some of the things mentioned by the author in the historical context r, in my opinion, inaccurate and he seems to have failed to get the history right, but the overall message is the important thing and i think thats what we shud focus on…
*Sectarianism then and now
By Anwar Syed***
Sectarian conflict has plagued Muslims since the early beginnings of their history. It has derived from doctrinal differences, political rivalries, or a mix of these two elements. Two rival groups surfaced soon after the fourth pious caliph, Ali ibne Abu Talib, took office. His supporters came to be known as “Shi’yan-i-Ali” (partisans of Ali).
Some of his opponents, notably, Talha bin Abdullah, Zubair bin Awan, and Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan declined to accept him as the rightful caliph and waged war against him. Muawiya’s son and successor, Yazid, authorized the slaughter at Karbala (680) where Ali’s younger son, Husain, and a small band of his companions, were killed because he would not accept Yazid as a legitimate ruler.
During the Umayyad rule (661-750), and more particularly during that of the Abbasids (750-1258), the Shias were persecuted and thousands of them were killed, especially in Iraq. Most of their “imams” were assassinated or kept in prison until they died.
Simple fanaticism can also lead to sectarian violence. At the beginning of the 16th century, when the Safvids made Shiaism the state religion in Iran, Shah Ismail threatened to kill those who did not convert, and actually ordered the killing of some 20,000 Sunnis in Azerbaijan. Sultan Salim, the Ottoman emperor, retaliated by killing an equal, or an even larger, number of Shias in eastern Anatolia.
At about the same time, the Hazaras (a Shia tribe) in Central Asia were massacred and those who survived were expelled. In our own time, the support that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait extended to Saddam Hussein in the long war he had imposed on Iran may be seen as a most brutal conflict between Sunni and Shia regimes.
We know of cases in which doctrinal differences led the parties concerned to persecute, even kill, one another. Some theologians in early eighth century justified the wicked actions of certain Umayyad rulers on the ground that, being pre-destined, these actions were part of a divine plan, and that therefore the rulers bore no responsibility for them.
Hasan al-Basri (d. 728), leader of a Qadri group, and his disciples rejected this interpretation, advanced the doctrine of free will, and condemned the impious rulers. Two prominent spokesmen of this school, Mahad al-Juhani and Ghaylan al-Dimashqi were executed in 699 and 749 respectively.
Wasil ibn Ata (ca. 700-748), a disciple of Hasan al-Basri, founded an important theological school, known as “Mutazilism” and distinguished by its commitment to rationalism. In addition to the doctrine of free will, the Mutazilah maintained that God had created the Quran for a specific period of time, implying that, like His other creations, it was time-bound.
The traditional theologians, including Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (780-855), found this view to be outrageous. They believed that the Quran, being the word of God, was a part of His being, co-eternal with Him, that it had existed since the beginning of time, and that it had been placed on the “Preserved Tablet” (“Lauh-i-Mehfooz”).
The Mutazilah became exceedingly popular with the Abbasid caliph, Al Mamun, himself a rationalist and a friend to science and philosophy. In 827 he issued the notorious ruling that any judge (qazi) who did not subscribe to the Mutazilite view of the Quran would be dismissed or imprisoned. During the rule of one of his successors, Imam Hanbal, leader of the opposing school, was publicly scourged and thrown into jail.
Al-Mutwakkil, who came to the throne in 847, released Hanbal and reversed the religious policies of his three predecessors. Now the Mutazilah came under severe persecution. Within the next three or four decades thousands of them were put to death and open profession of their views receded from Muslim theological discourse.
Returning to the Sunni-Shia conflict, it is safe to say that the Shia were persecuted where Muslims formed the overwhelming majority of the population and, among them, the Shias were a minority. This was not the case in the Indian subcontinent. Here the Muslims, all of them put together, amounted to a rather small minority.
Encountering a much larger and potentially unfriendly external force, they did not fall upon one another quite as much as they might otherwise have done. Most of the Muslim kings, and later the British, had an overriding interest in the maintenance of public tranquillity, and accordingly they discouraged religious and sectarian strife.
In sum it may be said at this point that historically sectarian conflict tended to be intense when political power and religious doctrine were allied. In post-independence Pakistan, moves were made to join religion with politics. Under pressure from the ulema, the politicians in power obligated the state to “enable” its Muslim citizens to fashion their lives according to Islam, and undertook not to make any laws repugnant to the Quran and Sunnah. These undertakings did not impact societal interaction because the rulers, being essentially secular-minded, did little to implement them.
During British rule and during the first three decades after independence, the Sunnis and Shias lived peacefully together for the most part. A few persons on each side may have found some of the other’s beliefs to be offensive, a few more may have felt estranged, and they did have a fight once in a while. But theological differences did not keep the great majority of them from being friendly to one another.
Following Ziaul Haq’s usurpation of power in July 1977, the government’s secular disposition gave way to a professed determination to Islamize society in all of its dimensions. This gave the ulema a sense of political efficacy that they have not had before. It was further enlivened by the revolution in Iran that put the ayatollahs in power.
Ziaul Haq proceeded to enforce the “hudood” prescribed by the Shariat, imposed Islamic taxes, inserted numerous Islam-related provisions in the Constitution, established Shariat courts, encouraged the ulema to establish “madressahs” and funded them. The ulema as a class and the Islamic political parties worked as his allies, their occasional assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Not unexpectedly, they wondered which theological persuasion would prevail if they were to become participants in the country’s governance. Would the Sunni have to share power, and its rewards, with the Shia? Would it not be more prudent to intimidate them into a mode of quiet subservience?
The ulema’s expectation of acquiring political power in the foreseeable future is, in my view, one of the basic causes of the heightened sectarian conflict that we have lately been witnessing. It has been aided by other developments such as the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran during the course of which each side encouraged and funded its partisans in Pakistan; the rise of militant forces like the Taliban and later Al Qaeda and the spread of their influence to certain categories of public officials and private individuals in this country.
Is there anything wrong with the ulema gaining political power? Yes, and it is that, even though we humans have been sent down to live in this world, the ulema’s whole approach to worldly affairs is unprogressive, and they remain entangled with issues that have little relevance to the improvement of our lives here and now. The editors of this newspaper noted recently, as have other perceptive observers, that our ulema impart to their audiences lessons in “obscurantism,” intolerance and hatred, towards groups other than their own.
Let us go back for a moment to the controversy between the Mutazilah and the traditionalists. Surely this was not an issue over which believers should have been ready to kill and get killed. Taken as the word of God, injunctions in the Quran are binding upon Muslims regardless of whether it was revealed at the beginning of time or at some subsequent stage. Clearly, this was a futile debate.
