Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi
My Shiite friend was heartbroken. He pointed to a recent statement by a senior religious scholar. A well-known sheikh used our anger over Hezbollah support of the Syrian forces against the Free Syrian Army to attack all Shiites, accusing them of pretending to be Muslims in order to destroy Islam in alliance with its worst enemies. He listed historical events to support his allegations. The biased scholar failed, however, to note that the Syrian Baath regime is actually secular not religious, and the Alawite ruling clan is not Shia or even Muslim. They have the support of Shia Iran and Hezbollah, but also of Communist and socialist China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela, as well as Christian South Africa and Jewish Israel.
Interests guide politics much more than ideology. Syria’s allies have much to lose if the ruling regime fails. They have invested heavily in Al-Assad's government, and are fighting to protect their investments. The US, Russia, Iran and Israel with their allies are in the same camp when it comes to jihadists. They won't accept an Islamist government in Syria. While they all pay lip service to human tragedies, nothing for them is worth sacrificing their political and economic interests. It is that simple!
Hezbollah is the agent of Iran. It is a national political party, with a conservative religious background, much like the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. Hezbollah membership is open to all Lebanese regardless of religion or ethnicity, and their stated goal is resistance to Israel, and that is the excuse for carrying arms. Their unstated role, however, as revealed by recent events, is the slavish service of Iran. Still, their declared and undeclared goals do not include the representation of the Shia sect or its followers.
In fact, the party's policies, and especially its allegiance to Iran, is not endorsed by an increasing number of Shia Arabs. Many, especially Lebanese, feel that they have been hijacked by Iran and that their interests have been severely compromised. They look at the future of their relations with fellow Sunnis in Lebanon and Syria, in Iraq and the Gulf region, and sense the danger of animosity and mistrust for ages to come. All of the trust and goodwill among the sects is now in danger of being lost.
The extremist sheikh who announced that our fellow Shia Muslims were infidels and enemies of Islam is not the first of his kind nor is he alone, but his statements were front page this time, in one of the leading dailies. Inside the paper, however, there were other "ulema", including the Grand Mufti, who were wise enough and fair enough to distinguish between their view of Hezbollah as a political and military entity serving Iran’s objectives in the region, and Shiite Muslims, many of whom have repeatedly and loudly voiced their opposition to the party and its policies. One could only wish that there were enforced guidelines for the media in this regard. Hate speakers and callers for sedition “fitnah” should not be published or aired. Laws and regulations should be there to punish and restrict their foul speech.
The problem is not new. Extremists from both sides have sought blood for ages. Those vampires will never cease to exist. They live on death and destruction - as long as it is not their own! But wise leaders have kept them on a leash and within mosques and religious schools, to argue their ideological differences in more a intellectual and peaceful environment.
In the meantime, great Muslim scholars have established dialogue initiatives to identify and widen the areas of agreement between the sects, which are the greatest, and narrow the areas of disagreement, which are the smallest.
The latest mega initiative was the Makkah Islamic Summit, last Ramadan. The leaders of the Islamic nations, members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, condemned hate speeches and religious and ethnic agitation, which leads to infighting and disunity among Muslims and to threats to non-Muslim minorities. They approved the initiative of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to establish a center in Riyadh for inter-sectarian dialogue.
Its goal is to help in facilitating more understanding among various Islamic schools of thought. This confirms what had already been recognized in the Makkah Declaration of an earlier summit (2005): Muslim sects are eight, not just four, including Shiism. King Abdullah's leadership has always shown acute awareness of the danger that hate speech and sectarian "fitnah" pose to national unity and security. The King Abdulaziz Dialogue Center has always given the issue a high priority and its first national dialogue meeting in Riyadh, 2003, issued strong guidelines to guarantee and encourage sectarian tolerance and acceptance.
The process, then, has officially been established, and the road map is already laid out in front of us. Politics, conflicts and "fitnah" makers should not be allowed to slow our progress. Our security, peaceful coexistence and future depend on it.
— Dr. Khaled Batarfi is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah. He can be reached at: Kbatarfi@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kbatarfi.
