Sunni
Muslims had no other option but to defend themselves
An ancient religious divide is helping fuel a resurgence of
conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim countries. Struggles between Sunni and
Shia forces have fed a Syrian civil war that threatens to transform the map of
the Middle East, spurred violence that is fracturing Iraq, and widened fissures
in a number of tense Gulf countries. Growing sectarian clashes have also
sparked a revival of transnational jihadi networks that poses a threat beyond
the region.
Islam’s schism, simmering for fourteen centuries, doesn’t explain
all the political, economic, and geostrategic factors involved in these
conflicts, but it has become one prism through which to understand the
underlying tensions. Two countries that compete for the leadership of Islam,
Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, have used the sectarian divide to further
their ambitions. How their rivalry is settled will likely shape the political
balance between Sunnis and Shias and the future of the region, especially in
Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen.
Alongside the proxy battle is the renewed fervor of armed
militants, motivated by the goals of cleansing the faith or preparing the way
for the return of the messiah. Today there are tens of thousands of organized
sectarian militants throughout the region capable of triggering a broader
conflict. And despite the efforts of many Sunni and Shia clerics to reduce
tensions through dialogue and counterviolence measures, many experts express
concern that Islam’s divide will lead to escalating violence and a growing
threat to international peace and security.
Sunni and Shia Muslims have lived peacefully together for
centuries. In many countries it has become common for members of the two sects
to intermarry and pray at the same mosques. They share faith in the Quran and
the Prophet Mohammed’s sayings and perform similar prayers, although they
differ in rituals and interpretation of Islamic law.
Shia identity is rooted in victimhood over the killing of Husayn,
the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, in the seventh century, and a long history of
marginalization by the Sunni majority. Islam’s dominant sect, which roughly 85
percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims follow, viewed Shia Islam with
suspicion, and extremist Sunnis have portrayed Shias as heretics and apostates.
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A regional war
in the Middle East draws ever closer.
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Origins of the Schism
Mohammed unveiled a new faith to the people of Mecca in 610. Known
as Islam, or submission to God, the monotheistic religion incorporated some
Jewish and Christian traditions and expanded with a set of laws that governed
most aspects of life, including political authority. By the time of his death
in 632, Mohammed had consolidated power in Arabia. His followers subsequently
built an empire that would stretch from Central Asia to Spain less than a
century after his death. But a debate over succession split the community, with
some arguing that leadership should be awarded to qualified individuals and
others insisting that the only legitimate ruler must come through Mohammed’s
bloodline.
A group of prominent early followers of Islam elected Abu Bakr, a
companion of Mohammed, to be the first caliph, or leader of the Islamic
community, over the objections of those who favored Ali ibn Abi Talib,
Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law. The opposing camps in the succession debate
eventually evolved into Islam’s two main sects. Shias, a term that stems
from shi’atu Ali, Arabic for “partisans of Ali,”
believe that Ali and his descendants are part of a divine order. Sunnis,
meaning followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic, of Mohammed,
are opposed to political succession based on Mohammed’s bloodline.
Ali became caliph in 656 and ruled only five years before he was
assassinated. The caliphate, which was based in the Arabian Peninsula, passed
to the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and later the Abbasids in Baghdad. Shias
rejected the authority of these rulers. In 680, soldiers of the second Umayyad
caliph killed Ali’s son, Husayn, and many of his companions in Karbala, located
in modern-day Iraq. Karbala became a defining moral story for Shias, and Sunni
caliphs worried that the Shia Imams—the descendants of Husayn who were seen as
the legitimate leaders of Muslims (Sunnis use the term “imam” for the men who
lead prayers in mosques)—would use this massacre to capture public imagination
and topple monarchs. This fear resulted in the further persecution and
marginalization of Shias.
Even as Sunnis triumphed politically in the Muslim world, Shias
continued to look to the Imams—the blood descendants of Ali and Husayn—as their
legitimate political and religious leaders. Even within the Shia community,
however, there arose differences over the proper line of succession. Mainstream
Shias believe there were twelve Imams. Zaydi Shias, found mostly in Yemen,
broke off from the majority Shia community at the fifth Imam, and sustained
imamate rule in parts of Yemen up to the 1960s. Ismaili Shias, centered in
South Asia but with important diaspora communities throughout the world, broke
off at the seventh Imam. Most Ismailis revere the Aga Khan as the living
representative of their Imam. The majority of Shias, particularly those in Iran
and the eastern Arab world, believe that the twelfth Imam entered a state of
occultation, or hiddenness, in 939 and that he will return at the end of time.
Since then, “Twelvers,” or Ithna Ashari Shias, have
vested religious authority in their senior clerical leaders, called ayatollahs
(Arabic for “sign of God”).
Many Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian converts to Islam chose to
become Shia rather than Sunni in the early centuries of the religion as a
protest against the ethnic Arab empires that treated non-Arabs as second-class
citizens. Their religions influenced the evolution of Shia Islam as
distinct from Sunni Islam in rituals and beliefs.
