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Iran, the Shia, and the Arab Upheaval: the Ideological Response

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Iran, the Shia, and the Arab Upheaval: the Ideological Response Ideas and Ideologies Supreme Leader Khamenei delivering Friday sermon. Photo: Khamenei.ir Iran, the Shia, and the Arab Upheaval: The Ideological Response Meir Litvak The deepening rift in the Middle East between the Sunni majority and the Shii minority has harmed Iran’s efforts to consolidate its status as the leader of the Islamic world. To mitigate the rift, Iran has worked on several ideological levels: the first is the effort to prove that the rift has no deep ideological or historical roots, and that all Muslims, Sunnis and Shiis, must unite against the real enemies of Islam—the United States and Israel. As part of this endeavor, Iran has sought to abolish various Shii practices that arouse Sunni anger, particularly the curses against the first three caliphs, who are admired by all Sunnis. The second effort was to create a united front of the Shia and the moderate mainstream Sunni Islam against both the Saudi Wahhabis and the Salafi-jihadi camp, by presenting these two groups as deviants that have completely distorted the essence of “correct” Islam, and in fact operate in the service of the United States and Israel. This article analyzes Iran’s ideological activity and the difficulties it faces. Keywords: Iran, Shia, Islam, Sunni, Wahhabi, Salafi-jihadi, Israel, United States Meir Litvak | Iran, the Shia, and the Arab Upheaval: The Ideological Response 75 Introduction The upheaval that engulfed the Arab world According to the Iranian regime, the list of Islam's starting in late December 2010 and erroneously enemies is headed by the United States and Israel, labeled the Arab Spring put an end to a decade who are to blame for the intra-Islamic strife. of political and strategic achievements for Iran and Shii organizations in the Middle East, and Among the most prominent schisms was presented some of the Shii communities in the the strategic enmity between Saudi Arabia region with challenges that for a while were and Iran, which is beyond the scope of this perceived as existential threats. The wave of article, but one of its basic elements is the protest, deriving from the social, economic, and doctrinal hostility between Saudi Wahhabi cultural crisis that plagued and still plagues Islam and Shii Islam. Consequently, framing some Arab states, was originally directed the various conflicts as a Sunni-Shii struggle against failing Arab regimes. However, a number severely damaged Iran’s efforts to establish of concurrent processes lent the upheaval the itself as the leader of the Islamic world with nature of a violent sectarian clash between the consent of the Sunni majority. It was clear the Sunni majority and the Shii minority. to Iran and its Shii allies that the demographic The cruel suppression of the civil protest in reality of a Sunni majority and Shii minority Syria changed the nature of the uprising to in the region cannot be changed, and thus a violent struggle led by Salafi-jihadi Sunni a military solution to sectarian hostilities organizations, who placed the Shiis at the head was not realistic. The Shiis, with Iran at their of their list of enemies to be destroyed. The helm, therefore adopted two complementary policy of exclusion of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri courses of action, intended to weaken or blur al-Maliki toward the Sunni minority pushed the sectarian nature of the conflicts and build them into the arms of the local branch of al- bridges to the Sunni mainstream. The first move Qaeda, which later assumed the name the raised the banner of Islamic unity—Sunni and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and which Shiis—against the external and internal enemies adopted an extreme anti-Shii line. Hostilities of Islam. According to the Iranian regime, this in Syria threatened to spill over into Lebanon list is headed by the United States and Israel, and undermine the fragile political balance who are to blame for the intra-Islamic strife. there, which benefited Hezbollah, arousing The second course of action was to present the fear of an outbreak of violence between it Wahhabis and the Salafi-jihadi organizations and Sunni organizations, mainly in Tripoli. as responsible for the bloodshed within Islam, The protests in Bahrain were presented by the and as the common enemy of correct Islam, rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as part of practiced by moderate Sunnis and Shiis alike, the Shii struggle against the Sunnis and not as acting in the service of the external enemies. the protest of an oppressed majority against an The Salafi-jihadi groups were presented as oppressive minority regime—a depiction that deviants that distorted Islam, and were declared helped to maintain United States support for heretics against whom jihad must be waged. the Sunni government. Added to these were These two