Islamic Schism

By
Ali AlHaddad (2007)

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, the topic of Shiah and Sunnah has gained relevance. Few people outside Islam know what the conflict is about, and they suggest that it goes back to disagreement – when Mohammed died in 632CE- as to who his temporal successor ( Caliph ) should be. This myth purports that Sunnis say that the actual 4 successors were the rightful ones, whereas Shiis consider the first three as usurpers and that the fourth, Ali, was the only rightful one. This tale is both a contorted version of the truth and an incomplete one. For starters, the dispute over leadership did not happen when Mohammed peacefully died (and was replaced) in 632 CE, but rather in 656 CE when the third Caliph, Uthman, was murdered by a large mob at the end of months of political upheaval that all Muslims call the Great Fitna meaning discord, disorder or deviation [from the way]. More importantly, there is no credible record of dispute between Ali and any of his three predecessors. On the contrary, he was a prominent advisor to each of them. But there is ample evidence of dispute between Ali, during his rule, and Mu’aa’wiya who opposed Ali’s leadership, and the two fought in the battle of Siffin in 657 CE. So the schism did not follow Mohammed’s death in 632 CE, but followed the great Fitna that martyred Uthman and the counter-revolt of Mu’aa’wiya, who was Uthman’s kin and had personal lust for power. Finally it is clear that the schism was political, and remained so for over a century before acquiring its theological veneer. Nor do most Muslims know these facts. They rather wallow in ignorance; which is fertile soil for prejudice and enmity.

METHODOLOGY

The best way to understand the conflict is to trace its historical evolution, a path that begins with one major hurdle: BIAS. When reading history, how can one extract the truth from the accounts of historians who are themselves biased by their own political leanings? My solution is in tools and guidelines such as:

By juxtaposing lessons from both sources and using guidelines from the books of Ali alWardi (American-educated professor of sociology at Baghdad University) I was able to see the difference between muslim and pre-muslim SOCIAL values. That difference was the key to initiating the political clash which long preceded the religious divide.

The SAGA

Seventh Century Arabian society was a product of its environment: an arid desert whose inhabitants subsisted on raising camels and sheep, and the fortunate had the luxury of horses. They moved around seeking pasture that sparingly resulted from scant rains. Few scattered oases sprang around sources of ground water and provided meager agricultural produce. The scarcity of water and food drove them to periodically migrate northward into Mesopotamia, Syria and the Jordan River. But my paper deals with those who remained in the water-poor and hungry desert. They competed, even fought, over the scant resources of their habitat, and they roamed the desert, searching for these resources, living in tents. They quickly realized that there was strength in numbers and that individual families could not be secure, so they coalesced into big clans, and tribes. That made the tribe the focus of their allegiance because it was the way to survival. Tribes fought tribes primarily over pasture then over power and control, in accordance with the human story. Their guidelines for behavior, (i.e. religion) reflected their situation. That meant you were better off strong not weak, male not female, in the prime of life rather than at the extremes of it, in possession of wealth and power rather than devoid of them. Society had the moral code of muruwwa, best translated as chivalry which implied that you were respected for excellence, and more so if you then extended your largess to the less fortunate. Still, the weak, whether an individual or a clan, found more security in alliance with a strong tribe. So the religion of the desert WAS the Law of the Jungle. Each tribe had a stone for an idol or deity and most of these idols were housed in the city of Mecca in the shrine of the Kaaba which was thought to have been built by Abraham.

But fighting was suspended for four months a year. These were the Sacred or Forbidden Months. Groups and individuals used that time to meet- somewhere within the 20 mile radius around  Mecca, deemed holy because of the Kaaba. People gathered and performed pilgrimage, traded, socialized, negotiated settlement of disputes, enjoyed horseracing, gambled, drank and recited their poetry, which was society’s only cultural activity.
Mecca was populated by the tribe of Quraish, which engaged in trade. The combination of peace and huge gatherings, contributed to the economic prosperity of Quraish which used its wealth to strike treaties with all tribes along its trade routes thus ensuring even bigger wealth. The ethos of Mecca, were similar to those of the surrounding desert, plus the decadence of unchecked wealth and power. In the year of Muhammed’s birth, the Abyssinian ruler of South Arabia, trying to stem Quraish’s power, attacked Mecca with an army enforced with elephants. He failed, putatively due to supernatural intervention, adding a mystical dimension to the reputation of Quraish and Mecca. That was in 570 CE the year Muhammed was born, shortly after his father’s death.

