Genesis of Shia-Sunni violence

GENESIS OF SHIA-SUNNI
VIOLENCE


Islam like all “divine” religions before it brought a message of peace, amity, tolerance, equality and justice for all mankind. The messenger was chosen in a society supposedly riddled with all kinds of social and moral evils. Contrast between his religious teachings and realty on ground could not be greater. There was bigotry, usury, intolerance, and slaves were treated worse than animals. Blood feuds and tribal warfare were common. It is though a myth that women had no rights. Not quite at par with men, they did enjoy a much higher status than their sisters at the time did in Europe and other countries. They owned properties and businesses, proposed marriage to men, The Prophets first wife proposed to him before the advent of Islam, and a woman had offered a hundred camels as marriage portion to his father before he married the prophet’s mother
The prophet preached equality of men, rich and poor. He forswore any compulsion in faith. He forgave his enemies, persons who had tortured him and his followers. When Mecca surrendered, he forbade any revenge. He enjoined protection of non-believers .
After the prophets demise, there was some dispute over succession. Ansars (natives of Madina) had actually chosen a successor who was prevailed upon to abdicate in favor of Abu Bakr (RA). The latter nominated Umar (RA). Umar did not designate a successor. There was a tussle between factions supporting Usman (RA) and Imam Ali (RA). By this time, idealism had given way to pragmatism; Usman (RA) was chosen as the third Caliph, by a procedure regarded by some as not quite above board. He belonged to the Umayyad clan, who had been among the bitterest foes of the prophet. On ascension to caliphate he surrounded himself with members of his clan. Not many of them were as scrupulous as he himself was, but he was a weak person and surrendered to his overpowering clan. Jobbery, favoritism and nepotism reached unprecedented proportions. There was general disaffection. A huge delegation called on him and demanded removal of satraps of Umayyad origin. He promised remedial measures. The delegation on its way back intercepted a messenger from the caliph with instructions to one of the governors to “take care” of the mischief makers; or so the story goes. They returned and Usman was assassinated. Complete breakdown of law order followed. Imam Ali, now reluctant to wear the mantle of Caliphate was prevailed upon to accept the office. Muaviya, of the Umayyad clan, governor of a province, rebelled. Civil war ensued in which close companions of the Prophet were pitted against each other, and killed each other- in the name of Islam. Imam Ali was able to suppress the rebellion, but the situation remained unstable and a faction of his adherents (Kharjis-persons who wanted to completely exclude Umayyad from body politic) was unhappy with the lenient hand the imam had dealt his opponents. One of them assassinated the caliph.
Supporters of Ali (called Shian’s Ali. Shia means votary) a political group later metamorphosed into a religious sect. There is no evidence that, at the time, Shias had religious beliefs different from other Muslims.
After the demise of Ali Muaviya made a deal with Ali’s elder son (Imam Hasan) that the younger son Imam Husain will succeed him. He was thus able to take over caliphate with out a tussle. Breaking his word, he designated his son Yazid to the Caliphate. Imam Husain (RA) was enticed into an ambush and all male members of the family except Imam Zainul Abedin (RA) were killed.
Umayyad rule lasted over a hundred and score years. What was left of the prophet’s family was closely watched, but otherwise left alone. They shunned politics and kept themselves busy with spiritual and academic pursuits.
Abbasids, descendents of the prophets uncle, Abbas, invoking the name of prophets family, incited a rebellion against Umayyad rule and overthrew them They initially paid lip service to the descendents of the prophet, going to the extent of offering them caliphate and ostensibly ruled in their name. In actual fact, they were more apprehensive of the clan than even Umayyads were and kept the family under strict surveillance and once secure in power, put severe restrictions on them and tortured them. The last Imam , a young boy at the time, went into hiding in a cave and was never seen again.
Never at ease with the high regard Muslims-Sunni and Shia- gave the members of the prophet’s family, Abbasids were always on the look out for means to under mine the former’s influence and hit upon the idea of coercing religious scholars into concocting a lot of Hadith (sayings of the prophet) the thrust of which was ostensibly to purge Islamic thought of pagan beliefs. End result was that the religion was shorn of all tolerance, mercy, justice, arts and poetry and equality of races. Veneration of the prophet’s family was initially frowned upon, later discouraged and finally condemned as un-Islamic.
I have given a brief background of the genesis of the major sects of Islam so one can understand better, that a political movement, evolved essentially due to persecution of followers of Ali, led to divergence in the belief system. and was used for political advantage. Fatimids (Shias) were thrown out of Egypt by Sunnis. Shias took over Iran from Sunnis. Muslims rulers in India were mostly of Sunni persuasion except for occasional prevalence of Shia doctrine, mainly under the influence of Shia women imported as wives of Moghal princes. There were also several Shia regional rulers, especially in Oudh (part of UP) where the capital Lucknow became the Shia capital of all India.
