As a Muslim, I Am Shocked by Liberals and Leftists

GATESTONE INSTITUTE: …

If you had grown up, as I did, between two authoritarian governments -- the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria -- under the leadership of people such as Hafez al Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you would have seen your youth influenced by two major denominations of Islam in the Muslim world: the Shia and the Sunni. I studied both, and at one point was even a devout Muslim. My parents, who still live in Iran and Syria, come from two different ethnic Muslim groups: Arab and Persian.

You also would have seen how the religion of Islam intertwines with politics, and how radical Islam rules a society through its religious laws, sharia. You would have witnessed how radical Islam can dominate and scrutinize people's day-to-day choices: in eating, clothing, socializing, entertainment, everything.

You would have seen the tentacles of its control close over every aspect of your life. You would have seen the way, wielded by fundamentalists, radical Islam can be a powerful tool for unbridled violence. It is the fear of this violence, torture, and death, wielded by extremist Muslims, that keeps every person desperate to obey.

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Read it all here » | Majid Rafizadeh | Saturday, March 25, 2017

Conflict in the Middle East Is About More Than Just Religion
THE OBSERVER: Recently, Shia-Sunni conflicts have seen Hezbollah help Syrian government forces to recapture Qusair. Battles rage between the two sides in Lebanon while in Iraq the monthly death toll from Sunni-Shia violence has topped 1,000. But religion alone does not explain the escalating tensions. Fundamental political shifts begun by the Arab spring are helping create new regional disputes in the Middle East

Nine days ago the influential Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi denounced the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah movement – whose fighters helped Bashar al-Assad's regime retake the Syrian city of Qusair last week – as the "party of Satan".

Speaking in Doha not long before Qusair's fall, Qaradawi did not stop there: the cleric, whose speeches and sermons are heard by millions, went a dangerous step further, calling on Sunni Muslims with military training to support the Syrian uprising against Assad.

It was a sermon that not only marked a sharp shift in the sectarian tensions in the Middle East between Sunni and Shia but an escalation in Qaradawi's own rhetoric. When I heard him preach on Syria at Cairo's crowded al-Azhar mosque last autumn, he was sharp in his condemnation of the Assad regime, but stopped short of endorsing a jihad.

In Doha, however, Qaradawi's remarks embraced a more dangerous sectarian notion. "The leader of the party of the Satan comes to fight the Sunnis … now we know what the Iranians want … they want continued massacres to kill Sunnis," Qaradawi said. "How could 100 million Shias defeat 1.7 billion [Sunnis]? Only because [Sunni] Muslims are weak."

Qaradawi's comments – endorsed last week by Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh – did not come out of nowhere. They were a direct response to a speech made by Hezbollah's general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut, not only admitting that his fighters were in Syria but pledging that his men would help Assad – a member of the Shia Alawite sect – to final "victory".

If ever evidence was needed of the escalating sectarian dimension to the growing regional instability in the Middle East – in which the worsening conflict in Syria is playing a large part – it was visible last week. » | Peter Beaumont | Saturday, June 08, 2013

Click here for a pdf depicting key Sunni and Shia populations »

Canada Terror Plot: Iran's Complex Al-Qaeda Connection
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: When Canada accused "al-Qaeda elements in Iran" of guiding the alleged plot to derail a train, the veil was briefly lifted on a tangled yet crucial relationship between Osama bin Laden's followers and Tehran.

Iran and al-Qaeda, divided by race and religion, are not exactly natural allies. Bin Laden’s heirs are radical Sunni Arabs with a visceral suspicion of Iran’s Shia Persian regime. Indeed the hardline Salafists of al-Qaeda consider the Shia faith a heresy: in their eyes, Shias are not true Muslims at all.

Yet Iran and al-Qaeda are united by anti-Americanism and the compelling logic of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. With this in mind, there is no doubt that Iran granted refuge to senior al-Qaeda figures after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The fugitives included bin Laden’s daughter, Fatima, and no less than four of his sons: Othman, Mohammed, Laden and Sa’ad. Along with various other key figures, they were kept under house arrest, but given safety.

”The reality is that since 2001, Iran has provided refuge for al-Qaeda elements, including some senior leaders,” said Jonathan Eyal, head of security studies at the Royal United Services Institute. “The Canadian claim that this plot has been engineered on Iranian soil is entirely plausible. Western intelligence agencies have known for a long time about the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in Iran.” » | David Blair | Tuesday, April 23, 2013

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Two Killed in Saudi Arabia Clashes
THE GUARDIAN: A soldier and an alleged gunman died, with one soldier wounded, in a shootout during Shia protests in Qatif, in the oil-rich Eastern Province

Two people have been killed in clashes between soldiers and Shia protesters in eastern Saudi Arabia, state media reported.

A soldier and a Shia gunman were killed in a shootout in the city of Qatif late on Friday, according to the interior ministry. » | Staff and agencies | Saturday, August 04, 2012

Tension Mounts as Hezbollah Win Predicted
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: THE militant Islamic group Hezbollah looks set to consolidate its influence on power in Lebanon when voters go to the polls here on June 7.

Backed by Iran and Syria, the Hezbollah-led coalition known as March 8 is favoured to win a majority in parliament.

Led by the charismatic Shiite cleric Hassan Nasrallah, who is loathed in the West but loved across the Muslim world, Hezbollah is nevertheless expected to extend the current power-sharing arrangements under a new government of national unity.

With about 20 parties competing for attention in Lebanon's intractably complicated system - in which power is divided between the country's Sunni, Shiite, Druze and Christian populations - the Mediterranean country is in the grip of election fever. >>> Jason Koutsoukis Herald Correspondent in Beirut | Saturday, May 9, 2009

Iran’s Global Ambitions
THE BOSTON GLOBE: Iran, in its effort to become a regional and global power, is reaching out across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, exhorting Muslims worldwide to tolerate their differences -- and march under one Islamic banner.

TEHRAN -- Hamid Almolhoda, deputy director of the Center for Rapprochement of Islamic Schools of Thought, wears the white turban of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric. His budget comes from the world's only Shi'ite theocracy, the Iranian government, better known for bristling revolutionary rhetoric than for sunny public outreach. But Almolhoda's message of brotherhood wouldn't sound out of place at an ecumenical church breakfast.

His mission, approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government, is to convince the world's Muslims that the increasingly violent divide between Sunnis and Shi'ites -- on lurid display in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East -- is no big deal, just a matter of minor theological differences.

"Let's cooperate on what we have in common," he says. "Regarding our differences of opinion, we can tolerate each other."

In a campaign that is little-noticed in the West, Iran is trying to convince Sunni Muslims that Shi'ism, the form of Islam practiced by 90 percent of Iranians but only 20 percent of Muslims worldwide, is not the heresy that many Sunni hard-liners have branded it, nor a dangerous subversion of their faith, but just another legitimate school of thought within a unified Islam. Across the divide (more)

Mark Alexander