Poor and illiterate, Muhammed still distinguished himself with remarkable honesty and being a wise problem-solver. In his twenties, he worked for a wealthy businesswoman, Khadija whom he married and became business manager for. That enabled him to travel outside Arabia. In 610 CE, he began to speak of divine revelations he got from an angel. These revelations were compiled as the Koran. They taught that life was a preparatory stage for the Afterlife, a concept alien to seventh century Arabs. Worship of stone idols was to be abandoned for the eternal, omniscient omnipotent & omnipresent God, who alone deserved total surrender and obedience. God demanded that humans lead a life of virtue, compassion and chastity, reminding the Arabs of past prophets, such as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Salih, Hud, Moses and Jesus whose people either perished or flourished, depending on whether they opposed or followed their respective prophets. The nuclear family, not the tribe, was to be the focus of one’s life. Unlike the practice of the time, when might made right, the Koran specified that each individual had obligations and rights that were clearly spelled out. Islam was similar to Judaism in that it detailed the “correct” acts of daily living. In the Afterlife, a person answered for her/his behavior on Judgment Day, receiving huge rewards or horrible punishment.

Muhammed’s message appealed to the underprivileged in Mecca, and was fiercely opposed by the powerful, who feared loss of their privileged status. Opposition got steadily worse culminating in a murder plot in 622, forcing him and his few followers to migrate 250 miles north to Medina. This was an important milestone in the life of Muhammed and Islam, and marked the beginning of the Muslim or Hijri Dateline.
Muhammed’s migration was both a refuge for him and an acceptance of the invitation from the residents of Medina who sought his mediation skills to save them from their internecine warfare. He quickly solved the civic problem in Medina by changing their focus from their divisions to the unifying influence of his new religion, which they all adopted. This effectively installed him as the civil ruler of that small city, in addition to his spiritual role as the Messenger of God, which was his title. He started out by getting all factions in the city, including the three Jewish tribes that kept their faith, to sign the Medina Charter, which guaranteed freedom and protection for all city residents and demanded everyone’s pledge to refrain from supporting outsiders against the local community. This phase lasted until his death ten years later, and was marked by attacks from his own pagan tribe of Quraish. He won all but the second of these battles, which ended in a stalemate. This resulted in the waning of the prestige of Quraish in the Peninsula and the waxing of Muhammed’s. Two years before his death, he led a campaign against Mecca, and bloodlessly took it, declaring amnesty for all former enemies, as all Meccans accepted Islam and joined Muhammed’s community, the Umma. After that, Islam and its new way of life was accepted by most Arabs. Muhammed’s lifestyle, his sayings and his behavior collectively form the Hadith or Tradition in Islam, and it is deemed second to the Koran as a source of Shariaa, or Muslim Jurisprudence. He had a unique conglomeration of human skills and personality strengths that enabled him to win an entire populace to a new paradigm. His death in 632 CE, left a huge void that his Companions, i.e. his core supporters, scrambled to fill. With the notion that he was the last in the line of prophets, Muslims merely sought to replace his temporal power as a community leader. Though Muhammed’s Companions were only few score strong, of the ones who survived him, four would successively replace him as leaders:

Leaders following Prophet Muhammed

AbuBakr	572-634 CE	Ruled 632-634
Omar	582-644 CE	Ruled 634-644
Uthman	576-656 CE	Ruled 644-656
Ali	601-661 CE	Ruled 656-661

During Muhammed’s funeral, the original inhabitants of Medina met to appoint one of them as ruler. Omar took his close friend AbuBakr to the meeting and promoted him as Caliph or successor arguing that the ruler had to be from Quraish [2]. AbuBakr spent most of his two years in office putting out political fires; then he proposed Omar as his successor. Omar had a strong personality and was fiercely loyal to the egalitarian tenets of Islam. He re-affirmed the spirit and practices of Muhammed’s time, and his rule was marked by the spread of Islam beyond Arabia; into the Fertile Crescent, then westward into North Africa and eastward into eastern Persia. He enforced strict justice on all, starting with himself, and was confident enough to even modify a few practices of Muhammed. In my personal opinion, he was the best ruler the Muslims ever had.  Omar was so good that he was a tough act to follow, and so his successor Uthman was doomed.