Sunnis dominated the first nine centuries of Islamic rule
(excluding the Shia Fatimid dynasty) until the Safavid dynasty was established
in Persia in 1501. The Safavids made Shia Islam the state religion, and over
the following two centuries they fought with the Ottomans, the seat of the
Sunni caliphate. As these empires faded, their battles roughly settled the
political borders of modern Iran and Turkey by the seventeenth century, and
their legacies resulted in the current demographic distribution of Islam’s
sects. Shias comprise a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain,
and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than
forty countries from Morocco to Indonesia.
1 / 17 Timeline: Origins of the Sunni-Shia Schism
Early Muslims split
into two camps following the death of the Prophet Mohammed. This chronology
explains how the sects evolved from 632 until the late twentieth
century. (Photo: Abbas Al-Musavi/Brooklyn Museum
632 - The Death of Mohammed
Early followers of Islam are divided over the succession of the
Prophet Mohammed, who founded the religion in Arabia. Prominent members of the
community in Mecca elect Abu Bakr, a companion of Mohammed, with objections
from those who favor Ali ibn Abi Talib, Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law. Ali
eventually becomes caliph, or ruler of the Islamic community, in 656, and is
assassinated in 661 after a power struggle with the governor of Damascus,
Mu’awiya. Mu’awiya claims the caliphate and founds the Umayyad dynasty, which
rules the Muslim empire from Damascus until 750.
661-1258 - Umayyad and Abbasid Dynasties Target Shias
Umayyads, and later Abbasids, who replace the Umayyads and rule
from Baghdad after 750, oppress and kill the successors of Husayn, known as
Imams, who pose a political threat to Sunni caliphs. The sixth Shia Imam,
Ja'far al-Sadiq, orders his followers to hide their true beliefs for the
survival of the faith. Shia branches such as Ismaili and Zaydi emerge from
different interpretations of succession for Imams. The Sunni caliphate becomes
hereditary.
se
661 - The
Early Shias
The partisans of Ali, or shi’atu Ali, grow
discontented after the murder of their leader in 661. They reject the authority
of the caliphs during the Umayyad dynasty, which rules over an expanding empire
stretching from Pakistan through northern Africa to Spain. Shias argue that the
legitimate leaders of Islam must be the sons of Ali and Fatima, Mohammed’s
daughter. Husayn, one of Ali’s sons, eventually leads a revolt from Kufa, in
modern-day Iraq.
680 - The Battle of Karbala
Yazid, the Umayyad ruler, dispatches an army to crush the Kufa
revolt. A battle in Karbala, north of Kufa, ends with the massacre of Husayn
and many of his companions. Husayn's martyrdom and its moral lessons help
shape Shia identity, and the sect grows despite the murder of its leaders.
Husayn’s death is commemorated by Shias during the annual ritual of Ashura,
which includes practices, such as self-flagellation, that are distinct from
Sunni Islam.
939 -)
Occultation of the Mahdi
Most Shias today are Twelvers. They believe that the line of Imams
continued to the twelfth Imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, or the guided one, who
entered a state of occultation, or hiddenness, in 939. Shias expect the Mahdi
to return at the end of time. Sunni Islam becomes a broad umbrella term for
non-Shia Muslims who are united on the importance of the Quran and practices of
Mohammed, though they may differ in legal opinion.
969 - Fatimids: The First
Shia Dynasty
Ismailis, who break off from the Twelver line after the sixth
Imam, take control of Egypt and large parts of North Africa and expand to
western Arabia and Syria, creating the Fatimid dynasty. The Fatimids, who
assume the titles of both imam and caliph, establish al-Azhar Mosque, which
centuries later becomes the intellectual center of Sunni Islam. The Shia
Fatimid caliphate fades in the twelfth century, and the Ismaili community
spreads to Yemen, Syria, Iran, and western India.
1268 - Ibn Taymiyya in Damascus
By the ninth century, Sunnis adhere to four schools of Islamic
jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, and Hanbali. Ibn Taymiyya, a religious
scholar, moves to Damascus in 1268 and studies the Hanbali school, which
condemns Shias as rafidha, or rejecters of the faith. He preaches a
return to the purity of Islam in its early days. Ibn Taymiyya opposes
celebrating Mohammed’s birthday and other practices that resemble Christian and
pagan rituals. His ideas help shape Wahhabi and Salafi thought centuries later.
(Photo: Bernard Gagnon)
1501 - Wahhabi Islam
Emerges in Arabia
Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab establishes a religious movement on the
Arabian peninsula in the eighteenth century steeped in the Hanbali school of
Sunni Islam. Wahhabis, as his followers are known, preach a puritanical faith
that puts them in conflict with other Sunnis as well as Shias. Wahhabi fighters
desecrate the shrine of Husayn in Karbala and destroy Mohammed’s tombstone in
Medina. They join Mohammed bin Saud to found the first Saudi kingdom, which is
defeated by Ottoman forces in the early nineteenth century.
