On October 8, a bomb blasted in a Shia Mosque at Kunduz, Afghanistan. More than 100 people were injured or died in this tragic incident. The IS-K, a Sunni Islam militant group, was behind this attack.
On October 15, another bomb blasted in a Shia mosque in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing a dozen people. After the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan, sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni has increased. Let’s look at the history of the religious, political, theological and power divide among the two major sects of Islam.
History
Islam emerged as a religion in the seventh century AD by Prophet Muhammad. Islam means ‘submission to god’ and the message of Islam was to reduce polytheism and idolatry practice.
Islam dominated its practices and by the time Prophet passed away in 632AD, the religion spread across the Arabia Peninsula. However, the Prophet’s passing away started the conflict between the sects, as the Prophet didn’t name any heir, causing a division of the community into two sects: one supporting that heir should be from the blood relations, white the other wanted the community to decide a new Caliph.
“The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor.”
“This was important because by the time he died, he had basically brought all the tribes of Arabia together into a kind of confederation that became the ummah — the people or nation of Islam.”
— Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Sunni-Shia Split in Islam
The supporters of the Prophet’s bloodline came to be known as Shia and formed the movement Shiat Ali, which means the party of Ali, or Partisan of Ali. The other sects who supported that the community decide the next heir came to be known as Sunni derived from ‘Ahl Al-Sunnah’, which means people of tradition.
Shias had chosen Ali Ibn Abi Tabil, Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law as the rightful heir, and they believed that Ali was part of the Divine Order; only he could guide Islam. On the other hand, Sunnis chose Abu Bakr Abdullah Ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa, Prophet’s companion as the Prophet’s rightful heir as they wanted consensus over lineage or dynasty.
As Shias were in a relatable minority, Sunnis chose Abu Bakr as the first Caliph, followed by Umar Ibn Al-Khattab as the second Caliph.
Shias stuck to their choice and Ali Ibn Abi Talib was chosen as the fourth Caliph in 656 AD. But after a short reign, he was assassinated by his enemies in 661 AD. His sons Hasan and Husayn wanted to take his place but the Sunnis were against this.
The Caliph position is very important in Islam, not only from a religious point of view; Islam expanded to West Africa, North Africa and the Middle East the game of power, money and resources also came into play. This led to a power struggle between the two sects and later resulted in civil war.
After the assassination of Ali, the Umayyad Dynasty took the position as the Caliph from 661 AD to 750 AD, their capital was Damascus. After the Umayyad Dynasty, the Abbasid Dynasty reigned from 750 AD to 1258 AD, their capital was Baghdad. Shia resented the whole time.
Battle Of Karbala
On October 10, 680 AD (10th of Muharram, AH 61), Ali’s son Husayn led a small group of 71 followers from Mecca (modern Saudi Arabia) to Karbala (modern Iraq) to confront allegedly corrupt Caliph Yazid. Husayn was defeated and massacred by the army sent by Umayyad. The battle helped secure the position of the Umayyad dynasty but for the Shia Muslims, the 10th day of the holy month of Muharram (the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar) became very important. Shia Muslims celebrate the anniversary of the death of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and son of Ali.
The battle sharpened the division between the two sects further.
The Safavid empire rose as the first major Shia dynasty from 1501 AD – 1736 AD. It was established in the city of Ardabil in the Iranian and Azerbaijan region.
The Contemporary Issue
In the early 20th century, the victorious Allies divided the territory held by the former Ottoman Empire after World War I, cutting through centuries-old religious and ethnic communities in the process. Finally, in 1979, Iran’s ruler Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi fled the country after months of massive protests. Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was in exile, returned and led an Islamic republic based on a constitution that granted him religious and political authority.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran produced a radical brand of Shia Islam that would clash violently with Sunni conservatives in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the decades to follow. Although both Saudi and Iran had never declared war on each other, they fought various proxy wars in the Middle East in countries like Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and Lebanon.
The revolution has been viewed with suspicion by Sunni rulers in countries with significant Shiite populations, such as Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. In 1980, Iraq sparked a war with Iran when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a Sunni ruling over a majority Shiite country, fearing political unrest, sent his troops to occupy part of an oil-rich province in Iran. The move sparked an eight-year-long war between the two countries, resulting in the death of over one million people.
The sectarian divide not only fueled up wars between different countries but also caused intrastate civil wars in countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. The vast majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are the Sunnis, according to a 2009 study by the Pew Research centre. Sunni Muslims are also present in more countries and regions throughout the world, whereas most Shia Muslims live in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
Both sects share the holy book of the Quran. The primary difference in practice comes in that Sunni Muslims rely on the Sunnah, a record of the teachings and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad to guide their actions, while the Shiites more heavily on their ayatollahs, whom they see as a sign of God on earth.