Sunni and Shia

The Myth of a 1400-Year Conflict

During European rule over Rwanda, the Belgian colonial power achieved something astonishing for the subjugation of the local population: the arbitrary creation of a new ethnic division! By creating subjective ethnic categorization based on body height and skin colour, the Belgians kept the native population in constant conflict and thereby subject to themselves. Fabricated history and lineages led to the categorization into 'Hutu' and 'Tutsi', designations that were pulled from the dustbin of Rwanda's history and had no meaning whatsoever for hundreds of years. This strategy of "divide and rule" ultimately led in 1994 to the genocide that cost the lives of 800,000 people. 'Hutu' and 'Tutsi', recently created identities, believed in the myth that they had stood in opposition since time immemorial.

Nowadays one hears more and more of a 1400-year war between Sunnis and Shias, and that today's conflicts are merely a simple continuation of the events of the 7th century. This view is meanwhile accepted even by most Muslims, although history has shown something quite different! The political conflicts that are brewing above all in the Middle East between Sunnis and Shias appear, on closer inspection, to spring from the same schema as the division of Rwanda into Hutu and Tutsi.

Saudi Arabia stands out as a champion of Sunni ideology, itself a product of British-French colonial policy, while on the other side stands above all Iran, whose Shia regime was prepared by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 in Paris, under the eyes of all Western intelligence services. Consequently, from both regimes stem the two ideologies that split and radicalize the Muslims and turn the Middle East into a bloodbath: Salafi / Wahhabi and Shia Rafidah.

The recent terrorist attacks in Tehran by the apparently CIA / Mossad-supported ISIS follow this strategy. Once again it is a matter for Western powers to keep the local population in a constant civil war in order to make themselves master of the situation. Once again well-paid demagogues very skilfully use theological differences and old symbolism and rhetoric to invoke the myth of a thousand-year conflict. But what did history really look like?

Certainly there were conflicts between the different religious communities, but generally pluralism, tolerance, and goodwill shaped the atmosphere and not conflict and enmity. For centuries Sunnis and Shias lived peacefully side by side, as did Christians, Jews, and other religious groups. Precisely the expulsion and enslavement of the Yazidis by the henchmen of the so-called "Islamic State" based on Salafi ideology is proof of this, for over a thousand years the Yazidis were not granted such a fate, although this region had been under Islamic rule since the earliest times of Islam. (That is, if one may believe the reports about the Yazidis! There are also statements that these reports are not true at all. We do not want to impute to ISIS things it perhaps never did, including all the other terrorist attacks. It could be that much of it was staged by the enemies of Islam. In today's time of fitan one no longer knows what one may with certainty believe.)

Even though the Sunni Ottoman Empire had its conflict with the Shia Safavid Empire, they also lived peacefully side by side for centuries and considered it shameful to wage war against another Muslim state. Even though there were radical sects, Sunnis and Shias conducted dialogue since the emergence of these factions. The shrill demagogy, historically speaking, only began much later, precisely only since the domination of the Near and Middle East by the West. Even though "Rafidah" has always existed, the vilification of the Prophet's companions only truly became arrogant under the regime of the Ayatollahs. In his book 'Kitab al-Thaharah', vol. 3/457, Khomeini writes that Aisha, Talhah, Zubair, Mu'awiyah, and the like are outwardly not Najis (filth, impure), but worse and more disgusting than dogs and pigs.

On closer inspection one will see that most of the dogmatics that conjure up the conflict with the Sunnis are of recent date, just as the uncompromising stance of the Salafis against all Bid'ah (innovations, i.e. everything that according to their own definition does not belong to Islam) is also of recent date. There too, continuity in history is invoked, which is why they proudly call themselves Salafis (from Salaf, the contemporaries of the Prophet s.a.w.). But here too, "historical continuity" and "return to the origins" turn out to be quite a new dynamic with its own political objective.

The main point of dispute between Sunnis and Shias is that, according to Shia understanding, Ali (r.a.), the son-in-law of the Prophet (s.a.w.), should have become the first caliph, and that only members of the Prophet's (s.a.w.) family can become caliphs or imams, and that these are determined by Allah, not by men.

Several points speak for this view, such as:

• •  Allah says in the Qur'an: "And We raised up leaders from their midst, who guided (the people) according to Our command, because they were patient and firmly believed in Our signs." [as-Sajada 24] Here it appears that it is Allah and not men who appoints the leaders, whereby the Shura that appointed Abu Bakr (r.a.) and Uthman (r.a.) as caliphs is invalid.
• •  The Prophet (s.a.w.) says in the so-called Hadith Ghadir Khum: "Whoever has made me his Maula has also made Ali his Maula." This hadith from the 10th year of the Hijrah is transmitted in somewhat different wordings by Ahmad, Tirmidhi, and al-Hakim. 'Maula' has the meaning of 'lord' and suggests an authority that can be both spiritual and worldly in nature. Nowadays 'Maulana' (our lord) is commonly used for spiritual leaders. This hadith is supposed to prove that Rasulallah (s.a.w.) appointed Ali (r.a.) as his successor.

