Conflicts in Sunni Political Islam and Their Implications

Understanding 'Sectarianism': Sunni-Shi'a Relations in the Modern Arab World, 2020

The Introduction to: Fanar Haddad, Understanding 'Sectarianism': Sunni-Shi'a Relations in the Modern Arab World, London: Hurst & Co./New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

While Islamic fundamentalism was born first among Sunnis as a response to the decline of Muslim power, its ideology, alliances and strategies have changed significantly with geopolitical shifts. Drawing upon, among others, the 13th century Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian Ibn Taymiyya and the 18th century puritan reformer, Muhamad ibn Abd al-Waha, the theoretical basis for the Islamist movement was devised in the early decades of the 20th century by the ideologists Abul Ala Mawdudi in Pakistan, Ruhollah Khomeini and Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī in Iran, and Hassan al Banna and Sayyid Qutb in Egypt. But it did not emerge as a potent political force until after the Israeli-Arab War of 1973 and has waxed and waned ever since. Currently, in may be in its most brutal (and perhaps devolved) incarnation to date in the form of ISIS. As political Islam evolved, so with it has the question of who among the various powers in the region would control the potent new religious and political force. In Pakistan, Islamization served to associate devout bourgeoisie and Islamic intellectuals with a system that allowed the governing elites to remain-- in the form of military hierarchy. More significantly, it prevented the masses from rebelling in the name of Allah. The Iranian Revolution sought to use political Islam as a way to break its isolation and gain regional hegemony through "bridging the Arab-Persian divide" and were by far the most successful in mobilizing the poor, the merchants, and the secular middle class against injustice at the hand of the shah's governing elite and forced westernization through the White Revolution. Yet, the revolution was soon met with Saudi Arabia throwing its petrol-fuelled wealth behind a the most puritanical, conservative approach, funding the growth of any group or party that preached their Wahhabite creed anywhere in the world to reassert their own regional dominance. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the United States' win in the Persian Gulf War, the former sponsors of jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US and Gulf oil monarchies, lost concern for their proxies, and the Taliban and the evolving al-Qaeda turned against them-- garnering wide-reaching implications for the stability of the Muslim world. Understanding the new prominence Iran had achieved through the defeat of Iraq and the Soviet Union, Israel seized the opportunity to rebuild its alliance with the US by focusing on their new shared enemy of radical Islam, in which Iran-- not Saudi Arabia-- was the most significant progenitor. The newfound prominence Iran experienced after the Persian Gulf War mirrors that which they were granted with the US occupation in Iraq, as it removed Saddam Hussein from power and both Coalition Provisional Authority proclamations and the Shia president installed pursued debilitating sectarian policies, cementing Shia dominance and metastasizing Sunni grievances. This paper summarizes and analyzes the work of Trita Parsi's Treacherous Alliance, Gilles Kepel's Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, Vali Nasir's The Shia Revival, and Pinkaj Mishra's From the Ruin of Empire, as well as the development of Iraq's oil resources post-occupation to determine how major geopolitical shifts-- Mongol invasions, the formation of the Saudi Kingdom, colonialism, independence, the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973, The Iranian Revolution, the 1977 coup in Pakistan, the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War, 9/11, the US occupation of Iraq, and oil-- have influenced the ideology and alliances of political Islam. The aim of the paper is not only to understand political Islam's evolution (or devolution?), but to determine how significantly Israel, US-Israeli relations, and US-Saudi relations have exacerbated radical Islam, to understand the foundation of ISIS, to analyze the implications of the Shia Revival, and to chart a course for possible regional balance in efforts to eliminate the political need for Islamic extremism. As Gilles Kepel notes, "to measure its (the Islamist upsurge of the 1970s') full impact, we need to identify its many dimensions and investigate the different periods of gestation, the networks, the lines of communication, the tendencies and ideas that composed it, within the context of the demographic, cultural, economic and social realities of the decade."

Modern Management Review, 2021

The article focuses on the ideological pillars of the ISIS or the so-called Islamic State and aims to explain the ideological core of the ISIS by examining the roots and pillars of this extreme terrorist Jihadists, Wahhabist and Salafist organization. The article seeks and explores the roots in Jihadism, radical form of Salafism and partially radical Arab nationalism, but it also looks partially at the "legacy" of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq (many former high ranked officers of Saddam's military, BAATH party and also several intelligence officers were actively involved in ISIS) and the Arab post-colonial and post-cold war world.

