The aftermath

Here is a poem which I had to study as part of the English GCSE. It makes you think.

Thank you Chris for posting that.

Regarding the Sunni and Shia (Shi´ite in english transliteration) directions of Islam:

As I have posted earlier, Islam is a faith and a way of life that has over one billion adherents. As such, it is a heterogenous faith, with lots of differences between various groups and lots of influence by local culture. How many know, for example, that the majority of the world's muslims are not arabs? That the largest muslim country in the world is Indonesia? That the area in which Islam is growing fastest is probably in western europe and USA?

Now, Sunni and Shia are the two largest directions of Islam. The division between them is an old one, dating back to the 700's and having it's root in a dispute over the nature of worldly government and the role of the descendants of the prophet Muhammed. You could, in a very, very simplified manner, liken the situation to the one within christendom when the church split into a roman catholic and a eastern orthodox one.

Sunni Islam is, worldwide, in the majority, but Shia are a large miniority and locally a majority. The largest population of Shia muslims can be found in Iran and Iraq, as well as large minorities in Syria, Lebanon and other countries.

While there are theological differences between the groups, they are all definately muslims. Shia go on the hadj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, despite the holy city being located in the staunchly Sunni country of Saudi Arabia.

Now, a very important part of being a muslim is following the shari´a, the law according to which you should live. It is based on human interpretations of the holy Q´aran, as well as examples from the lives and deeds of the prophet Muhammed, his family and other notable persons, as well as "the consenus and understanding of good muslims everywhere" -in practice learned scholars.

There are several schools of islamic law, all having differences in how they look upon things, the relation between earthly and religious powers being one, for example. Some are very strict, others more loose. Some, like so many other philosophies, are very closely tied the current ruling powers at the time of their inception.

So, what does all this mean? Basically, my point is that it is both pointless and ignorant, even dangerous, to point at one branch of Islam and say "they are all extremists", or saying that "all muslims are like X".

The myth of Shia being some kind of violent sect of fanatcis is one that started to surface in Western media after the revolution in Iran, when the dictatorship of the Shah was overthrown, upsetting the balance of power in the region, and scaring the USA and the Gulf states. The Shia where then tarred as some sort of fanatic, Soviet-funded cold war boogeyman, out to get all the nice oil in the region, and burning down your local Mc Donalds. And while the islamic republic of Iran did engage in a bit of state terrorism every now and then, it was almost always directed at it's own internal enemies and dissidents.