The only period of sectarian and religious intolerance during Moghal rule was the reign of Aurangzeb, who actively discriminated against Muslims who did not agree with his beliefs, imposed Jazia (poll tax) on non-Muslims, but he could not over turn centuries of harmonious traditions; his own grand mother was a Hindu, his army chiefs counted several Hindus among their ranks. In fact, there is good reason to believe that he used religion to advance his political ends. He could not have gotten the support of the Muslim establishment against his older brother the Sufi crown Prince Dara Shikoh if he had not adopted the classic slogan of “Islam in Danger” used more effectively and with disastrous consequences by later demagogues.
But the common people, though disparaging each other’s beliefs, lived peaceably together, joining hands when faced with a foreign foe.
British take over changed all. Muslims went through a period of national mourning and profound depression. They descended into introversion and gave up education and other enterprises. They had lived on land and largesse of Nawabs. The lands were confiscated and Nawab banished, leaving most Muslims in North/East India destitute. Attempts at educating the them were dubbed heretical. Sir Syed Ahmad and his cohorts were openly condemned as kafirs.
Decadent societies have a tendency to fissions. All kinds of sectarian disputes came to the surface .At this time we come across a few instances of overt intolerance between the two sects.
Indian national congress, brainchild of a liberal Englishman was founded in 1885. Nationalism took root and within a few decades started challenging British paramountcy.
The British who had conquered India by the Machiavellian techniques of divide and rule, had not lost their touch. They actively incited inter and intra faith conflicts. Extremists, Hindu, Muslim and the various sects among the two religions played into British hands and went at each other’s throats.
Their machinations against Muslim sects in Lucknow are well documented. They bought a printing press for an extremist Sunni cleric Maulana Abdul Shakoor (mentioned else where too) who published several highly inflammatory diatribes against Shias. One was named “Qatilan e Husain ki khana talashi”, house search on killers of Husain. The book made the preposterous claim that it was Shias who killed Imam Husain.
But both Shias and Sunnis shunned extremist bigots; I clearly recall my family (Sunni) refusing invitations to the houses of fanatics, while we frequented both Shia and Hindu houses.
Let us go back about three centuries in history. We will find the root of current sectarian conflict in the person of Abdul Wahab, a mediocre cleric who tried to revive intolerant and exclusionary doctrines of Abbasid period enunciated at the time by a religious scholar Ibne Tammayya. Wahab did not get anywhere, till the house of Saud adopted his creed in a fight against fellow Muslims- Shareef a descendent of the prophet and the ruler of Mecca and the Turkish caliphate. His influence remained restricted to Saudi Arabia and a way ward fringe of Muslims till oil was discovered. Wahabis objected to the lavish life style the princes could now afford and adapted. They, in order to divert attention from their debaucheries and luxuriant-deviant life style, started financing the export of Wahabi belief.
Sporadic Shia-Sunni violence fuelled by extremists on both sides of the divide has continued in India. With the advent of Zia, the Pakistani Machiavelli who in order to undermine peoples party (of Bhutto) promulgated the so called “Islamisation” program, (and also ordained creation of ethnic parties . Sowing dissension among Muslims, according to a generally accepted saying of the prophet, entitles one to ever-lasting hell fire. Zia got a taste of it right in this world.
As a result of early uncertainty over the fate of Bhutto and economic sanctions imposed after his assassination, the country on the verge of economic collapse. Zia had to mortgage a years rice crop to pay government servants. His rule was thus initially precarious. He found his political salvation in the American sponsored Jihad against Russians in Afghanistan. That gave Pakistan a culture of drugs and guns. After Russians were thrown out and a brief interregnum of warlord rule, Saudi financed and Pakistan/ American trained, Taliban/Al Qaida took over in Afghanistan.
Taliban unleashed a reign of fundamentalist terror, clubbing women publicly for wearing high heels, inspecting pubic areas of men to see if they were properly shaved, inspecting beards for proper length, closing girls schools, dismissing female physicians, publicity stoning alleged adulterers, and as though they had not gathered adequate international opprobrium, demolishing millennia old statues of lord Buddha on the pretext that the international community had not listened to their appeal for help .
With their roots in Pakistan, the economic/ moral morass the country was in and with attendant illiteracy, export of Taliban theology to Pakistan was inevitable. Add Al Qaida to it and the mixture became too rich.
Shias, a small national minority were an easy target and with perversity of a fanatic, Wahabis went after the educated among Shias- doctors, engineers and professors, with a vengeance.
The military, heavily infiltrated with fundamentalist revanchists and Jihadis collaborated with their civilian counter parts. The other elements of the evil quad (Feudal, Army, civil servant and Mullahs) aided and abetted the Jihadis, as any progress- economic, educational, or industrial- all pre-requisites of capitalism was anathema to them. The system would loosen their grip on the country and would spawn democracy, which would threaten their interests.
It is incumbent upon all rational people (not just for idealistic reasons but in their own self interest, as fanaticism does not know national boundaries and the virus of hatred will spread) to oppose, condemn and take part in the struggle against the neo-Neanderthals (that the fanatics are), and promote, aid and support, in every possible way, liberal movements in all Muslim countries especially in Saudi Arabia.