Sectarianism and sectarian de-escalation

The Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs is proud to publish a report, “Diversity and Unity in Transnational Shi’ism (PDF),” based on the proceedings of an international symposium hosted at Harvard University in April, 2021. The symposium brought together interdisciplinary voices from across various interpretations of Shi'a Islam in both contemporary and historical contexts with leading scholars in the field who study the diversity of Shi’a thought and communities across denominational lines including Zaydi, Ismaili, Alevi, Alawite, Bektashi, and Twelver Ja'fari Islam among others. This report includes the edited remarks of the expert participants in the symposium.

While individual works and scholars have focused on distinct Shi'a groups in specific countries or world regions, less attention has been paid to addressing diversity within Shi’ism from a comparative perspective or thinking about how to approach the subject of intra-Shi’a dialogue rather than interfaith dialogue more broadly. This is all the more important as the historical and contemporary legacy of Shi'a Islam is extraordinarily rich and truly global in reach.

The symposium thus fostered a larger dialogue on the historical relationship between Shi’a groups, intellectual and scholarly conversations between them, and contemporary areas of convergence and diversity that intersect with transnational Shi'a groups ranging from Twelvers in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, to Zaydis in the Arabian Peninsula, to Isma'ilis in Tajikistan and India, to Bektashi Shi'as in the Balkans, and to Shi'a diaspora communities in the West and beyond. 

Read or download the report (PDF).

We are excited to release our newly published report, "Legacies of Islamic Ecumenicism: Taqrib, Shi'a-Sunni Relations, and Globalized Politics in the Middle East." The taqrib movement was the most recent large-scale iteration of Shi’a-Sunni ecumenical relations and peacebuilding in the Middle East. This project, launched in the twentieth century, resulted in a sustained scholarly dialogue, joint publications, and flourishing engagement with contemporary and classical Islamic sources. This report focuses on the taqrib movement by featuring several articles by leading scholars in academia as well as by Sunni and Shi’a clergymen whose careers intimately involve them in Shi’a-Sunni dialogue. The authors featured in this report raise pertinent questions regarding both the history and future trajectory of Islamic ecumenicism and the taqrib movement across the Middle East.
 

Authors include: Rainer Brunner (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris), David Commins (Dickinson College), Mohamad Bashar Arafat (Civilizations Exchange & Cooperation Foundation (CECF)), Ibrahim Kazerooni (The Islamic Center of America & University of Detroit Mercy), and Mohammad Sagha (Harvard University & the University of Chicago).

Read full report here.

Iran's strategy with respect to Saudi Arabia is a key factor in the complex balance of power of the Middle East as the Iranian–Saudi rivalry impacts the dynamics of peace and conflict across the region from Yemen to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Bahrain. What is Iranian strategic thinking on Saudi Arabia? And what have been the key factors driving the evolution of Iranian strategy towards the Kingdom? In what marks a substantive shift from its previous detente policy, we argue that Tehran has developed a new containment strategy in response to the perceived threat posed by an increasingly pro-active Saudi Arabia in the post-Arab Spring period. Incorporating rich fieldwork and interviews in the Middle East, this article delineates the theoretical contours of Iranian containment and contextualizes it within the framework of the Persian Gulf security architecture, demonstrating how rational geopolitical decision-making factors based on a containment strategy, rather than the primacy of sectarianism or domestic political orientations, shape Iran's Saudi strategy. Accordingly, the article traces Iranian strategic decision-making towards the Kingdom since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and examines three cases of Iran's current use of containment against Saudi Arabia in Syria, Yemen and Qatar.

Read full article here.

Ali ibn Abi Talib is arguably the single most important spiritual and intellectual authority in Islam after prophet Mohammad. Through his teachings and leadership as fourth caliph, Ali nourished Islam. But Muslims are divided on whether he was supposed to be Mohammad’s political successor—and he continues to be a polarizing figure in Islamic history.
 