moves preceded the outbreak of the growing hostilities in Yemen between the Arab Spring, but were accelerated by the the Houthis (who are part of the Zaydi Shii regional upheaval and its aftermath. stream) and the government, as well as the terror activities by Sunni extremists against Bringing Sunnis and Shiis together the Shii minority in Pakistan, which have taken Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid the lives of thousands since the start of the Ali Khamenei led both moves. In numerous current century. speeches he argued that the divisions in the 76 Strategic Assessment | Volume 24 | No. 1 | January 2021 Muslim world are not natural, and were, rather, that are now less important, particularly in imposed and fostered by imperialism led by light of the broad common ground between the United States and Israel. These enemies the two groups on a wide range of issues. This knew that if the Islamic umma were united, effort demands a re-evaluation of a number “it would have conquered the world” (Office of basic Shii principles, as well as action to of the Supreme Leader, 2015a). Therefore they abolish some popular religious practices that founded al-Qaeda and ISIS and fomented civil have aroused the anger of Sunnis for hundreds wars in Islamic countries, in order to deflect the of years. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Islamic umma’s attention from the real threat it declared at the Islamic Unity Conference in faces, that is, Zionism. Khamenei criticized the 2016 that Sunnis and Shiis lived side by side Western media for describing the violence in Iraq and respected each other for many centuries. as a conflict between Sunna and Shia, whereas The Shii did not harm core elements sacred it actually was a struggle between “humanity to the Sunnis, and all Muslims respected the and barbarity” (“Khamenei: No Sword between companions of the Prophet (aṣ-ṣaḥābah) and Sunna and Shia,” 2014). the Prophet’s family. Like Khamenei, he rejected Iran presented itself as driven by faith in the sectarian nature of the conflict and defined it Islamic solidarity and revolutionary commitment as a struggle between “American Islam” (that is, “to support the oppressed” wherever they may Saudi and Salafi Islam) and “pure Muhammadan be, and counter the efforts of the United States, Islam” (Rouhani, 2016). which in Iranian eyes sows discord between Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Muslims. Thus Khamenei took pride in the went further in seeking to minimize the heavy fact that in its support for the oppressed, Iran legacy of early Islamic history on modern does “not look at [their] religious denomination political reality. At the Sunni-Shii unity and we have offered the same support that we conference in January 2014 he asked, with a provided to our Shii brethren in Lebanon to our certain degree of despair, “Until when will we Sunni brethren in Gaza” (Office of the Supreme continue killing each other over the question Leader, 2015b). of who should have been the first caliph?” As part of this policy, each year since the Arab (the successor of the Prophet Muhammad), upheaval, Iran has hosted Islamic conferences and added that “the questions of how they to bring together the various streams in Islam. wash their hands and feet before prayer and The conferences are attended by hundreds how they pray cannot be a logical cause of of clerics, mostly Sunni, from forty different conflict.” Rafsanjani recognized the historical countries. The three principal messages that quarrel between the Sunnis and Shiis and their have emerged from these conferences and from respective development with different religious the hundreds of official publications in Iran insist texts, traditions, and doctrines. However, he was that the gaps in beliefs and religious conduct ready to challenge the symbolic and emotional between the Salafi-jihadi movement and the weight of these differences and to focus instead Sunni mainstream are far wider than the gaps on the present and future, by emphasizing that between the main Sunni and Shii streams; the quarrels over the past should not be allowed to Salafi-jihadi movement is a threat to all Muslims, become a source of violent rifts in the present and not only the Shiis; and the United States (Savion et al., 2014). and Israel are behind this movement, and they Considering the historic centrality of these are the beneficiaries of its murderous activities. disputes to the Sunni-Shii division, it appears The Iranian spokesmen have thus tried to that Rafsanjani sought to change the nature of present the theological differences between the relationship between the two sects—from the Sunnis and the Shiis as historical issues a sectarian dispute based on animosity and Meir Litvak | Iran, the Shia, and the Arab Upheaval: The Ideological Response 77 mutual exclusion, to a situation resembling nature of these religious rulings, rather than the various denominations in contemporary a significant ideological change.
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