‘Is ISIL really ‘Sunni’? Not at all’

By Kevin Barrett

The Western media describes ISIL – the ultra-extremist terrorists destabilizing Iraq and Syria – as “Sunni militants.” Headlines read: “Sunni Islamist Militants Seize Mosul.” “Sunni militants capture northern Iraqi town.” “Iraq Army Tries to Roll Back Sunni Militants’ Advance.” The corporate media casts the fighting in Iraq as a Sunni vs. Shia conflict. The Sunni side, according to these reports, is led by ISIL – a group that was expelled from al-Qaeda for being too extreme. But is ISIL really Sunni? Many experts say “no.” Some question whether ISIL has a right to call itself an Islamic group at all. In an interview with Truth Jihad Radio, Islamic scholar Dr. John Andrew Morrow (Ilyas Abd al-‘Alim Islam) questioned ISIL’s Islamic credentials: “A lot of so-called jihad (such as ISIL’s) is not rooted in Islam. Especially if you look at who’s funding it, who’s supporting it, who’s behind it. Western powers have a long history of using jihadists and Islamists to further their own imperial ambitions. In terms of the foot-soldiers, they may think they are fighting for Islam. But if you look closer, you find they’re furthering the cause of the enemy.” Dr. Morrow pointed out that much of ISIL’s behavior is patently un-Islamic. He said that the ISIL terrorists love to film themselves committing war crimes that are forbidden by Islam: “They are very proud to commit atrocities. They film it. They upload it to the internet. They have their own websites.” Dr. Morrow commented on the notorious video showing a Takfiri terrorist eating a dead soldier’s liver: “This is what Hind (an enemy of the Muslims) did. You’re not following the sahaba, you’re not following the Prophet. You’re following the polytheists who were fighting the Prophet when you start cannibalizing corpses. And there was another video of a poor Muslim sister who was strangled to death. I mean, who goes around strangling women to cries of Allahu akbar?” Continuing the habit of vaunting their un-Islamic atrocities, ISIL terrorists recently posted internet videos showing themselves murdering 1,700 captured Iraqi army soldiers. They have also reportedly killed dozens of Sunni imams who refuse to swear allegiance to ISIL. And they are killing Shia Muslims indiscriminately. If these terrorists are Sunni Muslims, why are they systematically violating the tenets of Sunni Islam? In fact, ISIL appears to be far outside of Sunni Islam. The kind of “Islam” espoused by the ISIL Takfiris is an extreme version of the Salafi-Wahhabi school of thought. These people reject the five major Islamic madhhabs (schools of thought) including the four Sunni ones. If you reject all four Sunni madhhabs, how can you call yourself Sunni? In fact, the extreme Salafi-Wahhabis, including the ultra-extreme ISIL, have broken with mainstream Islam as it has existed for fourteen centuries. By jettisoning the established Islamic madhhabs, and stepping outside of Islam as it has always been understood, they have entered a very dangerous territory in which they feel they can just make up the rules as they go along. So they make up such rules as: “It is okay to rape Christian and Shia women. It is okay to eat the internal organs of dead enemies. It is okay to marry ‘jihad brides’ for sex and divorce them after 30 minutes. It is okay to crucify Christian holy men. It is okay to strangle women to death. It is okay to mass-murder civilians. It is okay to mass-execute prisoners of war.” No Sunni in history would recognize this as Sunni Islam. Zaid Hamid, a Sunni Muslim defense analyst from Pakistan, says ISIS and related terrorist groups are not Sunnis, but Kharajite heretics serving an imperial anti-Islamic agenda. (The Kharajites were an ultra-radical group that rejected early versions of both Sunni and Shia Islam and stepped outside of the Islamic community - hence their name, which means “those who step outside.”) Hamid argues that the ultra-radical groups destabilizing Pakistan, Syria and Iraq have indeed stepped outside of Islam, and are making war on Islam and Muslims on behalf of Zionism and imperialism.

