Sunni and Shia in Islam - R4's Beyond Belief

[Guest]

I post a link to this informative programme because I was never too clear about the distinction between the two branches of Islam and their representation in the countries of the Middle East

"At times in history religion can appear to be a destructive force. Today the current conflict in the middle-east is increasingly defined along sectarian lines. From Iraq where a thousand people were killed in sectarian violence in July, the highest monthly death toll for five years according the UN; to Pakistan, where the minority Shia community has experienced repeated attacks by hard-line Sunni militant groups; to Syria where the ruling Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, is embroiled in an increasing bloody civil war with the largely Sunni rebel forces.

A fault line has emerged throughout the middle-east dividing the region along Sunni and Shia lines. Where did this division within Islam occur and is it really the cause of these conflicts or merely being exploited for political gain?

Ernie Rae is joined by Murtaza Hussain, a Sunni Muslim, writer and journalist specialising in foreign policy and the Middle East. Dr Ali Al-Hilli is an Iraqi activist, lecturer and a Shia Muslim and Dr Carool Kersten, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World, King's College London"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03b0q9r

[aeolium]

Thanks for the link, am51. I had a listen and it was an interesting insight, from the inside, into those different branches of Islam. Although it touched quite a bit on recent history, it was a programme that focussed on issues of faith and how divisions within Islam came about. I would have liked a longer programme that was able to look at different strains even within the Sunni and Shia sects, such as the Salafis, of which mention was made a few times. And also with a historian who was able to unpick how tensions between Sunni/Shia/secularism had developed in the different countries of the Middle East in the C20 - but that would have been a different programme. I am still puzzled about the alliance between the predominantly Shia Iranian regime and the Assad regime given that the latter is of the same secular Ba'athist party that ruled in Saddam's Iraq - and against whom the Iranians were violently opposed and indeed fought the 8-year war.

[amateur51]

Thanks for the link, am51. I had a listen and it was an interesting insight, from the inside, into those different branches of Islam. Although it touched quite a bit on recent history, it was a programme that focussed on issues of faith and how divisions within Islam came about. I would have liked a longer programme that was able to look at different strains even within the Sunni and Shia sects, such as the Salafis, of which mention was made a few times. And also with a historian who was able to unpick how tensions between Sunni/Shia/secularism had developed in the different countries of the Middle East in the C20 - but that would have been a different programme. I am still puzzled about the alliance between the predominantly Shia Iranian regime and the Assad regime given that the latter is of the same secular Ba'athist party that ruled in Saddam's Iraq - and against whom the Iranians were violently opposed and indeed fought the 8-year war.

I agree aeolium - I messaged them to say much of that (tho' not as eloquently) and that another more detailed programme and more contemporary voices would be welcome

[eighthobstruction]

Yes Aeolium....if you look in the Beyond Belief Archive you may find such a programme that will give you such info....

[vinteuil]

I am still puzzled about the alliance between the predominantly Shia Iranian regime and the Assad regime given that the latter is of the same secular Ba'athist party that ruled in Saddam's Iraq - and against whom the Iranians were violently opposed and indeed fought the 8-year war.

... but then Assad is an Alawi, which is an offshoot of the Shi'a, and thus opposed to the Sunni - so there will be some common currency between Syrian Alawites and Iranian Shi'a...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Islam

[aeolium]

... but then Assad is an Alawi, which is an offshoot of the Shi'a, and thus opposed to the Sunni - so there will be some common currency between Syrian Alawites and Iranian Shi'a...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Islam

Yes, I was aware of that (and it was mentioned in the programme) but I thought that Assad's rule - following that of his father - was characterised by a combination of secularism, authoritarianism and the cult of personality, though an element of sectarianism in the support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. But as with Saddam the main persecution was of political rather than religious (sectarian) enemies. And the initial opposition to Assad in the Free Syrian Army in 2011 was not AFAIK primarily Sunni but formed of people opposed to authoritarian rule - only later have Sunni factions including foreign fighters made the civil war more sectarian.

The whole mess needs a proper investigative programme.

[amateur51]

Yes, I was aware of that (and it was mentioned in the programme) but I thought that Assad's rule - following that of his father - was characterised by a combination of secularism, authoritarianism and the cult of personality, though an element of sectarianism in the support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. But as with Saddam the main persecution was of political rather than religious (sectarian) enemies. And the initial opposition to Assad in the Free Syrian Army in 2011 was not AFAIK primarily Sunni but formed of people opposed to authoritarian rule - only later have Sunni factions including foreign fighters made the civil war more sectarian.

The whole mess needs a proper investigative programme.

No wonder I'm confused - it's almost as complex as religious factions in North Wales in the 1920s

[eighthobstruction]

This Ba'athist aspect is strange....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba%27athism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba%27ath_Party_%28Iraqi-dominated_faction%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba%27ath_Party_%28Syrian-dominated_faction%29

[vinteuil]

/ ... / - only later have Sunni factions including foreign fighters made the civil war more sectarian.

The whole mess / ... / .

Yes, I think that the best desciption of where we are now is "a mess". And one of the worst aspects is that, as aeolium rightly points out, what had heretofore been primarily political divergences have now crystallized very firmly into sectarian divisions : on the one side Alawites, joined by a beleaguered Christian minority, supported by Shi'ite interests in Iran and elsewhere - against an increasingly radicalised Sunni majority, supported by hothead al-Qa'ida interests and Sa'udi backed Wahhabi hardliners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi_movement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda