The recent horrors of a Shiite mosque bombed in Iraq should remind us of history and this should help us understand a little bit better what is going on in the Muslim world generally and in Iraq specificaly.
Strife within Islam is long standing. And from the generation after Mohammed there has been a difference of opinion about what makes for real Islam. So, we need to realize that the bombing of a mosque in Iraq is a serious matter, because Muslims tend not to think of themselves as simply Muslims, except when they are defining themselves over against the WEST. Rather, they really do conceive of themselves as Shi' i or Sunni (of Sufi). These are more than denominational labels, they are divisions that go (in the minds of true believers) to the heart of what true Islam is.
So, the bombing of a Shiite Mosque in a predominantly Shite country is meant to provoke these long-standing divisions. Al Queda (who is most likely behind the bombing) shows its truly non-Muslim commitments. The agenda of Al Queda supercedes anything and everything that is close to the hearts of the Muslim people. The bombing of a mosque, any mosque, is a grave sacriledge in the minds of Muslims. Al Queda is more akin to a radical quasi-apocalyptic sect within Islam than anything else. The establishment of a caliphate (kingdom) of Islam is their guiding agenda, not submission (which is what Islam means) to Allah.
At the Website CQPRESS you can find a good article that summarizes the historic tensions in Islam and what they mean. Here's a taste.
This era ended with the first civil war (656-661), in which specific conflicts between particular interest groups provided the foundation for the broader political and theological divisions in the community and the Islamic tradition. The first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar, had been successful in maintaining a sense of communal unity. But tensions within the community surfaced during the era of the third caliph, Uthman, who was from the Umayyad clan. Uthman was murdered in 656 by troops who mutinied over matters of pay and privileges, but the murder was the beginning of a major civil war.
The mutinous troops and others in Medina declared the new caliph to be Ali, a cousin of Muhammad who was an early convert and also the husband of Muhammad's daughter Fatimah (and, therefore, the father of Muhammad's only grandsons, Hasan and Husayn). According to Shi'i Muslim tradition, there were many people who believed that Muhammad had designated Ali as his successor. An Arabic term for faction or party is shi'ah, and the party or shi'ah of Ali emerged clearly during this first civil war. Ali's leadership was first challenged by a group including Aisha, the Prophet's most prominent wife and a daughter of the first caliph, Abu Bakr. Although Ali defeated this group militarily, it represented the tradition that became part of the mainstream majority, or Sunni, tradition in Islam, recognizing that all four of the first four caliphs were rightly guided and legitimate.
Ali faced a major military threat from the Umayyad clan, who demanded revenge for the murder of their kinsman, Uthman. The leader of the Umayyads was Muawiya, the governor of Syria. In a battle between the Umayyad army and the forces of Ali at Siffin in 657, Ali agreed to arbitration. As a result, a group of anti-Umayyad extremists withdrew from Ali's forces and became known as the Kharijites, or seceders, who demanded sinlessness as a quality of their leader and would recognize any pious Muslim as eligible to be the caliph. When Ali was murdered by a Kharijite in 661, most Muslims accepted Muawiya as caliph as a way of bringing an end to the intracommunal violence.
Many later divisions within the Muslim community were to be expressed in terms first articulated during this civil war. The mainstream, or Sunni, tradition reflects a combination of an emphasis on the consensus and piety of the community of the Prophet's companions, as reflected in the views of Aisha and her supporters, and the pragmatism of the Umayyad imperial administrators. The Sunni tradition always reflects the tension between the needs of state stability and the aspirations of a more egalitarian and pietistic religious vision. Shi'i Islam has its beginnings in the party of Ali and the argument that God always provides a special guide, or imam, for humans and that this guide has special characteristics, including being a descendant of the Prophet and having special divine guidance. Leadership and authority rest with this imamate and are not subject to human consensus or pragmatic reasons of state.
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