Sunnis and Shias

syrian_scholes said:
But it wasn't resolved back then though and by what you're saying your disregarding the sectarian leaderships that was formed which made it worse like Alawities ruling Syria, Hezboullah in Lebanon, Iran, Bahrain, etc etc.
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Those groups are essentially Iranian proxies, as are the various other Sunni groups championed by Saudi Arabia, so yes it is essentially a regional stand-off between the two.

Not sure why you mentioned Bahrain considering its a Sunni minority dictatorship.
 
Kaos said:
Yes, you're right about the Shia not being an entirely peaceful sect, as the various crimes committed by sectarian militia in Iraq and Syria testament that, but I still think its a hugely lopsided conflict in terms of committing and being at the receiving end of atrocities. Sunni extremism has had more of a toxic effect on the region than their shia counterparts, and other minorities have suffered more ostensibly under the former group.

We've seen some Shia groups carry out horrific crimes against Sunnis in Iraq, but on the whole we don't have extremist groups forcing minorities to convert by the sword, or carrying out suicide bomb attacks in churches. Granted, its possible that if Shias were the dominant sect in the region we may be seeing more of a heinous side to them, but as things stand I dont think its particularly fair calling this an equal 'conflict'.
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I think it's generally true today to say that Sunni radicals have been far more explicit in their sectarian rhetoric and actions than their Shi'i counterparts. For example, is there a Shi'i equivalent to Pakistan's Sipah-e-Sahaba, an organization with an explicitly anti-Shi'a agenda? I'm not sure there that there is. Some of the anti-Shi'a rhetoric I've encountered from ordinary people recently in places like Morocco and Palestine, where there are hardly any Shi'a at all, has ranged from ignorant to bordering on genocidal.

One of the tensions of the Iranian Revolution was that while it projected a universal Islamic message, it was carried by an explicitly Shi'i regime from a state with a history of anti-Sunni actions (one of the rare cases of forced conversion in Islamic history was the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shi'ism during the 16th/17th centuries, Iran being a predominantly Sunni countr4y before that time). So while you'll almost never encounter prominent, Khomeinist Shi'i figures such as Nasrallah or Khamenei spouting anti-Sunni nonsense along the lines of the anti-Shi'a stuff that regularly comes out of places like Saudi Arabia, they'll always be regarded as sectarian actors by Sunni Islamists, although much more so by Sunnis of the Salafi/Wahhabi persuasion than by the revolutionary Muslim Brotherhood/Jamaat-e-Islami types (the JI founder Mawdudi is said to have met with and influenced Khomeini to some degree).
 
Kaos said:
Those groups are essentially Iranian proxies, as are the various other Sunni groups championed by Saudi Arabia, so yes it is essentially a regional stand-off between the two.

Not sure why you mentioned Bahrain considering its a Sunni minority dictatorship.
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So I should've only mentioned the Shia minority dictatorship?
 
@Kaos don't lump Bangladesh in with the other sectarian countries you've mentioned.

They had one incident last week, otherwise theres been no sectarianism in the past 50 odd years, though I have to admit that it is rising but I fully blame Gulf Arabs for spreading that rhetoric.
 
RedTiger said:
@Kaos don't lump Bangladesh in with the other sectarian countries you've mentioned.

They had one incident last week, otherwise theres been no sectarianism in the past 50 odd years, though I have to admit that it is rising but I fully blame Gulf Arabs for spreading that rhetoric.
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My apologies then, I think I heard that incident and assumed it was a common occurence, mostly because of how frequently it happens with one of your regional neighbours.
 
Jaqen H'ghar said:
Well, judging by the offensiveness of the clip it seems quite like it. But I've been living in Saudi Arabia for 7 years now, and I've never seen or heard of this channel before, so it's nothing like Fox News in terms of coverage or following. It seems to be some obscure extremist garbage. There are quite a few of these tbh, but I think they are more comparable those crackpot, conspiracy theory, right wing radio stations .