1703 - Sykes–Picot and the
End of the Caliphate
The secret Sykes-Picot agreement is reached between France and the
United Kingdom to divide the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which has
been in decline and weakens further during World War I. Colonial rulers elevate
minorities to powerful positions in Iraq and Syria, a policy which later
contributes to sectarian tensions in these countries. Tempering these tensions
are new ideas of secularism and nationalism that sweep through the Turkish and
Arab province of the former Ottoman Empire. The newly founded secular
Republic of Turkey abolishes the caliphate in 1924. In the Arab world, identity
politics stressing pan-Arabism and a unity among Muslims helps mute
sectarianism, especially during the fight for independence against the
European
1916 - Saud Dynasty
Establishes a Kingdom
Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud and his army of Wahhabi warriors consolidate
control of the Arabian peninsula and form the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
During the founding battles, fighters attack fellow Sunnis in western Arabia
and Shias in eastern Arabia and southern Iraq. Wahhabi preachers go on to dominate
the kingdom’s judiciary and education system, and their teachings are spread
first in Saudi Arabia and then internationally as the country grows wealthy
from its large oil resources. The rise of Wahhabi and the related Salafi
branches of Islam fuels Sunni-Shia tensions today.
1932 - Ottomans Conquer
Iraq
Safavids briefly gain control of Iraq, an Arab territory, but lose
it in 1639 to the Ottomans, who claim the title of the Sunni caliphate in
Turkey. The Ottoman–Safavid wars eventually establish the modern contours of
Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Shia Islam dominates Iran, and Shia Muslims in Turkey
are killed or displaced, shifting the demography in favor of Sunnis, a
development that makes both these countries far more homogenous than their
neighbors.
1501 - Safavid Dynasty and
the Rise of Shias in Persia
Ismail, leader of the Safavid dynasty, defeats the Mongols and
brings the territories of former Persian empires under central authority,
including modern-day Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and parts of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey. Shi’ism becomes the official religion of the
Safavids and is often spread through force. As the Safavid dynasty declines in
the eighteenth century, the power of Shia clergy in civil affairs grows in
Iran.
1947 - Ba’ath Rule Begins
in Syria
Syria’s first years of independence are riddled with coups until
Ba’athists in the military seize power in 1963. The Ba’ath Party, popular in
Iraq and Syria, promotes a secular, pan-Arab, socialist ideology and is hostile
to Islamists. Hafez al-Assad, a Ba’ath leader and member of the heterodox Shia
sect known as Alawis, takes power in 1970 and rules until his death in 2000,
after more than a thousand years of Sunni dominance in Syria. His son Bashar
continues to rule the country amid civil war in 2014.
1963 - Lebanese Civil War
Lebanon experiences a sectarian civil war that (with important
exceptions at various times) pits the Christian minority that has held
political power since independence in 1943 against the Muslim majority. Syria
intervenes in the fighting in 1976 and Israel intervenes in 1982. After the
Israeli intervention, Iran sponsors the establishment of a Shia Lebanese
militia, Hezbollah, which over time becomes the most powerful force in Lebanese
politics. Under pressure from Hezbollah, Israel withdraws its last forces from
Lebanon in 2000. (Photo: AP)
1976-1989 Sectarian Harmony: The Azhar Fatwa
Sheikh Mahmoud
Shaltut, the rector of Cairo's al-Azhar Mosque, which Sunnis view as the
preeminent religious institution, issues a religious ruling, or fatwa, that
recognizes Shia law as the fifth school of Islamic jurisprudence. After decades
of colonialism and then secular nationalism, many Sunni and Shia religious
authorities throughout the Muslim world unite to confront these common threats.
This harmony is tarnished as secular states weaken.
1947 - The Birth of
Pakistan
India’s struggle for independence includes an Islamic awakening,
resulting in the creation of Pakistan in the partition of India at the end of
British rule. The Sunni-majority country is founded by a Shia, Mohammed Ali
Jinnah, who emphasizes the need for a secular Pakistan where all citizens are
equal irrespective of "religion or caste or creed." Pakistanis elect
prime ministers from both sects. But the Islamization of the state, promoted by
Saudi Wahhabi clerics, accelerates after army chief General Zia ul-Haq, a
Sunni, seizes power in 1978. Sectarian violence escalates after the 1980s.
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Modern Tensions
Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 gave Shia cleric Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini the opportunity to implement his vision for an Islamic
government ruled by the “guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih),
a controversial concept among Shia scholars that is opposed by Sunnis, who
have historically differentiated between political leadership and religious
scholarship. Shia ayatollahs have always been the guardians of the faith.
Khomeini argued that clerics had to rule to properly perform their function:
implementing Islam as God intended, through the mandate of the Shia Imams.
Under Khomeini, Iran began an experiment in Islamic rule. Khomeini
tried to inspire further Islamic revival, preaching Muslim unity, but supported
groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Pakistan that had specific
Shia agendas. Sunni Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas,
admired Khomeini’s success, but did not accept his leadership, underscoring the
depth of sectarian suspicions.
