Islamic Sectarianism

Bahrain’s Royal Family, the Al Khalifa, has long pursued a strategy of divide and rule in order to prevent the emergence of cross-opposition coalitions, while exacerbating the country’s sectarian divide has become a critical means of ensuring regime survival. This article examines the country’s twentieth century imperial and post-independence history through the framework of divide and rule theory, providing crucial context for current events in Bahrain. It demonstrates how a divide and rule strategy is structurally embedded within the ruling family’s mode of governance, and reveals how it continues to be employed as an effective means of maintaining absolute monarchy in Bahrain.

Keywords: Bahrain, Arab Spring, Gulf Cooperation Council, divide and rule, sectarianism

The main aim of this study is to explore the role of social identity in inter-group discriminatory behavioral patterns among the religious groups of Shiite and Sunni in the capital city of Pakistan. The theoretical framework of social identity proposed by Tajfel and Turner was utilized to look into socio-cognitive processes influencing the inter-group settings. For selection of the respondents from both religious groups, purposive sampling technique was utilized. The gathered data in the study was looked into with respect to the social identity theory. The results of the study suggested that socio-cognitive processes of social categorization, social identification and social comparison in the individuals resulted in discriminatory patterns in the inter-group relations among the Shiite and Sunni religious schools of thought. The data also illustrated that additional factors of international actor’s involvement, state policies, socialization process and real/ perceived deprivation inf...

The Ḥouthī conflict is one with many facets, ranging from tensions around Yemen’s resources, religious and military disputes to political quarrels between elites and the populations, all in the framework of tribal and more contemporary social networks.

As the title of the book suggests, it deals with the life and thoughts of one of the most influential scholars of Islam in the modern world, Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi (d.1921), also known as AlāHazratto his followers. Ahmad Raza was a jurist-theologian, and a prolific writer. He is known for his polemics against the pioneers of the Deobandī school of thoughton various issues concerning the association of some attributes to the Prophet Muhammad. Some of these issues include the possession of the knowledge of the unseen, the celebration of mawlid and visiting shrines, which the Deobandīs deemed as heretical innovations. However, despite these differences, both groups remained adherents to the classical Islamic creed, Maturīdism, and the Hanafi jurisprudential school. Nevertheless, the authors, Maheshwari and Singh, have claimed that the Deobandīs and Barelvīs emerged as the sub-groups of fiqh/jurisprudence within the Hanafi school (4-5), which is wrong and misleading.

Islam in Pakistan: A History by Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Princeton University Press, 2018 Discursive strands evolve in a complex traditional structure, shaping and modifying the meaning of normativity itself. However, this evolution does not necessarily require a linear continuation, as Talal Asad observes in The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (1986), but instead an exhilarating tradition is shaped, altered, and adapted to the mounting unavoidable forces of the present, with relations to the past and future. Like the tradition itself, the process of change and adaptation is also too complex to understand. A scholar studying a religious or cultural tradition finds a variety in its discursiveness; some approaches are conservative or radical in their dealing with the past, present, and future, while others progressive. Furthermore, due to their not operating in a watertight compartment, these approaches at times overlap. Engaging in a conversation with the Islamic or Muslim traditions this way in an age of change, i.e. colonialism and post-colonialism, is a well-entertained exercise in modern scholarship, and the works of Muhammad Qasim Zaman published during the last two decades have been illustrative in this regard. Zaman's explorations in the religio-political history of Muslims in modern South Asia are expansive and ingenious in their conclusions. His recent publication Islam in Pakistan: A History can be considered a sequel to a series of his previous publications. The book's name seems deceptive if the word 'history' in its title is understood in its crudest sense. However, as the opening of the book clarifies, it is a history of how Islam along with its different traditions and understandings came into being in Pakistan. Zaman draws a sharp line between pre-colonial and colonial as the distinctive periods signifying the two different understandings of Islam: classical and modern, and it is the modern understanding of Islam that developed in the colonial period that made its way into the newly-established state of Pakistan. He argues, "All the key facets of modern Islam worldwide were well represented in colonial India and they have continued to be so in Pakistan: Sufism; traditionalist scholars, the úlama, and their institutions of learning, the madrasas; Islamism; and Islamic modernism." (1) He asserts that these facets formulated and developed into well-articulated forms in the colonial period. In fact, this period facilitated a number of contributing factors to this development that Zaman does not highlight. However, other recent researches on South Book Review

