Just a brief one…cross posted to A Magnificent Wreckage
This isn’t good news:
A day later Khudair’s family received a note insulting them as Sunni Muslims, calling them sons of whores. On March 27, Khudair was kidnapped.
What came next has become typical for Iraq as sectarian tension and violence rise. Khudair’s family formed an armed group of more than 20 relatives and neighbors who are demanding Khudair’s release and vowing to kill those responsible.
“If something happened to my brother, no Shiite would be safe,” said Khudair’s brother, Sameer, who’s convinced that Shiite militia members are behind the kidnapping.
The political instability in Iraq and the ethnic divides behind it are pushing Iraqis toward gang-like violence that many worry could start a slide toward civil war.
I’ve observed rather frequently lately that the “insurgency” in Iraq is becoming more and more an intra-Iraqi conflict. What we have regarded as a weakness of the Iraqi insurgency, its disparate and disunified nature, may ultimately result in an Iraq far more dangerous and unstable than an Iraq under assault by a single unified command. This disparate nature reflects the underlying sectarian and tribal differences that have riven Iraq since foreign powers decided to cobble together a multitude of Levantine wilayets into a highly unstable nation state.
However, at this time, the biggest Iraqi-vs-Iraqi conflict at the moment is Resistance vs collaborators, as would no doubt be the case should the US or any other country be overrun by an invading horde of rampaging foreign gunmen, torturers and sexual predators.
Nor is the US standing idly by…
Now it emerges that there is a strong movement in southern Iraq for the establishment of autonomous Shi’ite provinces as a precursor to introducing vilayet-e-faqih (rule by the clergy) in the whole country….
To head off this threat of a Shi’ite clergy-driven religious movement, the US has, according to Asia Times Online investigations, resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched in the population to “nip the evil in the bud”…
Asia Times Online has learned that in a highly clandestine operation, the US has procured Pakistan-manufactured weapons, including rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry. Consignments have been loaded in bulk onto US military cargo aircraft at Chaklala airbase in the past few weeks. The aircraft arrived from and departed for Iraq.
link
how beautiful that grey box is!
How do you feel about vilayet-e-faqih?
Sistani claims not to be interested.
I would hope, and am in fact, confident that it would evolve into a state religion, respecting of the Islamic principle of freedom of religion, and compliant with the Koranic injunction against compulsion in religion.
As events unfold, there will undoubtedly be, in Iraq and/or elsewhere, some attempt to restore Caliphate. In my opinion, this will be short-lived, simply because so many things have changed since the fall, and the Ottomans’ latter days were hardly a re-creation of that long ago idyll in the desert.
However the same phenomenon that in the US recently manifested itself as “anybody but Bush” has been at work for sometime in many parts of the world.
It is called “anything but the US.” 🙂
Neither I nor anyone with a grain of sense is going to tell you that removing the US will bring about instant Utopia. However, like the shabby little first apartment of a young person who finally manages to escape the oppressive home of his dysfunctional abusive parents, even though the water runs rusty, the floor creaks, and the oven only works intermittently, the peanut butter sandwich he eats there on the cracked linoleum floor will be the best thing he has ever tasted, and his rickety abode will be to him better than a glorious palace because it is HIS, and no drunken father is beating him, and because for the first time, he has hope, for himself, for a future, for better linoleum and a working stove, that will also be his own, and 100% drunken-father-free.
State religion, I think, if the overwhelming majority of a population shares a faith tradition, can, like a monarchy, serve as a useful outlet for potentially volatile sentiments, while minimizing their impact on the lives of the populace.
Yeah, kind of like what Jinnah dreamed of, a dream which has not yet been achieved, and in the case of Pakistan, I don’t know if it can be, because Partition – but that is not what you asked! And I wil not start, I will not hijack.
To return to your question, it will be interesting to see what vilayet e faqih will look like without the US, remember the wacko mullahs are the US’s best friend, and not all will go quietly nor immediately, and whether religious or secular, the days of putting US business interests first will be gone, and it is unlikely that much about anything will be pleasing to American rich men, but it will be the beginning of freedom.
of the Caliphate mean in a Shi’a dominated state?
Wouldn’t the total uncontested control of Karbala, Kufa, and Najaf be enough for them to feel like some kind of restoration had occurred?
So many muslim factions have their own agenda and write articles of disinformation and propaganda. Can you vouch for author’s credence as independent and objective?
Already, members of the Da’wa Party, many of whom were taught in Iran, have taken over mosques in Basra, and members of Hezbollah have heavily infiltrated the Shi’ite population, in addition to Iranian intelligence and members of the Pasdaran-i-Inqalab (Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to pave the way for vilayet-e-faqih.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online.
[Bold face emphasis is mine]
Especially doubtful about this remark: “… members of Hezbollah have heavily infiltrated the Shi’ite population …
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
While the US has made more progress in uniting the centuries-old rivalries between Sunni and Shia than any other entity, at this point, I would be cautious about predicting eternal detente once the invaders are vanquished.
It is important to remember that most countries in the Middle East were “defined” by the west decades ago in a spree of creative cartography for fun and profit.
