The Consequences of Muslims' Captivity to their Tragic History
By Jacob Thomas
FaithFreedom.org
It’s Friday, the 13th of June, the news from Iraq is getting from bad to worse. ISIS, the ultra-radical Islamist group seeking to establish a Caliphate in Iraq and the Levant is advancing toward Baghdad, after seizing Mosul. The army of the Kurdish Province in Northern Iraq has occupied Kirkuk. The U. S. Government has been caught off guard, and its leadership is wondering about the next step. It is certain that the United States would not send its troops into Iraq to defend the regime. In the meantime, the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are ready to enter Iraq to defend Baghdad and the holy cities of the Shi’ites south of the capital. The Western media are doing their best to keep us informed about the unfolding tragic events, enabling us to see thousands of Iraqis fleeing from Mosul, and the advancing ISIS “rag tag” army toward Baghdad.
My purpose is to show that Muslims, (both Sunnis
and Shi’ites,” remain captive to their tragic
history that keeps up propelling their past
conflicts into the 21st century. The civil wars of
the early days of Islam are being re-enacted as we
watch masked men, riding on pickup trucks, armed
with machine guns and rushing triumphantly into
battle!
In June, 632 A.D., Muhammad passed away after a
brief illness. The Islamic Umma in Medina faced a
serious problem since the Prophet had made no
arrangements for his succession. It was understood
that he was the last Messenger sent by Allah to
guide mankind. However, when Muhammad migrated to
Medina in 622, he became a Political leader as well.
He governed the local community of believers, and
led them in campaigns against his Meccan enemies. By
630, he had vanquished all opposition, and entered
Mecca triumphantly. Upon his death, the Muslim Umma
urgently needed another head of state.
Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law, came up with a
solution; he proposed that a Khalifa (Caliph) be
chosen by the leadership of the Umma. That was
accepted, and he was chosen as the first Khalifa.
When he died two years later, another Caliph was
chosen: Umar ibn al-Khattab. The Futuhat (Conquests)
continued vigorously under his leadership with the
occupation of Syria and Egypt, and Persia. Umar was
assassinated in 644, and was succeeded by Uthman ibn
‘Affan, who presided over the further expansion of
Islam to the East.
In 656, some disgruntled Muslim soldiers who had
participated in the campaign for the occupation of
Egypt, returned to Medina and assassinated Uthman.
Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad succeeded
him. Unfortunately for Ali, there was no consensus
about his choice. Muawiya, a cousin of Uthman and
governor of Syria, charged that Ali was involved in
the plot that resulted in the death of Uthman; war
broke out between the two. Ali’s side was winning,
when he was prevailed upon to accept arbitration and
seek a peaceful solution of the conflict. Some
within Ali’s army were outraged by this decision,
since victory was at hand; they left his side, and
assassinated him in 661. They are known as the
“Khawarej” (Dissenters.) Ali’s death marked the end
of the period of the “Rightly Guided Caliphs.”
Muawiya assumed the position of Caliph, moved the
capital of the Islamic Umma to Damascus. He sought
appeasement with Hassan and Hussein, the two sons of
Ali. Hassan accepted a settlement with the new
Caliph, and retired to Arabia; however his young
brother Hussein refused any compromise. He became
the leader of Ali’s Party. In Arabic, the term
“Shi’a” signifies “party”, so his group was first
called “Shi’ite Ali” and eventually was abbreviated
into “Shi’a.”
Muhammad, Ali, and his two sons, were members of the
Hisham clan of the tribe of Quraysh in Mecca; while
Muawiya was member of the “Umayya” clan that had
vehemently opposed Muhammad. This fact gave a solid
reason for Hussein and his followers not to accept
the legitimacy of an Umayyad to become a Caliph.
Those Muslims who acquiesced to the rise of the
Umayyad Dynasty were called “Sunnis,” but Muslims
who sided with Hussein were known as “Shi’ites.”
They remained an active underground opposition
movement for years to come.
In 680, Hussein arrived with a small group of his
followers at Kufa, in Iraq, hoping to make it a
center for an active opposition to the Umayyad
Caliph Yazid. He was met by a superior force, was
defeated, and killed at Karbala. The martyrdom of
Hussein is now celebrated annually at Karbala, and
at other centers of Shi’ism such as at Nabatiyya, in
south Lebanon.
For some time, the Umayyads felt that they had
secured the leadership of Islam. In 710, they
invaded Spain, and by 732 they reached southern
France where they were stopped by Charles Martel, at
the Battle of Tours, near Poitiers.