The most significant and well-known work of Aḥmad Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Gumushkhānawī in which he expressed his opinions and remarks on Islamic theological groups is Jāmiʿ al-mutūn. Apart from this he has a short Arabic firaq treatise titled al-Natāʾij al-iʿtiqādiyya as reported by his disciple Ḥasan b. ʿUmar al-Ṣunqūrī in his Zubdat al-ʿaqāʾid. Moreover al-Gumushkhānawī gave this treatise to him on the condition that he translates it into [Ottoman] Turkish and then Zubdat al-ʿaqāʾid came out. Al-Natāʾij al-iʿtiqādiyya whose existence we are aware of through this notice, however was neither available for us until now nor mentioned by name in modern studies concerning al-Gumushkhānawī as one of his works. Luckily our research on a manuscript in the Vahid Paşa Manuscript Library in Kütahya, Turkey drew us to the conclusion that the manuscript is none other than al-Gumushkhānawī’s lost treatise, al-Natāʾij al-iʿtiqādiyya. Although the identity of the author of the treatise is not explicitly written in the text, the title of the treatise is mentioned in the same way as al-Ṣunqūrī referred to and the information he gave about and quotations he made from al-Natāʾij al-iʿtiqādiyya in his Zubdat al-ʿaqāʾid are consistent with the text.
This paper firstly questions the authenticity of the treatise by comparing both al-Ṣunqūrī’s translation and the other kalam-firaq treatise of al-Gumushkhanawī, Jāmiʿ al-mutūn, and then examines the classification of theological Islamic groups made by al-Gumushkhanawī with its sources and characteristics and the tradition it belonged. Through this paper a lost treatise of al-Gumushkhanawī will come to light and be available in the use of researchers.


Ahmed Ziyaüddin Gümüşhanevî’nin itikâdî İslam fırkaları ile alakalı görüşlerini açıkladığı en önemli ve bilinen eseri Câmi’u’l-mütûn’dur. Bunun dışında müridi Hasan b. Ömer es-Sunkûrî’nin Zübdetü’l-akâid adlı eserinde bildirdiğine göre, Gümüşhanevî’nin en-Netâyicü’l-i’tikâdiyye isimli küçük hacimli bir Arapça fırak risalesi daha vardır. Nitekim Gümüşhanevî bu eserini Türkçeye tercüme edilmek kaydıyla müridi es-Sunkûrî’ye vermiş ve Zübdetü’l-akâid bu şekilde ortaya çıkmıştır. Varlığından bu vesileyle haberdar olduğumuz en-Netâyicü’l-i’tikâdiyye adlı eserin şu ana dek herhangi bir yazması bilinmiyordu ve bu nedenle Gümüşhanevî üzerine yapılan modern çalışmaların pek çoğunda bu eser zikredilmemekteydi. Ancak Kütahya Vahid Paşa Yazma Eser Kütüphanesi’ndeki yazma eserler arasında bulduğumuz bir yazma üzerinde yaptığımız tetkikler, bizi bu yazmanın Gümüşhanevî’nin kayıp olan fırak eseri en-Netâyicü’l-i’tikâdiyye olduğu kanaatine ulaştırmıştır. Yazmada her ne kadar müellifin ismi geçmemekteyse de içerisinde risalenin ismi tıpkı es-Sunkûrî’nin belirttiği gibi zikredilmekte ve yine es-Sunkûrî’nin eserin içeriğiyle alakalı verdiği bilgiler ve yaptığı nakiller örtüşmektedir.
Bu bildiri öncelikle sözkonusu yazma nüshayı hem es-Sunkûrî’nin tercümesi hem de Gümüşhanevî’nin diğer kelam-fırak türü eseri Câmiu’l-mütûn ile karşılaştırarak onun Gümüşhanevî’ye aidiyetini sorgulamakta, bunun yanı sıra Gümüşhanevî’nin bu risalesinde yaptığı fırka tasnifini incelemeye alarak hangi gelenekten geldiğini, kaynaklarını ve özelliklerini tespit ederek taşıdığı değeri ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu bildiri vesilesiyle Gümüşhanevî’nin kayıp bir eseri gün yüzüne çıkmış ve ilim dünyasına kavuşturulmuş olacaktır.

This study seeks to discuss the problem of intra-Muslim prejudice among Muslims in Singapore, namely towards the Shiite and liberal Muslims. These Muslims are perceived to be the deviant Other. Such prejudices point towards an increasingly exclusivist Muslim community in Singapore, who are largely influenced by regional experiences and sentiments. The prejudice stems from the belief that these groups are deviant and are threats to the Muslims from within. I aim to demonstrate how the growing exclusivism, manifested through such prejudices, point to the deeper problem of the fundamentalist religious orientation among contemporary Malay-Muslims in Singapore. This study thus seeks to understand the problem of fundamentalism through the traits of the prejudiced personality, such as authoritarianism, institutionalism and the need for definiteness. It will be argued that religious fundamentalism, as manifested through the traits of the prejudiced personality, reflect the deeper insecurities within the Malay-Muslim community.

This paper seeks to present a review and analysis of medieval Muslim historiography – especially that originating in what constitutes modern-day Iran, Iraq, and Syria, or the-then Seljuk Empire – with exclusive reference to its anti-Nizari Isma'ili content. The Nizari Isma'ili sect, also called the "Hashshashin" , was an offshoot of Isma'ilism that was created in 1094 AD after the death of al-Mustansir bi'Allah, the Caliph-Imam of the Fatimid Empire. The sect was primarily founded by Hasan bin Sabah, and was insultingly called the Hashshashin – better known to the English-speaking world as the Order of the Assassins. This paper would attempt to record and reflect upon the hateful opinions presented by the abovementioned writers about the Hashshashin, and would further attempt to relate their hateful rhetoric to intra-faith sectarian violence committed by Muslims in the modern world.

