The Shi’ite story line is not all truth

Scott Ritter has a great post about how little many of our elected leaders are ignorant about much in Iraq and specifically about all the details of Sunni-Shi’ite antagonism across the centuries.

The first page is great for calling out Congressional Democrats on their failure to act on changing course in Iraq, ultimately toward withdrawal.

And, Ritter does a very good job, in some ways, of explaining the complexity and depth of Sunni vs Shi’ite issues.

But, in other ways, he seems to follow Shi’ite talking points.

First, I’ll state my thesis up front. The Shi’ites have a story to tell. While there may be small or large chunks of truth in the story, that doesn’t mean the story is true as a whole. (The same thing is true of Tibetan Buddhists, for that matter, but that’s a subject for another post.)

In essence, Ritter himself oversimplified the history of the Islamic Middle East. Multiple separate emirates had split off from the Abbasid Caliphate by two centuries after Muhammed’s death, in the 830s or so, including one run by a descendant of Ali on the south shore of the Caspian, and protected from directly bordering the Caliphate by a larger, Shi’a-tolerating emirate.

Multiple independent Sunni caliphates were in existence by a century later, by the 930s or so, meaning there was no “central caliphate” (would be nice if people would play this up more, the lack of a central caliphate) could persecute Shi’ites.

In short, some of the martyrdom complex of Shi’as is overwrought. And, Shi'as have a story to tell, one that may not always match up with reality.

Also, an explicit claim for the origin of Sufism from Sunni Islam is not unanimous, at the least, and highly controversial at the most, among experts. Some claim it goes back to Muhammad itself; others that it at least arose before the split between Shi'as and Sunnis became final. Yet others argue that Sufism was influenced by pre-Muslim Persian beliefs. Sufism in the Ottoman Empire probably developed from pre-conversion Turkish shamanism brought with them from Central Asia.

And, Christian, Christian Gnostic and non-Christian Gnostic groups had already had their influence on groups like the Alawite and Druze.