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Yoginder Sikand, Shia-Sunni Dialogue: Some Reflections
Reproduced with kind permission of, and thanks to, Qalandar and Yoginder Sikand. An article that I wrote some days ago on Shia-Sunni relations occasioned a flood of email messages, mainly from readers in India and Pakistan. Most of them shared my concern for the urgent need for Shia-Sunni dialogue, while some messages, obviously written by hardline Sunnis, insisted that there was no need whatsoever for any such dialogue on the grounds, they claimed, that the Shias were definitely not Muslim at all. Such people, I suppose, cannot be won round to any sensible discussion on the vexed issue of Shia-Sunni relations, and so are best left ignored. My concern here is with two arguments put forward by some readers who appreciated my case for Shia-Sunni dialogue and unity. The first argument was that the Shia-Sunni division was simply political in nature, and had nothing to do with religion as such. The second argument that was suggested by some readers was that Shia-Sunni conflict was actually a product of a sinister ‘conspiracy’ hatched by the ‘enemies’ of Islam in order to weaken the Muslims, and that the Muslims were not to be blamed for it at all. There are, I admit, some elements of truth in both arguments, but, like other simplistic explanations for very complex phenomenon, they do not provide a complete and adequate account for the pervasive and long-standing conflict between Shias and Sunnis. More importantly, they do not provide any meaningful solution to the problem. In fact, they positively inhibit any such solution, as I shall attempt to explain. Take the first argument. While it is true that the crystallisation of the Shias and Sunnis as separate groups owed principally to political factors, the argument ignores the fact that over time there have developed crucial religious differences between the two. These relate to major issues such as the Imamate versus the Caliphate, and the position of the Prophet’s companions (sahaba) and his wives, in addition to minor jurisprudential differences. To add to this are the different, and on important issues, mutually opposed, perceptions of early Islamic history. These differences continue to heavily influence the ways in which many Shias and Sunnis perceive each other. The argument that the Shia-Sunni division is simply political, and that, therefore, if it can be solved at that level, it will automatically whither away, is thus simple wishful thinking. This argument, which denies the salience of religious factors in influencing Shia-Sunni relations, also completely ignores the role of the ‘ulama, who claim to be authoritative interpreters of Islam, as well as of certain ‘Islamic’ organisations, in reproducing and promoting Shia-Sunni strife, an issue I shall deal with in the course of this article. The second argument, which attributes Shia-Sunni differences to the evil machinations of the ‘enemies’ of Islam, is equally inadequate. It ignores the obvious fact that the real causes of the initial Shia-Sunni split were internal, rather than externally inspired. It is true that others have taken advantage of these divisions to promote their own interests, but to argue that these divisions were created by others is simply ludicrous. It conveniently absolves Muslims of their role in creating and sustaining their own divisions. Furthermore, it only further reinforces widely held negative stereotypes among many Muslims about people of other faiths, which, as I see it, goes completely against the Quranic spirit. Thus, for advocates of the ‘conspiracy’ thesis all non-Muslims, or all Jews, all Hindus or all Christians, appear as ‘enemies’ of Islam and as complicit in an alleged sinister plot to wipe Islam from off the face of the world. All non-Muslims come to be tarred with the same brush, and Muslims are advised to treat them all as ‘enemies’ of God. Obviously, this only further alienates Muslims from others, fuelling further strife and conflict. Equally importantly, it creates immense obstacles in the way of communicating the teachings of Islam to others. The Quran repeatedly stresses that the primary responsibility of ‘true believers’ is to present its message to others, but the ‘conspiracy’ theorists, who readily brand all non-Muslims as inveterate ‘enemies’ of Islam, stand as the single major hurdle in promoting that mandate. The ‘conspiracy’ theory also fails to provide any meaningful solution to the issue of sectarian strife within the broader Muslim fold. I do not deny that many Muslims have suffered, and continue to suffer, at the hands of others, and the same, of course, can be said for many other communities. However, holding the external ‘enemy’ responsible for all the ills, real and imaginary, of the Muslims robs the Muslims of any agency or autonomy of their own. Muslims thus come to be seen as mere puppets, who are remote-controlled by others, and who cannot act on their own volition and make their own decisions. If the sectarian divisions among Muslims have been created by others and Muslims themselves have been unable to prevent this, as this theory suggests, then, logically, it means that Muslims can do nothing whatsoever to remedy the situation on their own. Without seeking to deny the obvious suffering of many Muslims at the hands of others in certain contexts, I believe that to constantly harangue others for their own ills has become a major obsession for many Muslims. Many Muslims seem to suffer from a serious sort of persecution complex, seeing an alleged ‘anti-Islamic’ conspiracy behind all their manifold problems. This, in turn, has led to an abhorrence for any sort of self-criticism and