However, several factors conspired to bring to an
end the hegemony of the Umayyads. The Shi’ite
Underground, the disgruntled Mawalis (non-Arab
converts to Islam) and followers of Muhammad’s
uncle, Ibn ‘Abbas, all combined and contributed to
the fall of the Umayyads. The revolt began at
Khorasan, in eastern Persia, led by Abu Muslim
al-Khorasani, who defeated the governor of the
province and marched westward. The end of the
Umayyads came in 750 when all the members of the
caliph’s house were killed, leaving a young son who
managed to flee the carnage, and made his way to
Andalusia (Arabic name of Spain) where he
established a rival Umayyad caliphate at Cordoba.
All hope for the descendants of Hussein to inherit
the Caliphate were dashed. The Abbasids succeeded
the Umayyads by establishing their own dynasty. The
Shi’ites remained on the sidelines, regarded as a
despised minority. During the 800s, Baghdad the new
capital of the Abbasids became the cultural center
of the Muslim world. Several important events or
accomplishments took place: such as the compilation
of the Hadith, the establishment of the Four Sunni
Schools for the interpretation of Shariah, and the
rise of the Mu’tazilites, an intellectual elite that
dealt with theological themes such as the nature of
the Qur’an. Eventually, this movement lost its
appeal, and a noted philosopher, al-Ghazzali, put an
end to “Ijtihad” (theologizing.) Thus, the “door of
Ijtihad” in Sunni Islam remained closed ever since!
The leader of the Shi’ites is called an Imam. Ali is
considered as the First Imam, Hussein is the Second
Imam. The Twelfth Imam disappeared mysteriously;
most likely he was murdered by the authorities.
However, in Shi’ism, he is considered as still
alive, hidden, to return at the end of time. In the
meantime, his representatives, the Ayatollahs assume
the role as guides of the Shi’ite community. In
Sunni Islam, an Imam is any leader in charge of the
Salaat i.e. Prayer (worship) at the mosque.
Sunni – Shi’ite Rivalry in Islam
While Iran is today a stronghold of Shi’ite Islam,
it did not achieve this position until the 16th
century during the Safavid dynasty. Other
concentrations of Shi’ite communities live in Iraq
and southern Lebanon. The Ottoman Turks were
champions of Sunni orthodoxy, and sought to limit
and often, to interdict any Persian influence among
the Shi’ites of Iraq and Lebanon. That policy
intensified the animosity between Sunnis and
Shi’ites, keeping past disputes between the two
groups very much alive.
The situation did not improve after the fall of the
Ottoman Empire in 1918. Britain governed Iraq for
several decades, and enthroned Prince Faisal, son of
Sherif Hussein of Hejaz, as king. Sunnis continued
to dominate the Shi’ite majority. The same happened
in Lebanon, where the French gave primacy to
Christians and Sunni Muslims, with the third place
given to the Shi’ites.
After WWII, the region underwent radical changes.
Iraq witnessed a bloody coup in 1958, when the army
murdered King Faisal II and his family, installing a
succession of republican regimes, culminating with
the rise of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Iraqi. Soon
after the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
Saddam launched an attack on his neighbor, in a war
that lasted for several years, occasioning the death
and maiming of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis.
The leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran began to
influence their coreligionists in Iraq and Lebanon.
They sponsored the formation of Hezbollah, a Shi’ite
Militia in Lebanon, a move that alarmed the Sunni
powers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
The civil war in Syria began in mid-March, 2011,
when the Syrians rose up against the forty-year
Assad dynasty’s regime. As the war dragged on, Iran
gave orders to Hezbollah to join the side of Bashar
Assad, seeking to bolster a dictator whose
connection to Shi’ism is dubious. The Assad family
comes from an obscure Syrian sect of Islam that is
neither Sunni, nor Shi’ite. The French honored them
with the title of “Alaouites” conferring legitimacy
upon them as if they were a branch of Shi’ite Islam!
The leaders of Iran saw to their advantage to help
the Assad regime, and sent units of their
Revolutionary Guards to help Assad fight his own
people, most of whom are Sunnis!
It is extremely unfortunate at this time in world
history that this dangerous confrontation between
Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims is happening. Both groups
are shackled by their attachments to historical
disputes that should have been forgotten in order to
allow them to face the challenges of the present and
the future. Instead, we are witnessing the
systematic destruction of such great and historic
centers as Damascus, Hamah, Homs, and Aleppo, in
Syria.
In Iraq, the drama continues, and gets worse by the
hour. The soldiers of ISIS, by flying their Black
Flags imagine they are on par with Abu Muslim
al-Khorasani who unfurled his black flags in his
revolt against the Umayyads in 750. Da’esh (the
Arabic acronym of ISIS) regard themselves as the
vanguard of a 21st century caliphate that would
resemble the early Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates.
Try hard as they can, their utopian dream is
unrealizable; history doesn’t repeat itself; but
historical mistakes happen and happen again. Is it
not high time for rational Sunni and Shi’ite
leaders, both religious and political, to call for
an end to their old controversies, and bury their
past conflicts forever?