The paper attempts to investigate the process of Islamization of laws in Pakistan.  How the Islamic provisions in various Pakistani constitutions were added. No single year has reflected and effected more significant changes in the Islamic world than in 1979. A military dictator, Zia ul-Haq, laying the foundation for an 11-year army rule set in motion the process of the Islamization of the country.  This paper focused on all Islamic laws like Hadood laws, Diyat laws, Islamic banking etc. Also, this paper addresses the question that what is the effect of Islamization of laws on the judiciary and the governance system of the country.

This paper uses Iraq as a case study via which to begin to investigate the complex inter-relationships between cultural and historical destruction on the one hand and identity politics and sectarian violence on the other. This paper argues that the unprecedented scale and magnitude of the destruction of Iraq’s cultural history has played a part in eroding the various intersecting and overlapping versions of identity politics in Iraq. In turn, this has provided fertile ground for sectarians to plant the seeds of their own narrow and deadly ideologies. This has brought about the rise of ethno-religious based violence and seen a series of bloody and protracted conflicts emerge between previously peaceful and compatible factions. What is of particular interest here is that much of the cultural and historical landscape that has been destroyed since 2003 had come to play an important role in developing the notion of a collective Iraqi identity as promulgated by the Baathist regime. For example, under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq underwent an extensive nation building campaign consisting of projects as diverse as the reconstruction of key archaeological sites, a reinvigoration of traditional Iraqi folklore and festivals, and the extension of state libraries and museums. While identity politics was and remains a complex and contested field in Iraq, the nation’s cultural history was central to the formation of a variety of different identities in Iraq and garnered at least some degree of social cohesion and inclusion. The chapter begins by briefly detailing the role that Iraq’s cultural heritage has played in building national identity and social cohesion since 1968. It then catalogues some of the more significant cultural and historical destruction that has occurred in Iraq since 2003. Finally, this paper tentatively examines the extent to which this destruction has had implications for the rise of ethno-religious sectarianism and violence.

In the mid-90s, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Iranian Ayatollah Khamene’i both banned bloody forms of self-flagellation such as tatbir (cutting the forehead with a sword), calling them backward and un-Islamic. They argued that Shi‘a Muslims ought to imitate Husayn by actively fighting against oppressors rather than passively mourning Husayn’s martyrdom. This prohibition has not been unanimously applied in all Muslim
countries, including Syria, where such practices persisted until the Arab Spring (when virtually all Shi‘a Muslims left the shrine-town where these practices were performed). By closely reading the linguistic, conceptual, and juridical discourses that circulated in Syria in order to justify this position, the paper shows that the performers of tatbir conceived of these rituals in revolutionary, rather than reactionary, terms. By examining the performance and reception of flagellation processions in terms of differing modalities of affect, the paper opens up spaces for rethinking ‘revolution’ and ‘redemption’ in contemporary Twelver Shi‘ism.

Accusations of sexual perversion, of defying both the statutes of man and the laws of the almighty, have since Antiquity been a staple of heresiographic discourse. They had pride of place in Muslim heresiology as well, which charged many a heretical sect with engaging in group sex, incest, wine-drinking, as well as the shunning of the obligatory rituals such as prayer and pilgrimage. One group has fared particularly badly at the hands of Muslim heresiographers – the so-called Shiʿi ‘extremists’ (Ghulāt), who lived in Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries. Scholarship has mostly taken a simplistic approach to accounts about their alleged antinomianism, by either rejecting them as hostile propaganda or, more frequently, by accepting them wholesale as accurate. Meanwhile the historical, polemical contexts in which such accusations were made have been ignored. This article evaluates within a broad historical context two bodies of evidence: the heresiographical accusations on the one hand, and the Ghulāt’s own writings on the other. My contention is that while the most hair-raising accusations are nothing by hostile polemics, others do reflect the Ghulāt’s actual beliefs and practices. I conclude by examining the cultural meanings which antinomianism had among the Ghulāt – namely, as boundary markers and tools for identity construction.

The religious and the political intertwine in all sectarian conflicts and the violent conflagration in Syria is no exception. However, sectarianism as an explanatory paradigm is extremely limited; it provides a monolithic reading of a complex phenomenon with a well-established historical pedigree. This paper traces the manifestation of the sectarian dimensions of the conflict, following the development of the heterodox Alawi community from a marginalised sect to its ascendance as Syria’s ruling class. It focuses on how sectarian identity has constantly been exploited by hegemonic powers like the Sunni Ottomans, the French Colonisers and, most recently, the Asad regime. The paper suggests that the only escape from the sectarian minefield is the entrenchment of a strong Syrian national identity within the framework of equal citizenship, pluralistic democracy and the protection of minority rights. This could potentially limit the interference of outside parties, but such an outcome is over-optimistic at the current juncture since vested interests outweigh internal peace and stability.

After conquering large swaths of Syria and Iraq, the IS undertook an aggressive sectarian campaign in which they not only enacted horrific violence against the Shia people, but also damaged or destroyed several key Shia mosques and shrines. Drawing on Social Movement Theory (SMT), this article analyzes the response by various Shia nonstate actors—militia leaders, religious clergymen, populist preachers, and seminal poets. It argues that they used the IS threat to Shia holy sites to develop and deploy a mobilization frame that has come to be referred to as the “shrine protection narrative.” The article also documents the manifold consequences of the shrine protection narrative: it underpinned a mass recruitment drive that saw tens of thousands enlist; it legitimized foreign Shia militias to enter the conflicts in both Syria and Iraq; it justified the formation of entirely new militias who declared the centrality of shrine protection to their mandate; and it mobilized them to enact political violence. In doing so, this article extends existing studies of SMT to demonstrate that “sacred spaces”—and particularly the need to protect religious sites from specific threats—can serve as a powerful mobilization frame towards political violence.