But isn’t it true that many Sunni Muslims in Iraq support ISIL? Yes and no. It is true that some ordinary Iraqis from Sunni backgrounds have joined ISIL’s insurrection in Iraq. But these are mainly pro-Saddam revanchists, not religiously-oriented Sunni Muslims. Saddam Hussein, of course, was a radical secularist whose idols were Stalin and Hitler. Saddam’s Ba’ath party was anti-religious and pro-secularist; Saddam’s hatred of the Islamic Awakening was so extreme that he launched a war on the Ayatollah Khomeini’s new Islamic Republic in hopes of preventing the rebirth of Islam. So to call the Saddam Hussein supporters who are joining with ISIL “Sunnis” is misleading. Saddam’s forces, like ISIL, are opposed to Islam in both its traditional Sunni and Shia forms. The full name of Sunnism is “the people of the Tradition of the Prophet and the consensus of the community” (ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamaʻah). Eating the livers of dead enemies is not part of the Tradition of the Prophet – it is the tradition of the enemies of the Prophet. And such behavior is obviously not approved by the consensus of the Muslim community. The Tradition of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is one of inclusion, tolerance, mutual respect, and the forging of alliances between people of different tribes and religions. The original Muslim community, whose founding document is the Constitution of Medina, consisted of Christians, Jews and Muslims living together and sharing power and obligations on an equitable basis. The real Sunna (Tradition) holds to reason and persuasion, and uses violence only as a last resort. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his Family and Companions preached peacefully for 12 years, despite atrocious persecution, before God finally authorized them to fight back in self-defense. The real Tradition of the Prophet respects knowledge so much that “the ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr.” And the consensus of the Islamic community is that the work of 14 centuries worth of Islamic scholarship – the five major Islamic madhhabs, both the four Sunni madhhabs and the Shia Ja’fari madhhab – collectively represents mainstream Islam. All Sunni Muslims have tremendous respect for Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq, who founded the main Shia madhhab. The terrorists who reject this tremendous scholarly achievement, and want to kill everyone who disagrees with them, are far outside of normative Sunni Islam. So why does the Western mainstream media insist on calling anti-Sunni, anti-Shia groups like ISIL “Sunni”? Perhaps the problem is laziness. Since ISIL has a special hatred for Shia Muslims, the simplest way to portray them is to paint the situation as an alleged Sunni vs. Shia conflict. By defaulting to this lowest-common-denominator description, the media absolves itself from the duty of explaining, in detail, what is actually going on. But it is also possible that the corporate media is intentionally misreporting the situation. The extreme-Zionist neoconservatives launched the US invasion of Iraq in order to break up that country, and the Middle East as a whole, by inciting ethnic and sectarian strife. The “Sunni vs. Shia” meme was created and spread by the Occupiers through a wave of false-flag terrorism. Perhaps the media is trumpeting that meme in order to propagate it. In any case, the world’s Sunni Muslims are being slandered every time the media calls ISIL “Sunni.” It is time for Sunnis to reject this mischaracterization of their religion. Perhaps Sunni Muslims should file a class action lawsuit against the media outlets that are spreading this calumny.

The phenomenon and politics of sectarianism

by Zafar Bangash January, 2014 Sectarianism is projected in some quarters as the greatest challenge facing Muslims when the vast majority of Muslims want unity in the Ummah. Who is stoking the flames of sectarianism? Sectarian discourse and sectarian induced violence seem to have become major problems facing Muslims today. There are killings in the name of one sect or another in different parts of the Muslim world. Muslims are told that sectarianism is a historical problem that cannot be overcome. Such assertions fly in the face of empirical evidence that posits a completely opposite proposition: most Muslims support unity. For instance, a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org found that two thirds of Muslims worldwide want to “unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or caliphate [khilafah].” While framed in theological terms, sectarianism is essentially a political weapon used by certain vested interests to advance their narrow agenda since they lack a legitimate basis to justify their position or continued hold on power. Like nationalism, sectarianism is also used to whip up mass hysteria. Without justifying it, there are at least some positive aspects to nationalism. For instance, people in one geographical area, ie a country, can be mobilized to stand up against a rival country in the name of patriotism and protecting the “national interest.” Nationalism’s limitation is that by its very nature it is confined to people living in a certain geographical area. Thus, on the basis of nationalism alone, Pakistanis for instance cannot have the motivation to help the people of Palestine or any other place where there is human suffering. The same applies to other situations. The Afghans cannot appeal to Muslims elsewhere to help them on the basis of nationalism. But, this can be overcome if the discourse is framed in Islamic terms. Thus, the people of Pakistan can be motivated to help their fellow Muslims in Palestine or Chechnya in the name of Islam. The Pakistanis may not necessarily go there physically — although some have done so — but their sympathies can be aroused and financial donations solicited to help