Saudi Arabia has a sizable Shia minority of roughly 10 percent,
and millions of adherents of a puritanical brand of Sunni Islam known as
Wahhabism (an offshoot of the Sunni Hanbali school) that is antagonistic to
Shia Islam. The transformation of Iran into an overtly Shia power after the
Islamic revolution induced Saudi Arabia to accelerate the propagation of
Wahhabism, as both countries revived a centuries-old sectarian rivalry over the
true interpretation of Islam. Many of the groups responsible for sectarian violence
that has occurred in the region and across the Muslim world since 1979 can be
traced to Saudi and Iranian sources.
Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980–1988 war with Iran and
sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were primarily fighting
against the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, but were also
suppressing Shia movements inspired or backed by Iran.
The transformation of Iran into an agitator for Shia movements in
Muslim countries seemed to confirm centuries of Sunni suspicions that Shia
Arabs answer to Persia. Many experts, however, point out that Shias aren’t
monolithic—for many of them, identities and interests are based on more than
their confession. Iraqi Shias, for example, made up the bulk of the Iraqi army
that fought Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, and Shia militant groups Amal and
Hezbollah clashed at times during the Lebanese civil war. The Houthis, a Zaydi
Shia militant group in Yemen, battled the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, a
Zaydi, several times between 2004 and 2010. Then, in 2014, the Houthis captured
the capital Sana'a with ousted president Saleh's support.
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For their part, both mainstream and hard-line Sunnis aren’t
singularly focused on oppressing Shias. They have fought against coreligionists
throughout history, most recently in the successive crackdowns on the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia’s
battles against al-Qaeda and related Sunni militant groups. Sharing a common
Sunni identity didn’t eliminate power struggles among Sunni Muslims under
secular or religious governments.
But confessional identity has resurfaced wherever sectarian
violence has taken root, as in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion removed
Saddam Hussein, a dictator from the Sunni minority who ruled over a
Shia-majority country. The bombing of a Shia shrine in Samara in 2006 kicked
off a cycle of sectarian violence that forced Iraqis to pick sides, stirring
tensions that continue today.
In the Arab world, Shia groups supported by Iran have recently won
important political victories. The regime of Bashar al-Assad, which has ruled
since 1970, relies on Alawis, a heterodox Shia sect that makes up about 13
percent of Syria’s population, as a pillar of its
power. Alawis dominate the upper reaches of the military and security
services in Syria and are the backbone of the forces fighting to support the
Assad regime in Syria’s civil war. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq unseated
Saddam Hussein and instituted competitive elections, the Shia majority has
dominated the parliament and produced its prime ministers. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia and political movement, is the
strongest political actor in Lebanon. Shia militants in Yemen, tenuously linked
to Iran, have become the country's dominant power. Iran’s regional influence
has swelled as its allies in these countries have accumulated power.
Sunni governments, especially Saudi Arabia, have increasingly
worried about their own grips on power, a concern that was exacerbated with the
protest movement that began in Tunisia in late 2010. The Arab
Awakening, as the uprisings are known, spread to Bahrain and Syria,
countries at the fault lines of Islam’s sectarian divide. In each, political
power is held by a sectarian minority—Alawis in Syria, where Sunnis are the
majority, and a Sunni ruling family in Bahrain, where Shias are the majority.
The civil war in Syria, which is a political conflict at its core, has exposed
sectarian tensions and become the staging ground for a vicious proxy war
between the region’s major Sunni and Shia powers. In Yemen, Houthi rebels have
expanded their territory south of Saudi Arabia, providing Iran a potential
beachhead along the strategic shipping routes in the Red Sea. Some analysts
view the Syrian conflict as the last chance for Sunnis to limit and reverse the
spread of Iranian power and Shia influence in the Arab world.
1 / 18
Timeline: Modern Sunni-Shia Tensions
Iran’s
Islamic revolution, which brought Shias to power in 1979, and the Sunni
backlash have fueled a competition for regional dominance. This timeline
highlights Sunni-Shia tensions in recent decades. (Photo: Henri
Bureau/Corbis)
Iran’s Islamic revolution, which brought Shias to power in 1979,
and the Sunni backlash have fueled a competition for regional dominance. This
timeline highlights Sunni-Shia tensions in recent decades. (Photo: Henri
Bureau/Corbis)
JANUARY 16,1979
Ayatollah Khomeini
returns to Tehran in 1979 after fourteen years of exile. AP Photo
Iran’s Islamic Revolution
Iran’s ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, flees the country after
months of increasingly massive protests. Exiled Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini returns and leads an Islamic republic based on a constitution that
grants him religious and political authority under the concept of velayat-e
faqih (“guardianship of the jurist”). Khomeini is named supreme leader
and starts to export the Islamic revolution, which is viewed with suspicion by
Sunni rulers in countries with significant Shia populations, such as Iraq,
Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.