El cáñamo era llamado por los árabes hashish, que significa “hierba” y fue precisamente dicha hierba la que dio nombre a una de las sectas más famosas y sanguinarias, de los hashishins, de la que se deriva, según algunos estudiosos, el término de asesino (Burman, 2002).

Muslim disunity is a direct result of not realizing Prophet's will by the early elites of the Umayyads. The Prophet's last will was to be written and it was to mention his successors and many other things, as indicated by many hadiths and Quranic texts. The last will was to establish the imamate of twelve leaders much like the twelve judges of the Israelites, having religious and political powers.

This article examines the current sectarianization of the Middle East. It begins with a conceptualization of sectarianism, distinguishes kinds of sectarianism and examines the factors that determine which versions of sectarianism dominate at a particular time. It surveys the preconditions of sectarianization—unequal modernization, instrumentalization of identity in regime power-building practices; the initial precipitant of sectarianization, the US invasion of Iraq; and the impact of the Arab uprisings, in which sectarianism was instrumentalized by regimes and oppositions. Instrumentalized sectarianism reached the grassroots and was transmuted into militant sectarianism by the security dilemma, competitive interference in failed states and trans-state diffusion of sectarian discourses. The consequences of sectarianization include its challenge to state formation and its tendency to empower authoritarianism. Civil war has unleashed militant sectarianism leading to exclusivist practices among both regimes and opposition. The regional power struggle has taken the form of sectarian bi-polarization between Sunni and Shia camps. Sectarianization can only be reversed by an end to the current civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and the regional power struggles that keep them going.

This article aims to explore emerging trends for the Sunni religious elite and the Islamic legal tradition in the new context of the Arab Uprisings by focusing on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguably the most prominent of these ʿulamāʾ alive today. The article will follow al-Qaradawi’s articulation, transmission and reconstruction of the Islamic legal tradition in his own discourse as he has attempted to negotiate the politically fraught contexts of the Arab Uprisings while also maintaining his horizontal commitments to a diverse base of supporters be they the wider Arab Muslim public, the Muslim Brotherhood or indeed the Qatari royal family. The article will focus on al-Qaradawi’s highly publicised interventions and fatwas in relation to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria from the perspective of Islamic studies, and also draw on personal interviews with al-Qaradawi, his personal staff, as well as supplementary media. In so doing, the article will elucidate al-Qaradawi and his colleagues’ attempts, ranging from the highly creative to the markedly conservative, to respond to unfolding events through the legal tradition and play an increasingly active role in the public sphere while their own status simultaneously becomes ever more vulnerable and unstable.

Between the seventh and ninth centuries C.E., different Muslim sectarian groups fashioned their respective communal identities through differing rituals, narratives, and conceptions of Islamic history. This article explores these early Islamic divisions through the lens of literary depictions of, and rituals involving, a strongly potent object within the late antique world: a holy person's corpse, in this case that of the prominent early Muslim Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh. A Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad, Ṭalḥa had a contested legacy among different Muslim groups, being venerated by Sunnīs and vilified by the Shīʿa and Khārijīs. These contesting conceptions of Ṭalḥa are reflected in the variable images of Ṭalḥa's body after his death that appear within early Islamic texts: while some stories portray Ṭalḥa as a saintly martyr whose body lay incorrupt in his grave, others depict Ṭalḥa as a decaying corpse disintegrating in the dirt. Standing in vivid contrast to one another, these variant representations of Ṭalḥa's body exemplify early Muslims' usages of the foundational narratives of Islamic history to make competing claims about politico-religious leadership and community. Yet the sectarian significance of Ṭalḥa's body was exhibited not only in texts, but was also ritually enacted through worship at Ṭalḥa's grave. A site of prayer and miracles, Ṭalḥa's grave emerged as a proto-Sunnī counterpoint to the tombs of other holy persons visited and venerated by the Shīʿa and Khārijīs. The stories and rituals involving Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh's body demonstrate how Islamic communal identity was mapped onto this Companion's corpse.

The Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is a product of its self-interest. Striving to protect Iran’s Islamic theocracy from external threats drives the country’s approach to foreign affairs. That approach can, at times, look aggressive or pragmatic. A sectarian angle also exists. Given its relative alienation from its neighbors since the 1979 revolution, Iran has relied on a strategy of forming relationships with nonstate groups to help promote its strategic interests. Although it supports Sunni groups, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, Iran’s backing of Shia organizations has most angered its neighbors. That practice, often fused with the unofficial policy of exporting the revolution, has paid dividends for Iran strategically but has also hardened perceptions of its confessional bias.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in early 2011, Lebanon has seen a drastic deterioration in security: domestic supporters and opponents of the Syrian government have confronted each other in armed clashes and Lebanese groups also got involved in the war in Syria. The extremist groups that emerged in Syria also found supporters in Lebanon and a series of suicide bombings rocked civilian areas. Violent conflict affected several regions in Lebanon, but Tripoli, in particular, was called “little Syria” because it seemed to mirror the hostilities in the neighboring country. Many authors have pointed at the Syrian crisis spillover in order to explain the conflict in Tripoli. The thesis aims at explaining the mechanisms that led to polarization and radicalization in the Sunni community in Tripoli. It looks at the conflict through the lens of sectarian identity, explaining how the already existing political polarization turned to sectarian conflict in the presence of the catalysts provided by the Syrian crisis.

