of volunteers to fight with the Taliban regime and in return the Taliban gave sanctuary to their leaders in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
Shi’a–Sunni strife inside of Afghanistan has mainly been a function of the puritanical Sunni Taliban’s clashes with Shi’a Afghans, primarily the Hazara ethnic group.
In 1998 more than 8,000 noncombatants were killed when the Taliban attacked Mazar-i-Sharif and Bamiyan where many Hazaras live. Some of the slaughter was indiscriminate, but many were Shi’a targeted by the Taliban. Taliban commander and governor Mullah Niazi banned prayer at Shi’a mosques and expressed takfir of the Shi’a in a declaration from Mazar’s central mosque:
Last year you rebelled against us and killed us. From all your homes you shot at us. Now we are here to deal with you. The Hazaras are not Muslims and now we have to kill Hazaras. You must either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. Wherever you go, we will catch you. If you go up we will pull you down by your feet; if you hide below, we will pull you up by your hair.
Assisting the Taliban in the murder of Iranian diplomatic and intelligence officials at the Iranian Consulate in Mazar were “several Pakistani militants of the anti-Shi’a, Sipah-e-Sahaba party.”
Nigeria
In Nigeria—the most populous country in Africa—until recently almost all Muslims were Sunni. As of 2017, estimates of the number of Nigeria’s 90–95 million Muslims who are Shi’a vary from between 20 million (Shi’a estimate), to less than five million (Sunni estimate).
In the 1980s, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky—a Nigerian admirer of the Iranian Revolution who lived in Iran for some years and converted to Shi’a Islam—established the Islamic Movement of Nigeria. The movement has established “more than 300 schools, Islamic centers, a newspaper, guards and a `martyrs’ foundation.`” Its network is similar to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with a focus on Iran, its Supreme Leader, and fighting America as the enemy of Islam. According to a former U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer who served in Nigeria, the Islamic Movement receives “about $10,000 a month” in Iranian funding. Many of the converted are poor Muslims.
The Shi’a campaign has clashed with Saudi Arabia, which also funds religious centers, school, and trains students and clerics, but as part of an effort to spread its competing Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. According to Wikileaks, “Saudi cables” released in 2015 “reveal concern” about “Iran-driven Shi’ite expansion from Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Nigeria” to Shi’a Islam has taken place in Nigeria since the Iranian Revolution.
Shi’a Muslims protest that they have been persecuted by the Nigerian government. In 1998 Nigerian President General Sani Abacha accused Ibrahim El-Zakzaky of being a Shi’a. In December 2015 the Nigerian government alleged that the Islamic Movement attempted to kill Nigeria’s army chief-of-staff. In retaliation, troops killed more than 300 Shi’ites in the city of Zaria. Hundreds of El-Zakzaky’s followers were also arrested. As of 2017, El-Zakzaky was still imprisoned.
South East Asia
Islam is the dominant religion in Indonesia, which also has a larger Muslim population than any other country in the world, with approximately 202.9 million identified as Muslim (88.2 percent of the total population) as of 2009.
The majority adheres to the Sunni Muslim tradition mainly of the Shafi’i madhhab. Around one million are Shi’as, who are concentrated around Jakarta. In general, the Muslim community can be categorized in terms of two orientations: “modernists,” who closely adhere to orthodox theology while embracing modern learning; and “traditionalists,” who tend to follow the interpretations of local religious leaders (predominantly in Java) and religious teachers at Islamic boarding schools (pesantren). In Indonesia, in 2015, Sunni clerics denounced the Shi’a as “heretics,” and the mayor of Bogor proposed banning the Shi’a Ashura holy day. The Shi’a community has also been subject to hate campaigns and intimidation, with fears of this escalating into violence.
Malaysia claims to be a tolerant Islamic state, however since 2010 it has banned the preaching of Shi’a Islam, with a “particular ferocity” and warns against Shi’ism with its, “evil and blasphemous beliefs.”
United States
In late 2006 or early 2007, in what journalist Seymour Hersh called The Redirection, the United States changed its policy in the Muslim world, shifting its support from the Shi’a to the Sunni, with the goal of “containing” Iran and as a by-product bolstering Sunni extremist groups. Richard Engel, as an NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, wrote an article in late 2011 alleging that the United States Government is pro-Sunni and anti-Shi’a. During the Iraq War, the United States feared that a Shi’ite-led, Iran-friendly Iraq could have major consequences for American national security. However, nothing can be done about this as Iraq’s Shi’ite government were democratically elected. Shadi Bushra of Stanford University wrote that the United States’ support of the Sunni monarchy during the Bahraini uprising is the latest in a long history of US support to keep the Shi’ites in check. The United States fears that Shi’ite rule in the Persian Gulf will lead to anti-US and anti-Western sentiment as well as Iranian influence in the Arab majority states. One analyst told CNN that the US strategy on putting pressure on Iran by arming its Sunni neighbors is not a new strategy for the United States.
Europe
In Europe Shi’a-Sunni acrimony is part of life for tens of millions of European Muslims.
Australia
Conflict between religious groups in the Middle East have spread to the Australian Muslim community and within Australian schools.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
As of March 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (or ISIS/ISIL, Daesh), a Salafi jihadi extremist militant group and self-proclaimed caliphate and Islamic state led by Sunni Arabs from Iraq and Syria, had control over territory occupied by ten million people in Iraq and Syria, as well as limited territorial control in some other countries. The United Nations has held ISIS responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes, and Amnesty International has reported ethnic cleansing by the group on a “historic scale,” including attacks on Shi’a Muslims.
