A rchive Date
[ 04-12-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
What the U.S. should have known about Iraq
By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun
December 4, 2003
The Koran, Islam's sacred text, is categorical about individual responsibility in all matters of life.
The most widely cited Koranic verse reads, "Verily God does not change the state of a people till they change themselves."
As a corollary to this verse is Muhammad's instruction to engage in life's greatest "jihad," meaning struggle or effort, of conquering the falsehood of self.
And by so doing, to unmask the true nature of compassion and wisdom with which every soul is born.
These have been the two favourite quotes of Muslim reformers over the past two centuries - for example, Persia's Jamaluddin al-Afghani, India's Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Iqbal, Egypt's Muhammad Abduh and Algeria's Malik Bennabi.
But Muslim history, past and present, is burdened with events and their consequences resulting from violation of the Koranic message and the prophetic instruction.
The one glaring omission, or failing, of President George W. Bush and his administration in the war against terrorism and the campaign to liberate Iraqis from the obscenity of Saddam Hussein's regime was to pay insufficient attention to the cultural history of Arabs and Muslims.
This omission will not set back the American objective of liberating Iraq and defeating terrorism.
However, greater attention to this history would have prepared the Bush administration better in anticipating difficulties since the fall of Baghdad.
The most appalling events of early Muslim history took place in the area demarcated as modern Iraq.
These events revealed a characteristic of the people involved then that has been repeated periodically ever since.
The political correctness of our time stifles discussing human failings in the context of the general character of an individual, or a people. It thereby denies a fuller understanding of history as an unfolding drama of individuals and peoples often caught in conflicts largely of their own making.
The cultural and religious identity of Iraq in Muslim history is connected with Shiism, originating with the fratricidal schism at the outset of that history which splintered Islam into two sects, Sunnis and Shiites.
Following the demise of Muhammad, a dispute arose among his immediate followers over who would succeed to authority over a state and, subsequently, an empire.
The claim of Ali, the prophet's cousin and son-in-law, was denied as three of the prophet's companions assumed authority ahead of him.
Ali's position as Caliph of the Muslim community was contested, when he eventually acquired this office as the prophet's successor in worldly affairs.
He moved his headquarters from Medina, the prophet's city, to Kufah, on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq, to be safe among his supporters.
Instead, he was murdered there.
The same fate awaited Husayn, Ali's younger son and the grandson of the prophet.
He was invited by the people of Kufah to relieve them from the oppressive rule of Yazid succeeding his father, Muawiyah, who contested the authority of Ali.
Husayn responded to Iraqi pleas and left Mecca for Kufah. But Yazid's army trapped Husayn, his companions and family, near Karbala in southern Iraq on the road to Kufah. There they were slaughtered mercilessly, even as the people of Kufah watched the tragedy unfold.
In the death of Husayn, the immediate family of the prophet, through his daughter Fatima and Ali, was destroyed by one group of Muslims even as another betrayed them.
The Shiite mourning for Ali and Husayn, staged in elaborate rituals annually, symbolically represents guilt as much as grief in failing to protect members of the prophet's family whom they invited to be their rulers.
Ever since, the people of Iraq have carried this burden. Their tribalism, as that of other Arabs and Muslims beyond their borders, has been viewed as an explanation of their inconstancy.
For Muslim reformers, these events underscore the meanings of the Koranic verse and the prophet's instruction, and the consequences of contravening them.
Yet the impoverished condition of some Muslims, in their belief and conduct, remains, indicating a distance from the faith they profess and the prophet they acknowledge as the bearer of the final divine revelation.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@tor.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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