English:
The article examines the influence of the Islamic factor on various spheres of the Middle East societies, as well as on the process of transformation of the regional relations subsystem. A special attention is focused on the exacerbation of relations within the Islam world, especially between the followers of the two main trends — Sunnis and Shiites, which accompanies the struggle for leadership in the Middle East. It is emphasized that a distinctive feature of the modern situation in the Islamic countries is a high potential for social explosion and a significant level of conflict, which has an extremely negative impact on the ensuring national and regional security.

Russian:
В статье рассматривается влияние исламского фактора на различные сферы жизнедеятельности ближневосточного социума, а также на процесс трансформации региональной подсистемы международных отношений. Внимание авторов сконцентрировано на обострении отношений внутри исламского мира, особенно между последователями двух основных течений ислама — суннитами и шиитами. Подчеркивается, что особенностью современной ситуации в мусульманских странах являются высокий потенциал социального взрыва и значительный уровень конфликтности, крайне негативно влияющие на национальную и региональную безопасность.

This article deals with the influence of the "73 sects ḥadīth," which states that Muslims will be separated into 73 sects, when Jews had 71 and Christians had 72 sects, and that only one of them will be saved whereas the others will go to Hell, on, particularly, Islamic heresiographical works written to examine and classify theological sects and their beliefs in the Islamic community from the beginning. This ḥadīth has had a crucial and decisive role in those works' form and way to study the sects as well as their authors' perception of their own sect and the other sects. Studying the influence, not the authenticity, of the 73 sects ḥadīth, the article first mentions the famous narration of the ḥadīth, noting other different narrative versions; then points out some questions that would be arisen in one’s mind about the implication of the ḥadīth. The article mainly discusses the attitudes of Muslim heresiographers towards 73 sects ḥadīth and describes by placing them in main three categories: ‘Those who consider the 73 sects ḥadīth authentic,’ ‘Those who do not con- sider the 73 sects ḥadīth authentic,’ and ‘Those who do not take notice of the 73 sects ḥadīth.’ Considering the ḥadīth authentic, most of heresiographers have different views about the meaning of the number 73 mentioned in the ḥadīth. Some thinks that the number is for a fact and, accordingly, divides the sects to reach up 73 with different formulas and some are of the opinion that the number is a metaphor and a mere allusion on abundance as a common usage in the Arabic language and, accordingly, do not limit the number of the sects to 73. The article ends up with a discussion of the problems of the consideration of the 73 sects ḥadīth a measure for studying and classifying theological groups.
KEYWORDS
Islamic Theological Sects, Islamic Heresiography, Sect (Firqa), 73 Sects Ḥadīth, Saved Sect (al-firqa al-nājiya)

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.

This paper focuses on the impact of the war and subsequent occupation (2003–2011) on Iraq’s heritage, documenting the most significant and devastating instances of heritage damage and destruction that occurred. Moving forward, this chapter continues with a discussion of the grave challenges facing Iraqi heritage beyond the withdrawal of US military forces in the form of various groups - from jihadist networks such as the 'Islamic State' through to various sectarian actors. It also discusses the threat to heritage sites from development, neglect, and inexpert and haphazard excavation, preservation, protection, and restoration. Despite this troubling scenario, this chapter also examines the extent to which the Iraq conflict was a turning point for major Western military operations and the development of CPP programs which aim to better prepare military personnel for protecting cultural property in future conflicts.

Sectarianism has attained an unprecedented degree of prominence in the Middle East over the last decade, and has manifested in violent sectarian clashes across the region. Iraq and Syria, in particular, having been engulfed in communal violence, and witnessed the emergence of sectarian militant organisations such as the Islamic State (IS), have become the frontlines of the Sunni-Shi’a conflict. If there is to ever to be any solution to this phenomenon, that poses a significant threat to the stability of the region, it is vital to understand how sectarian identities are formed and mobilised to perpetuate violence. This paper seeks to trace the causes and motivations for sectarian conflict in these two states through an examination of political sectarianism- based on rational choices that prioritise the pursuit of political and material interests – and social sectarianism – based on symbolic politics which stresses on the importance of group identities and myth-symbol complexes, and fears in perpetuating hostility.

