A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi’is

Title: A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi’is

Author: John McHugo

Publisher: Saqi Books, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780863561634

Pages: 347

Islam appears deceptively homogeneous to non-Muslims. The many sects and doctrinesthriving in it are not easily discernible to outsiders, yet for their proponents they constitute all that's worth in life. Newspapers trumpet about the Shia-Sunni divide and how it rends the fabric of entire societies in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Both are followers of Prophet Muhammad and essentially believe in the unity of God. How they separated and what drives them to diverge ideologically is a profound question which this book answers to a substantial amount. A simplistic narrative is taking hold in the West which envisages the Sunnis and Shias as engaged in a perpetual state of religious war that has lasted across centuries. Nothing can be further from the truth. The recent spurt in sectarian violence is in fact caused more by political problems that need a contemporary political solution rather than from ideology or dogma. An analysis of the strife clearly shows that violence has grown only since the year 1979 and shifted to top gear after 2003. Both these dates are significant for the impact it made in Middle Eastern politics, and hence to the world as a whole. The first is the establishment of a theocratic state in Iran dominated by the Shia clergy while the second is the American occupation of Iraq in which a Sunni autocrat was unseated and power handed over to Shia politicians who represented their sect which is numerically superior in Iraq. This Shiarevival in the political sphere ruffled the feathers of the Sunni Wahhabi hardliners in Saudi Arabia. The conflicts in the Middle East are spawned by this political tussle between two entrenched conservative ideologies. John McHugo is an international lawyer with a solid background in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Oxford and the American University in Cairo. He is an expert on Syria and the Middle East and has written another book on a similar topic.

The sectarian violence in Islam began immediately after the death of the Prophet. His family and his tribe took opposing positions in the power struggle. While the family was represented by Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, the other was led by Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s father-in-law and leader of the Quraysh tribe to which all of them belonged. A lack of political judgement and decisiveness was a character flaw in Ali, who reluctantly acquiesced to the elevation of Abu Bakr,Umar and Uthmanas caliphs to follow the path of the Prophet. The first serious violence among Muslims was the killing of caliphUthman by a mob who besieged his home. It was a time when the old rivalries between Mecca and Medina; the Muhajiroun(the people who accompanied the Prophet in his exodus to Medina) and the Ansar(the supporters of the Prophet who were natives of Medina); the early converts to Islam and the newcomers and that between Qurayshis and non-Qurayshis were boiling over. Ali finally succeeded Uthman, but his assassination had eroded the legitimacy of his reign. He was always on a collision course with Mu’awiyabin AbiSufyan, the governor of Greater Syria who stepped into the caliph’s shoes upon the assassination of Ali. Ali's wife Fatimah was the only child of the Prophet who had progeny and bore him two sons - Hasan and Hussein. They entered into a deal with Mu’awiya that the latter would resume the caliphate to the sons of Ali after his death. However, Hasan died before Mu’awiyadid and Hussein was brutally murdered at the end of an unequal battle at Karbala upon the orders of Yazid, the son of Mu’awiya. This event marked the rise of Shiism which literally means the ‘Party of Ali’. The other main group, Sunnis, recognise the legitimacy of the first threecaliphs and forms about 85 per cent of the total Muslim population. The Shias are known for their gruesome accts of self-mortification in the commemorative processions of Hussein's martyrdom.

After setting out the birth and original sources of Shiism, McHugo proceeds to describe how the division consolidated itself and became a scar on the body of Islamic society. Two divergent approaches emerged during the first two centuries of Abbasid rule. A hierarchy of the teachings of the religion became established, in which the sequence followed was the Prophet's companions, then their followers and finally, the followers of the followers. The people of these first three generations of Muslims were called ‘Righteous Ancestors’ (al-Salaf al-Salih). After the text of the Quran, the recollections attributed to them constituted the tradition, or Sunna. The people who followed it are called Sunnis. Shias looked to the other members of the Prophet’s family as the source of guidance to his teachings. They ascribed special knowledge of the true meaning of the religion to them. The Shias themselves split into separate sub sects such as Twelvers, Ismailis, Zaydis and Druzes. The sharp crystallization of the two sects came about in the Buyid period starting from 945 CE when the Abbasid caliphs came to be mere puppets at the hands of the Buyids. The authority of the caliphs to interpret Sharia law declined. It came about that true Islam could be practiced wherever a Muslim ruler kept a court with a staff of religious scholars. There was – and still is – no central teaching authority in Sunni Islam. Shias meanwhile put faith in an imam who is a divinely inspired descendant of the Prophet. Scholars take a lesser position in Shiism.

The book then turns to the nineteenth century in which a Shia-Sunni synthesis was attempted by religious scholars. By this time, the leading Muslim empires of the Ottomans and Safavid/Iranians had run out of steam in the face of shocking defeats at the hands of European powers. The rest of Islamic history hinges on the duel between Western political ideas and Islamism as a way to administer a country. Adherents of the Western system demanded democracy, elections, personal liberty, freedom of expression and rule of law as the fundamentals without which a country cannot stand on its legs. The worshippers of Islamism view Islam not only as a religion but a political philosophy as well, which controls all aspects of a person's life and demands absolute submission from him or her. The organisations are many such as the Jama’at Islami, Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda or ISIS, but the ultimate goal of all of them are the same – absolute power over the society in which no opposition is tolerated and people of other religions are firmly kept down as second class citizens. The author quotes a social commentator who argues that Islamism has already lost the fight and 9/11 was a desperate act by a side who knew that they have lost the game. The uprising in 2011, called Arab Spring, disseminated its appeal across all sects and we saw the people demanding Western-style rights from their dictatorial overlords.

The Islamic world is now boiling over with violence, but this book lays the blame squarely at the doors of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979. The unexpected rise of the Shia crescent in Iran, post-2003 Iraq, Syria and Yemen stung the Wahhabi hardliners in Saudi Arabia to take action. If we follow this logic, it must be assumed that the last word is yet to be pronounced. The current sanctions imposed on Iran by the US are just another move on the chequered board. The book makes a special note on ibn Abd al-Wahhab who founded the theological creed Wahhabism and comments on the eerie similarity of his teachings with that of Luther and Calvin, who were the reformist leaders of catholic Christianity. He then warns that in light of the fierce wars fought in Europe in the stride of the reformers, those who wants reformation in Islam should be careful what they wish for.

The book is impressive to read, but two huge factual errors seen in it discount its credibility to a great extent. It seems that the author is unacquainted with Indian history, but it does not hold him back from putting up grand schemes of Shia-Sunni interactions in the subcontinent. He claims that the Delhi sultanate was overthrown by Babur in 1398 (p.171). This is wrong. It was Timur who invaded in that year and the Delhi sultanate could weather over the storm. Babur came to India precisely 128 years later. Then again, the author states that Jahangir constructed Taj Mahal as the mausoleum for his beloved Shia wife Noor Jahan (p.173). Noor Jahan was a Shia, but isn't it common knowledge that it was Shah Jahan who built the Taj in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal who died in childbirth? What accuracy can you hope to observe from a scholar of Islamic history who can't even get the story of the Taj right?

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star