There are many other points, but we do not want to go too deeply into this topic and will limit ourselves briefly to these points by way of example. As one can see, one can certainly be of the opinion that the Shia standpoint is justified. But why the Sunnis now do not share this opinion is due, among other things, to the following reasons:

• •  The family of the Prophet (s.a.w.) never opposed the principle of Shura. Ali (r.a.) even took part in the Shura for the election of the third caliph himself and defended the principle of Shura before Mu'awiyah (Syarh Nahju al-Balaghah, vol. 3, p. 7). Allah can also appoint leaders through the system of Shura, by simply letting people choose the leader whom He wills. Ultimately everything is in His hand.
• •  The Sahabas themselves never interpreted the hadith of Ghadir Khum to mean that Maula is to be understood as 'Amir' or 'Imam', i.e. 'leader' in the worldly sense, but rather highlighted Ali's special status in the spiritual respect (sabab al-wurud), in relation to love, solidarity, and obedience. Ali (r.a.) himself never used this hadith to claim his right to the caliphate. And if Rasulallah (s.a.w.) had wanted to announce his successor, he would certainly have done so during the farewell pilgrimage and not only on the return journey, when the crowd of people had already scattered in all directions!

One can now argue about these and other points for ever and a day. One can ask whether Mu'awiyah did not want to seize power unlawfully, because he was after all the son of Abu Sufyan, the former leader of the Quraish, and why it was probably right that Hussain (r.a.), the grandson of the Prophet (s.a.w.), refused allegiance to Yazid, and so on, but what is the point? Who was leader then or should have been leader does not concern us 1400 years later! And both Sunnis and Shias believe that the next leader of the Muslims, al-Mahdi, will come from the family of the Prophet (s.a.w.), who will then make clear to the Muslims who was right where.

If one absolutely wants to believe in an Imamate, although this is nowhere explicitly explained in the Qur'an (which would certainly be the case if such a thing decided whether someone enters Hell or not), then one may gladly do so! That is not a great problem after all!

But what is a great problem, what now threatens to plunge the entire Near / Middle East into civil war, is that the Shias are increasingly launching a campaign against the companions of the Prophet (s.a.w.). Those who vilify the Prophet's companions were formerly only a small group, a sect, the Rafidah, with whom, according to the four Sunni schools of law, one should not pray, not marry, not inherit, and so on. Historically, this was never the mainstream of the Shias, otherwise history would have looked completely different! Al-Azhar, the greatest seat of Sunni scholarship, would never have taught Shia theology as an integrated school of law, and Shias would certainly not have been admitted to the Hajj. And can one imagine that Shias would have lived for centuries in peaceful neighbourhood with Sunnis from Africa across Yemen, Syria, Pakistan all the way to Pasaman on Sumatra, if they had said, "Abu Bakr and Umar are worse than dogs and pigs, and all who do not believe this are unbelievers"?

It can also never have been the mainstream of the Shias, because the evidence is overwhelming that the family of the Prophet (Ahl Bait) and first and foremost Ali (r.a.) himself never hated the other Sahabas and regarded them as unbelievers, as is becoming fashionable among the Shias today:

• •  Ali (r.a.) swore the oath of allegiance (bay'at) to Umar (r.a.)! Would he have done this if he had been of the opinion that Umar (r.a.) was an oppressor or even an unbeliever? Certainly not! Now today's demagogues and their following say that he did this only under pressure. Thereby they themselves run down Ali (r.a.) and portray him as a coward!
• •  Ali (r.a.) gave Umar (r.a.) his own daughter Umm Kulthum in marriage. Would he have done this if he had believed that Umar (r.a.) was an impure unbeliever, a Murtad? Again it is said he did this only under pressure, and again Ali (r.a.) is portrayed as someone who has no honour and fears men more than Allah! Where is the lion of whom they speak? A coward who gives up his own daughter to be violated in order to save his own skin? How can one believe such a thing and at the same time venerate Ali (r.a.)? Absurd!
• •  But they not only portray Ali (r.a.) as a coward and run him down, but also the Prophet (s.a.w.) himself, whom they insinuate could not have seen that his closest friends and his favourite wife were in reality dogs and pigs!
• •  Ali (r.a.) gave some of his sons the names of the three caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman bin Ali bin Ali Talib. All these sons died with their brother Hussain (r.a.) in Karbala. Does it make any sense that one names one's sons after those who inflicted the most severe injustice on one, unless one again brings in the argument of the coward? Also the subsequent generations of the Ahl Bait used the names of the Sahabas and even the name of Aisha (r.a.) (such as Umar bin Hussain bin Ali bin Ali Talib, Aisyah binti Al Imam Ja'far bin Musa Kazhim, Aisyah binti Muhammad bin Al Hasan bin Ja'far bin Al Hasan and many others), a clear proof that the family of the Prophet (s.a.w.) never hated the companions of the Prophet (s.a.w.), but on the contrary venerated and loved them.

The moderate Shia standpoint was therefore always that, although Ali (r.a.) and his descendants should have become caliphs, Ali (r.a.) did not oppose the ijtihad of the other Sahabas, because he wanted to preserve the unity of the Muslims. Nor did he ever regard the companions as unbelievers because of their different interpretation, but with respect and affection. This is the view that made possible a peaceful coexistence with the Sunnis for centuries and is in harmony with the facts listed above.

The group that ran down the Sahabas was, until more recent times, a small, insignificant sect, the Rafidah. It is the enemies of the Muslims, first and foremost of course Master-Mind Satan himself, who made this sect into one of the leading currents in today's Islam and portrayed it as though Shias had always regarded the closest companions of the Prophet as unbelievers, together with all those who do not share this extreme standpoint.

In the same way, the other extreme was also created, the intolerant Salafi movement on the opposite side. The goal is to set these two groups against each other and to draw the Middle East into a maelstrom of destruction and a bloodbath of unprecedented proportions, in order to crown oneself as ruler, whereby these Islamic factions are in turn only pawns in a larger game.

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