Islam: The War Within

Sazzad Hussain

The severing of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arab and Iran and its following by some other Arab states once again widens the gap between Sunni and Shiite factions within Islam, which has been on since the tragedy of Karbala. However in modern times, it has been a political manoeuvring favouring certain strategic interests which have put Islam to be in war with itself. In a time when the world has been experiencing the dichotomy between Islam and the rest of other faiths because of Islamist terrorism, the Saudi-Iran spat reveals the paradoxes within the so-called Islamic world of the Middle-East and a reality check to the idea of an utopian Islamic world that many Islamists propagate by projecting the faith as an homogeneous entity.

Ever since its formation in 1932 with armed help from British India, the Saudi Kingdom has been officially representing Sunni Islam with its ultra-orthodox interpretation preached by Ibn Wahhab. The possession of the two holiest sites of Islam—Mecca and Medina from the Ottoman rule after World War I enabled the Saudis to propagate Wahhabism to all Muslims of the world because of the annual Hajj. The discovery of oil in the Kingdom in 1939 fastened the then US President Roosevelt to sign a treaty with the Saudis as a partner and this led to the formation of oil company ARAMCO. Since then Saudi Arabia started producing oil with US armed protection in a system that suits the western demands of uninterrupted energy supplies. An absolute monarchy with the Holy Quran as its constitution and the king as the upholder of the faith, Saudi Arabia evolved as a state without any nationhood. Its official Mufti asks the citizens for loyalty towards the king but allowed rebellion (Jihad) abroad through fatwas. The western establishments in the post-World War II scenario was nervous towards the spread of Arab nationalism spearheaded by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt with the prime objective of liberating Palestine from Israel and turning all the oil-rich Arab monarchies and dependencies into socialist republics. At this backdrop, this Saudi stand with Sunni Islam in the forefront suited the west very much which they are still cashing in.

Iran, earlier called Persia, has been a Shiite bastion for the last thirteen centuries. Many Arab lands like the present day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain has Shiite population. Despite the linguistic differences of Arabic and Persian, Shiite Arabs always looked towards the Shiite seminaries of Qom in Iran as their authority. The pro-western Pahlavi dynasty of Iran paused no threat to the Saudi or any other US allies in the Middle-East. But the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran, changed the entire course. The Islamic Republic of Iran, under the spiritual guidance of Khomeini set up to diktat terms on Islam which were political moves to counter the growing Sunni power exercised by Saudi Arabia ever since the oil boom of 1974. It was the Shiite Arabs of Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Lebanon who became the first followers of Iran despite the linguistic differences. The eight years Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) was the culmination of that Sunni-Shiite divide which the Saudis and its other Gulf allies backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussain to be a war mongering ruler with tacit approval from the west. The Shiite Iranian outreach in this region was successful in the Lebanese civil war (1976-93) when the Shiite group Hezbollah, succeeded in unifying that sectarian country ending western intervention and pulling out of Israeli troops. Meanwhile among the Palestinians, a Shiite group named Islamic Jihad also gained momentum to fight Israeli occupation during the pre-Intifada era. Iran’s strong stand against Israeli occupation of Palestine, American intervention in the region and overall anti-west campaign has long been made the country an unflavoured one in most of the western capitals. Its nuclear programme has also been a concern for the west. The most striking stand by Iran on Islam so far is the death fatwa issued against British author Sir Salman Rushdie by Khomeini in 1989 for his novel Satanic Verses.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 gave the Saudis the ample opportunity to export its Wahhabi-Sunni Islam as America started the Mujahedeen war from Pakistan. The creation of Al-Qaeda, bin Laden, Taliban etc are all the product of this Saudi-US collaboration. Later when George W. Bush invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003, the hitherto secular state became fragmental on sectarian divide between Sunnis, Shiites and non-Arab Kurds (also Sunnis). It was Iran which was immensely benefited from the US occupation of Iraq as its majority Shiites always had an allegiance to them. On the other hand the Saudi-Qatar backed Sunni militias and al-Qaeda mobilized themselves in post-Saddam Iraq which are now metamorphosed to IS. The Saudi sponsored Sunni political outreach provides duel citizenships to all Sunni head of states and provides them asylum whenever necessary. Remember when Nawaz Sharief was deposed by Gen. Musharaf in 1999, he went to Riyadh. The deposed Tunisian president Zain-al-Abedine Ben Ali, former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri all enjoyed Saudi hospitality because of the dual citizenship.

Saudi Arabia has been confronting Iran for supremacy in Lebanon and Syria which has a large Shiite base and political strength. For this simple reason the Saudis are not fighting the IS in Syria and Iraq but bombing the Shiite Hauthi rebels in Yemen. It also sent troops to Sunni ruled Shiite majority Bahrain during the Arab Spring of 2011 to crush the pro-democracy movements. There have also been reports that the Saudi plans of allowing its airspace to Israeli jets to bomb the nuclear plants in Iran.

The Saudi-Iran spate reflects the century old sectarian rift within Islam which otherwise provide an egalitarian vision for mankind. It is the typical Middle-Eastern paradox to be sectarian which hardly to be found among Muslims elsewhere. But the important fact is that this divide in Islam has put the Sunnis in side with the western hegemonic designs as it has been for the last eight decades and Shiites with the global forces that oppose it—Russia and China.