This Sunni-Shia conflict and name calling has become so preposterous it would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. It's a political power struggle, with racial undertones, being disguised as a theological conflict. There are no good/better sides in this conflict, with both sides propagating lies and hatred. It's about bigoted attitudes that have been allowed to grow unchecked because it suits the interests of the powers that be.

I haven't heard the one about habitual incest, but I've heard all sorts of all sorts of improbable immoral things being attributed to Shia and their Imams, so I wouldn't be surprised.

The Irani version of the Hajj events should also be taken with a pinch of salt. Their narrative is impossible to prove or disprove, and it aligns with their political interests, which is all that is required at the end of the day. Truth in the middle east is a very scarce commodity. All news, from all sides there is either fabricated, distorted or cherry-picked to fit a narrative.


Accurate description. The conflicts have started already in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The rise if ISIS is, at it's core, a product of the Sunni-Shia conflict.
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That's simply not possible for a typical Saudi/a person living in Saudi Arabia. You might have totally different interests which makes you simply watch other channels, but you haven't heard of it? Their twitter account has more than 340,000 followers, so I'm sure being in Saudi Arabia for years you must have at least heard of it, if you're living like a typical person in Saudi Arabia.

Safa and Wisal (and others) are in fact well known Saudi TV channels, and enjoy a lot of power. In 2014 the Saudi cultural minister gave an order to stop the Wisal channel and took it off air (after explosions targeting Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia). After a few hours the minister was fired by an order from king Abdullah himself and the channel was back on air in less than 24 hours.

2cents said:
Great post.

Just to prove the craziness floats both ways -
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Not really. There are two crucial differences here that you're leaving out.

This man (Yasser Alhabib) is one of of the two people I talked about in another post. The other being this one.



The two crucial differences are:

1- Both are not allowed to air from any Muslim country. The second was expelled from Iran and he's living in the US and his channel is airing from there. He also urges the Shia to rise against the regime in Iran by the way. The first one lives in the UK, and he's airing his channel from there as well, and he also attacks Iran and Hizbollah and urges the Shia to rise against them.

On the other hand, Safa and Wisal and their likes are airing from Saudi Arabia and are protected by the king himself.

2- All the major Shia figures have publicly attacked those two and condemned their messages. You can't say the same about Safa and Wisal and their messages. In fact like I said, they are protected by the king himself.

While it's tempting to call everybody the same because that sounds fair most of the time, in this situation it's not accurate. You can compare Shia with Sunnis, but the Wahhabi ideology is not the same, and no country in the world is promoting an ideology like the one Saudi Arabia is promoting.
 
2cents said:
I think it's generally true today to say that Sunni radicals have been far more explicit in their sectarian rhetoric and actions than their Shi'i counterparts. For example, is there a Shi'i equivalent to Pakistan's Sipah-e-Sahaba, an organization with an explicitly anti-Shi'a agenda? I'm not sure there that there is. Some of the anti-Shi'a rhetoric I've encountered from ordinary people recently in places like Morocco and Palestine, where there are hardly any Shi'a at all, has ranged from ignorant to bordering on genocidal.

One of the tensions of the Iranian Revolution was that while it projected a universal Islamic message, it was carried by an explicitly Shi'i regime from a state with a history of anti-Sunni actions (one of the rare cases of forced conversion in Islamic history was the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shi'ism during the 16th/17th centuries, Iran being a predominantly Sunni countr4y before that time). So while you'll almost never encounter prominent, Khomeinist Shi'i figures such as Nasrallah or Khamenei spouting anti-Sunni nonsense along the lines of the anti-Shi'a stuff that regularly comes out of places like Saudi Arabia, they'll always be regarded as sectarian actors by Sunni Islamists, although much more so by Sunnis of the Salafi/Wahhabi persuasion than by the revolutionary Muslim Brotherhood/Jamaat-e-Islami types (the JI founder Mawdudi is said to have met with and influenced Khomeini to some degree).
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Spot on. Objectively looking at the situation will show that the extremist elements of one side paint a far more macabre end-game than the other. I'm often accussed of harbouring a pro-Shia bias in this forum, but the fact is I'm more terrified by the very worse of the Sunni than I am of the Shia's most extreme equivalents. The difference as yourself as Danny has alluded to is that the Shia clowns like the one mentioned above who churn out anti-Sunni rhetoric, are not really given a platform in any Shia country - in fact they're often banned, marginalised and condemnded by the more respected scholars from what I understand. Conversely, Wahabi mentalists who beat the anti-Shia drum are tolerated and even protected in some Sunni countries.
 
