Islamic Dissensions : A Domestic source

Little seems to have really changed in the past 1400 years of Islamic experience in the Middle East. Such is their attachment to the intimate intrigues of their religious beginning, that subsequent generations of Muslims appear compelled to re-enact the original resentments and betrayals. There is something almost deterministic about those early divisions, a personalised enmity that has endured, with destructive impact on the contemporary Arab world.

This thread of argument, along with the multiple ethnic and imperial nationalisms (Arabian, Turkic, Persian) that have populated and contested the region since, are the subject of a challenging book by Barnaby Rogerson ― THE HOUSE DIVIDED : Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East (2024, Profile Books, London).

It is a tragedy that the author suggests may have been foreseen by the Prophet Muhammad shortly before his death in 632 AD (632 CE or 'Common Era', 10 AH or 'After Hijrah'): 

       "Once back in Medina, a succession of events, which included the emergence of a number of rival prophets in different regions of Arabia, vied for Muhammad's attention ...

        That night, praying alone over the graves of fallen warriors, Muhammad was more forthright:  'Peace be upon you, O people of the graves. Rejoice in your state, how much better it is than the state of men now living. Dissensions come like waves of darkest night, the one following hard upon the other, each worse than the last'."  (p. 50)

It is also consistent with what the author sees as an obsession with the 'human' details of the Prophet's mission as messenger of God, the 'domestic' background of his existence at Medina to which there is imputed a highly emotional value:

       "In the last years of his life, the Prophet was also associated with a black donkey called Yafur ('deer'), due to his graceful gait ...

        All sorts of pious and intriguing legends have attached to Yafur : that he could see angels otherwise invisible to humankind and could talk when he wished to. Other stories explain that he was the last survivor of an ancient dynasty of donkeys who carried a long line of prophets, from Moses in Sinai to Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. It was said that, after the Prophet's death, Yafur tried to jump down a well in despair ― for he knew that Muhammad was the last of the prophets.

        Muhammad also owned an off-white mule called Duldul, whose name (rather surprisingly for such a beloved animal) means the 'vexatious or vacillating one'. Duldul is known to have carried the Prophet through the stormy events of the Battle of Hunayn ...

        A mule is a homely animal of low social status ― infertile and obstinate ― and so to ride it at the head of an army is entirely in keeping with Muhammad's renunciation of wealth and title. Mules and donkeys can be ridden bareback without saddles or stirrups, and with both legs swinging on one side. To a Muslim, the image of a bearded old man trotting along the road on a pale mule or a dark donkey, without weapons or saddlery, still has an impact. For such a man is following the example of the Prophet , one of whose affectionate nicknames was Sahib al-Himar, 'master of the donkey' ...

        The Shia like to remember that the care of Duldul and Yafur passed down their hero, Ali, as part of his tattered inheritance. Possession of these two, sad, old animals is both a symbol of the holy poverty Muhammad bequeathed to his spiritual heir, and in some way the insignia of a true Muslim leader."         (pp. 27-28) 

Explaining the Well-Springs of Bitterness 

"In order to understand the tremendous emotional hold of the loyalties to Shia and Sunni, we first need to hear the stories that every Muslim knows. We cannot skim over the founding era of Islamic history as if it is some [distant] Dark Age legend. As anyone who has spent time in the Middle East will be aware, the historical founders of Islam remain vividly alive. The members of the household of the Prophet Muhammad resonate in the collective memory of Sunni and Shia alike and provide the heroes and villains around which all Muslims navigate their lives. Mecca and Medina of the seventh century glow with fascination for all believers. It is very hard for those of us who have been brought up in the West to conceive of the passionate engagement of the past with the present in the Islamic world ...   (p. 18)

"For all Muslims, whether Sunni or Shia ... everything stems from the seventh-century Medina household of the Prophet Muhammad ... To understand the later divisions, it is crucial to know the historical reality of the Prophet's life, to feel the power of stories Muslims hear from birth, and to learn all the fateful incidents that stopped the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, from being acclaimed the rightful leader of the community ...   (p. 23)

"Between 622 and 632 CE the Prophet Muhammad lived in the oasis of Medina ... His house was a walled yard, with a prayer hall at one end ― a propped-up affair of timbers and palm trunks leaning against a solid stone wall ― and a scattering of huts at the other, each lived in by a different wife and partly screened from each other by curtains. The Prophet had no room of his own, but every night went to one of his wives ['... in the last ten years of his life', the Prophet 'shared his household with eleven wives ...']. The house was a highly animated space, which served as mosque, family home, public kitchen, occasional hospital, store house and meeting room ... In one story about the Prophet, he became so exhausted by the animation of his household that he only found privacy by sleeping on a roof ...   (p. 25)  

