Islam's Sunni-Shia Divide Block 2
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JUL 31, 2019
Islam's Sunni-Shia Divide BY SARAH PRUITT
Though the two main sects within Islam, Sunni and Shia, agree on most of the fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam, a bitter split between the two goes back some 14 centuries. The divide originated with a dispute over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic faith he introduced.
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sect: a group of people with somewhat different religious beliefs from those of a larger group to which they belong |
Today, about 85 percent of the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni, while 15 percent are Shia, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations. While Shia represent the majority of the population in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, and a plurality in Lebanon, Sunnis are the majority in more than 40 other countries, from Morocco to Indonesia.
Despite their differences, Sunni and Shia have lived alongside each other in relative peace for most of history. But starting in the late 20th century, the schism deepened, exploding into violence in many parts of the Middle East as extreme brands of Sunni and Shia Islam battle for both religous and political supremacy.
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schism: a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief. |
The Aftermath of Muhammad’s Death
What is the main idea of this section? The main idea should be a complete sentence.
the main idea is, how the shia choose their leader trough family members.
The main idea is on how the shia were choosing leaders though family member’s or friends.
The main idea is that like the family members of like the house.
The main idea of this section is about how the shla were choosing leaders through family members or friends to be the next leader.
The Main Idea is that the shia chose their leader through family members.
I believe that the main idea is how Shia choose their leaders through family members.
What are two pieces of textual evidence (COPY and PASTE DIRECTLY FROM THE TEXT) to support the main idea. Why did you choose those 2 pieces?
While most of Muhammad’s followers thought that the other elite members of the Islamic community should choose his successor, a smaller group believed only someone from Muhammad’s family—namely his cousin and son-in-law, Ali
2. “The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” says Lesley Hazleton,
1 Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community’’ shows point about choseing someone they knew.
2 “The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” shows how they were trying to chose leaders from family.
1. a smaller group believed only someone from Muhammad’s family—namely his cousin and son-in-law, Ali—should succeed him. This group became known as the followers of Ali; in Arabic the Shiat Ali, or simply Shia.
2.“The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” says Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Sunni-Shia Split in Islam. “This was important, because by the time he died, he had basically brought all the tribes of Arabia together into a kind of confederation that became the ummah—the people or nation of Islam.”
2. ¨Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community¨, i also chose this evidence here because even though they did not find a family member the people chose one of his closest friend.
would choose close friends or family to become the next leader.
“The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” this one explains how he never choose/stated for someone to be his successor, which is why they choose close friends or family.
and “The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor
“A smaller group believed only someone from Muhammad’s family—namely his cousin and son-in-law, Ali-should succeed him.This group became known as the followers of Ali;In Arabic the Shiat Ali, or simply Shia.” This proves that he chosed his cousin to be the leader.
“Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader of the Islamic community.” This proves how it chosed the close friend to be leader.
2)“Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community.”
Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community. Ali eventually became the fourth caliph (or Imam, as Shiites call their leaders), but only after the two that preceded him had both been assassinated. My other piece of evidence is At stake was not only control of Muhammad’s religious and political legacy, but also a great deal of money, in the form of taxes and tributes paid by the various tribes united under the banner of Islam.
2.)“Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community”
I chose theses two pieces because it says that only family from Muhammid were able to get massed on the throne/inheritance.In my second evidence it said that they choose one of his closest friends, even though he was not family.
One piece of evidence is ¨Elite members of the Islamic community should choose his successor, a smaller group believed only someone from Muhammad’s family¨ I chose this piece of evidence because is tells us about the next successor and how it should be from the family side.
The second piece of evidence is “The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” The reason I chose this piece of evidence was because it shows the reason why they only chose close friends or family.
Text evidence
1) the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community
2) Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor
The main idea of this section is how shia choose their leader from their family.
The roots of the Sunni-Shia divide can be traced all the way back to the seventh century, soon after the death of the prophet Muhammad in A.D. 632. While most of Muhammad’s followers thought that the other elite members of the Islamic community should choose his successor, a smaller group believed only someone from Muhammad’s family—namely his cousin and son-in-law, Ali—should succeed him. This group became known as the followers of Ali; in Arabic the Shiat Ali, or simply Shia.
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successor: the next person to take over a throne, inheritance, office, or other position from the last person |
“The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a male heir, and he never clearly stated who he would want to be his successor,” says Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Sunni-Shia Split in Islam. “This was important, because by the time he died, he had basically brought all the tribes of Arabia together into a kind of confederation that became the ummah—the people or nation of Islam.”
Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community. Ali eventually became the fourth caliph (or Imam, as Shiites call their leaders), but only after the two that preceded him had both been assassinated.
Ali, himself, was killed in 661, as the bitter power struggle between Sunni and Shia continued. At stake was not only control of Muhammad’s religious and political legacy, but also a great deal of money, in the form of taxes and tributes paid by the various tribes united under the banner of Islam. This combination of money and power would only grow. Within the century after Muhammad’s death, his followers had built an empire that stretched from Central Asia to Spain.
Battle of Karbala and Its Lasting Significance
In 681, Ali’s son Hussein led a group of 72 followers and family members from Mecca to Karbala (present-day Iraq) to confront the corrupt caliph Yazid of the Ummayad dynasty. A massive Sunni army waited for them, and by the end of a 10-day standoff with various smaller struggles, Hussein was killed and decapitated, and his head brought to Damascus as a tribute to the Sunni caliph.
