Behind the Sunni-Shi'ite Divide
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 By BOBBY GHOSH / BAGHDAD TIME article

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A young man mourns at a funeral for a relative killed in an attack on the Shii'te enclave Sadr City in November 2006. It is believed that Sunni arab militants were responsible for the blasts, which killed over 150 people.
Stephen Hird / Reuters


It has come to this: the hatred between Iraq's warring sects is now so toxic, it contaminates even the memory of a shining moment of goodwill. On Aug. 31, 2005, a stampede among Shi'ite pilgrims on a bridge over the Tigris River in Baghdad led to hundreds jumping into the water in panic. Several young men in Adhamiya, the Sunni neighborhood on the eastern bank, dived in to help. One of them, Othman al-Obeidi, 25, rescued six people before his limbs gave out from exhaustion and he himself drowned. Nearly 1,000 pilgrims died that afternoon, but community leaders in the Shi'ite district of Khadamiya, on the western bank, lauded the "martyrdom" of al-Obeidi and the bravery of his friends. Adhamiya residents, for their part, held up al-Obeidi's sacrifice as proof that Sunnis bore no ill will toward their Shi'ite neighbors across the river.......

I read this article today, and thought I would just share some thoughts on the dynamics of Islam in the Middle East. The two main sects of all Islam are behind the civil war, sort of like the North and the South were in our Civil War. The core of Shi'ite religion is in Iran. The Sunnis tend to control much of the rest of the Arab states. But the Shi'ites also tend to have the regions where most of the oil is.

The two sects are not really very different. We would call them big denominations over here. They have some slight differences in the way they practice their faith: clothes, methods of prayer, tithing practices. But the rift between them goes back 1,300 years to schisms that occurred in Islam right after the death of Mohammed. Sort of like the schism that occurred a few hundred years before that in the divide between the Catholic and the Orthodox Christians. Christians, however, tend not to be violent, and the Islamic schism has claimed countless lives. Like in Northern Ireland, if you start killing one another at some point, the argument tends to go on from one generation to the next.

Was the Iraq War a failure or a success? The dream was to give them a pluralistic democracy in the place of Saddam's totalitarianism. What is likely to happen now is that we will pull out and the warring religious factions will go berserk. That would make the war one big, expensive mistake. Nothing new, of course.

It isn't that the people of the Middle East aren't hungry for democracy and Western culture. Most of them are not fanatical. In many places Sunnis and Shi'ites intermarry and get along. But with recent bloodshed, hatred grows.

I also presume that God loves the children of Ishmael and wants to reveal to them that His Son is much more than just another prophet. But that region of the world is under lock and key to the rigid clamp of theocracy; and the two main factions of that juggernaut are busy hating each other. Islam believes it will one day control the world; but a kingdom divided cannot stand. Good news for the West, in a way.

Ezekiel 38: 21 says: "And I will call for a sword against him (Gog) throughout all my mountains, says the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother."

My point is, the seeds of a self-destruction in the enemies of Israel seems more than possible, since they are already at it. This is a civil war that is all over the place in that area of the world. What is it that breeds this kind of discord?

James 4:1 ~ "Where do wars and conflicts come from among you? Don't they come from the lusts that war in your bodies?"

The truth is, these two big sects of Islam aren't mad about different religious practices. Instead, they are each seeking control of their religion. At present, though, it is more like a free-for-all. The Middle East, under the religion that sees itself as the hope of the world, is a hornet's nest. Can such an old conflict be resolved by democracy?

It seems human nature is controlled by greed which leads to war, even in people who are trying to conform to the laws of God. It is like a train out of control, picking up speed, and careening toward Armageddon, where every man's sword is at his neighbor's neck. Confusion.

With all of this, how can we Christians be peacemakers? How do we invade closed cultures with the truth that sets us free? I'm re-examining the Book of Acts and the epistles for answers. 7K