"It was within this household that the first shadow of the Sunni-Shia schism appears. At its core was the rivalry between Aisha ― Muhammad's youngest and most vivacious wife ― and his youngest daughter Fatima. Renowned for her piety, Fatima was married to Ali, Muhammad's cousin, first follower and lifelong companion. Aisha gave birth to no children, while Fatima quickly gave birth to two healthy sons, Husan and Husayn, both visibly beloved by the Prophet. T complicate things further, Aisha bore a fierce grudge against Ali. And it was her father, Abu Bakr, who would become the First Caliph of Islam, pushing aside Ali's claims to be the true heir.    (p. 43)  

"And thus developed the two factions : Aisha (daughter of First Caliph Abu Bakr),and her three close supporters, Hafsa (daughter of Second Caliph Omar), Saiyah and Sawdah, ranged against Fatima [wife of First Imam and Fourth Caliph Ali], Umm Salamah and Umm Habiba. It was a rivalry which was to play itself out with ferocious repercussions in the years after the death of the Prophet.   (p. 50)

"This makes Aisha one of the most controversial figures in the Islamic world. She is loathed by the Shia, who see her as manipulative, ambitious and vengeful ... The Sunni accept Aisha as a strong character who was genuinely contrite about her failings and an invaluable witness to the character and nature of the Prophet ['she is the source for 2,210 hadith', i.e. 'reported tradition or saying of the Prophet'] ... By contrast to the fiery, contentious Aisha, every Muslim of whatever creed adores the pious, obedient, suffering example set by Fatima and her mother, Khadija [Muhammad's first wife who he buried in Mecca in 620 and with whom he took no other wives; 'the first Muslim, the first to recognise Mohammad as a Prophet of God'] ..." (p.44)

The Last Revelation and Ghadir Khum

"It is believed by all Muslims that the Prophet received his last revelation on his journey back to Medina [returning from the first entirely Muslim Haj-pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca in 622 CE] ... just a pair of sentences that complete verse three of chapter five of the Koran ...

        'This day have those who reject faith given up all hope of your religion : yet fear them not but fear Me.'

        'This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.'

... Sunni believe that this final revelation happened on the ninth day day of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah; the Shia, that it occurred on the eighteenth. This difference in dates is vital..

"For what neither dispute is that, on the eighteenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the pilgrim caravan halted at a traditional stop in the desert trail known as Ghadir Khum (after a natural hollow in the rock which trapped rainwater). Below this rock Muhammad ascended a podium made from saddlebags and gave another version of his Farewell Sermon. But this one concluded with a public declaration in favour of Ali :

       'O God, be the friend of him who is his friend, and the foe of him who is his foe.'

... However, here the interpretation of events differs. The Sunni believe that Muhammad was choosing Ali to be the leader of his kinship group ― the next sheikh of the Beni Hashim clan ― and a mawla (patron) of his group of relatives. The Shia [from Shi'atu Ali, 'the partisans or followers of Ali'] insist that the declaration of Ghadir Khum was a universal act and that Muhammad's speech made a specific declaration that Ali was his successor in every aspect of the Muslim's life ― the next imam (leader of religion), amir (military commander) ..." (pp 60-61)

The Death of the Prophet and the Medina Ansar

"At dawn Muhammad was seized by a splitting headache, and though he managed to lead the morning prayers, he was then overcome by fever. Too weak to walk, his cousin Ali and his uncle Abbas escorted him to rest in Aisha's hut ... Muhammad asked Aku Bakr to lead the prayers in his absence ... By a great effort of will, Muhammad managed to attend public prayers the following morning, but thereafter he sank rapidly, dying in the lap of Aisha (according to the Sunni)) and leaning against the shoulder of Ali (according to the Shia).

"... So it was the right of Ali, as the Prophet's closest male kinsman, to reverently wash and prepare his body for the grave ... It was in this time of disorder, with Ali preoccupied with the burial, that Abu Bakr and Omar ― who were to become the first two Sunni Caliph's ― seized power ...

"Omar and Abu Bakr got to hear about a meeting of the Muslim clans of Medina ― the Ansar ... When Abu Bakr was permitted to speak ... he declared that they must choose a leader from one of the fourteen clans of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca ... But seizing a decisive moment, Omar roared out, 'Who will willingly take precedence over the man that the Prophet ordered to lead the prayers?' ... The coup was confirmed at dawn. By the time the leaders filed into the mosque, Abu Bakr was in the front rank, ready to lead the prayers which he had been efficiently performing all week ... Then their supporters acclaimed Abu Bakr as 'Khalifat Rasul Allah' ― the successor to the Messenger of God."     (pp 64-65)