In the discourse around sectarian violence in Pakistan, two concerns are prominent. The first is the contention that piety, or the intensity of Muslim religious practice, predicts support for sectarian and other forms of Islamist violence. The second is the belief that personal preferences for some forms of sharia also explain such support. As I describe herein, scholars first articulated these concerns in the “clash of civilizations” thesis. Subsequent researchers developed them further in the scholarly and policy analytical literatures that explored these linkages through qualitative and quantitative methodologies. I revisit these claims in the particular context of sectarian violence in Pakistan. To do so, I use several questions included in a recent and large national survey of Pakistanis to create indices of both piety and support for three dimensions of sharia. I use these indices as explanatory variables, along with other explanatory and control variables, in a regression analysis of support for sectarian violence, the dependent variable. I find that the piety index and dimensions of sharia support are significant only when district fixed effects are excluded; however, personal characteristics (i.e., the particular school of Islam respondents espouse, ethnicity, several demographics) most consistently predict support for sectarian violence.

İSLAM KAYNAKLI MEZHEPLERİN ORTADOĞU’DAKİ COĞRAFİ DAĞILIMI VE TAHMİNİ NÜFUSLARI: Dünyanın en sorunlu bölgesi olan Ortadoğu’da barışın sağlanmasında dikkate alınması gereken en önemli unsurlardan birisi dinî ve mezhebî oluşumlardır. Bunların coğrafi dağılımlarını ve nüfuslarının tespitini  amaçlayan bu çalışma neticesinde, çeşitli kaynaklardaki nüfus verilerinde ciddi tutarsızlıklar olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bu çalışma gerçeğe en yakın tabloyu elde etmeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Özet
İslam tarihinin oldukça erken bir döneminde ortaya çıkmış, belli bir dönem varlığını ve etkinliğini sürdürmüş, ancak daha sonra kâhir ekseriyetiyle mevcudiyetini kaybetmiş Hâricîler, gerek akademik gerekse de popüler yazında günümüzde yaşayan ancak birbirinden kalın çizgilerle ayrılan iki mezhebî grup (İbâdîler ve Selefîler) ile çeşitli bağlamlarda irtibatlandırılmaktadır. İbâdîlerin köken itibariyle Hâricîlerin ‘günümüze kadar ulaşan tek kolu’ ve ‘organik devamı’ olarak görülmesinde haklılık payı bulunmakla birlikte özellikle Ezârika üzerinden oluşturulan Hâricîlik resmi üzerine İbâdîliğin iliştirilmesi birtakım problemli neticeleri husûle getirmektedir. Aralarında herhangi bir organik bağ bulunmamasına rağmen Selefîlerin tümünün veya belli bazı alt gruplarının Hâricîlerin ‘günümüzdeki görünümleri’ veya ‘neo-Hâricîler’ şeklinde tanımlanması ise bir zihniyet veya pratik benzerliği temelinde yükselmektedir. Ancak bu durum da bazı netameli durumları gündeme taşımaktadır. İşte bu çalışma özelde İbâdîlerin ve Selefîlerin Hâricîlerin günümüzdeki devamı olarak nitelenmesinin doğurduğu metodik problemler genelde de bu örneklem üzerinden mezhep araştırmalarının mahiyet ve metodolojisi üzerine odaklanmaktadır. Bunu yaparken birtakım yargılara varma değil, metodik problemleri gündeme taşıma ve bunların halline dair tartışma ve önerileri provoke etme amacını gözetmektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Hâricîlik, İbâdîlik, Selefîlik, Metodoloji, İslam fırkaları, Ezârika, tekfîr, IŞİD/DÂİŞ, Metodoloji

Abstract
Is Modern Khārijīs Ibāḍīs or Salafīs 
-A Discussion on Methodology-
Khārijīs, who appeared in the relatively early period of Islamic History, maintained its existence and efficiency for a certain time and later went out of the existence of its majority, has been sometimes correlated, in both some scholarly and popular publications, with Ibāḍīs or Salafīs, who are living Islamic groups today, however both disassociate each other. A convinction that Ibādīs, as its origin, are ‘the only surviving sub-sect of Khārijīs’ or ‘Khārijīs’s organic continuation” has a point. However, attaching Ibāḍīs to Khārijīs on a picture of Khārijism drawn on the basis of ideas and practices of Azāriqa, the most radical sub-sect of Khārijism, brings about some methodic problems. On the other, a definition that Salafism as a whole or its some certain sub-groups are ‘modern appearances of Khārijism’ or ‘Neo-Khārijīs’ although there is no organic connection to Khārijism, is based on a similarity of mentality or practices. This raises some problematic issues, too. This study focuses on methodic problems resulted by the description of both Ibāḍīs and Salafīs as the continuation of Khārijīs and aims, with special reference to this case, to provoke discussions on the nature and methodology of a research of Islamic sects.
Key Words: Khārijism, Ibāḍism, Salafism, Methodology, Islamic Sects, Azāriqa, takfīr, ISIS/Daesh, Methodology