DECEMBER 24, 1979 Soviet
Army Invades Afghanistan
Soviet forces invade Afghanistan after the communist government in
Kabul requests military aid to fight Islamist rebels. The insurgents, known as
mujahadeen (“those who fight jihad”), attract mainly Afghan fighters and are
augmented by thousands of foreign Sunni fighters, including a young Saudi named
Osama bin Laden. Weapons and cash for the mujahadeen are supplied through
Pakistan by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The war, which is framed as a
resistance to Soviet occupation, raises the profile of fundamentalist Sunni
movements.
JULY 5, 1980 Shia
Protests in Pakistan Exposes Sectarian Tensions
Tens of thousands of Shias protest in Islamabad against the
imposition of some Sunni laws on all Muslims. Pakistan’s president gives Shias
an exemption, but the sectarian confrontation becomes an important political
issue in the country. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and
Sipah-e-Sahaba, funded by Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, kill thousands of
Shias over the next three decades. Smaller Shia sectarian militant groups such
as Tehrik-e-Jafria also emerge but are responsible for fewer attacks.
SEPTEMBER 22, 1980 Iraq
Sparks a War with Iran
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni ruling over a
majority-Shia country who fears the spillover effects of the Iranian
Revolution, sends his troops to occupy part of an oil-rich province in Iran.
The move sparks an eight-year war, resulting in roughly one million deaths.
Iraq is backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the latter responding to
hostility from Tehran’s new government following the Islamic revolution and
taking hostage of U.S. diplomats.
FEBRUARY 28, 1991 Saddam
Crushes Shia Insurgency After Gulf War
Riots erupt in the Shia cities of Basra and Najaf after U.S.-led
allies drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait and rout them on the battlefield in the
first Gulf War. The Shia protestors are in part motivated by a perception that
they will receive U.S. backing if they turn against Saddam. U.S. officials say
this was never promised. Saddam’s forces mount a brutal crackdown, killing tens of
thousands of Shias, shelling the shrines of Najaf and Karbala, and razing parts
of Shia towns.
AUGUST 8, 1998 Taliban
Massacres Shia in Mazar-e-Sharif
Taliban militants, Sunni fundamentalists who seized power after
the defeat of Soviet forces, capture the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northwest
Afghanistan. TheTaliban kills at least two thousand Shias in
Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan in 1997 and 1998. The offensive in northwest
Afghanistan, backed by Pakistan, helps the Taliban consolidate power in the
country. Militants kill eight Iranian diplomats based in Mazar-e-Sharif,
prompting Tehran to deploy its troops to the border, but United Nations
mediation averts a confrontation.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda
Strikes the U.S., Killing Thousands
In response to the attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. forces
pursue al-Qaeda leaders and militants to their bases in Afghanistan and
overthrow the Taliban government. U.S.-led international troops help set up a
new order in the country. The toppling of the anti-Iranian Taliban government
in Afghanistan, followed shortly thereafter by the U.S. invasion of Iraq that
brings down another Iranian foe, Saddam Hussein, fans Sunni fears in Jordan and
Gulf states of a Shia revival.
MARCH 19, 2003 U.S.
Forces Topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq
A coalition led by the United States invades Iraq and ends
Saddam’s regime and centuries of Sunni dominance in Iraq. Sectarian violence
erupts as remnants of the deposed Ba’ath party and other Sunnis, both secular
and Islamist, mount a resistance against coalition forces and their local
allies, the ascendant Shia community. Shia militias also emerge, some of
which also oppose the U.S. military presence. Foreign Sunni militants, many
affiliated with al-Qaeda, flock to Iraq to participate in what evolves into a
sectarian war. Iranian influence in Iraq grows dramatically as Tehran backs
Shia militants, as well as the Shia political parties that come to dominate the
electoral process.
FEBRUARY 14, 2005 Assassination
of Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
Former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is killed in a car
bomb after spearheading an effort to raise international pressure on Syria to
withdraw its forces, which have been in Lebanon since 1976. His assassination
is seen as a Syrian plot supported by Syria’s Lebanese allies, including Hezbollah,
and leads to massive demonstrations that convince Syria to withdraw. The
assassination and subsequent mobilization pit the Lebanese Sunni community,
whom Hariri had come to represent, against Hezbollah and Lebanese Shias, who
remain allied with Syria. Lebanese Christians split, with some supporting the
Hariri camp and others supporting Hezbollah.
FEBRUARY 22, 2006 Bombing
of Shia Shrine Escalates Iraq Violence
Sectarian killings become normal in Iraq, with both Sunni and Shia
militias targeting civilians across the country. The bombing that destroys the
golden dome of al-Askari mosque in Samarra, home to the tombs of the tenth and
eleventh Shia Imams, triggers a more intense wave of violence that almost
doubles the monthly civilian death toll in Iraq to nine hundred.
DECEMBER 30, 2006 Saddam’s
Execution Inflames Sunnis
Saddam Hussein, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Shias
and Sunnis in Iraq, is executed amid taunts by witnesses who chant the name of
Shia cleric and Mahdi army militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The unruly scene,
captured on video, elevates Saddam’s status as a martyr among many Sunnis in
the region and underscores the new reality of rising Shia power in Iraq.