According to Shi’a rights watch, in 2014 ISIS forces killed over 1,700 Shi’a civilians at Camp Speicher in Tikrit Iraq, and 670 Shi’a prisoners at the detention facility on the outskirts of Mosul. In June 2014, the New York Times wrote that as ISIS has “seized vast territories” in western and northern Iraq, there have been “frequent accounts of fighters’ capturing groups of people and releasing the Sunnis while the Shi’ites are singled out for execution.” The report listed questions ISIS uses to “tell whether a person is a Sunni or a Shi’ite”—What is your name? Where do you live? How do you pray? What kind of music do you listen to?
After the collapse of the Iraqi army and capture of the city of Mosul by ISIS in June 2014, the “most senior” Shi’a spiritual leader based in Iraq, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had been known as “pacifist” in his attitudes, issued a fatwa calling for jihad against ISIS and its Sunni allies, which was seen by the Shi’a militias as a “de facto legalization of the militias’ advance.” In Qatari another Shi’ite preacher, Nazar al-Qatari, “put on military fatigues to rally worshipers after evening prayers,” calling on them to fight against “the slayers of Imams Hasan and Hussein” (the second and third Imams of Shi’a history) and for Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the 13th edition of the ISIS magazine Dabiq, the feature article is entitled ‘The Rafidah: From Ibn Saba’ to the Dajjal’ and contains “pages of violent rhetoric directed against Shi’ites” who it claims are “more severely dangerous and more murderous . . . than the Americans.” The article justifies the killing of Shi’a Muslims, who ISIS claim are apostates.Shi’a militias fighting ISIS have also been accused of atrocities. Human Rights Watch has accused government-backed Shi’a militias of kidnapping and killing scores of Sunni civilians in 2014.
Unity Efforts
In a special interview broadcast on Al Jazeera on February 14, 2007, former Iranian president and chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and highly influential Sunni scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, “stressed the impermissibility of the fighting between the Sunnis and the Shi’is” and the need to “be aware of the conspiracies of the forces of hegemony and Zionism which aim to weaken [Islam] and tear it apart in Iraq.”
Even on this occasion there were differences, with Rafsanjani openly asking “more than once who started” the inter-Muslim killing in Iraq, and Al-Qaradawi denying claims by Rafsanjani that he knew where “those arriving to Iraq to blow Shi’i shrines up are coming from.”
Saudi-Iran Summit
In a milestone for the two countries’ relations, on March 3, 2007 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held an extraordinary summit meeting. They displayed mutual warmth with hugs and smiles for cameras and promised “a thaw in relations between the two regional powers but stopped short of agreeing on any concrete plans to tackle the escalating sectarian and political crises throughout the Middle East.”
On his return to Tehran, Ahmadinejad declared that:
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are aware of the enemies’ conspiracies. We decided to take measures to confront such plots. Hopefully, this will strengthen Muslim countries against oppressive pressure by the imperialist front.
Saudi officials had no comment about Ahmadinejad’s statements, but the Saudi official government news agency did say:
The two leaders affirmed that the greatest danger presently threatening the Islamic nation is the attempt to fuel the fire of strife between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, and that efforts must concentrate on countering these attempts and closing ranks.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz said:
The two parties have agreed to stop any attempt aimed at spreading sectarian strife in the region.
Effort to bring unity between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims had been attempted by Allama Muhammad Taqi Qummi.
Scholarly Opinions
Sunni
Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltut: In a Fatwa Sheikh Shaltut declared worship according to the doctrine of the Twelve Shi’a to be valid and recognized the Shi’ite as an Islamic School.
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy: I think that anyone who believes that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his Messenger is definitely a Muslim. Therefore, we have been supporting, for a long time, through Al-Azhar, many calls for the reconciliation of Islamic schools of thought. Muslims should work on becoming united, and protecting themselves from denominational sectarian fragmentation. There are no Shi’ites and no Sunni. We are all Muslims. Regretfully; the passions and prejudices that some resort to, are the reason behind the fragmentation of the Islamic nation.
Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghazali: It is the duty of all Muslims to unite against enemies of Islam and their propaganda.
Sheikh Abd al-Majid Salim: In a letter that was sent to Ayatollah Borujerdi by Sheikh Abd al-Majid Salim, was written: The first thing that becomes obligatory to scholars, Shi’a or Sunni, is removing dissension from the minds of Muslims.
Doctor Vasel Nasr, The Grand Mufti of Egypt: We ask Allah to create unity among Muslims and remove any enmity, disagreement and contention in the ancillaries of Fiqh between them.
Shi’ite
Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi: Ayatollah Borujerdi sent a letter to Sheikh Abd al-Majid Salim, the Grand Mufti of Sunnis and former Chancellor of Al-Azhar University and wrote: I ask Almighty Allah to change ignorance, separation and distribution among different Islamic Schools to each other, to the actual knowledge and kindness and solidarity.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: We are Oneness with Sunni Muslims. We are their brothers. It is obligatory for all Muslims that Maintain unity.
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei: In a Fatwa about creating dissension, Ayatollah Khamenei said: In Addition to dissension is contrary to the Qur’an and Sunnah, this weakens Muslims. So, creating dissension is forbid (Haram).
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani: (In answer to the question: Is anyone who says Shahadah, prays and follow one of the Islamic Schools, a Muslim? Ayatollah Sistani replied: Every one who says Shahadah, acts as you describe and does not have enmity towards Ahl al-Bayt, is muslim.
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Last Update: 02/2021
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