A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi'is

by John McHugo

  The starting points of his theory were the doctrinal tenets of the Usuli school of Twelver Shi‘ism. The dilemma Twelvers have faced since the occultation of the Twelfth Imam was the following: the Sharia is the only true law, but in the absence of the Imam how is it to be discerned, interpreted and enforced? As was noted in Chapter Six, for the Usulis questions of interpretation are for each era’s mujtahids, those deemed sufficiently expert, pious and enlightened to evaluate law. Khomeini went a crucial stage further, although others had hinted at this idea before: only the mujtahids could confer legitimacy on secular rulers. In other words, it was for the mujtahids to choose them. Like earlier Islamic reformers, he saw Islam as under attack from the materialism of the West, especially from the educated classes in Muslim countries who saw the world through the false prism of Western ideas. For him, there was a binary distinction between imperialism and Islam. ‘Islam’, he wrote, ‘is the religion of militant individuals who are committed to truth and justice. It is the religion of those who desire freedom and independence.’ But the religious scholars were also to blame. They had withdrawn from the political sphere in order to concentrate on discussion of minute points of ritual and observance. Monarchy, he taught, was contrary to Islam, while the principles that had been adapted from Western thought for the 1906 constitution were not Islamic; they were ‘alien and borrowed’.6

  This was strong stuff; but Khomeini did not give detailed proposals for what Islamic government should consist of. His statement ‘Islamic government may be defined as the rule of divine law over men’ does not take us far in political terms. It is even reminiscent of the Muslim Brotherhood’s simplistic ‘The Qur’an is our constitution’ and ‘Islam is the solution’. All Khomeini suggests in order to give effect to this is that a simple planning body should be set up so that programmes for a government’s ministries should be produced ‘in the light of the ordinances of Islam’. This meant that no legislative assembly would be needed.7 The mujtahids should be entrusted with government because they had knowledge of law and justice.

  Before 1978–79, few Iranians outside scholarly religious circles would have read Khomeini’s ideas, which have become known as velayat-e faqih, ‘the government (literally, “trusteeship”) of the mujtahid’. But his consistent calls for the Shah’s overthrow and his populist appeal to the Islam of the Iranian masses were combined with his own charisma and canny political skills. After his return to Tehran, and the ecstatic welcome he received, there would be a testing time. Even if he could persuade Iranians to implement his ideas, those ideas had not been fleshed out. And it is less than altogether clear what he himself intended to achieve with the vast moral power that he now held in his hands.

  IV

  At the end of March 1979 there was a referendum: did Iranians want an Islamic Republic or a monarchy? Of those who voted, 98.2 per cent chose the Islamic republic, although many leading figures and political groups were unhappy that this binary choice obscured the question of what an Islamic republic would mean. The drafting of the Islamic Republic’s new constitution continued over the rest of the year. In its final form it gave the faqih (the Islamic jurist, in this case Ayatollah Khomenei) tremendous power. He must approve candidates for president before they are allowed to run for office; and it is he who appoints the heads of the armed services, as well as the heads of national TV and radio. His role is leadership. As the introduction to the constitution puts it, his leadership ‘will prevent any deviation by the various organs of government from their essential Islamic duties.’8 Underneath the faqih there are the normal organs of a modern republic: the president, the legislature and the judiciary, but they must all act in accordance with the principles of Islam, of which he is the ultimate interpreter. A Council of Guardians can reject legislation if it considers it to be incompatible with Islam.9

  The constitution also makes it clear that the Islamic Republic has a mission: ‘to ensure the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad’. It is to strive with other Islamic and popular movements ‘to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community of Muslims’ and ‘to assure the continuation of the struggle for the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world’.10 The ambition that the Islamic Republic will unite all Muslims is spelled out in Article 10:

  In accordance with the [Qur’anic] verse ‘This your nation is a single nation, and I am your Lord, so worship Me,’ all Muslims form a single nation, and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty of formulating its general policies with a view to the merging and union of all Muslim peoples, and it must constantly strive to bring about the political, economic, and cultural unity of the Islamic world.11