FEBRUARY 11, 2011
Protests Erupt in the Middle East,
Exposing Sectarian Fault Lines
A wave of pro-democracy protests sweeps across the region,
starting with the overthrow of Tunisia’s president, and then Egypt’s on
February 11, eventually spreading to other Arab states in what is known as the
“Arab Spring” or the “Arab Awakening.” Iranian officials welcome the fall of
long-term U.S. allies like Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, and unrest in
Bahrain, home to an oppressed Shia majority. As protests reach Syria in March,
Tehran backs the government, which is dominated by Alawis, a heterodox Shia
sect, while the opposition is dominated by members of the majority Sunni
community. Dormant sectarian tensions in Syria are revived and a regional
sectarian showdown begins. (Courtesy Reuters)
AUGUST 30, 2012 Egypt’s Morsi Visits Iran
President Mohamed Morsi’s trip to Tehran, the first visit by an
Egyptian leader since Cairo’s recognition of Israel in the 1980s, signals the
potential for a new relationship between Iran and Sunni Islamists. Iran tries
to rebrand the Arab uprisings as an “Islamic Awakening” and an
extension of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But the visit by Morsi, of the
Muslim Brotherhood, exposes Islam’s deep cleavage. He praises Islam’s first
three caliphs, whom Shias reject, and says opposing the Assad regime is a
“moral obligation,”remarks that Iranian officials criticize.
OCTOBER 1, 2012 Hezbollah
Commander Killed in Syria
Civil war divides Syrians largely along sectarian lines, with
Sunnis supporting rebels, and Alawis, Shias, and other minorities backing the
Assad regime. Foreign Sunni fighters trickle and then flood into the country,
and signs of increased involvement from Iran and its Lebanese proxy militia,
Hezbollah, emerge. The death of Hezbollah founding member Ali Hussein Nassif
comes months before the group publicly acknowledges its role in the war. Saudi
Arabia and other Gulf countries fund rebels, turning the fighting in Syria into
a regional proxy war.
APRIL 8, 2013
8 April 2013 - Al-Qaeda’s Iraq
Affiliate Expands in Syria
The Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country,
extends its activities into Syria, creating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS). Known for its brutality against Shias and most Sunnis who oppose it,
the group proves to be too extreme for al-Qaeda and is eventually expelled from
the network. ISIS attacks in Iraq and Syria add an additional layer of
sectarian violence to the region, and its control of territory in both states
threatens to dissolve borders and fracture countries in the Middle East. (Yaser
Al-Khodor/Courtesy Reuters)
20 April 2014 - Anti-Shia
Sentiments Spread to Indonesia
Asian Muslims, influenced by the sectarian violence in the Middle
East and Pakistan, aim to avoid potential tensions by suppressing the growth of
their tiny Shia communities. Indonesian clerics and radical Islamists hold an
“Anti-Shia Alliance” meeting in the world’s largest Muslim country, which is
more than 99 percent Sunni. Malaysia, where Sunnis are also dominant, has implemented laws forbidding the propagation of
the Shia faith.
JUNE 10, 2014 Shia
Militias Mobilize as ISIS Advances in Iraq
ISIS militants and other armed Sunni groups seize Mosul, Iraq’s
second-largest city, with little resistance from the Iraqi army. The Sunni
insurgency, brewing for years in response to what it sees as exclusionary
policies of Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, expands toward Baghdad and the
borders with Syria and Jordan. ISIS threatens to destroy sacred Shia shrines,
prompting a call to arms by Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani. Shia civilians respond to a mass recruitment drive that swells the
ranks of militias and elevates sectarian tensions.
Practicing the Faith
Sunnis and Shias agree on the basic tenets of Islam: declaring
faith in a monotheistic God and Mohammed as his messenger, conducting daily
prayers, giving money to the poor, fasting during the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca.
There are divisions even over the precepts of Islam, but the main
difference relates to authority, which sparked the political split in the
seventh century and evolved into divergent interpretations of sharia, or
Islamic law, and distinct sectarian identities.
Shias believe that God always provides a guide, first the Imams
and then ayatollahs, or experienced Shia scholars who have wide interpretative
authority and are sought as a source of emulation. The term “ayatollah” is
associated with the clerical rulers in Tehran, but it’s primarily a title for a
distinguished religious leader known as a marja, or source of
emulation. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was appointed by an elected
body of Iranian clerics, while maraji (plural of marja) are
elevated through the religious schools in Qom, Najaf, and Karbala. Shias can
choose from dozens of maraji, most of whom are based in holy cities in Iraq and
Iran. Many Shias emulate a marja for religious affairs and defer to Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran for political guidance. For Sunnis, authority is
based on the Quran and the traditions of Mohammed. Sunni religious scholars,
who are constrained by legal precedents, exert far less authority over
their followers than their Shia counterparts.
Both sects have subdivisions. The divisions among Shias were
discussed above. Four schools comprise Sunni jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii,
Maliki, and Hanbali, the latter spawning the Wahhabi and Salafi movements in
Saudi Arabia. Sunnism, a broad umbrella term for non-Shia Islam, is united on
the importance of the Quran and practice of Mohammed but allows for differences
in legal opinion.