Kaos said:
My apologies then, I think I heard that incident and assumed it was a common occurence, mostly because of how frequently it happens with one of your regional neighbours.
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No worries mate. Sunni/Shia sectarianism has never really taken hold with muslims living east of Bihar State (I include S. East asia). Thats not to say there isn't animosity when it comes to Ahmadis.

The Folk Islam that was practiced by many Bengalis had aspects of Shia and Sunni doctrine combined, but unfortunately many ex-pats are bringing Gulf theology back home with them. Most of the problems in my opinion stem from People in the Gulf who lead people when they had no legitimate claim to kingship.
 
Danny1982 said:
Not really. There are two crucial differences here that you're leaving out.

This man (Yasser Alhabib) is one of of the two people I talked about in another post. The other being this one.



The two crucial differences are:

1- Both are not allowed to air from any Muslim country. The second was expelled from Iran and he's living in the US and his channel is airing from there. He also urges the Shia to rise against the regime in Iran by the way. The first one lives in the UK, and he's airing his channel from there as well, and he also attacks Iran and Hizbollah and urges the Shia to rise against them.

On the other hand, Safa and Wisal and their likes are airing from Saudi Arabia and are protected by the king himself.

2- All the major Shia figures have publicly attacked those two and condemned their messages. You can't say the same about Safa and Wisal and their messages. In fact like I said, they are protected by the king himself.

While it's tempting to call everybody the same because that sounds fair most of the time, in this situation it's not accurate. You can compare Shia with Sunnis, but the Wahhabi ideology is not the same, and no country in the world is promoting an ideology like the one Saudi Arabia is promoting.
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Yeah I pretty much agree, to be honest I just wanted to post a funny video of an obvious whackjob. See my post #162.

RedTiger said:
No worries mate. Sunni/Shia sectarianism has never really taken hold with muslims living east of Bihar State (I include S. East asia). Thats not to say there isn't animosity when it comes to Ahmadis.

The Folk Islam that was practiced by many Bengalis had aspects of Shia and Sunni doctrine combined, but unfortunately many ex-pats are bringing Gulf theology back home with them. Most of the problems in my opinion stem from People in the Gulf who lead people when they had no legitimate claim to kingship.
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Are there many Bengali Shi'a? I'm aware there was a Shi'i dynasty ruling from Murshidabad in the 18th century, but that doesn't say anything about the demographics of the place since it was often the case in India to have ruling dynasties from minority populations.

(Edit): I may be wrong on that, it may be Lucknow (Awadh) I'm thinking of.
 
RedTiger said:
No worries mate. Sunni/Shia sectarianism has never really taken hold with muslims living east of Bihar State (I include S. East asia). Thats not to say there isn't animosity when it comes to Ahmadis.

The Folk Islam that was practiced by many Bengalis had aspects of Shia and Sunni doctrine combined, but unfortunately many ex-pats are bringing Gulf theology back home with them. Most of the problems in my opinion stem from People in the Gulf who lead people when they had no legitimate claim to kingship.
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And there lies the crux of the problem.
 
2cents said:
Yeah I pretty much agree, to be honest I just wanted to post a funny video of an obvious whackjob. See my post #162.



Are there many Bengali Shi'a? I'm aware there was a Shi'i dynasty ruling from Murshidabad in the 18th century, but that doesn't say anything about the demographics of the place since it was often the case in India to have ruling dynasties from minority populations.

