Resident Fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht

Since the sectarian war exploded in Iraq after the bombing of the Shiite shrine at Samarra in February 2006, it has become commonplace to hear about a Sunni-Shiite collision in the Muslim world. Does the savage sectarian conflict in Iraq, which is perhaps still in its infancy, threaten to ignite a much larger clash between the two most important communities inside Islam? How real and global is this confrontation?

The Sunni-Shiite split is not the oldest internecine conflict in Islam--the Kharijite secession coalesced earlier and in its emphasis on declaring Muslims of divergent views beyond the pale (takfir) continues on in the most severe form of murderous contemporary Salafi fundamentalism. But Shiism historically has been easily the most momentous fault line. The Shia are not wrong to see classical Islamic civilization, which begins with the rise of the Umayyad caliphate in 661 and ends with the apogee of the Abbasid caliphate in the middle of the ninth century, as a Sunni cooption of Shiite themes and passions. The idea that the Prophet's blood carried with it a charisma and a presumption to rule was certainly powerfully present from the earliest period: The Caliph Ali, a nephew and son-in-law of Muhammad, and his descendants had a strong, if not the strongest claim, to the Prophet's mantle among those who became Muslims in the first two centuries of the faith. Yet, instead, Abu Bakr was chosen as successor. In any case, early Islamic history is dangerous terrain for a historian since primary material for a hundred years is scant or non-existent, and there is a tendency among scholars--particularly among modern Sunni Arab historians and intellectuals--to see crystallized ideas in Islam before they in fact took shape. (In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, absolutely essential terrain for archeological work on Islam in its most protean period, path-breaking research is virtually impossible if the authorities know that such work's intent is to illuminate the evolution of the faith, to better explore the connections between the Jahiliyya, the "Time of Ignorance" that preceded Muhammad’s revelations and after as the Islamic community expanded through conquest.)

It is safe to say that as Shiism developed it became the classical period's most enduring protest movement--a cause that gained sympathizers as the perception spread that the Islamic community, especially its leadership, no longer held the keys to salvation. During the Umayyad caliphate, many Muslims, the sources strongly suggest, felt the Islamic enterprise losing its way. Caliphs were no longer shepherds of the faithful, guiding them in the true path towards the afterlife. They had become irreligious kings, connected to the Prophet's mission neither by their acts nor their blood. When the Abbasids defeated the Umayyads in 750, they rode to power on a widespread wave of Shiite sentiments. The early Abbasids were ambiguous about their Alid affections and intentions, giving the impression to many that the "Abbasid revolution" was a vehicle for a Shiite restoration, that is, a descendant of Ali through his wife Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, would become caliph. The Sunni orthodoxy of the dynasty only solidified when the Abbasid caliphs abandoned their Shiite flirtation and based their rule squarely upon what had become known as Sunni theory and practice. Shiism remains a touchy issue for Sunnis, in part because Shiism is a rejection of accepted Sunni dogma and glory. Shiism explicitly challenges Sunnism’s legitimacy by implying that Sunni Islam’s early Golden Age--is founded on a lie, a perversion of God’s ordained rightful order.

This can be especially galling to modern Arabs, with modern sensibilities about Arabism and pan-Arabist pride, since Islam’s earliest time--in Shiite eyes, its most sinful--is seen as the Sunni Arabs' heydey inside Islam. By the end of the Umayyad period, other peoples had embraced the faith in large numbers. Until the discovery of oil in the Middle East, Sunni Arabs did not recapture a preeminent position inside Islam's large family. For those modern Sunni Arabs who've energetically married the Western idea of nationalism to the older loyalties of tribe and ethnicity, Shiism soils the pride that a formerly imperial people take in their greatest victories. And for Sunni fundamentalists, Shiites ascribe partners (mushrikun) to God, by granting Ali and his descendants the special powers of intercession between man and Allah. Among faithful Sunnis, there is perhaps nothing more repellant, at least for someone proclaiming to be a Muslim, than the sin of shirk, the diminution and subcontracting of God’s awesome unity. As has been pointed out, people in the region have a long memory and even non-religious Sunni Muslims take pride in the achievements of early Islam.

It was common to hear Iraqi exiles before 2003, and Iraqis at home until recently, belittle the differences between Shiites and Sunnis. Among both the secular crowd, who must by definition diminish the significance of creeds, and the traditionally religious, who feel God’s chosen community can peacefully comprehend divergent, if errant, views, emphasizing differences was always a faux pas, if not morally offensive. They strongly disliked foreigners asking about sectarian identities. Westerners, and perhaps Americans most acutely, who dislike identifying people politically by their religion, were also often as adamant as the Iraqis in not discussing Mesopotamia religiously. This reflex was probably most pronounced among "Arabist" academics who opposed the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and conversely among many liberals and neoconservatives who supported toppling Saddam. On this issue, and probably on no other, could one find greater unanimity at the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and among Paul Bremer, Ahmad Chalabi, Ayyad Alawi, Adnan Pachachi and Kanan Makiya. 