alleviate the suffering of oppressed Muslims in other parts of the world. The above examples have nothing to do with sectarianism. The people of Palestine and Chechnya follow different schools of thought from those in Pakistan. The common bond between them is Islam. Problems arise when some people — usually rulers of some countries that lack legitimacy — resort to sectarian discourse whose purpose is to create hatred for a particular group or party. Raw sectarianism is often camouflaged by using Islamic terminology. To understand this better, let us look at Syria. For nearly three years, a war has raged there that can be traced directly to outside forces, primarily the Zionists, imperialists and the Saudis. This can be narrowed further; the imperialists have pulled back somewhat because they have realized that what may replace the current regime led by Bashar al-Asad may turn out to be even worse if al-Qaeda-linked takfiris grab power. The Saudi-Zionist alliance, however, is hell-bent on creating instability and continuing the violence. The Zionists can hardly appeal to Muslims by claiming to be friends of the Syrian people. No Muslim with even a limited understanding of the nature of Zionism and its oppression and persecution of the Palestinians will accept the Zionists as friends and allies. Enter the Saudis. While they lack legitimacy, they have often used their alleged support for “Muslim” causes elsewhere to polish their ugly image. In the 1980s, they sent thousands of Arabians to fight in Afghanistan. It was not to help the Afghans but to get rid of their own troublesome youth, demanding fundamental rights that were threatening regimes in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Many Arabian fighters returned to create problems for regimes in their home countries once the Afghan war ended. The Saudis are playing an even more sinister game in Syria. They can hardly claim to be helping the Syrian people to gain their legitimate rights when the Saudis suppress their own people and do not allow women to even drive cars (in Syria, women are allowed to fly planes!). Nor can the Saudis claim that they are supporting the “Sunni majority” in Syria when the Saudi rulers did not support the overwhelmingly Sunni population of Egypt after the Egyptian military overthrew a legitimately elected government last July. Instead, the Saudi regime openly backs the military coup in Egypt. This has left them dangerously exposed in their alleged claim of supporting “Sunni” Muslims. In Syria, however, the Saudis have played the sectarian card effectively. Accusing the Bashar al-Asad regime of being ‘Alawi (the ‘Alawis are an offshoot of Shi‘ism), the Saudis and their tribal allies in the region have whipped up sectarian tensions and created massive problems in the Ummah. The regime in Syria is neither ‘Alawi, nor Shi‘i or Sunni. It is not a religious-based government at all. There are Sunni ministers in the government as there are Shi‘i ministers. There are Christians and yes, there are ‘Alawis in the cabinet but none of them is committed to any particular sect. There are men as well as women in government but they are all secularists. Their overriding loyalty is to the secularist nationalist Ba‘th party system and their position in it. The Saudis are using sectarianism in Syria to whip up hatred against the regime, which it wants to overthrow. This is part of its pro-Zionist policy and is also meant to secure an extension of its own existence that looks increasingly shaky given current trends in the region as well as internal developments in the kingdom. There is much discontent in the kingdom with nearly 30,000 political prisoners languishing in horrible conditions in various prisons. The Syrian crisis, however, is a recent phenomenon. The Saudis have used sectarianism as a tool in such places as Pakistan and Lebanon for many years and more recently in Iraq with deadly consequences. In the backdrop of Saudi-induced sectarianism is fear of the rise of Islamic Iran on the political landscape as a major player. True, Iran is a predominantly Shi‘i country but it has not launched a sectarian crusade to brand non-Shi‘i Muslims as kafirs. Nor has Iran encouraged the killing of Sunnis anywhere. In fact, Iran has tried hard, within its means, to create understanding among Muslims of different schools of thought. The Tehran-based Majma‘ al-Taqrib bayna al-Madhahib al-Islamiyyah regularly brings together scholars of different schools of thought to promote Muslim unity. It can be argued that this has not eliminated sectarian-induced conflicts but it is not for lack of trying. It is a lot easier to create fitnah (sedition) than to establish peace and harmony. It would be appropriate to reflect on some areas of the Muslim world where sectarian tensions have been running high. Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria immediately come to mind. Add to that Bahrain and we can begin to form a picture that these are countries with populations predominantly of one sect but also with a sizeable population of the other. Thus, while Pakistan is predominantly Sunni, there is also a sizeable Shi‘i population there. In Lebanon’s complex confessional pot pouri, the Shi‘is are more than the Sunnis but with a significant Christian population, the political landscape is more complicated. In Iraq the Shi‘is constitute an absolute majority who were denied basic rights for decades. Unfortunately, since the rise to power of a Shi‘i dominated government, peace has not been restored. Bahrain is overwhelmingly Shi‘i ruled by a tiny minority “Sunni” family clique. But how does one explain the lack of sectarianism in places like Turkey, Azerbaijan or Kuwait? Turkey has a sizeable Alevi (‘Alawi) and Shi‘i population (about 15%), Azerbaijan is an overwhelmingly Shi‘i country while Kuwait has a sizeable Shi‘i (about 20%) population. Kuwait’s example is instructive because it follows the same Wahhabi ideology that the Saudis subscribe to from whence it emerged in the 18th century yet there has been no sectarian conflict in Kuwait. We also have the curious phenomenon of sectarian tensions arising in places like Malaysia, Indonesia and South Africa. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world almost all of them Sunnis following the Shafi‘i school of thought. There are only a few thousand Shi‘is there at best. The same applies to Malaysia and South Africa. The question is: why has sectarianism reared its ugly head in these places? The same question may be asked about Egypt where days before his ouster from power, President Mohamed Mursi had indulged in crude sectarian rhetoric. Some Shi‘is were publicly lynched when the Shi‘is in Egypt are no more than a few hundred thousand in a population of some 80 million. It needs recalling that Egypt was at one time a predominantly Shi‘i country under the Fatimids and al-Azhar University was established by them more than 1,000 years ago! In Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa, Saudi agents have deliberately created a sectarian crisis as part of their attempt to keep the Ummah divided. After all, neither place has a significant Shi‘i population and in South Africa, the total Muslim population itself is miniscule compared to the country’s overall population. There are, however, some maulanas that have close links with the Saudis through such Saudi front organizations as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) whose representatives frequently visit South Africa disbursing largesse (the US has declared WAMY a terrorist organization). In both Indonesia and Malaysia, the regimes are behind the anti-Shi‘i campaign although there are also strong voices raised against stoking sectarianism. Leaders of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) as well as many leading academics and intellectuals have spoken out forcefully against sectarianism and warned against the negative consequences of this campaign. It is interesting to note that there was no sectarianism in Pakistan until the early-1980s when the Islamic Revolution in Iran succeeded. This was a deliberate policy pursued by the Americans, British and Israelis as well as some segments of the Pakistani establishment. Their aim was to prevent the influence of the Islamic Revolution from spreading into Pakistan. Given strong cultural and linguistic affinities between the two countries, the latter was a natural arena for accepting the revolutionary fervor sweeping Iran. Yet under a carefully crafted policy, promoted by some segments of the Pakistani establishment, anti-Shi‘i sentiments were allowed to flourish. Unfortunately the Pakistani Shi‘is also played a negative role and inadvertently helped the “Sunni” extremists. Those Shi‘i scholars (like Syed Arif Hussaini Shaheed), who were striving to create understanding between the two communities, were eliminated. This not only exacerbated Shi‘i-Sunni tensions but also allowed space for more narrow-minded sectarian Shi‘is to emerge. When the struggle against the Soviets was raging in Afghanistan, extremist “Sunni” outfits were promoted in both countries to confront the Red Army. This, however, could not remain confined to Afghanistan since much of the ideological indoctrination was coming from Saudi Arabia via Pakistan. Helped by Saudi funds, many madrasahs sprang up in Pakistan and in its tribal belt. The students who emerged from these madrasahs carried the narrow-minded strain of Wahhabi sectarian ideology that denounces every non-Wahhabi a kafir. Unfortunately some otherwise respectable scholars also lent their weight and prestige to this divisive campaign. The late maulana Abu al-Hassan Nadvi (d. 1999) was one of them as was his close associate Manzoor Ahmen Naumani. Both scholars succumbed to the temptation of petrodollars and despite their learning, embarked on a sectarian crusade that has caused immense damage to the Ummah. While the two Indian maulanas waxed eloquent against Shi‘ism, they never mustered the courage to say a word against Hindu fascism or the mistreatment of Muslims in India that continues to this day. In a telling episode in the early-1990s, Indian security forces raided Nadvi’s madrasah in Luckhnow following a tip that Kashmiri mujahideen were sheltering there. The security forces broke down dormitory doors, smashed furniture and beat up many of the tullab (students). No Kashmiri was found there. The Indian government offered a mere 200,000 rupees (approx. $4,000) as compensation and the maulana kept mum despite some Muslim leaders in India urging him to take a stronger stand against such acts of state terrorism. Disturbing as the rise of sectarianism is, there are important voices being raised against it. Last August, a conference in Kuala Lumpur attended by academics and scholars from different schools of thought presented persuasive arguments against sectarianism. Similar efforts elsewhere, for instance in Turkey in November and early last month in Pakistan, point to the fact that ‘ulama and Islamic activists are taking steps to confront the menace. In Turkey, an 11-point agenda was agreed upon while in Pakistan a nine-point agenda was unanimously agreed by ‘ulama that represented major sects — Deobandi, Barelvi, Ahl-e Hadith and Jafari schools of thoughts. The Pakistani meeting was convened under the auspices of the Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs ministry in Lahore. Important as these steps are, more persistent efforts are needed to isolate and thus weed out the extremists that constitute a tiny minority but grab huge publicity because of their violent acts. The government of Pakistan has a major responsibility in confronting the menace of sectarianism otherwise it will tear the fabric of society apart in which there will be no winners.