  Although the Islam of the Islamic Republic is Twelver Shi‘ism, the constitution also explicitly recognises other Muslim schools, including the doctrinal law schools of Sunni Islam. These are listed by name and have official status. They ‘are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious devotions’. In areas where members of one of these law schools predominate, local regulations are to be in accordance with that school’s precepts, so long as this does not affect others adversely. Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are fully recognised as religious minorities, but all non-Muslims are to be treated in an ethical fashion and in accordance with Islamic justice and equity and their human rights.12 Yet there is no mention of Iran’s largest religious minority, the Baha’is, who originated in the Iranian Shi‘ism of the nineteenth century. They had often faced persecution in Iran. This would intensify under the Islamic Republic.

  The constitution demonstrates how Khomeini and his followers saw the Iranian Revolution as a struggle under the banner of Islam against the oppression that flowed ineluctably from Western imperialism. This was intermeshed with the struggle against cultural imperialism and Westernisation. Because Iran was a predominantly Twelver country, it was natural enough for Twelver Shi‘ism to be the form of Islam inscribed on Khomeini’s banner. But it is important to stress that the aims of the revolution were universalist; it was in no way a sectarian struggle that pitted Shi‘i against Sunni, or counted Sunni Muslims as part of the forces of oppression it was combating. As the revolution wanted to export itself (just as the French and Russian revolutions had done in their early stages), this meant that its ideas should be spread everywhere – among Sunnis as well as Shi‘is.

  Yet it would have been strange if this enthusiastic impulse had not been accompanied by a hope that the scales would fall from Sunni eyes and they would come to see the true light of Shi‘i Islam. Shi‘i proselytisation (both among non-Muslims and other Muslims) would be encouraged as part of the revolution. Although this was distinct from spreading the Islamic revolution’s radical message, the two would inevitably become linked in the minds of many Sunnis. This was especially the case for those Sunnis who were hostile to the aims of the revolution – and they probably included all Sunni rulers across the Muslim world. On the other hand, liberation movements everywhere might now hope for support from the Iranian Revolution. This could easily lead to revolutionary solidarity among Sunnis and Shi‘is. It would now be very easy for rulers of other countries to see Iran as public enemy number one, for Shi‘i populations to be suspected of clandestine support for the Iranian Revolution, and for Shi‘ism itself to be feared. There would also be a counterblast. Some Sunni rulers would urge Sunnis to rally together in a way that excluded, and sometimes demonised, Shi‘is. They would find religious justification for this in the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.

  V

  In September 1980, Iran was suddenly attacked by the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The attack was opportunistic, and the reasons for it must be sought in developments in Iraq, as well as in Iran.

  As was seen in Chapter Ten, the dominant cliques that made up the Iraqi Ba‘ath were composed of Sunni Arabs who feared the Shi‘is because of their numbers. Although the Ba‘athists were certainly not friends of the Shah, they viewed the progress of the revolution
in Iran with disquiet, and were unnerved when his regime collapsed. Iraqi Shi‘i religious movements like the al-Da‘wa Party had been driven underground, but they were emboldened by the Iranian Revolution. The response was a firm crackdown, which led to opposition. When the Iraqi regime placed the al-Da‘wa Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr under house arrest in June 1979, it sparked widespread protests in Najaf, Karbala and Kufa, as well as the huge Baghdad housing district then known as Medinat al-Thawra, which was virtually a Shi‘i ghetto. In Medinat al-Thawra, the force of the protests was such that the regime’s surveillance apparatus temporarily broke down. Control was brutally re-established, but Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr’s speeches attacking the regime continued to circulate on cassettes which were listened to by both Shi‘is and Sunnis.13 The possibility that events in Iran might trigger an uprising among Shi‘is was bad enough for the regime. That it might also receive Sunni backing was even more worrying.

