Shi'a in the Azhar and the Arba'een in Kerbala: Muslim Paranoia and Promise of Pluralism
Though I rarely read a piece by Fouad Ajami without finding at least one thing to object to, I do think one of his central theses is right, that Muslim societies, or really Arab societies at least, have had a terrible problem with pluralism. I don't mean legal pluralism, they actually do that quite well (I've got an article on multiple legal systems operating in Iraq at the same time), but ethnic, sect, religious pluralism. I thought I'd point out why I think this was, with specific reference to two recent issues.
The reason, I think, has to do with fundamental Muslim insecurities, a feeling, arising out of relative powerlessness and a continuing economic and political and cultural degradation, that the world is presenting a major threat to them. Hence for example it's hard to find any Muslim in the Muslim world at least who thinks that 9/11 was anything but a pretext to attack Islam, and that the war on terror is in its entirety not a genuine, even if misguided at times, effort but rather a campaign to destroy Islam. But i've written on that, to the more immediate news.
First the reaction to Tantawi's decision to open the Azhar, Sunni Islam's premier, historic, centers of learning, to Shi'ism. Now personally, I'm not sure I get the point, the Shi'a have their seminaries where they have them, Najaf and Qom mainly, and while Tantawi's earlier overtures to bring in Shi'i lecturers and send Azhar lecturers abroad and the like are I think very welcome and necessary, I'm not sure what it achieves to try to open a Sunni seminary in a Sunni land to Shi'a. But what really struck me was the ferocity of the opposition, all centered on some ridiculous notion that there is this dangerous Shi'i crescent rising across the Middle East, a threat to the Sunnis because of their loyalty to Iran, and the potential Shi'ization of the entire Middle East. Let them into the Azhar, and they're going to take over the whole country and region. We don't mind studying Shi'ism, but Sunnis have to teach it, or it's going to be spread surreptitiously among us.
This is part of a recent pattern, Egypt's president for life Hosni Mubarak is on record saying the Shi'a of Iraq are more loyal to Iran than their own country, whatever that means, you have to ask him, and King Abdullah of Jordan talked of the "Shi'a crescent." So this inanity comes, let me stress, not from some extremist diatribe, but the supposedly "moderate" voices of the Middle East, expressing a bigotry that would make Bull Connor proud.
Leaving aside the patent absurdity of wanting to learn about Shi'ism but not wanting a Shi'i scholar to teach it to you (I really like learning about Judaism, but only from the Pope, and Catholicism, but only from rabbis), the Shi'a are about 10-15% of Muslims. They are effectively 0% of Egyptians, though enough Iraqi Shi'a are in Egypt now maybe to pull them to 0.3% of the broader population, who knows. The idea that they will take over Egypt is so absurd, and yet so fervently believed, that you really have to assume shocking levels of insecurity to have it make even the mildest bit of sense.
It is similar, I suppose to the terror that Muslims tend to have towards Christian missionaries as some sort of existential threat, failing to see that even where they can preach pretty widely, they tend to be ignored. How does anyone react to a missionary knocking on their door? So in order to actually think the entire nation of Egypt is going to go Shi'i, or that the Shi'a by emerging as the power in modern day Iraq by virtue of numbers are going to cause instability and trouble, never mind the trouble caused to them or to the region by the preceding government, it does make you think that part of the hysteria is to mask deeper feelings of inadequacy. Why else would anyone assume mass conversions and takeovers by such a small group?
The other event, on the Shi'i side (see I'm being nonsectarian here), relates to the Kerbala Arba'een commemorations to remember the 40th day following the death of Imam Hussein, see earlier post for more on this. Shi'is insist, and the local police tend to insist, that 10 million people are visiting Kerbala this year. According to Reuters, even the US military estimates 6 million.
Pardon my skepticism, but 6 million? 10 million? In a town that normally holds less than a million? In a country with 12 million eligible voters? 5 million of whom are not Shi'i? How? Even assuming children go, you still ahve to assume an attendance rate of something like 60% of Shi'a in the country to get numbers like that, particularly since they are saying less than 100,000 are foreigners. It really strains credulity. Among Shi'a I know in Iraq, attendance is about 15%. I consider that pretty high actually, i was going to write about how important this was, until these numbers started coming out. It just seems hard to believe, even if the US military agrees with it.
But when some question the numbers, the response is really quite surprising on the blogs, websites, listservs. (Not me, I never get involved in that stuff). The responses are basically You aren't a real Shi'i, you aren't an Iraqi, you are an Israeli spy, any level of invective aimed at people who aren't suggesting the Arba'een is a trivial event (anyone who sees any of the pictures knows that's not true) but suggesting the numbers might who knows be a wee bit high earns nothing but anger and contempt.
Again, why if not to cover up some deeper feelings of insecurity? Why would it be so bad if it was a million, say? That's still a heck of a lot of people, isn't it? There seems to be this need to exaggerate, to amplify, to cover up somehow deeper feelings of inadequacy, and it seems to me that this is never a positive thing, and never promising for a more open pluralist society.