Hassan Abbas provides a nuanced, compelling portrait of this towering yet divisive figure and the origins of sectarian division within Islam. Abbas reveals how, after Mohammad, Ali assumed the spiritual mantle of Islam to spearhead the movement that the prophet had led. While Ali’s teachings about wisdom, justice, and selflessness continue to be cherished by both Shia and Sunni Muslims, his pluralist ideas have been buried under sectarian agendas and power politics. Today, Abbas argues, Ali’s legacy and message stands against that of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Taliban.

Read more about the book here.

The 1996 fatwa [recognizing "Sunni Islam" as the official religion of Malaysia] was a pivotal turning point that paved the way for subsequent efforts at "othering" the Shia minority, and through this to discredit and deny them their human rights. That the fatwa was a federal initiative--rather than a state one--ought to have raised warning bells about the central government overstapping its boundaries and encroaching on to the jurisdiction state governments had over Islam. The debate touched on the historical differences between the Sunnis and Shias, or, "sects being treated as religious phenomenon", and it resulted in tremendous bias against the Shias.

We are excited to release our highly timely report, “Engaging Sectarian De- Escalation: Proceedings of the Symposium on Islam and Sectarian De-Escalation.” This report highlights the key themes and takeaways from the Annual Symposium on Sectarian De-Escalation and Dialogue that was held at the Harvard Kennedy School on April 14 and 15 of 2018. The symposium was organized by the Iran Project, which has since expanded to become the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

As part of a larger project on sectarian de-escalation, the symposium gathered key imams, scholars, policymakers and diplomats to cast doubt on simplified sectarian narratives, and to explore interlinked factors and different pathways in the pursuit of reducing the grounds of conflict. By tracing the different political, theological and socio-cultural roots of different narratives, the speakers provided nuance to our conception of sectarianism. This report highlights the key themes that emerged from the symposium, namely the importance of geopolitical literacy; the importance of religious and historical literacy and precedents for peace and diversity; and, recalling vehicles of culture and literature.

This report is a critical contribution to future research and policy making. Through our research domain, Sectarianism and Sectarian De-escalation, we will continue to expand on this knowledge and to explore pathways for durable peace-building and conflict resolution.

Ever since the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, Arab societies have remained vulnerable to cross-border identities. Arab collective identity has been exploited by Arab states to strengthen their regional reach and might. Without this foundation, Abdul Nasser, for instance, would not have been able to embolden Egypt’s regional position. Once a useful tool at the disposal of Arab rulers, this same collective identity turned problematic in other periods. Because of his pursuit of Arab nationalism, Nasser was forced to take action in Yemen and at Egypt’s borders with Israel, which brought about devastating repercussions that lead to the decline of Arab nationalism (see Ajami 1987). The same goes for Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of Salafism as a tool in its foreign policy, which backfired through Al-Qaeda’s ‘internal Jihad’ campaign (see Ahmadian 2012). Therefore, cross-border identities are now a challenging variable for Arab states. Besides cross-border identities, identity crises in Arab states have also emanated from ethnic and sectarian realities. The Kurdish issue, Muslim-Christian conflicts, and Shiite-Sunni rifts in the modern Arab history, are examples of conflicting identities leading to national catastrophes. Although identity is not the only determining factor in conflicts, it is surely an analytical category that is very useful for understanding some of them (Panic 2009, 37).

This report explores the rise of sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where the institutionalization of sectarianism in social and political life dates back to the colonial period. In Lebanon, sectarianism is embedded in everyday life, particularly in the welfare regime, which structures the ways in which citizens attempt to meet their basic needs. Drawing on insights from the author’s original research on the role religious identity plays in Lebanese voters’ political choices, the report turns to the question of how alternative frameworks for citizenship can be fostered. While scholarship suggests that it is much easier to ignite and intensify intergroup conflict than it is to mitigate it, insights from the author’s research and from social psychology indicate ways that tensions might begin to be reduced in the Middle East.

The President of the United States has decided that the best approach to Iran is to speak loudly and carry a big stick—in the hopes that relentless pressure on Iran will either lead to regime change or the country abandoning its contentious foreign policies. Such saber-rattling will more likely enfeeble American power within the region and set U.S. policy on track for yet another dangerous conflict in the Middle East. Just as importantly, increasing tensions with Iran also bode poorly for sectarian de-escalation in the Muslim world. This is because the Shia view American policies without a balance between regional Sunni and Shia actors.

Under Trump, America is going all in with the pro-confrontation camp led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The United States has reversed President Obama's policies to take a balanced approach towards Iran and other transnational Shia groups. This shift has included pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, which has only further deepened the sectarian battle lines in the region. While Trump's strategy is standard combative neocon policy at face value—i.e., ideologically driven opposition to Iran rather than realpolitik—it has also acquired a partisan, sectarian edge with rhetoric and policies that appear as if the United States is taking sides in sectarian conflicts in the Islamic world.

During the past weekend Masjid-e-Yasrab’s imambargah in Karachi was infused with enthusiasm – a large crowd gathered to welcome and listen to an English-lecture series by renowned scholar of religious studies Dr Sayed Ammar Nakshawani.

Belonging to a prominent lineage through Musa alKhadim, the seventh Shia Imam, Nakshawani serves as the special representative to the United Nations for the Universal Muslim Association of America [UMAA] where he engages in interfaith dialogue with leaders of a variety of faiths and works on programmes for abused women, poverty and others. “It’s good to be involved on a political level… to be an ambassador of Islam,” he told The Express Tribune.

Non-state actors are important providers of social welfare. In parts of the Middle East, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and other regions, religious charities and parties and NGOs have taken on this role, with some preceding independent statehood and others building parallel or alternative welfare infrastructure alongside the modern state. How well do these groups provide welfare goods? Do some exhibit a “welfare advantage,” or a demonstrated superiority in the quality and efficiency of providing social services? In this paper, we explore whether distinct organizational types are associated with different levels of the quality of care. Based on a study in Greater Beirut, Lebanon, where diverse types of providers operate health centers, we propose and test some hypotheses about why certain organizations might deliver better services. The data indicate that secular NGOs, rather than religious, political or public sector providers, the other main types of providers in the charitable sector, exhibit superior measures of health care quality, particularly with respect to objective provider competence and subjective measures of patient satisfaction. In Lebanon, where religious and sectarian actors dominate politics and the welfare regime and command the most extensive resources, this appears to be a counterintuitive finding. Our preliminary explanation for this outcome emphasizes the ways in which the socio-political context shapes the choices of more qualified or professional doctors to select into secular providers, in part because of their organizational missions, and why citizens might perceive these providers to be better, irrespective of the actual quality of services delivered.

In 2006, in the midst of a fierce war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously stated that the world was witnessing the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” She was right—but not in the sense she had hoped. Instead of disempowering Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, the war only augmented the strength and prestige of what is known as the “axis of resistance,” a power bloc that includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Palestine.

But the 2006 war was only one in a series of developments that significantly transformed the geopolitical and military nature of the axis—from the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which first opened the door to greater Iranian regional influence, to the more recent fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014, which led to the proliferation and empowerment of Shiite militias. These changes have prompted a fundamental reconfiguration of the contemporary Middle East order. Arab elites, grappling with the consequences of an eroding Arab state system, poor governance, and the delegitimization of authoritarian states following the 2011 Arab Spring, enabled Iran and its partners, including Russia, to build a new regional political and security architecture from the ground up. With the support of Tehran as the undisputed center of the axis, Shiite armed movements in Iraq and across the axis of resistance have created a transnational, multiethnic, and cross-confessional political and security network that has made the axis more muscular and effective than ever before.

The most important issue that the new U.S. administration will face in the Middle East will be the rise of the Iranian-led axis. But given the deterioration of the regional security order and the empowerment of Iran and its allies, especially after the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, the question is what to do about it. So far, policy discussions have focused on single issues on a case-by-case basis: balancing power in Syria, engaging or pushing back on Iran post-nuclear deal, or managing an increasingly volatile Yemen, for example. But crafting a Middle East policy requires a more comprehensive approach, one that understands the nature of the axis and how it has fundamentally changed over the past several years. The axis’ ideology has evolved: From a primarily state-centered enterprise, it has transformed into a transnational project supported by an organic network of popular armed movements from across the region.

Read the full article here.