Centrifugal Forces and the Creation of Islamic Sectarianism

Fatamid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, reigned 996-1013

It is foolish to take ideology too seriously. A careful study of history proves that all ideas, creeds, and beliefs, however arrived at, are usually taken up by those who adopt them almost purely for practical reasons and the personal advantage of those in power. If those determining factors were aligned differently, the ideas embraced -- almost always with a convincing show fervor and sincerity -- would also be quite different.

Soviet communism, especially the Stalinist variety, perfectly served the interests of the Russian Empire in keeping it united while it went through a painful period of modernisation in the face of formidable enemies. Nazism too was well-suited to the fleeting interests of an economically overdeveloped Germany stripped of its colonies in an era of protectionism. Although it should be added that both these systems had serious latent defects.

The same pattern of ideas, ideologies, and faiths being merely superficial window dressing, serving more basic and selfish interests can be observed with much clarity in the history of the Islamic world. This, it is well known, is divided into the Sunni and Shiite realms, with Sunniism dominating, except in Iran, Azerbaijan, and much of Iraq, along with a few scattered pockets elsewhere, which identify as Shiite.

What is the reason for this strange pattern? The most obvious answer would be to identify the Shiite brand of Islam with Iran's past political power, which also included Azerbaijan and much of Iraq, and see it is an expression of the rivalry between the Sunni Ottoman and Shiite Safavid empires, which dates from the 16th century.

The only problem with this is that Iran has been Shiite for much longer than that. Also such a thesis fails to explain why other large parts of the Islamic world were dominated by Shia Islam in the past. The real answer has more to do the powerful centrifugal forces that arose in the Islamic world following its sudden and stupendous rise.

Within little more than a century (636-751) the Caliphate conquered a vast territory. With its capital based first in Damascus and then in Baghdad, the Empire stretched from the Atlantic to the borders of China. Unlike other great empires of a similar size -- the Roman and Chinese -- it attained this size in a relatively short space of time and with much less infrastructure and administration. In organisational terms therefore, there were strong reasons for it to devolve and fragment. Meanwhile the centripetal forces of a new order, with the groups that benefited from this, would work to try to keep it together. But while the centripetal order benefited larger groups, it did so more weakly than the centrifugal forces, which benefited smaller groups more strongly. The arrow of history was thus pointed towards dissolution. The question then was what mechanism would be used to achieve this.

The first fracture in Islamic unity was caused by the Abbasid Revolution which overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate in 750, except in Spain where a branch of the Umayyads seized power. Although the Shiite party had supported the Abbasids, the new rulers decided to maintain Sunni orthodoxy. The distant Spanish Umayyads, naturally, resentful of the Shiites who had backed the coup against them and also adhered to Sunniism.

In the independence of the Muslims in Spain the effective agent was bitter dynastic rivalry, assisted by the distinctive geography of the Iberian Peninsula, which allowed it to be isolated from the rest of the Islamic world by the sea. But in the subsequent attacks on Islamic unity another more potent force would emerge. As the Islamic Empire was a community of faith, this was naturally found in sectarian schism.

If it hadn't been a Sunni/ Shiite split, it would definitely have been something else equally pointless and divisive, as the whole point of sectarian disputes is to divide. But what made Shiitism attractive as a vessel of sectarian division was the fact that it was the most intellectually developed form of “heresy” but also had a tragic and poetic ethos that appealed to people in the Middle East and North Africa.

The first example of how Shiitism was "weaponised" to serve the power-political interests of local groups was in Morocco, where, in 789, the Idrisids broke away to found their own dynasty. Like Spain this area was removed from the centre of power hundreds of miles away. But, unlike Spain, it didn't have a secure sea barrier, so the Idrisids raised their independence game by going Shiite.

Several of the breakaway dynasties don't fit into this pattern. For example the Aghlabids based in Tunisia remained Sunni when they broke away after 800, giving nominal allegiance to the Caliph, as did the Tahirids in central Asia in 820.

Whether a breakaway dynasty went "full Shia" or not depended on (a) the strength of the central Sunni power based in Baghdad, and (b) how close the breakaway state was to this centre of power. The Turco-Egyptian Tulunids were able to remain Sunni when they broke away in 869, as did the Saffarids in Iran in 867, but interestingly the latter group then had to bolster their independence against a resurgent Caliphate in 885 by becoming increasingly pro-Shiite.

The Caliphate had retained nominal authority over the Sunni Aghlabids in Tunisia, but a local revolution deposed them in 909. The new dynasty, the Fatimids, was a mobilisation of local Berber groups who found Shiitism a convenient means of distinguishing themselves from the Aghlabids and the central Caliphate, which was now on the rise, following the overthrow of the Iranian Saffarids in 900 and the reconquest of Egypt in 905.

Around  this time, groups in the region that wanted to be independent of the Abbasids found it extremely useful to identify with the Shia strain of Islam. Those that didn't, like the Tulunids in Egypt, tended to go under. To the south of the Abbasids in the deserts of Arabia the Qarmatians  used this trick, as did the Buwayhids further East in Persia. In fact, so successful was this tactic that by the end of the 10th century, the resurgence of the Caliphate had not only been stopped, but Shiitism had achieved near total dominance.

The Abbasid Caliph had lost political control of his territories, with Egypt and Syria passing to the Fatimids, who also claimed the title of Caliph, while Iraq and Iran passed under the control of the pro-Shiite Buwayhid emirs. Until a later revival, the Abbassid Caliph became just a figurehead.

However, the exact same pattern which had undermined Sunni power served also to undermine Shiite power.

Following the Fatimids removal of their centre of power to Egypt in 969, their lands in the Maghreb were ruled on their behalf by the Zirid Emirs. In 1049 the Zirids managed to break away by adopting Sunni Islam and recognizing the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad instead of the Fatimid one. Likewise the Seljuk Turks, who now invaded Buwayhid Persia and Iraq, presented themselves as supporters of the Abbasid Caliph. Then the Zangid (Turkic) and Ayubbid (Kurdish) dynasties that replaced the Fatimids in Egypt did so too, marking the eclipse of Shiitism throughout most of the Islamic world.

By now the patterns of sectarian identity -- of Shiite and Sunni -- had been set. Whether Turk, Mongol, Arab, or Persian, those who aspired to rule Sunni lands would find it easier to do so by paying lip service to Sunni Islam; while those who aspired to rule Shiite lands would find it easier to do so by paying deference to Shia.