Uthman was a mild-mannered merchant, so wealthy that he had financed one of Muhammed’s military campaigns when the Umma was financially broke. His life- style and outlook were very different from Omar’s austerity. When taking office, Uthman was old. Hence, for matters of state, Uthman relied heavily on his relatives, the clan of Umayya, father of AbuSufian, who had been the leader of the pagan Meccans, Muhammed’s arch-enemies. Members of that clan did not accept Islam until late, and never shed their pre-islamic values. Whereas Omar had carefully chosen his deputies, and strictly monitored their behavior, Uthman- largely due to frailty and kindness- gave his appointees, who were mostly relatives, a free hand. They were corrupt and ruled harshly with arrogance that was not palatable to the populace. Uthman’s governor in Syria was Mu-aa-wia, the son of AbuSufian and Hind, each a bitter enemy of Muhammed. The governor of Egypt was Uthman’s foster-brother, and of Kufa(Iraq), was Uthman’s half-brother, and through dishonesty and corruption, each contributed to public discontent [3].
As people criticized Uthman for nepotism and indecision, they not only wished for Omar, but also wished that Ali, not Uthman had been chosen after Omar. Ali, the Prophet’s young cousin, had been raised by him. Before age ten years, Ali was the first male to accept Islam. He then earned fame for knowledge of the Koran, strict piety and distinguished courage and swordsmanship. For the 22 years of Muhammed’s life as prophet, Ali was his scribe and right-hand man, and then married his daughter Fatima giving Muhammed his two grandsons, Hassan and Hussain on whom he doted. After the Prophet’s death, Ali was a prominent advisor to AbuBakr, Omar and Uthman. Like Omar’s had been, Ali’s private life was piously simple, in contrast to the luxury of Uthman and his kinsmen.

During the season of Pilgrimage in 655, delegates from the provinces came to Medina and voiced their discontent to the Caliph, who – with Ali’s help – managed to appease them and sent them home. In 656, they came back in a worse mood and demanded Uthman’s resignation. Here the story becomes a thriller, and after some twists in the plot, the rebels besieged the Caliph’s house and killed him. The Muslims came to call the anti-Uthman mutiny and his murder as the Great Fitna, meaning discord, disorder and deviation from the right path. After that Ali was elected Caliph, and he had to be pressured to accept as he was disgusted with both sides in the conflict.

Ali’s first act in office was to fire all Uthman’s appointees, appeasing the rebels. He did not track and punish the mob that had murdered Uthman. Two former Companions of the Prophet plus the Prophet’s youngest widow, blamed Ali for failure to avenge the murder, and the three led a mutiny. The mutiny failed.
A more fierce and more wily opponent of Ali was Mu-aa-wiya who refused to accept Ali’s leadership and accused him of harboring the murderers of Uthman. He led an army that marched on Ali’s capital Kufa, and the two met in the battle of Siffin which ended in a stalemate. He thus split Islamdom into two camps; and THAT was the islamic schism of 657 which was purely political. Ironically, 27years after Muhammed’s victory over AbuSufian at the peaceful capture of Mecca, the house of the latter finally and eternally defeated the house of the former.

