Friday, February 16, 2007 AD
Shia tragedy
I've just finished reading Barnaby Rogerson's book The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad, the sequel to The Prophet Muhammad, which I have mentioned in passing before.
As with its predecessor, The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad is a great work of storytelling, a highly readable introduction to a fascinating (and critically important) period of history. Rogerson is not a Muslim, but a very sympathetic observer of Islam. At times this goes too far: Rogerson bemoans the takeover of the nascent Islamic state by the "tough-minded generals [and] scheming politicians", even while his books make clear that the careers of Muhammad and the four "Rightly Guided Caliphs" who followed him had no shortage of war and politics. However, the transition described (and deplored) by Rogerson is still real enough.
Rogerson's greatest ability, however, and the reason why I wholeheartedly recommend both his books, is to help the western reader understand and to some extent inhabit the historical mindset of early Islam. While a more sober history will give you the facts about the early decades of Islam, Rogerson makes you feel the tragedy of them, a tragedy which (he argues) still lies at the heart of the Islamic identity today.
It is impossible not to be moved by Rogerson's presentation of figures such as Ali or his brutally-slain son, Husayn. Ali - son-in-law of the Prophet, hailed by all Muslims as one of the great spiritual figures of early Islam, but regarded by Shias as having been cheated of his inheritance before Muhammad's body had even grown cold - eventually became the fourth Caliph, but was murdered at the end of years of civil war within the Islamic state. His son, the Imam Husayn, then died with his family and was beheaded after making his desperate, doomed last stand at Kerbala in AD 680. He had been summoned to rescue true Islam from the politicians and dynastic monarchs who had now taken it over, only to be abandoned by those who had called him to the fight.
The book is subtitled, "And the Roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism", and looks at the fifty years following Muhammad's death. The split between Sunni and Shia has its origins in those years - indeed, its origins go back to the hours immediately following the death of Muhammad. And Ali, "the linchpin of the whole tale of the Heirs of the Prophet", is a key figure in this split between Sunni and Shia.
As Rogerson writes towards the end of the book:
By contrast:
It is interesting how the myth of a golden age lost and betrayed can be a spur to activism, of the desire to recreate that age of purity in the world today. This is presumably because, if you believe perfection was possible once, then it follows it is possible again. On the other hand, if you believe that even the so-called "golden age" was itself complex and ambiguous, then this can lead to a greater acceptance of the limitations of human endeavour, a greater realism - but it can also lead to a complacent acceptance of the second-rate and unjust.
To that extent, Shia Muslims find their counterparts in some strange places: in a certain type of "confessional" Christian, calling the church back to a repristinated age of orthodoxy; or, at the other end of the scale, in the type of liberal Christian who weeps tears of frustration at how the pure, simple vision of Jesus the Galilean teacher of righteousness was usurped and betrayed by Paul.
Cross-posted at www.confessingevangelical.com. Please see the post on that site for any comments.
As with its predecessor, The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad is a great work of storytelling, a highly readable introduction to a fascinating (and critically important) period of history. Rogerson is not a Muslim, but a very sympathetic observer of Islam. At times this goes too far: Rogerson bemoans the takeover of the nascent Islamic state by the "tough-minded generals [and] scheming politicians", even while his books make clear that the careers of Muhammad and the four "Rightly Guided Caliphs" who followed him had no shortage of war and politics. However, the transition described (and deplored) by Rogerson is still real enough.
Rogerson's greatest ability, however, and the reason why I wholeheartedly recommend both his books, is to help the western reader understand and to some extent inhabit the historical mindset of early Islam. While a more sober history will give you the facts about the early decades of Islam, Rogerson makes you feel the tragedy of them, a tragedy which (he argues) still lies at the heart of the Islamic identity today.
It is impossible not to be moved by Rogerson's presentation of figures such as Ali or his brutally-slain son, Husayn. Ali - son-in-law of the Prophet, hailed by all Muslims as one of the great spiritual figures of early Islam, but regarded by Shias as having been cheated of his inheritance before Muhammad's body had even grown cold - eventually became the fourth Caliph, but was murdered at the end of years of civil war within the Islamic state. His son, the Imam Husayn, then died with his family and was beheaded after making his desperate, doomed last stand at Kerbala in AD 680. He had been summoned to rescue true Islam from the politicians and dynastic monarchs who had now taken it over, only to be abandoned by those who had called him to the fight.
The book is subtitled, "And the Roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism", and looks at the fifty years following Muhammad's death. The split between Sunni and Shia has its origins in those years - indeed, its origins go back to the hours immediately following the death of Muhammad. And Ali, "the linchpin of the whole tale of the Heirs of the Prophet", is a key figure in this split between Sunni and Shia.
As Rogerson writes towards the end of the book:
All Muslims revere Ali as the most enlightened spiritual figure after the Prophet Muhammad. All acknowledge him as a Caliph. All Muslims agree that with the assassination of Ali in 661, the era of holiness within the Islamic community is over.This is the tragedy of the first half-century of Islam:
[J]ust a generation after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the rule of the enlightened Heirs of the Prophet is finished. So after just thirty years, the tough-minded generals, the scheming politicians, the police chiefs and the old clan chiefs are once again back in power. By 661 men of the ilk of Muawiya, Amr and Mughira have triumphed over the Muslim Empire of the Arabs. No one doubts this, whether they are Sunni Muslims or Shia Muslims.The difference between the two groups lies in the question, not of whether the example of Muhammad was betrayed by his successors, but how quickly:
For the Shia the betrayal of the inheritance of the Prophet begins within a few hours of Muhammad's death, while the Sunni consider that despite the slow creeping decay in spiritual values, this first generation of the Heirs of the Prophet set an example that can usefully be studied by mankind.Hence the collective example of the first four Caliphs - Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman and Ali - are taken by Sunnis as a "heroic role model" for the Muslim community.
By contrast:
The Shia concentrate their spiritual energy on a sense of immediate loss, of a divine vision so quickly betrayed by mankind. They argue that only Ali was qualified to uphold the spiritual values that underpinned the whole essence of Islam. This is a melancholic vision, though on another level it allows the Shia to aspire to create a holy state such as Ali might have instituted on this earth.As such, the Sunni/Shia split seems to follow a pattern and dichotomy found quite often in human affairs, one from which the church itself is far from immune.
It is interesting how the myth of a golden age lost and betrayed can be a spur to activism, of the desire to recreate that age of purity in the world today. This is presumably because, if you believe perfection was possible once, then it follows it is possible again. On the other hand, if you believe that even the so-called "golden age" was itself complex and ambiguous, then this can lead to a greater acceptance of the limitations of human endeavour, a greater realism - but it can also lead to a complacent acceptance of the second-rate and unjust.
To that extent, Shia Muslims find their counterparts in some strange places: in a certain type of "confessional" Christian, calling the church back to a repristinated age of orthodoxy; or, at the other end of the scale, in the type of liberal Christian who weeps tears of frustration at how the pure, simple vision of Jesus the Galilean teacher of righteousness was usurped and betrayed by Paul.
Cross-posted at www.confessingevangelical.com. Please see the post on that site for any comments.