  The crisis had a major consequence. In July, the Iraqi vice president and prominent Ba‘athist Saddam Hussein took complete control of the country. This was followed by an Iraqi Ba‘ath party conference. While the new president presided on the podium, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council – Iraq’s supreme organ of government – publicly announced that he had taken part in a Syrian-led conspiracy to overthrow the new president. He also gave the names of some other members of the conspiracy. While these men were frogmarched out of the hall, Saddam Hussein smoked a large cigar and read out a list of others who were implicated (and who were also promptly removed). He broke out in tears several times as he wept at their treachery. Most of those taken from the hall would be tried and executed shortly afterwards. A wider purge led to a total of perhaps 500 executions.14 Everyone already knew Saddam Hussein’s ruthless side, which he so devastatingly displayed in this way in his first days in power. He combined it with charm and his extensive powers of patronage. He would ensure that every person of any importance in Iraq was either dependent on him or, at the very least, terrified of crossing him. This fear would often have applied to the bearers of bad news, who must often have shielded him from unpleasant realities. He would push Iraq into the abyss.

  A little over a year later, in September 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The Iran-Iraq War was a conflict in which the Western media took relatively little interest, except when it threatened to disrupt oil supplies. Despite this, it was the bloodiest of all the wars that have taken place in the Middle East region between the Second World War and today. One reason for the absence of Western interest was the lack of sympathy in America and Europe for either side. Henry Kissinger is reputed to have said that it was a pity both sides could not lose. Yet the conflict may have killed a million or more people.

  The question is often debated: why did the war start? In 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Ba‘athist state was very powerful indeed. It was certainly concerned about Shi‘i unrest, and that concern was a factor in Saddam Hussein taking complete control in July 1979. By then the al-Da‘wa Party (in whose formation Muhammad Baqir al-Sadir had been instrumental) and other specifically Shi‘i organisations were endorsing the use of violence against the government. The Society of Religious Scholars (Jama‘at al-‘ulama’) added its voice to them in October, and the government responded to this with a retroactive decree in March 1980 making membership of al-Da‘wa a capital offence. When an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister was made in March 1980, the brutal response included the execution of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister, Bint al-Huda, who was a noted religious scholar in her own right. The Ayatollah was probably paying with his life for a message he managed to send his followers from jail. In this, he had addressed the Iraqi people as a whole and called for unity between Sunni and Shi‘i Arabs and Kurds. The message passionately attacked Saddam Hussein for trying to split Sunnis and Shi‘is in order to divide and rule:

  The idol-Satan [Saddam Husayn] and his henchmen are trying to persuade our pure Sunni sons that the issue is that of Shi‘i and Sunni... I want to tell you, O [Shi‘i] sons of Ali and al-Husayn, and [Sunni] sons of Abu Bakr and Umar, that the battle is not between the Shi‘is and a Sunni rule! The Sunni rule represented by the Rightly guided Caliphs... and based on Islam and justice, Ali used his sword to protect it! ... The present rule is not Sunni rule, even though the hegemonic clique belongs... to the Sunna, because a Sunni rule is not that which is controlled by a man born to Sunni parents. Rather, it is the rule of Abu Bakr and Umar that is challenged by the tyrants in Iraq today.15

  This plea for Shi‘is and Sunnis to combine against a manifestly unjust government had resonances of the Sunni-Shi‘i unity at the end of the First World War. It was just about the most worrying call that the Ba‘athist regime could face. The execution of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was the first time a Ba‘athist ruler had executed an ayatollah. Ayatollah al-Kho‘i, Iraq’s most senior mujtahid, was also placed under house arrest. Many Shi‘is who could be designated as Iranian because of their ancestry were deported to Iran. With Shi‘i scholarly networks and other bonds within the Shi‘i community disrupted, the power of government patronage was now used to a greater extent than ever before to split Shi‘i solidarity and tie much of the community to the regime.16

  Was attacking Iran, which would lead to all the uncertainties of war, the obvious next step for Saddam Hussein to take in order to cope with Shi‘i discontent?17 This has to be doubtful. The precise reasons why Iraq invaded were probably only ever known to him and those close to him. They are to be found in his vaingloriousness and arrogance, and the sycophancy with which his entourage treated him, since to challenge his views was to court death. An important event in his decision-making process may have been Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel in May 1979. This had caused Egypt to be thrown out of the League of Arab states. With Egypt temporarily removed from the equations of Arab politics, Iraq was now the Arab world’s largest military power, as well as a major oil producer.

