The Foreign Service Journal, April 2008

ories of abrogation. In the jihadists’ view, the “sword” verses, drawn fromMohammad’s revelations when he was fighting the Meccans, abrogate the “peace” verses that suffuse much of the rest of the 114 chapters (suras) of the Quran. Sunnis, Shia and Sufis All Muslims believe in the five pillars of Islam. These include: the profession of faith (shahadah) that there is only one God and Mohammad is his messenger, praying (salah) five times a day, fasting (sawm) during the holy month of Ramadan, giving charity (zakat) and pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. Beyond that, there is considerable diver- sity among the three major sects: Sunnis, Shia and Sufis. Sunnis, constituting about 90 percent of Muslims, have no overarching hierarchy. The most prestigious religious leaders (ulema) in Mecca and at al-Azhar in Cairo have only the power of moral suasion over the followers of the four schools of Sunni Islam: the Hanafi, the largest and most liberal school of the Ottomans; the Hanbali, the strictest school, which includes the Salafis, such as the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who want to emulate the piety of Mohammad and his 7th-century companions; and the Maliki (largely in West Africa) and the Shafai (largely in Southeast Asia), both distinguished by their incorporation of local elements. Thus, there are few theological impediments to Osama bin Laden’s proclaiming himself an imam, or religious leader, despite his lack of religious credentials. A bit of 12th-century Sunni intellectual history is rele- vant here. Nine hundred years ago al-Ghazali, a Baghdadi religious scholar, indicted Greek philosophy in a book called the Incoherence of the Philosophers , arguing that revelation trumps reason in religion. Averroes, who lived in Cordoba, attempted to rebut that view in writings called The Incoherence of the Incoherence , arguing that God gave man reason and that it should be applied to religion as well. In essence, al-Ghazali’s side won the protracted debate. The consequent stultification of Sunni orthodoxy is called the Closing of the Great Gates of Ijtihad (inter- pretation). The good news is that globalization has flung those gates wide open to interpretation. Competing with the jihadist vision of a return to 7th-century Islamic purity are vibrant interpretations stressing the faith’s compatibility with political and economic modernity. Leading the way are many Muslims familiar with the West, such as Tariq Ramadan in Switzerland and Rashid Ghanoushi in Tunisia. In contrast to the diffuse organization of the Sunnis, the Shia (also known as Shiites) are much more structured. This is a result of the fact that their imam went into hiding (occlusion) back in the 9th century. To fill the gap, a hier- archical system of ayatollahs developed that assigns rank by scholarship and size of discipleship. Every young Shia has to choose his spiritual leader at puberty. The ayatollahs offer spiritual and political leadership and provide welfare benefits and assistance in pilgrimages to the shrines at Najaf and Kerbala. Thus, the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had the authority to create a new theocratic form of governance called valeyet e faqhi, and the current Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s quietist views count strongly not only in Iraq but among his followers worldwide. The essential doctrinal difference between Sunnis and Shia is over the succession to the Prophet Mohammad. While Sunnis believe the successor (caliph) to Moham- mad should be selected by the faithful, the Shia believe in descent by bloodline through Mohammad’s cousin Ali and his son Hussein. Rites and pageants marking the killing of Hussein by Sunnis at the battle of Kerbala in 680 easily become politicized. Similarly, the Shia tradition of com- memorating a death 40 days after a person has died (arbayeen) can cascade into waves of violence as deaths on one occasion produce more deaths 40 days later. This cycle figured significantly in the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah in Iran in 1978 and 1979. The Shia and Sunnis have a long history of animosity. Theologically, the Shia blame Sunnis for killing Hussein and usurping God-ordained authority, while the Sunnis see Shiites as idolaters who venerate Ali, Hussein and other figures in defiance of God’s commandment to wor- ship Him alone. These differences are further exacerbat- ed by longstanding ethnic rivalries, particularly the one between Arabs and Persians. Shia frequently have a sense of victimhood stemming from their history of domination by the Sunni, their minority status in many countries and their comparatively lower economic position generally. Sufis are mystics who believe that they can experience God directly through meditation, dancing, music or other rites. Most are Sunni but adherents include Shia, as well. Politically, they are quietists or activists and generally open to the ideas of others as long as the tenets of Islam are respected. An example is the movement led by Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Sunni mystic who now lives in F O C U S 18 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 8