Ali’s blood ties to the Prophet, his piety, knowledge and legal expertise; and his long resume in the service of Islam that dated back to its inception, all earned him admirers that were called the Shiah of Ali, i.e. the fan club or supporters of Ali, a group that dates back to Muhammed’s time, but their ranks swelled during the Fitna. Ali’s life, especially the period during which he was a Caliph, show that political savvy was not one of his attributes. It was however, the strongest quality of his opponent. Luck would have that Ali was assassinated in 661 CE, whereas Mu-aa-wiya escaped the same plot. So the coast was clear for him to proclaim himself Caliph, move the capital to Damascus and start a dynasty. He began to whitewash his mutinous Islam-splitting record, and used the oldest trick in the book to promote himself by maligning his opponent and inventing shortcomings to attribute to him. He paid a well-known historian of Muhammed’s life to fabricate tales that cast Ali in a negative way and invent an estrangement between Ali and his three predecessors. At THIS point the myth was created, by Mu-aa-wiya, of discord between Ali and his three predecessors. Mu-aa-wiya, being a renegade was deflecting attention from his shortcomings, by casting his opponent, then dead, in a negative light. He also began a tradition maintained thru the 89years of his dynasty. That was to curse Ali from the pulpit during the Friday sermon. His Machiavellian skills allowed him to gradually contain his opposition, which after the assassination of its namesake, turned to his eldest son Hassan for leadership. The son had no stomach to fight city hall and kept a pacifist life until his death. That was immediately followed by the death of Mu-aa-wiya, who had secured the community’s allegiance to his son Yazid, and installed him as successor Caliph.   

  
The introduction of a hereditary monarchy, plus Yazid’s immorality, corruption and pre-Islamic values alienated the people. They turned to Ali’s young son Hussain for leadership, urging him to revolt against the Umayyads. Hussain had an augmented version of his father’s idealism and was not pragmatic at all. In 680 CE, he traveled with his family and a handful of supporters to Iraq, that contained most of the Shiah. Yazid’s army met them en route in Kerbala, killed, mutilated and decapitated Hussain, killed his supporters and family members, and took the non-combatants prisoners. It shocked the Muslims that Muhammed’s grandchild was “hewn like a carcass fit the hounds”. The massacre in Kerbala has since served as a potent propaganda and recruitment tool for the Shiah. Every year to this day, different Shiah communities commemorate the occasion called Ashura, with re-enactment of the events and public demonstrations of grief and remorse. Also, Hussain’s revolt against over-whelming odds established, in the Shiah political platform, a tradition of opposing unjust rulers. Thus the Ummayds’ 89 years of tyranny was the second phase in the schism, i.e. the establishment of the Shiah as the political Opposition.

The next phase of the schism was during the Abbasyd dynasty which lasted from 750 to 1258 CE, the first two or three centuries of which, were the Golden Age of the Muslims. There were tremendous advances in literature, science, philosophy, medicine and theology. The fact that Islam was so pertinent to the daily life of its followers and that life conditions had changed so much, created a lot of theological questions. Scholars emerged as a result, and a lot of thinking writing teaching and discussion took place. That eventually gave birth to five schools of Islamic theology. The founder of one school was Jaafar alSadiq, a descendant of Hussain, and his teachings were eagerly adopted by the Shiah political group, so much so that his school of theology, called the Jaafari school is much more commonly referred to as the Shiah school. The other four schools are collectively called the Sunnah schools in reference to Muhammed’s sunnah i.e. his teachings, his behavior and legacy. And THAT was when the political schism got its theological façade.

Scholars/Founders of the Five Main Theological Schools of Islam

Jaafar AlSadiq d. 765 CE, Jaafari school or Twelver Shiah

AbuHaneefah d. 769 CE, Hanafi school

Malik Ibn Anas d. 795 CE, Maliki school

AlShafi d. 820 CE, Shafi’i school

Ibn Hanbal d. 855 CE, Hanbali school

The last four schools are collectively referred to (as are their followers ) as the Sunnah, or the Sunnis.
The major fact, that is accepted by all, is that Islamic scholars since they emerged in the eighth century, have all turned to the Koran plus Muhammed’s biography and teachings, i.e. sunnah, to find answers for questions of the day. The major difficulty is that whereas the Koran was written down within 2 decades of Muhammed’s death and was agreed upon before the Great Fitna, Muhammed’s sunnah, did not start to be recorded until over a century had passed. That century was full of political upheaval when each side referred correctly or falsely to the Prophet to establish their point of view. Also, after the political schism of 657 CE, most historical accounts- which formed an important component of theological reasoning- were heavily influenced by the political persuasion of the authors; and that has obviously been detrimental to scholarly theology.