introspection, because of which many problems that are, at root, self-created are left un-addressed. One would have imagined that, given the magnitude of the problem of Shia-Sunni conflict, Muslim organisations and ‘ulama would be seriously engaged in trying to resolve this vexed problem that, as the events in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent years clearly show, appears to be becoming even more acute. This, however, is far from being the case. A random search I did on the Internet recently yielded precisely nine articles on Shia-Sunni dialogue, in contrast to several hundred others devoted to various dimensions of the Shia-Sunni conflict. Interestingly, except for two, all the nine articles were written by ‘lay’ Muslims, indicating that the ‘ulama in general appear to have little or no interest whatsoever in the question of Shia-Sunni dialogue. I admit that an Internet search is not the best way of to gauge the involvement of the ‘ulama and Muslim activists in promoting Shia-Sunni dialogue, for many of them write in languages other than English, and hence their writings may not appear on the Internet. Yet, based on my own knowledge of Muslim groups in India, I can confidently state that few ‘ulama or Islamic organisations, at least in South Asia, have evinced any interest in promoting a genuine dialogue between Shias and Sunnis, other than issuing the occasional appeal for ‘Muslim unity’ in the face of the rising menace of Hindu fascism. If at all evidence were needed for the fallaciousness of the theory that the Shia-Sunni conflict is simply political or that it is actually the result of a plot hatched by the ‘enemies’ of Islam to divide the Muslims, one need only turn to the role of several ‘ulama, who consider themselves as the true representatives of Islam, in fanning Shia-Sunni conflict. I speak here only of the situation in South Asia, with which I am most familiar, and where Shia-Sunni conflict has taken the most violent form in recent years. Barring the Jama’at-i Islami, every major Sunni school of thought (maslak) in South Asia considers the Shias as ‘infidels’. Numerous ‘ulama of the Barelwi, Deobandi and Ahl-i Hadith maslaks have penned voluminous treatises that openly brand the Shias as heretics (rafizis) and as ‘enemies of Islam’. Further, in the case of the Deobandis and the Ahl-i Hadith, many of those whom they regard as their ideological forebears, starting from Ibn Taimiyah and Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi down to Shah Waliullah and Shah Abdul Aziz (in addition to Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab for the Ahl-i Hadith) were unanimous in considering the Shias as dangerous ‘infidels’, reserving the choicest invectives for them. The books of these classical ‘scholars’ as well as their ideological progeny continue to be taught in most Sunni madrasas in South Asia down to this very day. Since the students at these madrasas are fed with a steady stream of anti-Shia propaganda, it is but natural that when they graduate and take up jobs as teachers or as imams in mosques they work to promote prejudice against the Shias among the general Sunni populace, which can, in certain situations, assume the form of violent conflict. Mercifully, in India we have been spared the potentially violent ravages of this poisonous propaganda, owing particularly to the fact, that being in a minority and confronted with the growing danger of Hindutva fascism, Muslims can hardly afford to fight among themselves. But where such an external threat does not exist, as is the case in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Shia-Sunni conflicts have now assumed frightening proportions in some places. The Pakistani case is particularly revealing in this regard. In the years leading to the Partition of India in 1947 the Sunni ‘ulama, while insisting on Shi’ism as undistilled heresy, refrained from actively fanning hatred and violence against the Shias. This was because Muslims in general saw themselves threatened by a more dangerous ‘enemy’ in the form of the Hindus. This explains why a number (although certainly not the majority) of Sunni ‘ulama lent their support to the Muslim League, whose president, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was himself a Shia (and that too of the Aga Khani branch), and which included a number of Shias in its top-level leadership. However, no sooner was Pakistan formed than leading Sunni ‘ulama began making noises calling for Shias to be declared by the state as non-Muslims. For a while this demand was put on the backburner as the ‘ulama launched a movement to have the Qadiani and Lahori Ahmadis officially de-recognised as Muslims. Soon after, however, from the mid-1970s onwards, particularly with the coming to power of the military dictator Zia ul-Haq, fiercely anti-Shia elements among the ‘ulama received a shot in the arm. Zia came to power through a military coup, and because he lacked legitimacy he sought to curry favour with the ‘ulama in order to bolster his own rule. In this he was supported by the Americans and the Saudis, with whom he established a close nexus. Given that the majority of Pakistanis are Sunnis, Zia began to carefully cultivate the most reactionary sections of the Sunni ‘ulama, particularly among the Deobandis and the Ahl-i Hadith, known for their fierce opposition to the Shias. Emboldened thus, these groups now mounted a major campaign against the Shias. For this purpose they received vast sums of money from the Saudis, whose Wahhabi school considers the Shias as among what it regards as the many ‘enemies’ of Islam. A defining moment in the anti-Shia movement in Pakistan was the founding in 1985 of the