Egocentrism

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Brookline, MA, United States
I'll post rants here, and musings; articles and thoughts about articles. I'll keep it quite complex and yet astoundingly simple: whatever it is I am interested in at any given moment.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Great Interpretation of "the Shi'ite Problem"

I rarely read books that aren't for school - and sometimes don't even read those. Periodicals and articles, at this point in my life at least, take up so much of my time, and books can't always hold my attention all the way through.

That being said, I finished the year-end double issues of Time and Newsweek a few days ago and new issues don't come out until next week, so I've turned to juggling a few books. Merely because it was within reach late at night when I finished Time (whose end of year issue will inspire at least two future posts), and because it's gripping and timely (see: Gaza Strip military action), I've found myself chugging through Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem.

Friedman, no great stylist (at least at this early point in his career), writes humbly and illustratively as he makes his points. There is a great deal to like, but what has caught my eye thus far is a compelling explanation of what I will call "the Shi'ite problem" that I (a) had never heard before and (b) I can't believe every Middle Eastern analyst doesn't use constantly.

Friedman walks us through the historical context and ideological distinction between the origins of the Sunni/Shi'ite split in the wake of the Prophet Muhammad's death, noting that the Sunnis (which means "traditionalists") chose to follow the democratic process that was the approach to leadership-succession in the desert, while the Shi'ites, borrowing from the modus operandi of the divine-right monarchy of pre-Islamic Persia, opted for a familial succession. This much, we know (though most people don't add the ideological basis factor into the discussion, which is a shame).

What Friedman adds to the conversation - crucially, I think, and again I reiterate how absurd it is that we don't hear this much more often so that it becomes part of even the laity's conversation about the Middle East and Islamic radicalism - is this, quoting "Islam expert Edward Mortimer" in his book Faith and Power:
Sunni Islam is the doctrine of power and achievement. Shi'ism is the doctrine of opposition. The starting point of Shi'ism is defeat: the defeat of Ali and his house ... . Its primary appeal is therefore to the defeated and oppressed. That is why it has so often been the rallying cry for the underdogs in the Muslim world ... especially for the poor and dispossessed.
Thus: Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Mahdi army.

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