DAR AL ISLAM: SHI'ITE ISLAM, ASCENDING

Before you read the following articles, if you are not familiar with how difference between Shi'ites & Sunnis' came to be, please read this first:

The origins of Shiite Islam
A split between Muslims started with the battle over who should lead the faithful after the prophet Muhammad's death.
By Staff

Shiite Muslims are the product of the violent schism that followed the death of the prophet Muhammad in AD 632, and through the centuries have generally been the losers in the struggle to lead the faithful and to divide patronage and power. That has left them with a sharp feeling of dispossession, of being a people denied their destiny by corrupt rulers.

The split started with a fight over who should lead the faithful after Muhammad's death. One side believed that direct descendants of the prophet should take up the mantle of caliph – the leader of the world's Muslims. They were known as the Shiat-Ali, or "partisans of Ali," after the prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali, whom they favored to become caliph. They became known as Shiites.

The other side, Sunnis, thought that any worthy man could lead the faithful, regardless of lineage, and favored Abu Bakr, an early convert to Islam who had married into Muhammad's family. "Sunni" is derived from the Arab word for "followers" and is shorthand for "followers of the prophet."

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Shiites Rising: Islam's minority reaches new prominence
Shiite Muslims are leading an 'axis of resistance' that unnerves Sunnis and challenges the US and Israel.
by Scott Peterson


"Divine victory." That's how Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah portrayed the 34-day war last summer when a few thousand Hizbullah soldiers fought Israel's vaunted military to a standstill.
Lebanon's most renowned Shiite cleric stood before a sea of yellow Hizbullah flags on Sept. 22, 2006, in a rare moment of triumph for a Shiite leader; and it reverberated throughout the Middle East.

For more than 1,300 years, Shiites have been an oppressed Islamic minority. Even today they represent just 10 to 15 percent of the world's Muslims. But Sheikh Nasrallah's clout is part of a broader rise of Shiite power. Iraq and Iran (Shiite-led states) control the world's second- and third-largest oil reserves, respectively. And Shiite leaders - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iraq's Moqtada al-Sadr, and Nasrallah - are household names with support that crosses national and sectarian lines.

US policies, experts agree, have played a key role in this elevation. Arab Sunni leaders warn of an emerging "Shiite Crescent." But more than political and economic power, they worry about the Shiite world view.

Shiism is suffused with a culture of resistance, an identity that finds spiritual meaning in fighting injustice and through martyrdom. The result is a Shiite-led "axis of resistance" with Iran and Hizbullah at its core, versus a US-led Western alliance that includes Israel.

Is a battle for a "new" Middle East under way? Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seems to think so. Last month, he declared that "great war of wills" is taking place. Iran standing up tothe US and the West has "exploded a bomb in world politics that is a hundred times more powerful than the [atomic] bomb ... exploded in Hiroshima."

Today the Monitor begins a two-part special report on the Shiite ascension - in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon - and its future.



and now, part two:


Shiites Rising: Sect leaders craft message for masses
by Scott Peterson


Emerging for the first time after months in hiding from US forces and Shiite rivals, Moqtada al-Sadr swept into Iraq's Kufa mosque in late May to deliver a potent sermon.

"No, no, no to Satan! No, no, no to America! No, no, no to occupation! No, no, no to Israel!" he roared, wearing a white shroud over black robes to indicate his readiness for martyrdom.

But along with strident calls to resist, the cleric struck another theme that is increasingly heard from ascendant Shiite leaders: Muslim unity.

"I want to say now that the blood of Sunnis is forbidden to everyone," preached the cleric. "They are our brothers in religion and in nationality."

The message is a pan-Islamic blend of Shiite ideology and nationalism heard also in Lebanon from Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and in Iran from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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Pertinent Links:

1) The origins of Shiite Islam

2) Shiites Rising: Islam's minority reaches new prominence (Part One)

3) Shiites Rising: Sect leaders craft message for masses