Op-ed , 2025

In today’s global and regional political landscape, the Sunni-Shiite divide cannot be viewed solely through a religious or sectarian lens. Instead, it reflects a more complex geopolitical reality. Political entanglements have created a situation in which Sunnis and Shiites cannot be regarded as unified blocs. Neither group is monolithic, and no sect has remained confined strictly within the boundaries of Islam. Even within Sunni or Shiite sects, political contexts often reveal a lack of cohesion and a blending of ideological positions. At the geopolitical level, the issue extends far beyond religion.

Informed Comment, 2015

EJMSS Volume 3 NO 3, 2023

The Middle East is unstable and it has not been able to successfully evolve any effective political system. All experiments with parliamentary democracy, military dictatorship and single party state system seem to have failed. There is tendency towards centralization, state centralism and even despotism. The internal structure of almost all the Arab states is fragile, weak, lacking institutional framework and it is at best in transition. This study establishes that governments in the Middle East are largely unrepresentative and most irresponsive to public sentiments. Ruling cliques in league with vested interests exercise power without responsibility and accountability. As a result, people generally feel left out and neglected. The study argues that people are agitating to remove these basic difficulties in order to lay the foundations of a modern progressive Middle East, able to hold its own in the fiercely competitive world of today. Hence, the study adopts "Political Islam" as a theory to interrogate the discourse while relying on secondary sources to gather the needed information.In a critical sense, the study observes that the main streams of Islamic resurgence can be broadly classified under two heads: one, those which have primarily religious motivation; and two, those which are dominated by socio-political considerations. It concludes that its dynamism is becoming more prominent everyday and its radical character is being underlined with greatest vigor and clarity. In view of this, the study recommends that the West should not perceive contemporary Islamic resurgence as a threat. It should rather appreciate and respect other cultures for peaceful coexistence .

Geopolitica, 2016

This essay argues for Iran’s importance as a partner in the fight against jihadi-takfiri terrorism and, in this respect, it has the outline of a policy brief, based on a rich array of evidence. It addresses the unleashing of Wahhabi-driven jihaditakfiri violence in North Africa and Southwest Asia followed to the so-called Arab Spring, which has had dire consequences on the populations of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, but has also been witnessed on the streets of cities around the world such as Paris, Brussels, Tunis, Beirut, Istanbul, Kabul, Jakarta, San Bernardino and Orlando. It does so from the perspective of the new status quo and re-balancing of power in the region brought about on the one hand by the dire consequences of the Spring/Awakening and on the other by the signing (14 July 2015) and implementation (16 January 2016) of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1. The latter, the essay argues, is a promising sign of the increasing awareness in the West of the need to move beyond faulty security perceptions about Iran and the old Wahhabi-guaranteed status quo in the region. Iran has in effect been the single force that has blocked the emerging threat of Wahhabi militantism and socalled Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh) from Baghdad to Damascus – and arguably from Beirut to Sanaa – and it is therefore an unavoidable partner for anyone sincerely interested in degrading and ultimately destroying ISIS, in the long run putting an end to the decades-long unholy alliance for regional dominance between the West and Saudi Arabia.

Connections: The Quarterly Journal, 2017

This article investigates the developments of al-Qaida and The Islamic State in the context of the war on terror. The Iraq war 2003-2010, including the US Counterinsurgency strategy implemented in Iraq in 2007 onwards, together with the political developments in Iraq after the US withdrawal of combat troops at the end of 2011 is seen as the breeding ground for Islamic State in Iraq and thus for establishment of the Nusra Front (al-Qaida) in Syria. The chapter argues that without political developments based on reliable states in the Arab Middle East there is no solution in sight for ending the conflicts and wars in the region.

Halabja University Journal, 2016

Both al-Qaida and ISIS had left significant bearing on international relations of the Middle East. This impact led to the emergence of a serious challenge to the Middle East's political landscape which emergent in post World War I according to Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916. Although both organizations belong to Salafi Jihadism which is a part of global Jihad, they had different focuses and orientations which have hitherto not explained fully. The focus of this paper is to discuss the differences in their world views and methods of operations to change the Middle East political and security order.