If within the Muslim polity we can't have a discussion about how many people attended event X, or we can't suggest letting people study in school Y, without accusations and fears of double dealing and questions of loyalty, it's hard to see how a more open society can be created. This has to change.
HAH
The reason, I think, has to do with fundamental Muslim insecurities, a feeling, arising out of relative powerlessness and a continuing economic and political and cultural degradation, that the world is presenting a major threat to them. Hence for example it's hard to find any Muslim in the Muslim world at least who thinks that 9/11 was anything but a pretext to attack Islam, and that the war on terror is in its entirety not a genuine, even if misguided at times, effort but rather a campaign to destroy Islam. But i've written on that, to the more immediate news.
First the reaction to Tantawi's decision to open the Azhar, Sunni Islam's premier, historic, centers of learning, to Shi'ism. Now personally, I'm not sure I get the point, the Shi'a have their seminaries where they have them, Najaf and Qom mainly, and while Tantawi's earlier overtures to bring in Shi'i lecturers and send Azhar lecturers abroad and the like are I think very welcome and necessary, I'm not sure what it achieves to try to open a Sunni seminary in a Sunni land to Shi'a. But what really struck me was the ferocity of the opposition, all centered on some ridiculous notion that there is this dangerous Shi'i crescent rising across the Middle East, a threat to the Sunnis because of their loyalty to Iran, and the potential Shi'ization of the entire Middle East. Let them into the Azhar, and they're going to take over the whole country and region. We don't mind studying Shi'ism, but Sunnis have to teach it, or it's going to be spread surreptitiously among us.
This is part of a recent pattern, Egypt's president for life Hosni Mubarak is on record saying the Shi'a of Iraq are more loyal to Iran than their own country, whatever that means, you have to ask him, and King Abdullah of Jordan talked of the "Shi'a crescent." So this inanity comes, let me stress, not from some extremist diatribe, but the supposedly "moderate" voices of the Middle East, expressing a bigotry that would make Bull Connor proud.
Leaving aside the patent absurdity of wanting to learn about Shi'ism but not wanting a Shi'i scholar to teach it to you (I really like learning about Judaism, but only from the Pope, and Catholicism, but only from rabbis), the Shi'a are about 10-15% of Muslims. They are effectively 0% of Egyptians, though enough Iraqi Shi'a are in Egypt now maybe to pull them to 0.3% of the broader population, who knows. The idea that they will take over Egypt is so absurd, and yet so fervently believed, that you really have to assume shocking levels of insecurity to have it make even the mildest bit of sense.
It is similar, I suppose to the terror that Muslims tend to have towards Christian missionaries as some sort of existential threat, failing to see that even where they can preach pretty widely, they tend to be ignored. How does anyone react to a missionary knocking on their door? So in order to actually think the entire nation of Egypt is going to go Shi'i, or that the Shi'a by emerging as the power in modern day Iraq by virtue of numbers are going to cause instability and trouble, never mind the trouble caused to them or to the region by the preceding government, it does make you think that part of the hysteria is to mask deeper feelings of inadequacy. Why else would anyone assume mass conversions and takeovers by such a small group?
The other event, on the Shi'i side (see I'm being nonsectarian here), relates to the Kerbala Arba'een commemorations to remember the 40th day following the death of Imam Hussein, see earlier post for more on this. Shi'is insist, and the local police tend to insist, that 10 million people are visiting Kerbala this year. According to Reuters, even the US military estimates 6 million.
Pardon my skepticism, but 6 million? 10 million? In a town that normally holds less than a million? In a country with 12 million eligible voters? 5 million of whom are not Shi'i? How? Even assuming children go, you still ahve to assume an attendance rate of something like 60% of Shi'a in the country to get numbers like that, particularly since they are saying less than 100,000 are foreigners. It really strains credulity. Among Shi'a I know in Iraq, attendance is about 15%. I consider that pretty high actually, i was going to write about how important this was, until these numbers started coming out. It just seems hard to believe, even if the US military agrees with it.
But when some question the numbers, the response is really quite surprising on the blogs, websites, listservs. (Not me, I never get involved in that stuff). The responses are basically You aren't a real Shi'i, you aren't an Iraqi, you are an Israeli spy, any level of invective aimed at people who aren't suggesting the Arba'een is a trivial event (anyone who sees any of the pictures knows that's not true) but suggesting the numbers might who knows be a wee bit high earns nothing but anger and contempt.
Again, why if not to cover up some deeper feelings of insecurity? Why would it be so bad if it was a million, say? That's still a heck of a lot of people, isn't it? There seems to be this need to exaggerate, to amplify, to cover up somehow deeper feelings of inadequacy, and it seems to me that this is never a positive thing, and never promising for a more open pluralist society.
If within the Muslim polity we can't have a discussion about how many people attended event X, or we can't suggest letting people study in school Y, without accusations and fears of double dealing and questions of loyalty, it's hard to see how a more open society can be created. This has to change.
HAH
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