This ecumenical sentiment, however sincerely expressed, poorly reflects the historic tension that has existed between the two communities. It fails to capture the reality that this "tolerant" disposition among Arabs matured under Sunni supremacy throughout the Middle East. The status quo has now decisively and irrevocably changed in Iraq and Lebanon, two of the three Arab lands (the tiny island of Bahrain is the third) where Shiites are either a clear majority (Iraq and Bahrain) or are close to being demographically the dominant community (Lebanon). Sunni tolerance for the Shia--not a common feature in either the classical or medieval era when Shiite movements or dynasties threatened Sunni predominance--has been relatively easy in modern times since Shiite power in the Arab world seemed an oxymoron. 

The Palestinian and the Israeli invasions of Lebanon--and the former, with its greater day-to-day depredations against the Shia, is perhaps more pivotal than the Israeli occupation after 1982 in giving the Lebanese Shiite community a political identity--and the American wars in Iraq in 1990-91 and 2003-07 have forever changed the Sunni-Shiite dynamic. Before, Sunni Arabs reflexively viewed themselves as politically and militarily superior to the Shia Arabs, and the Shiites in turn saw themselves as a permanent underclass. Reborn through violence and the power of the demographic, the Shia of Lebanon and Iraq have now come into their own, and Sunnis everywhere must live with it. This isn’t easy. For Sunni Arab fundamentalists, who today are far more influential in their societies than they were in 1979, when Iran’s revolution shook the region, its probably impossible. 

In 1979, diehard Sunni fundamentalists could praise Iran’s revolution even though they might concurrently excoriate its Shiite content. A revolution spearheaded by those championing rule by the sharia successfully took place, though those deciding what the sharia was were Shiite ulama. Yet Shiite and Sunni differences in interpreting the Holy Law are not large and are not regularly mentioned by fire-breathing anti-Shiite Salafis (the issue of muta', "temporary marriage" being the big exception). Iran's revolution also had universal modern Muslim themes, preeminently anti-Westernism and anti-Americanism, which could resonate in any Sunni fundamentalist's heart. Iraq's Shiites, who are early in the process of building a post-Saddam identity, could well try to underscore their anti-American bona fides as they develop, and as they bloodily take their revenge against the Iraqi Sunni Arab community for its sins before, during, and after Saddam. This is certainly the intention of Muqtada al-Sadr, who preaches a staunch, at times ferocious, anti-Americanism. His anti-Americanism is always framed by a non-sectarian radical Islamic-cum-nationalist Iraqi call to unity, even as his men slaughter Sunni Arabs and attempt to cleanse much of Baghdad of its Sunni denizens. 

It is at this time unclear whether the bloodletting in Iraq--the distinct possibility that the Sunni-Shiite clash could reach a genocidal intensity--will overwhelm the ecumenical anti-Americanism of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the clerical regime in Tehran, and radicalized Shia of Iraq who have incorporated anti-Americanism as a tenet of the faith. Anti-Americanism is perhaps the most powerful ideological force softening a Sunni-Shiite collision that could conceivably grip much of the Muslim world. Hezbollah, Iran's mullahs, and in all probability the radical Shia of Iraq will stress empathically the anti-Americanism in their Islamic messages if the Sunni-Shiite collision worsens. If the Shia are forced to commence a slow, brutal conquest of the Arab Sunni regions of Iraq, not at all a remote possibility if the Americans withdraw and the Sunni Arab community cannot stop insurgents and suicide bombers from striking the Shia, then we can expect to see Hezbollah, Iran's rulers, and the radical Iraqi Shia trumpet their anti-American credentials in the hope of counterbalancing this bloody Shiite conquest. This approach is likely to have some appeal, even among Sunni Arabs who fear the growth of Shiite power in the region some of whom harbor fairly strong anti-Shiite prejudices. Such is the power of anti-Westernism/anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

Yet among the most radical Sunnis Salafis, and perhaps among moderate Sunnis fearful of Shiite power, this approach may just augment both their anti-Shiite and anti-American passions. Many Sunni Arabs appear to blame the United States for the current growing prominence of the Shia--a charge obviously not without foundation. It's difficult to see the reification of the Anglo-American writer Andrew Sullivan’s hope for a Shiite-Sunni clash in Iraq actually leading to a diminished focus on the United States in the Muslim world. The opposite seems much more likely.

Although it’s difficult now to envision an actual hot war developing between the Sunnis and the Shiites outside of Iraq, Mesopotamia is already offering a theater for indirect conflict, a war of religious proxies. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have clearly chosen the Sunni Arab side; Iran and Hezbollah will work strenuously to see that their type of Shiites triumph. The potential for indirect conflict will only go up if the United States withdraws from Iraq over the next two years. The temptation for the United States to ally itself with "moderate governments" in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the two most important intellectual fonts of Sunni militancy and the birthplaces of bin Ladenism, to counter Iranian influence could also fan the flames of Shiite and Sunni radicalism, making neither more sympathetic to the United States nor to each other. The nuclearization of the Muslim Middle East also seems likely if this scenario develops and the United States, Europe, and Israel fail to thwart the development of nuclear weapons by Tehran. The struggle for power and salvation that started after the death of the Prophet Muhammad would then have an entirely new dimension.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at AEI.