Dear Karbala,
dear Najaf, dear Kadhimiyah, and dear Samarra, we warn the great powers and
their lackeys and the terrorists, the great Iranian people will do everything
to protect them.
IRANIAN PRESIDENT HASSAN
ROUHANI
Sectarian Militants
Communal violence between Islam’s sects has been rare historically,
with most of the deadly sectarian attacks directed by clerics or political
leaders. Extremist groups, many of which are fostered by states, are the chief
actors in sectarian killings today.
The two most prominent terrorist groups, Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia
Hezbollah, have not defined their movements in sectarian terms, and have
favored using anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, and anti-American frameworks to
define their jihad, or struggle. They share few similarities beyond the use of
violence. Hezbollah has developed a pragmatic political wing that competes
in elections and is part of the Lebanese government, a path not chosen by
al-Qaeda, which operates a diffuse network largely in the shadows. Both groups
have deployed suicide bombers, and their attacks shifted from a focus on the
West and Israel to other Muslims, such as al-Qaeda’s killing of Shia civilians
in Iraq and Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war.
Conflict and chaos have played a role in the reversion to basic
sectarian identity. In Iraq, for instance, remnants of the Ba’athist regime
employed Sunni rhetoric to mount a resistance to the rise of Shia power
following the ouster of Saddam. Sunni fundamentalists, many inspired by
al-Qaeda’s call to fight Americans, flocked to Iraq from Muslim countries,
attacking coalition forces and many Shia civilians. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who
founded al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq, evoked ancient anti-Shia fatwas, or
religious rulings, to spark a civil war in hopes that the Shia majority would
eventually capitulate in the face of Sunni extremist violence. The Shia
community absorbed thousands of deaths before fighting back with their own
sectarian militias.
Syria’s civil war, which exceeded the casualty toll of Iraq’s
decade-long conflict in its first three years, has amplified sectarian tensions
to unprecedented levels. The war began with peaceful protests in 2011 calling
for an end to the Assad regime, which has ruled since 1970. The Assad family
and other Alawis have stirred resentment by Syria’s majority Sunnis after
decades of repression and a sectarian agenda that elevated minority Alawis in
government and the private sector. The 2011 protests and brutal government
crackdown uncovered sectarian tensions in Syria, which have rippled across the
region.
Tens of thousands of Syrian Sunnis joined rebel groups such as
Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic Front, and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which all employ
anti-Shia rhetoric; similar numbers of Syrian Shias and Alawis enlisted with an
Iran-backed militia known as the National Defense Force to fight for the Assad
regime. Foreign Sunni fighters from Arab and Western countries joined the
rebels, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah and some Shia militias from Iraq such as
Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah backed the Syrian government. Even Afghan Shia refugees in Iran have reportedly been recruited by
Tehran for the war in Syria, pitting them against Sunni foreign fighters who
may have forced the Afghans into exile decades earlier. Syria’s civil war has
attracted more militants from more countries than were involved in the
conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Bosnia combined.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, decimated by the “Awakening” of Sunni Iraqis who
joined the fight against extremists, the U.S.-led military surge, and the death
of Zarqawi, found new purpose in exploiting the vacuum left by
the receding Syrian state. It established its own transnational movement known
as the Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The group expanded its grip on Sunni provinces in Iraq and
eastern regions in Syria, seizing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June
2014. It defied orders from al-Qaeda’s top commanders to curtail its
transnational ambitions and extremism, which led to ISIS’s expulsion from
al-Qaeda in February 2014. ISIS rebranded as the Islamic State in July 2014 and
declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph. The group's highly
publicized killing of Western hostages triggered a campaign of air strikes by the
United States and its regional allies Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the
United Arab Emirates.
Extremist groups have come to rely on satellite television and
high-speed Internet over the past two decades to spread hate speech and rally
support. Fundamentalist Sunni clerics, many sponsored by wealthy Sunnis from
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, have popularized anti-Shia slurs. Shia
religious scholars have also taken to the airwaves, mocking and
cursing the first three caliphs and Aisha, one of Mohammed’s wives.
Sectarian rhetoric dehumanizing the “other” is centuries old. But
the volume is increasing. Dismissing Arab Shias as Safawis, a term that paints
them as Iranian agents (from the Safavid empire) and hence traitors to the Arab
cause, is increasingly common in Sunni rhetoric. Hard-line Sunni Islamists have
used harsher historic terms such as rafidha, rejecters of the
faith, and majus, Zoroastrian or crypto Persian, to describe
Shias. Iranian officials, Iraq’s prime minister, and Hassan Nasrallah, the
leader of Hezbollah, routinely describe their Sunni opponents as takfiris (code
for al-Qaeda terrorists) and Wahhabis. This cycle of demonization has been
exacerbated throughout the Muslim world.
For Sunni extremists, new technologies and social-media channels
have revolutionized recruitment opportunities. Fundamentalists no longer have
to infiltrate mainstream mosques and attract recruits surreptitiously, but can
now disseminate their call to jihad and wait for potential recruits to contact
them. These channels aren’t as useful for recruiting Shia militants, who
benefit from state support in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and can openly advertise
their calls for sectarian jihad.
The Sunni-Shia Divide
·
Sunni Majority
Countries where the Muslim population is majority Sunni
·
Shia Majority
Countries where the Muslim population is majority Shia
·
Hotspots
Countries with sectarian tensions
Bahrain
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Terrorist
violence in 2013 was fueled by sectarian motivations, marking a worrisome
trend, in particular in Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Flash Points
Sunni-Shia tensions contribute to multiple flash points in Muslim
countries that are viewed as growing threats to international peace and
security. The following arouse the most concern among regional specialists:
Rising Militancy
Notable concern about the role of sectarian violence increased in
2013. Extremists were“fueled by
sectarian motivations” in Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan, according to the U.S.
State Department. After years of steady losses for al-Qaeda–linked groups,
Sunni extremist recruitment is rising, aided by private funding networks in the
Gulf, particularly in
Kuwait, with much of the violence directed at other Muslims rather than
Western targets. Shia militants are also gaining strength, in part to confront
the threat of Sunni extremism, miring many Muslim communities in a vicious
cycle of sectarian violence.
U.S. officials such as FBI director James B. Comey have warned
that the war in Syria, which attracted thousands of fighters from Europe and
the United States, poses a long-term threat to Western interests. The eventual
outflow of these militants, battle-hardened and with Western passports, is
viewed as a potential “terrorist diaspora” that could eclipse the global terror
networks that emerged after the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the
1980s.
Saudi-Iranian Rivalry
Saudi Arabia and Iran have deployed considerable resources to
proxy battles, especially in Syria, where the stakes are highest.
Riyadh closely monitors potential restlessness in its oil-rich
eastern provinces, home to its Shia minority, and has deployed forces along
with other Gulf countries to suppress a largely Shia uprising in Bahrain. It
also assembled a coalition of ten Sunni-majority countries, backed by the
United States, to reverse the growing influence of Houthis in Yemen. Saudi
Arabia provides hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the
predominantly Sunni rebels in Syria, while simultaneously banning cash flows to
al-Qaeda and extremist jihadi groups fighting the Assad regime.
Iran has allocated billions of dollars in aid and loans to prop up
Syria’s Alawi-led government, and has trained and equipped Shia militants from
Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan to fight with various sectarian militias
in Syria. At the same time, the widening proxy battle may also be stirring
concern among leaders in Riyadh and Tehran about the consequences of
escalation. The two sides have repeatedly postponed efforts to establish a
dialogue for settling disputes diplomatically. Iran is fighting the Islamic
State in parts of Iraq, while Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority countries
joined a U.S.-led air campaign against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.
Humanitarian Crisis
The ongoing civil war in Syria has displaced millions internally,
and almost three million civilians, mostly Sunni, are now refugees in Lebanon,
Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. The influx of more than a million Syrians into
Lebanon, a state with a historically combustible religious mix that experienced
its own fifteen-year civil war in the 1970s and 1980s, has burdened its
cash-strapped government and pressured communities hosting refugees. Jordan and
Iraq are still struggling to provide housing and services to an impoverished
and traumatized population. Turkey has the greatest capacity to provide
humanitarian aid, yet Ankara must increasingly balance “the public’s
sympathy for and unease toward refugees,” the International Crisis Group
reports.
Fractured States
Syria’s civil war, as well as Iraq’s sectarian conflict, is
threatening to redraw the map of the Middle East bequeathed to the region by
British and French colonial authorities. The Assad regime in Syria has
consolidated control over the Mediterranean coast, the capital of Damascus, and
the central city of Homs, which together comprise a rump state that connects
with Hezbollah strongholds, threatening the territorial integrity of Lebanon.
Other parts of the country are contested or controlled by various rebel and
Islamist groups, including ISIS, which seeks to dominate the eastern regions of
Syria that link to its territory in Iraq. And Kurdish groups in northern Syria,
which, like their Iraqi cousins, have long campaigned for basic rights denied
under the Ba'athist government, are on the verge of gaining de facto
independence. Yemen, which was unified in 1990, is at risk of
re-fracturing into two countries, largely along sectarian lines.
The United States spent more than one trillion dollars to
stabilize Iraq, but the country remains in a precarious state. Sectarian
tensions are mounting in Iraq as the newly ascendant Shia majority struggles to
accommodate the Sunni minority and deal with the Kurdish Regional Government in
the north of the country while confronting extremist Sunni groups. Most
politicians and activists in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon reject attempts to redraw
the map of the region, but the vanishing borders and emergence of new areas of
influence based on sectarian and ethnic identities are a growing existential
challenge.
Sunnis had no
other option but to defend themselves and use arms. We reached a point of to be
or not to be.
TARIQ AL-HASHIMI, FORMER VICE
PRESIDENT OF IRAQ
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