The Strifes of History Break the Backs of Muslims

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Renewed 16 March 2016

Every person who divides Sunni Muslims from Shia Muslims is a criminal, because he works to tear apart the nation, sever its limbs, demolish its bonds, sow discord and corruption in its ranks, and drown it in the blood of its own children, draining its energies and exhausting its strength until it becomes an easy morsel for enemies and for the covetous among the Jews and the Americans. This deliberate criminal is not a Muslim, even if he fasts, prays, keeps vigil at night, performs voluntary devotions, makes the minor pilgrimage, and clings to the drapes of the Kaaba. He is a foolish, misguided man, or a cunning fox cloaking himself in Islam in order to demolish a nation that Islam gathered together upon goodness, love, the principles of justice, and the upholding of the balance.

This criminal stands outside the nation not merely because he commits the sin of spreading corruption, but because he transgresses against the creed of the oneness of God, the One, the Only — the creed from which the nation draws its unity, its cohesion, its solidarity, and its mutual responsibility. Our God is one God, our nation is one nation, and no one tears apart or divides its sons except one who has failed and abandoned the creed of oneness. This criminal is not merely a sinner or a heretic — he stands outside the faith community, and is accursed.

Our nation is one nation, in spite of every sect, including sects long since vanished such as the Kharijites, the Qadariyya, and the Jabariyya, and in spite of every modern party and organization that treats blood as cheap and adopts the methods of killing, bombing, slaughter, destruction, and sabotage. It is a nation that will establish justice throughout its lands without distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim, between Shia and Sunni, between this party or that, or between Arab and non-Arab.

I am a specialist in Islamic political thought, and I have searched a great deal in the Noble Qur’an for God Almighty’s supposed concern with dividing Muslims into Sunni and Shia, and I found none; nor did I find a division between Hanbali, Ja’fari, and Shafi’i. I searched whether He favors the Shia over the Sunni, or the Sunni over the Shia, and found nothing; nor whether He favors the Arab over the non-Arab, or one believer over another, or one person over another. I found in the Noble Qur’an that God Almighty calls us to Islam, and it is one Islam. I did not find two Islams in the Noble Qur’an, nor did I find any divine intervention in the appointment of caliphs, nor any divine mandate given to any specific person to be the guardian of Islam. Even priesthood and monasticism are rejected in Islam, and no one holds the authority of divine mandate. I found in the Noble Qur’an that Paradise is for those who believe and do righteous deeds, and I found intense hatred of spreading corruption on earth, and I found a command to Muslims to fight those who fight them and expel them from their homes, and those who assist in fighting them and expelling them from their homes. God Almighty commands against aggression, but commands that aggression be answered in kind.

I have read Sunni clerics declaring Shia jurisprudence to be unbelief, and I have read Shia clerics declaring Sunni jurisprudence to be unbelief. I found no truth in the words of either side. It is absolutely impermissible to declare any Muslim an unbeliever unless the matter touches the creed itself; disagreement over intellectual and legal questions does not justify such a declaration, and whoever declares a fellow Muslim an unbeliever falls, on the principle that “whoever declares a Muslim an unbeliever has himself become an unbeliever,” into unbelief himself. From my reading of Sunni and Shia literature, I found no differences in creed — which encompasses belief in God, His messengers, His scriptures, His angels, and the Last Day. (The creed does not include what is repeated on the tongues of some Muslims regarding belief in qada and qadar, for qada differs from qadar, and qadar remains the substance of truth and falsehood that requires the exercise of thought, and the Muslim expresses his belief in qadar through the scientific search for truth.) And since there are, in truth, no differences or disputes in creed, resorting to declarations of unbelief is nothing but a blindness of both the eye and the insight.

They cling to the strifes of history in order to destroy the present and besiege the future.

Many fools among us now want to fight the Battle of the Camel and the battles of Siffin and Karbala all over again. They insist on resurrecting history so that the sword remains suspended over our necks, so that we go on killing one another, destroying our own tillage and offspring, extinguishing the hopes of generations, and violating the sanctities of the innocent, of women and children. These people do not only bring misery upon themselves through their own foolishness; they drag the entire nation into miseries and ordeals that only add to its weakness and its being torn apart. We have all witnessed the tragedy in Iraq, where bellies were ripped open, heads severed, and limbs amputated, where people were driven like cattle to slaughterhouses of crime, and we still see mass killing to this day. This is what sectarian fanaticism does — fanaticism that has nothing to do with Islam, nor with the Noble Messenger, nor with the caliphs and the righteous saints.

Islam sees history as a source of lessons and learning, not as something to be cloned and reproduced. History does not repeat itself; rather, the true believer works to benefit from history’s lessons in order to avoid past lapses and mistakes, and to entrench the positive elements that accord with the message of Islam. As for those among us who object to certain religious rituals connected with historical events, we must know that all Muslims — Sunni, Shia, religious orders, and sects alike — have their own ritual practices, which are likewise connected to historical matters. Rituals connected with history have nothing to do with Islamic thought or with legislation; they relate directly to the nation’s not-very-elevated level of civilization. There are rituals connected with historical paganism rather than with Islamic faith, and there are legal customs that have nothing to do with Islam but are instead connected to pre-Islamic Arab customs, particularly with regard to women.

Our fools open the door and pave the way for enemies to ignite strife and fan the flames of sectarian fighting. Israel, America, and the Arab regimes are exploiting the foolishness of these people now in Iraq, so that Iraqis turn away from liberation and become preoccupied with internal fighting, spreading further chaos, hatred, and malice within the ranks of a single people. Agents of Israel and America are now committing astonishing, hideous, hate-filled crimes in Iraq, laying the groundwork for a civil war that will not stop at Iraq’s imaginary borders but will extend to become a war between Shia and Sunni.

And the strife is spreading toward Lebanon, as vast sums of money and numerous media outlets are deployed in the service of Sunni-Shia discord. There, in Lebanon, are those who work day and night, pushing hard toward internal Lebanese fighting, and it seems that were it not for Hezbollah’s determination not to be dragged in, Lebanon would have drowned in a river of blood.

Most Arab rulers, and many false, corrupt clerics who do not know God, are now trying to play the Sunni-Shia card in order to withhold support from the resistance against Israel, whether its members are Sunni or Shia. These people have never once been with God, and have never been Muslims except on their official papers, and they are now trying to remind people of certain absurd historical events that have brought Muslims nothing but harm. These rulers, and the hypocrites allied with them who merely claim Islam, stand against Islam, against the Arabs, and against resistance movements wherever they exist, and they stand with Israel in service to their American master, who protects their hollow thrones. They are all against Sunni Hamas, against the Sunni Islamic Jihad movement, and against Shia Hezbollah.

We must be aware that our God is one, our Qur’an is one, and our Islam is one, and that history is no cause for division. We all stand with the Arab and Islamic resistance that works for the nation’s deliverance from the American yoke and the Zionist tyranny. We stand with Hezbollah, which fights in defense of the entire nation, and in defense of Lebanon and Palestine; with Hamas, which struggles against the Zionists; with Islamic Jihad, which struggles; and with every resistance movement that works for the nation’s deliverance from occupation and colonialism, and for leading the nation toward dignity, honor, and independence. Let no one lend an ear to an American agent, or an Israeli spy, or to those hiding beneath the cloak of religion.

The Qur’an unites us, and sects tear us apart.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “فتن التاريخ تقصم ظهر المسلمين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.