Amongst the oft repeated aḥādīth (traditions) is that of the divisions of Muslims after the Holy Prophet Muḥammad (S) where, in line with the divisions in Judaism and Christianity, the Muslim community will experience more than 70 sects of which only one is the saved one.  This ḥadīth has shaped the thought process of Muslims who, in speech or in prose, provide evidence promoting their sect as the successful one and disqualifying many others from this status.  Some venture as far as destining all others to hell-fire whilst some strike a conciliatory note postulating that the remaining sects will enter heaven but only after serving time in hell (Haq, 2012). Those that do not accept its authenticity are exceptionally few. 
The matn (content) of this ḥadīth varies with differences in the sanad (chain of narrators).  In some cases, the number of sects of the Jews and Christians and even Muslims is recorded differently, whereas in other cases the identity of the successful group is also inconsistent.  Though we may be able to reconcile the differences in the number of sects being quoted by considering them from a metaphorical perspective indicating a large number of sects rather than a specific number, the identity of the saved group has not been agreed upon which results in significant implications for the Muslim community. Some versions stop at saying there will be divisions, giving no description of the saved sect, whilst other versions indicate the followers of the Holy Prophet (S) and his companions are the fortunate group and a third points to al-Jamāʿah (the congregation) (Nawbakhtī & Kadhim, 2007, p. 18). On the other hand, the Shiʿah version quoted in Al-Kāfī, counts one of the thirteen sects (from the 73) accepting the wilāyah  of the A’immah  as being the saved one.
This work examines the sanad and matn of the variants of ḥadīth al-Iftirāq to determine how sound the ḥadīth is. This requires a review of the reliability of the narrators as mentioned in the books of the science of Al-Rijāl , as well as identifying any interruptions in the chain of narration or discrepancy on the ages or locations of the narrators. Furthermore, the matn is examined against the Qur’an and other aḥādīth related to the theme of sectarianism and soteriology within the Muslim community. Key words and pertinent phrases within the matn are reviewed to understand their relevance and implications on the meaning.
Though the analysis of the sanad shows many of the aḥādīth as being good and a few as being authentic, the analysis of the matn leads us to negate most, if not all, of this ḥadīth.

The swift expansion of the Safavids into Caucasia and Irak caused a
sudden influx of learned men into Ottoman lands who fled the persecution of Sunnis by Safavid authorities. Due to their background in Sunni learning and piety as well their utility in intelligence against the Safavids these émigrés were often well-treated and granted high status in Ottoman service. Many of them quickly turned into anti-Safavid propagandists and avid apologists of the Ottoman dynasty. Their portrayal of the Safavids and Shiism deeply impacted Ottoman perceptions of this movement as an existential threat in terms of both political ideology and righteous faith. Among this contingent of learned men this study examines Hüseyin b. Abdullah el-Shirvani’s depiction of Sufism, Sunnism, and Shiism through a markedly eschatological and messianic idiom that ideologized the Ottoman-Safavid conflict. After fleeing his homeland, Shirvan, and taking refuge in Eastern Anatolia, he composed three treatises with the aim of presenting them to the reigning sultan, Suleiman I, around 1540’s. Besides fiercely criticizing Safavid Shiism, these texts were also some of the most detailed and informative accounts of Safavid popular beliefs and political theology to furnish Ottoman authorities with much needed ammunition in their ideological warfare.

TR/ING
Öz: Safevi İmparatorluğu'nda yazılan umumi tarihlerin ilklerinden olan Lübbü't-tevârîh, gerek içerdiği erken İslam tarihi bölümleri gerek müellifi Mîr Yahyâ b. Abdullatîf Hasanî Seyfî Kazvînî'nin (885-962/1481-1555) tartışmalı mezhebî kimliği sebebiyle Safevi Tarihyazımı içinde özel bir yere sahiptir. Kazvin'in meşhur seyit ailelerinden birine mensup olan müellifin soyu on beşinci yüzyıl başından itibaren bir yandan Sünnilikleri ile bilinirken, bir yandan da on altıncı yüzyıl ile birlikte Şii İslam kimliğini benimsemiş Safevi hanedanı ile geliştirdikleri iyi ilişkilerle meşhurdurlar. Ek olarak, Mîr Yahyâ Kazvînî'nin kendisi de Şah İsmail (hükümeti, 907-930/1501-1524) zamanında bizzat Safevi ordusuyla birlikte seferlere katılmış ve yakın ilişkileri münasebetiyle Şah Tahmasb'ın (h. 930-984/1524-1576) kendisine "Yahyâ-ı Ma'sûm" diye hitap ettiği bir tarihçidir. Bütün bu ilişkilere rağmen Kazvin Sünnilerinin liderlerinden olduğu suçlaması ile 960/1553 yılında Şah Tahmasb'ın emriyle İsfahan'a sürülmüş olan ve mezhebî kimliği hakkında net bir bilgi bulunmayan Mîr Yahyâ Kazvînî'nin, Lübbü't-tevârîh'in erken İslam tarihi anlatısında nasıl bir tavır takındığı, hangi vaka ve meselelerin altını çizip hangilerini görmezden geldiği, Şii ya da Sünni diskurun hangisini benimsediği tartışılacaktır.