(Edit): I may be wrong on that, it may be Lucknow (Awadh) I'm thinking of.
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You're right with the edit:)
There's a small amount of Shia but there was never ever any of this Kafir rhetoric aimed at them, it is changing now though, mostly through social media and Saudi funded Madrassahs.

I remember as a kid, we used to do dhikir in the village mosque but some of the dhikirs were praising Ali (even though 99% of us were Hanafi). All that changed once we started getting the inferiority complex about Arabs...
 
2cents said:
Yeah I pretty much agree, to be honest I just wanted to post a funny video of an obvious whackjob. See my post #162.
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Ah no problem.

RedTiger said:
You're right with the edit:)
There's a small amount of Shia but there was never ever any of this Kafir rhetoric aimed at them, it is changing now though, mostly through social media and Saudi funded Madrassahs.

I remember as a kid, we used to do dhikir in the village mosque but some of the dhikirs were praising Ali (even though 99% of us were Hanafi). All that changed once we started getting the inferiority complex about Arabs...
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Sadly the same thing is happening in Egypt, and many other places.
 
Danny1982 said:
That's simply not possible for a typical Saudi/a person living in Saudi Arabia. You might have totally different interests which makes you simply watch other channels, but you haven't heard of it? Their twitter account has more than 340,000 followers, so I'm sure being in Saudi Arabia for years you must have at least heard of it, if you're living like a typical person in Saudi Arabia.
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Of course I have other I have other interests, as most other normal people do. Most normal people have better things to do than waste their time listening to hate speech. There are over 1000 free TV channels covering the region, the decent ones having twitter followers well into the millions, so I don't know why you find it surprising that I wouldn't know this channel. Unless one was specifically searching for this kind of thing it would be very easy to miss.

Trust me, most normal people don't come back from work and think '' I'm gonna relax in front of the TV and watch that brilliant show that reminds me why I hate Shia''.

Danny1982 said:
Safa and Wisal (and others) are in fact well known Saudi TV channels, and enjoy a lot of power. In 2014 the Saudi cultural minister gave an order to stop the Wisal channel and took it off air (after explosions targeting Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia). After a few hours the minister was fired by an order from king Abdullah himself and the channel was back on air in less than 24 hours
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I googled Wisal channel this and found news it was shut down, but nothing about re-opening or the Kings support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/saudi-arabia-wesal-tv-sectarian-tension_n_6105830.html

This one has 30K followers, so maybe not so powerful.
 
Jaqen H'ghar said:
Of course I have other I have other interests, as most other normal people do. Most normal people have better things to do than waste their time listening to hate speech. There are over 1000 free TV channels covering the region, the decent ones having twitter followers well into the millions, so I don't know why you find it surprising that I wouldn't know this channel. Unless one was specifically searching for this kind of thing it would be very easy to miss.

Trust me, most normal people don't come back from work and think '' I'm gonna relax in front of the TV and watch that brilliant show that reminds me why I hate Shia''.



I googled Wisal channel this and found news it was shut down, but nothing about re-opening or the Kings support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/saudi-arabia-wesal-tv-sectarian-tension_n_6105830.html

This one has 30K followers, so maybe not so powerful.
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I wasn't criticizing you for not watching the channel, I was just sure that your life doesn't represent the life of an average Saudi, proven probably by the fact that you live in Saudi Arabia for 7 years and you're trying to google the information I mentioned.

Here is by the way the decision of the king to dismiss the minister..

http://arabic.cnn.com/middleeast/2014/11/05/saudi-khouja-minster

And you can google their site to see yourself that they're still broadcasting, from Saudi Arabia of course.
 
Danny1982 said:
The change in attitude, and the rise in hate and the Takfiri ideology (becasue of the Saudi funding of course)
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True.

Are you Egyptian Danny? I've known Egyptians in the past and I know you guys are extremely proud of your heritage, I wanted to ask if Egyptians feel a fraternal connection with Gulf Arabs or are they seen as quite different?
 
RedTiger said:
True.