“It was obviously intended by the Ummayads to put the definitive end to all claims to leadership of the ummah as a matter of direct descendence from Muhammad,” says Hazleton of Hussein’s death, and the death of all the surviving members of Muhammad’s family, at Karbala. “But of course it's not what happened.” Instead, Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala became the central story of Shia tradition, and is commemorated yearly as Ashoura, the most solemn date on the Shia calendar.
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Summary of the Battle of Karbala: Ali’s son, Hussein (the rightful heir of the Muhammad throne and a member of the Shia sect) led a group of 72 people to confront the corrupt leader Yazid. Yazid was a member of the Ummayad dynasty and a member of the Sunni sect. Hussein was killed & his death was considered a tribute to the Sunni regime. While members of the Ummayad dynasty would have liked to silence all claims to leadership from Muhammad’s family members, Hussein’s death took on a deeper significance and became the central theme of the Shia tradition. Hussein’s death is honored yearly as Ashoura by Shia Muslims. |
The Sunni-Shia Divide Into the 21st Century
In addition to Karbala, the NPR podcast Throughline identified three key milestones that would sharpen Sunni-Shia divisions by the end of the 20th century. First came the rise of the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century, which transformed Iran (through force) from a Sunni center into the Shia stronghold of the Middle East. In the early 20th century, the victorious Allies divided the territory held by the former Ottoman Empire after World War I, cutting through centuries-old religious and ethnic communities in the process. Finally, in 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran produced a radical brand of Shia Islam that would clash violently with Sunni conservatives in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the decades to follow.
Amid the increasing politicization of Islam and the rise of fundamentalists on both sides of the divide, sectarian tensions intensified in the early 21st century, especially amid the upheavals caused by two Persian Gulf Wars, the chaos that followed the U.S.-backed ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in Iraq, and the mass uprisings across the region that began with the Arab Spring in 2011.
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politicization: the action of causing an activity or event to become political in character |
Sunni-Shia divisions would fuel a long-running civil war in Syria, fighting in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, and terrorist violence on both sides. A common thread in most of these conflicts is the ongoing battle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran for influence in the oil-rich Middle East and surrounding regions.
Despite the long-running nature of the Sunni-Shia divide, the fact that the two sects coexisted in relative peace for many centuries suggests their struggles may have less to do with religion than with wealth and power such as with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Why do you think extremist groups use religion as a front to gain wealth and power?
This looks like extremist groups do not use religion for wealth and power.
The extremist groups use religion because it can influence people to join their group. how this happens is that the extremist group makes a public speech and makes others think that they are doing their terrorist causes for the right reasons so therefore it gains them power over people.
Extremist groups use religion as a front to gain wealth and power because it can help courage people to join and gain wealth and power.
This looks like extremist groups do not use religion for wealth and power.
I think that extremist groups use religion as a front to gain wealth and power because they know that some people look to religion as a refuge. People involved in religion have faith in the religion they are involved with, and because they have strong beliefs in that religion, they can be taken advantage of when the extremist align their views with their religion.
It seems that extremist groups do not use religion as a front to gain wealth and power.
The Sunni-Shia Divide In Afghanistan
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996; The Tailban identify as Sunni, but they imposed very strict rules based on their extreme interpretation of Islam. They also targeted certain ethnic minorities including the Hazara (Shia) people. This led to many Afghans fleeing the country in search of refuge and safety, but often living in desperate conditions, penniless, unable to speak the local language and in search of protection. Oftentimes, people are left as internally displaced persons (IDPs) without much help from their country. This leads to many people leaving Afghanistan because it remains dangerous and unsafe; however, once they reach a new country, they are often discriminated against because of their ethnicity. “People seem to forget that a small section of a population doesn’t equal the whole” says Hazelton
The Taliban have been accused of committing mass killings of the Hazaras particularly in the north. It has been claimed that the Taliban massacred thousands of civilians and prisoners during and after the capture of Mazar-i-Sharif in August 1998; this massacre reportedly was aimed at ethnic Hazaras.
In January 2001, several NGO's reported that the Taliban massacred several hundred Shia civilians in Yakawlang in the center of the country. The massacre reportedly occurred after the Taliban recaptured the area from opposition forces. According to witnesses interviewed by HRW, after the Taliban recaptured the area, they rounded up victims from the surrounding villages, and shot or stabbed them with bayonets in the town center.
Besides claims of genocide, there are claims of forced expulsions of ethnic Hazaras and Tajiks from areas controlled or conquered by the Taliban, as well as harassment of these minorities throughout Taliban-controlled areas.
If Hazaras and Tajiks wanted to flee for their lives, explain their next steps for safety.
What do they need to do in order be safe? (Use this week’s notes to help you answer)
The next steps that Hazaras and Tajiks need to do in order to fee is to find to think of a place to refugee at.
-plan their scape and plan which refuges are available to be at
-get enough resources as possible in order to survive the trip to the designated location.
- save up their supplies and stay alert of any threat
-once there they should ask for help from the other state they are in.
these are the following steps the Hazzaras and Tajiks shoud do in order to flee for their lifes.
If Hazaras and Tajks wanted to flee for their lives then they have to fine another place to keep them safe.
The next steps that Hazaras and Tajiks need to do in order to fee is to find to think of a place to refugee at.
The Hazaras and tajiks need to find a place to feel safe.what they need in order to feel safe is get resources in order to survive throughout the journey, food, water, other supplies .
While the Taliban is associated with Sunni Islam, it does not follow or represent the religion’s Five Pillars. As stated earlier, while it’s never been confirmed, many believe the conflict between the Taliban and the Hazara has less to do with religion and more to do with control and power.
General Document Comments 0
The main idea of this is how the Shia and how they choose leaders thought family and friends
It’s just that this topic is quite complex.
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