  Saddam Hussein believed it was now time for Iraq to flex its muscles and show leadership. What could be better than a war that would demonstrate Iran’s weakness and Iraq’s strength, and force Iran to negotiate a humiliating peace? It would compel all the rulers of the Gulf and his arch-rival, Hafez al-Assad of Syria, to acknowledge him as the leader of the Arab world. It might also add the oil-rich area of the Arabic-speaking Iranian province of Khuzistan to Iraq and be fitting revenge for the Shah’s previous humiliations of Iraq.

  Iraq’s decision to invade Iran thus may have had little to do with religion. The motive behind it, insofar as it can be disentangled from Saddam Hussein’s narcissism, was Arab and Iraqi nationalism. The war soon proved to be a disaster, a massive self-inflicted wound. Saddam Hussein had underestimated how his attack would put Iranian backs to the wall. On the Iranian side in particular, there was much religious rhetoric. There were calls to liberate Najaf and Karbala, as well as to advance to Jerusalem by way of Baghdad. The first of these would have appealed only to Shi‘is but, it will be observed, the second was aimed at all Muslims. The Iraqi side, meanwhile, invoked the great battles in the Arab conquest of Iran by the soldiers of the first caliphs. Possibly through dire military necessity, an increasing number of able Shi‘i officers were promoted to positions of responsibility in the Iraqi army. Much effort was also given to propaganda that Saddam Hussein’s regime aimed at Iraq’s Shi‘is, including a fanciful claim that he was descended from the Imam Ali.18

  In April-May 1982, Iraq made a strategic withdrawal, effectively suing for peace. But Khomeini was persuaded by military leaders that the war was winnable and therefore endorsed their wish to carry the fight into Iraqi territory in order to drive Saddam Hussein from power. By 1988 it was obvious that the Iranian forces were losing, and were being steadily driven back. Khomeini reluctantly accepted the need for a ceasefire, and in mid-August the guns fell silent.

  No aggressive war had been waged by Iran since the days of Nadir Shah (r. 1736–1747). Yet now, by
deciding in 1982 not to end the war when Iraq called for a ceasefire, and by actually invading Iraq, it was perceived as an aggressor. It had also failed to abide by the norms by which sovereign states are meant to behave. It was not just the wider international community that noted this. On the southern shores of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE had Shi‘i minorities, while Bahrain had a Shi‘i majority. These states had been nervous about the nationalistic swaggering of the Shah. Now revolutionary Iran posed a much greater threat. Part of this stemmed from its use of religious rhetoric aimed at winning Shi‘is to its cause and sparking revolution among all Muslims. It had also used the war as an opportunity to spread its revolutionary ideology among Shi‘i soldiers from the Iraqi army who became prisoners, as well as Shi‘i exiles from Iraq. In 1982, some of them formed the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which subscribed to Khomeini’s idea of the velayat-e faqih (government of the mujtahid). SCIRI formed its own military formation, the Badr Brigade, which fought against the Iraqi army on the Kurdish front. On one level, this was a portent of things to come. It also led to a rift among Iraqi Shi‘is in exile or prisoner of war camps in Iran, since the main Iraqi Shi‘i movement, the al-Da‘wa Party, did not accept Khomeini’s ideology.

  VI

  Iran had failed to force an Iraqi surrender, to overthrow the tyrant Saddam Hussein and to achieve a convincing victory for the revolution beyond its own borders. There are indications that this left Khomeini in a spiritual crisis, becoming confused and downhearted. He appears to have come to see himself as God’s chosen instrument to achieve the divine purpose on earth. He must have asked why God had not granted Iran the victory it deserved. Surely, that victory would have consolidated and spread the Islamic revolution? And was not that revolution the divine will?