Are you Egyptian Danny? I've known Egyptians in the past and I know you guys are extremely proud of your heritage, I wanted to ask if Egyptians feel a fraternal connection with Gulf Arabs or are they seen as quite different?
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No I'm not Egyptian, but I lived in/visited several Arabic countries.
 
What's interesting about Egypt in the context of this conversation is that it was once the centre of probably the greatest Shi'i empire of them all, the Fatimids (who were Ismailis/Seveners) who built Cairo and founded al-Azhar which is now regarded as the most prestigious centre of Sunni learning in the Islamic world. Possibly due to that legacy some of the central figures in popular Shi'i devotionalism such as Husayn and Zaynab are revered there in a way that doesn't really happen elsewhere in the Sunni world. Of course today even the mainstream Azhar is obsessed with clamping down on any signs of Shi'i practice or proselytising in Egypt, despite the Shi'a being an insignificant minority there.

(Very recent example here - http://www.madamasr.com/news/hussein-mosque-shrine-closed-bar-shias-observing-ashura-holiday)
 
2cents said:
What's interesting about Egypt in the context of this conversation is that it was once the centre of probably the greatest Shi'i empire of them all, the Fatimids (who were Ismailis/Seveners) who built Cairo and founded al-Azhar which is now regarded as the most prestigious centre of Sunni learning in the Islamic world. Possibly due to that legacy some of the central figures in popular Shi'i devotionalism such as Husayn and Zaynab are revered there in a way that doesn't really happen elsewhere in the Sunni world. Of course today even the mainstream Azhar is obsessed with clamping down on any signs of Shi'i practice or proselytising in Egypt, despite the Shi'a being an insignificant minority there.

(Very recent example here - http://www.madamasr.com/news/hussein-mosque-shrine-closed-bar-shias-observing-ashura-holiday)
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I mean, it was the Shiites that spread Islam no? At least across Northern Africa. The fact that they basically banned Ashoura in Egypt this year is kind of crazy.
 
Tim Henman said:
I mean, it was the Shiites that spread Islam no? At least across Northern Africa. The fact that they basically banned Ashoura in Egypt this year is kind of crazy.
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They didn't ban Ashura for Shias per se, but they closed Hussein's shrine to stop them from conductingthe self flagellation / self harm that they do after visiting the shrine. All the masaajid were open and to my knowledge that was the only thing that they did (shrine closure) for Ashura.
 
Uzz said:
They didn't ban Ashura for Shias per se, but they closed Hussein's shrine to stop them from conductingthe self flagellation / self harm that they do after visiting the shrine. All the masaajid were open and to my knowledge that was the only thing that they did (shrine closure) for Ashura.
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That ought to be banned. They made me miss the start of the movie on muharram with there processions on the road.
 
Uzz said:
Oh right. Thought you were Shia myself. Is the maatum that occurs in Delhi quite tame or is it on the more gory side of the scale?
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Im a sunni although i have relatives who are shia aswell.

I didn't see people beating themselves silly although there were numerous tazia processions across the city which caused massive traffic jams.
 
VidaRed said:
Im a sunni although i have relatives who are shia aswell.

I didn't see people beating themselves silly although there were numerous tazia processions across the city which caused massive traffic jams.
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Im pretty sure the self beating is almost exclusively an Iraqi thing, I don't think its that widespread in Iran come to think of it.
 
RedTiger said:
Im pretty sure the self beating is almost exclusively an Iraqi thing, I don't think its that widespread in Iran come to think of it.
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It's quite common in Lebanon and Turkey too, but Iraqis tend to be the most brutal with it.
 
Why should Ahamdis be considered muslim?

I've probably worded the question quite aggressively and it sounds like I'm saying, why should x be considered innocent, rather than guilty....but, my question stands.

I'm no expert and I am not seeking a fatwa or for them to be labeled heretics etc etc. I simply want to know how their belief or as they call it interpretation of the Quran can be reconciled with something that goes goes against everything 9/10 muslims, be they moderate, conservative or extremists believes in.
 
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