Restoring borders will likely be one of the first things that people will want to see settled, and Shia and Sunni are likely to forge their respective governments, religious or not, in their own respective countries.
As with Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, “objective” is a relative term. The events outlined in the Asia Times piece in the previous post are consistent with both statements previously made by Washington henchmen, and with other local Pakistani reports involving materiel from there being sent to Iraq
Here are some links about Sunnis and Shias, for those interested.
The division between Shia and Sunni dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and the question of who was to take over the leadership of the Muslim nation. Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by many of the Prophet’s companions, that the new leader should be elected from among those capable of the job. This is what was done, and the Prophet Muhammad’s close friend and advisor, Abu Bakr, became the first Caliph of the Islamic nation.
The word “Sunni” in Arabic comes from a word meaning “one who follows the traditions of the Prophet.”
On the other hand, some Muslims share the belief that leadership should have stayed within the Prophet’s own family, among those specifically appointed by him, or among Imams appointed by God Himself.
The Shia Muslims believe that following the Prophet Muhammad’s death, leadership should have passed directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali. Throughout history, Shia Muslims have not recognized the authority of elected Muslim leaders, choosing instead to follow a line of Imams which they believe have been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad or God Himself. The word “Shia” in Arabic means a group or supportive party of people. The commonly-known term is shortened from the historical “Shia-t-Ali,” or “the Party of Ali.” They are also known as followers of “Ahl-al-Bayt” or “People of the Household” (of the Prophet)….link
Shortly after the death of the Prophet of Islam , the early Muslim society was divided on the question of succession to the position of leadership of the community. A small group believed that the function must remain within the family of the Prophet, and backed `Ali, whom they believed to have been designated for this role by appointment (ta`yin) and testament (nass). They believed that the spiritual heritage bequeathed by Mohammad devolved on Ali and his lineal descendants. Hence, they repudiated the authority of the jama`at (the people) to elect their leader. They became known as his `partisans’ (shi`ah). On the other hand, the majority agreed on Abu Bakr as the leader on the assumption that the Prophet left no instruction on this matter. They gained the name `The People of Prophetic Tradition and consensus of opinion’ (ahl al-sunnah wa’l-jama`ah).
Besides the political dimension, there also existed a difference of opinion about the merits and functions of the successor to the Prophet. Sunni Islam considered the Khalifah to be a guardian of the shariah, while Shi`ism saw in the `successor’ a spiritual function connected with the esoteric interpretation of the revelation and the inheritance to the Prophet’s `hidden’ teachings. In contrast to the Sunnis, the institution of Imamate is fundamental to the Shias. The Imam, besides being a descendant of the Prophet, must possess certain qualities–he must be ma`sum or sinless, bear the purest and most unsullied character, and must be distinguished above all other men for truth and purity. On the other hand, the Sunnis believe that the Imamate is not restricted to the family of Mohammad, that the Imam need not irreproachable (ma`sum) in his life, and nor need he be the most excellent or eminent being of his time. So long as he is free, adult, sane, and possessed of the capacity to attend to the ordinary affairs of State, he is qualified for election.
In general, the Sunnis continued to support the established authority of Ummayads and Abbasids, though the later Sunni jurists accepted only the first four caliphs as full embodiments of the ideal of caliphate. For their part, various Shia groups continued to challenge the legitimacy of different caliphates for the most part of Muslim history. The Shias, however, enjoyed political power in the fourth century under the Buyids, who controlled all of Persia and wielded power in Baghdad, and later under the Fatimids in Egypt. Amongst the Shias, the Ithna `Asharis, followers of the twelve saintly Imams, frowned upon the use of force, and maintained an attitude of complete withdrawal from temporal power until Shah Ismail, the great Safavi monarch, made Ithna `Ashari Shi’ism the state religion of Persia.
Under Shah Ismail, a vigorous campaign was launched to convert the majority Sunni population to Shi’ism. Consequently, one of the major developments during the Saffavid reign was the end of the mutual toleration between Sunnis and Shias that existed in Iran from the time of the Mongols. A common form of Saffavid abuse was to curse Abu Bakr and Umar for having `usurped’ Ali’s right to be caliph. This hatred served two purposes: it reinforced Shia sectarian identity as it underlined Persian against Arab ethnicity. Another development was the Shia rejection of Sufism, and a growing concentration on law and the external observances of religion and ritual. Besides other factors, these anti-Sunni policies of Safavids were responsible for their deteriorating relations with the neighboring Sunni powers such as the Mughals in India, the Ottomans in Turkey and the Uzbeks in Central Asia.
The frightening upsurge in Shia-Sunni sectarian violence in recent days in some countries that have left hundreds dead and thousands injured, raises the question of whether there can at all be any possibility of dialogue between the two groups. It must be stressed that the deeply entrenched Shia-Sunni division remains the major obstacle to Muslim unity, and can only be resolved through dialogue. It must also be clearly understood that the enemies of Islam have consistently sought to play upon and fan these differences in order to promote their own interests. Unfortunately, some so-called Muslim scholars have played into their hands, and through their bitterly sectarian speeches and writings have inflamed hatred between Shias and Sunnis on a massive scale….link
Good stuff in your greybox there.