TODAY

All muslims agree on the five PILLARS of islam : Declaration of faith, Prayer, Fasting, Pilgrimmage and Charitable giving. As to the FUNDAMENTALS or Usul of Islam, there is agreement on three: Monotheism of the [immaterial] God, Prophecy of Muhammed and Resurrection on Judgment Day. To these three agreed upon fundamentals, Shia theology adds two, that are not accepted by Sunnis:

This goes back to the time of Muhammed, when Ali was the scribe, and also was an intellectual  and theologian who memorized the Koran. But at that time muslims did not need a theologian since they had Muhammed. Six or seven score years later, that need became acute. Shiis believed that in a time that lacked schools, and knowledge was acquired at home; that Ali was THE teacher i.e. Imam. He was raised, since childhood, by Muhammed, learned Islam at home (and from the beginning of Islam) staying with Muhammed until his death. Also Ali was the Prophet’s cousin then son-in-law then was appointed successor by Muhammed in his speech at Ghadir Khum, shortly before his death. From that, Shiis construct the concept that all teaching is most reliable if it stems from references attributed to Ali or one of eleven descendants of his, each called an Imam. Hence is the notion of the twelve Imams and Twelver Shiism. On the other hand, Suunis who highly revere Ali and relate the Ghadir Khum speech in their reference, e.g. Musned Ibn Hanbel, point out that the idea of hereditary theology is an oxymoron. Islam is an equal opportunity notion, where all are equal and any is free to study and teach theology.

But almost all muslims acquire the sect of their parents. All they know about sectarian differences is superficial, e.g. that Sunnis cross their arms when they stand to pray while Shiis hang them by their sides. Also Sunnis ascribe a combined human/suprahuman status to Muhammed, while Shiis ascribe that status to him AND to his (i.e. Ali’s) descendants However, the two afore-mentioned difference ended in placing the Jaafari school alone versus the other four schools. So again, the schism is political though the books contain intellectual differences. This leads me to point out how Shiis as a group interact with rulers in general.

Because of the rebelliousness of political Shiah in emulation of their hero (Hussain), their theological school was rarely adopted by Islamic rulers who usually chose one of the other four schools, and the populace followed suit. The martyrdom of Hussain has, under despotic rulers – of which Islamdom has had an endless supply- gained more followers to Shiism. A much less important recruitment tool for shiism has to do with the inheritance by daughters when there is no male heir.
A case in point is that of the three Islamic empires of the latter part of the second millennium of the Common Era. The western part of Islamdom was ruled by the Ottomans in Asia Minor and the eastern by the Moguls in the Indian Subcontinent and they were both Sunni. Sandwiched between them was Iran ruled by the Safavids whose forerunner Ismail chose Shi-ism because it furthered his political interests at the time [6] [7]. He then forced the Sunni Iranians to adopt Shiah theology which they hold to this day.
Looking at the 1.5 billion Muslims today one sees remarkable features: poverty, ignorance and under-development: elements conducive to prejudice and intolerance. One hopes that Muslims will pay more attention to the best commodity money can buy: education.

References

In Addition to the ones I have noted in the text, I have also used: [8], [9], [10]

1. Quran, H., He Frowned. 610 - 632. Sura 80.
2. Momen, M., An introduction to Shii Islam: the history and doctrines of Twelver Shiism Yale University Press, New Haven & London. 1985. 19.
3. Momen, M., An introduction to Shii Islam: the history and doctrines of Twelver Shiism Yale University Press, New Haven & London. 1985. 21.
4. Waines, D., An Introduction to Islam (Introduction to Religion). (April 28, 1995) Cambridge University Press. Chap. 4.
5. Momen, M., An introduction to Shii Islam: the history and doctrines of Twelver Shiism Yale University Press, New Haven & London. 1985. 177 Item 5.
6. Waines, D., An Introduction to Islam (Introduction to Religion). (April 28, 1995) Cambridge University Press. 185.
7. Armstrong, K., Islam A Short History: Modern Library Chronicles Book. 118.
8. Esposito, J.L., What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam. 2002: Oxford University Press.
9. Graham E. Fuller , R.R.F., The Arab Shi'a: The Forgotten Muslims 2006: St. Martin’s Press.
10. Armstrong, K., Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. 1993.

Please use the form below to send us any question, comments or suggestions.