Abstract: Lubb al-tavarikh, which was one of the earliest universal histories written in the Safavid Empire, has a special place in Safavid historiography due to both its section regarding the early history of Islam and the debatable sectarian identity of its author Mîr Yahyâ b. ‘Abd al-Latîf Hasanî Sayfî Qazvînî (885–962/1481–1555). While the descendants of Mîr Yahyâ Qazvînî in the fifteenth century were noted for their Sunni identity, with the rise of the Safavid dynasty and their promotion of Shi’ite Islam in the sixteenth century, they became known for establishing good relations with the Safavid state. Additionally, Mîr Yahyâ Qazvînî himself participated in Safavid military campaigns under the reign of Shah Ismail (r. 907–930/1501– 1524) and was addressed by Shah Tahmasb (r. 930–984/1524–1576) as “Yahya the Innocent/Infallible” (Yahyâ-ı Ma‘sûm). Despite having a close relationship with the Safavid dynasty, Mîr Yahyâ Qazvînî was exiled from Qazvin to Isfahan in 960/1553 by the order of Shah Tahmasb, as he was accused of leading the Sunni of Qazvin. This article discusses how a sixteenth century Safavid historian with an ambiguous sectarian identity, Mir Yahya Qazvînî, constructed the history of early Islam and which issues he underlined, obscured, and/or avoided discussing. Furthermore, I look at whether he adopts Shi’ite or Sunni discourses in his Lubb al-tavarikh.

[For the extended summary of the article in English, please see pp. 95-97]

With the advent of the Arab popular uprisings, many hidden ordeals have been uncovered in the region. Nationalism and sectarian (ethno-confessional) problems are among several issues, yet they constitute a source of ongoing turbulence. It is my contention that the Great War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire were at the root of all these problems. In an effort to draw conclusions and a working prognosis, this article focuses on two aspects of the impact and repercussions of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire: firstly the rise of nationalism, and secondly the emergence contemporary Islamic movements and sectarian calamity.

While there have been many scholarly inquiries about the sources of
support for terrorism among Muslim publics, to date, scholars have
generally not asked whether or not gender predicts support for
Islamist militancy. Instead, most scholars and officials assume that
“men of military age” are the most important segment of interest.
Instead, gender is usually treated as a “control variable” rather than a
“study variable,” reflecting the paucity of interest in this subject. This
is likely an important scholarly and policy-analytic oversight. Many
terrorist groups have women’s wings and women-oriented publications
and other outreach programs because they understand the
important role that mothers, wives, and sisters play in a male family
member’s decision to take up arms with a terrorist group. In some
conflicts, women also join as combatants. In this paper, we seek to
address these scholarly lacunae by examining gender-wise support
for two militant groups based in and operating from Pakistan: the
Afghan Taliban, which has no female outreach program, and the
sectarian Sipha-e-Sahaba-e-Pakistan, which does. We leverage a dataset
drawn from a relatively large national survey of Pakistanis collected
in 2011 to model support for these groups using gender as an
independent variable along with other demographic and control
variables. We find that females are significantly more likely to support
the sectarian group with a women’s outreach-wing. In contrast, there
is no significant gender effect on support for the Afghan Taliban. We
argue, from these results, that gender deserves more attention in
understanding who supports and participates in Islamist militancy.

The Legacy of Iraq critically reflects on the abject failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. It argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world.

Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq war and denying their connection to contemporary events could means that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

يهتم بقضية" مناهج التغيير"، وهي موضوع الساعة بحق، بحيث لا يكاد موضوع آخر يرتقي إلى أهمية ويصل إلى مستواه، خاصة أن الساحة العربية قد أصبحت ميداناً فسيحاً تصطرع فيه إرادات تغييريه متعددة ومتعارضة لدرجة التنافي والتناقض بل التضاد وخلال القرنين الماضيين قد قضيت صراعات قوى الأمة التغيرية فيما بينها على كل فرص النجاح للنهوض وتجاوز الأزمات، وهو ما يقتضى مراجعة شاملة كما يرى المستشار طارق البشرى إلا أن عالمية الأزمات تستدعي عالمية الحلول، بحيث يمثل التغيير بدوره إشكالية عالمية، بل إن أزمة التغيير ذاتها قد تمكن في عالمية التغيير التي لا يزال ضباب القوميات والعنصريات و المذهبيات يحول دون رؤية عالميتها، واكتشاف المداخل السليمة لمقاربتها.
إلا أن ذلك بدوره يفرض التأمل ملياً في تأسيس منطلق التغيير، وتحديد هدفه، وتوضيح معالم شخصية إنسان التغيير ضمن فعالياته و قدراته، وفهم أصول عملية التغيير ذاتها والسنن المتعلقة بها والحاكمة لها والقاضية عليها والقواعد الأساسية التي تبنى: أمة التغيير" بعد غياب إنسان التغيير لتكون الأمة الوسط والمخرجة إلى الناس لإحداث التغيير ودفع الباطل بالحق وإزهاقه، وهي تتمثل في التوحيد، والإيمان بوحدة البشر في الأصل والمنشأ والمصير والمآل والمهمة العمرانية والحقيقية الإنسانية، ووحدة الحق وإثباته، وأخيراً الإيمان بخلافة الإنسان في الكون وتسخيره له.
والانطلاق من كل ذلك نحو ميادين ومجالات التغيير من أهم العمليات لتفعيل هذه الرؤية التغيرية، ذلك أن عالميتنا الراهنة تتطلب إعادة قراءة النص القرآني لاكتشاف كوامنة حول المتغيرات الاجتماعية والتاريخية..وتأصيل عناصر إصلاح مناهج الفكر وإسلامية المعرفة وهي مهمة تستهدف تكوين الإنسان الرسالي إنسان التغير وفق الضوابط المنهجية والعرفة.