Sipah-i Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). The SSP, which later took the shape of a political party, represented an extreme version of Deobandism. It had a two-point agenda: to have the Shias declared as kafirs and to make Pakistan an officially Sunni state. It launched a massive campaign against the Shias, inciting anti-Shia passions and setting off a spate of sectarian killings that have, till date, caused the deaths of several hundred people. Zia and later Pakistani rulers, as well as Pakistan’s secret-service agency, the ISI, carefully cultivated the SSP, seeing it as a useful ally in Pakistan’s proxy war against India in Kashmir. SSP activists received armed training in Taliban camps and were closely associated with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda group. Numerous SSP fighters also joined the Pakistan-based Deobandi militia outfits, Jaish-e Muhammad and Harkat ul-Mujahidin and entered Kashmir to fight the Indian army. An irrepressible hatred of the Shias forms the basis of the SSP’s worldview. Those interested in understanding the SSP’s vision of the world can get a taste of it from a website (http://www.kr-hcy.com) run by a group of individuals associated with the outfit. The site contains scores of articles by SSP leaders that set forth the ideology of the organisation. It hosts numerous speeches of the SSP’s founder, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, which can be downloaded and listened to, if his shrill rhetoric can be endured. Jhangvi’s speeches are fiery harangues, emotion-laden outbursts, spewing venom and vitriol against the Shias. ‘Shias are the worst sort of infidels in the world’, he thunders, and he orders a crowd of several hundred followers to repeat the same after him. Those who don not believe that the Shias are kafirs, he suggests, are kafirs themselves. He attributes all manner of evil-intentioned beliefs and statements to the Shias, accusing them of conspiring to destroy Islam from within, and promising them death for their alleged ‘misdeeds’. He announces that the Prophet himself had predicted the emergence after his death of a sect called the ‘Rafizis’, who, he allegedly warned, would be the greatest enemy of the ‘real’ Muslims. He argues that the Shias of today are precisely that sect. He damns the Shias as wicked ‘conspirators’, alleging that they disrespect and curse the Prophet’s wives and companions. Salman Rushdie’s diatribes against Islam would appear to pale into complete insignificance in the face of the alleged writings of the Shia ‘ulama, going by what Jhangvi falsely attributes to them. He works the crowd up into a frenzy, and slogans of ‘Kafir! Kafir! Shia Kafir!’ rent the air. He hails Saddam Hussain for suppressing the Shias of Iraq, and slogans of ‘Long Live Saddam!’ greet his angry declamation. ‘I don’t care if Pakistan is drowned in flames with my speech’, he screams, ‘but the Shias must be declared as kafirs and Pakistan must become a Sunni state’. Haq Nawaz, now thankfully dead, was not alone among the Sunni ‘ulama in his passionate hatred of the Shias, although it must be admitted that not all, or even most, Sunni or, even more specifically, Deobandi, ‘ulama would necessarily agree with the means that he advocated. Yet, such crude and completely baseless charges against the Shias are found in the writings of numerous South Asian Sunni ‘ulama who are not themselves actively involved in militant anti-Shia movements. Such, for instance, is the case with the ‘scholars’ associated with the Mumbai-based Ahl-i Hadith website www.ahya.org, as well as several Indian Deobandis who have in recent years penned several books denouncing the Shias as ‘infidels’. The writings of these self-styled ‘authorities’ on Shi’ism share several features in common. Firstly, many of them lift entire sections from works by polemical writings by earlier Sunni ‘ulama, and are not based on any original investigative research. The writings of such obviously biased scholars of the past are considered to be sacrosanct, and to even dare to question them is held to be nothing short of heretical, so strong is this insistence on the blind following (taqlid) of the ‘elders’ (buzurgan). Secondly, much of this anti-Shia propaganda is pure fabrication, the product of fertile imaginations. Such, for instance, is the oft-repeated charge in Sunni polemical writings that the Shias have their own ‘hidden’ Quran, or that they believe Ali to be God himself or that Ali should have been appointed as a prophet instead of Muhammad. These beliefs are certainly not held by the vast majority of the Shias, and while some ‘extreme’ (ghali) Shia groups might hold such views, this is not the case with the mainstream Shia community. Thirdly, some of the allegations against the Shias as contained in anti-Shia literature might well be based on Shia writings, but these are quoted completely out of context to deliberately create a distorted image of the Shia understanding of Islam. Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, almost none of the anti-Shia polemicist writers has ever engaged in any meaningful and sincere dialogue with Shia scholars to dispassionately seek to understand what exactly the Shias really believe. I would gather that almost none of them has any Shia friends (so intense is their hatred for the Shias), and probably few of them have ever interacted with Shias on a personal basis. Mercifully, the traditional ‘ulama do not have a monopoly over Islamic discourse, and there are a number of ‘lay’ Muslim activists who do recognise the urgent need for genuine Shia-Sunni dialogue. Their voices may not be very audible today, however, given the shrill rhetoric of many ‘ulama as well as of certain Islamist groups, particularly those that are allied with the Saudi ‘Wahhabis’. In fact, this Saudi connection has emerged as a major challenge in recent years, in that through generous funding to several ‘lay’ Muslim groups around the world the Saudis have sought to win them over to its brand of intolerant Islamic literalism that defines Shias as infidels. In this way, many Muslim activists who could otherwise have played an important role in promoting Shia-Sunni dialogue have been drawn into the sharp anti-Shia polemical battle, which has now escalated into a frightening battle against all who have come to be branded as ‘enemies of Islam’. I have tried to explain that the causes of Shia-Sunni differences must be located largely within the larger Muslim community, although I do not deny the fact that others have taken advantage to fan and exacerbate these differences in order to promote their own interests. I have also sought to show that Muslim organisations, and particularly the ‘ulama and ‘ulama-led groups, have done little at all to address the problem of Shia-Sunni conflict. Instead, some of them have actually made the problem even more acute with their hate-laden rhetoric that has led to widespread killings in certain countries. While I admit that local political and economic factors often underlie sectarian conflicts, I also believe that influential sections of the traditional ‘ulama must share much of the blame for fanning Shia-Sunni strife. An atmosphere of serious dialogue and dispassionate discussion is almost non-existent in the madrasas, where other groups, whether other Muslim sects or other religions, are passionately denounced as heretics and no attempt is made to relate to them in a spirit of genuine love and concern. I see striking parallels between the rhetoric of fiery anti-Shia groups in Pakistan and fiercely anti-Muslim Hindu groups in India. Listening to Haq Nawaz Jhangivi thundering away against the Shias reminded me at once of the hate-filled speeches of RSS leaders denouncing Muslims as the scourge of humanity. Both create a convenient scapegoat for all the ills of their community or country, through which they seek to mobilise public support and grab power. Both speak the language of hate and revenge. Both represent an authoritarian vision that is vehemently hostile to any dissent or difference. Both reflect a fascist agenda, bankrupt of any economic agenda that addresses issues of vital this-worldly concern to the poor and the oppressed. Both thus represent the vested interests of the ruling classes, and have nothing whatsoever to do with genuine spirituality. It is time Muslims seriously concerned about the hijacking of their faith by self-styled ‘saviours’ of Islam do something about it. One is pained to know that hardly any Sunni ‘ulama, as far as I know, have issued fatwas against groups such as the SSP that have given Islam such a bad name. The SSP is just one such outfit. One could provide a whole list of similar groups that are engaged in promoting hatred and indiscriminate violence against Muslims of other sects as well as non-Muslims. To kill an innocent person, no matter what his or her religion, is tantamount to killing the whole of humanity, the Quran says. The Quran somewhere admonishes the believers not to let the hatred of any other people cause them to swerve from the path of justice. It also speaks of blind communalism as ‘tribalism’ (asabiyat), condemning it in no uncertain terms. For the ‘ulama and activists associated with groups like the SSP it is as if these Quranic commandments do not exist at all. How many ‘ulama, one must ask, have wielded their favourite weapon of the fatwa (which they routinely use to badger their own opponents with) to condemn the self-proclaimed soldiers of Islam who have been responsible for the murder of innocent people in the name of religion? I agree that not all, or even most, ‘ulama have been actively involved in instigating hatred against other Muslim sects and non-Muslims. However, those who choose to remain silent in the face of the misuse of Islam by self-styled messiahs of the faith in order to attack innocent people of other sects or communities have actually been indirectly complicit in their crimes against humanity. Problems such as sectarian differences cannot be solved simply by wishing them away, by denying their salience or by attributing them to an external ‘conspiracy’. To ignore the problem will only make it worsen with every passing day, like a festering wound. Rather than turning a blind eye to the issue by simply mouthing pious slogans of the ‘unity of the ummah’, the Shia-Sunni issue (as well as, of course, the issue of differences between the various Sunni groups) must be directly addressed, in a spirit of genuine dialogue and free from polemical exchanges. The Quran itself exhorts Muslims to relate to others through love and gentle words. By and large, with a few notable exceptions, the ‘ulama of the madrasas are unwilling and incapable of this sort of dialogue, given the training that they have received and the distaste with which they are taught to look upon those who do not share their views. Mercifully, the vast majority of ordinary Shias and Sunnis, despite the negative images some of them might have of each other, do wish to live in peace and harmony with each other. It is among them that one must place one’s hopes for serious dialogue initiatives to emerge. Increasingly, one expects, ‘lay’ Muslims will come to realise that the politics of blind hatred and fierce intolerance in the name of Islam constitutes a heinous crime against Islam itself. Top | Back to Articles main | Yoginder Sikand Articles List |
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