Sectarian conflict is becoming entrenched in a growing number of Muslim countries and is threatening to fracture Iraq and Syria. Tensions between Sunnis and Shias, exploited by regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, could reshape the future Middle East.
An ancient religious divide is helping fuel a resurgence of conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim countries. Struggles between Sunni and Shia forces have fed a Syrian civil war that threatens to transform the map of the Middle East, spurred violence that is fracturing Iraq, and widened fissures in a number of tense Gulf countries. Growing sectarian clashes have also sparked a revival of transnational jihadi networks that poses a threat beyond the region. Islam’s schism, simmering for fourteen centuries, doesn’t explain all the political, economic, and geostrategic factors involved in these conflicts, but it has become one prism by which to understand the underlying tensions. Two countries that compete for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, have used the sectarian divide to further their ambitions. How their rivalry is settled will likely shape the political balance between Sunnis and Shias and the future of the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain. Alongside the proxy battle is the renewed fervor of armed militants, motivated by the goals of cleansing the faith or preparing the way for the return of the messiah. Today there are tens of thousands of organized sectarian militants throughout the region capable of triggering a broader conflict. And despite the efforts of many Sunni and Shia clerics to reduce tensions through dialogue and counter violence measures, many experts express concern that Islam’s divide will lead to escalating violence and a growing threat to international peace and security. Sunni and Shia Muslims have lived peacefully together for centuries. In many countries it has become common for members of the two sects to intermarry and pray at the same mosques. They share faith in the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed’s sayings and perform similar prayers, although they differ in rituals and interpretation of Islamic law. Shia identity is rooted in victimhood over the killing of Husayn, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, in the seventh century, and a long history of marginalization by the Sunni majority. Islam’s dominant sect, which roughly 85 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims follow, viewed Shia Islam with suspicion, and extremist Sunnis have portrayed Shias as heretics and apostates.
Mohammed unveiled a new faith to the people of Mecca in 610. Known as Islam, or submission to God, the monotheistic religion incorporated some Jewish and Christian traditions and expanded with a set of laws that governed most aspects of life, including political authority. By the time of his death in 632, Mohammed had consolidated power in Arabia. His followers subsequently built an empire that would stretch from Central Asia to Spain less than a century after his death. But a debate over succession split the community, with some arguing that leadership should be awarded to qualified individuals and others insisting that the only legitimate ruler must come through Mohammed’s bloodline. A group of prominent early followers of Islam elected Abu Bakr, a companion of Mohammed, to be the first caliph, or leader of the Islamic community, over the objections of those who favored Ali ibn Abi Talib, Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law. The opposing camps in the succession debate eventually evolved into Islam’s two main sects. Shias, a term that stems from shi’atuAli, Arabic for “partisans of Ali,” believe that Ali and his descendants are part of a divine order. Sunnis, meaning followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic, of Mohammed, are opposed to political succession based on Mohammed’s bloodline. Ali became caliph in 656 and ruled only five years before he was assassinated. The caliphate, which was based in the Arabian Peninsula, passed to the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and later the Abbasids in Baghdad. Shias rejected the authority of these rulers. In 680, soldiers of the second Umayyad caliph killed Ali’s son, Husayn, and many of his companions in Karbala, located in modern-day Iraq. Karbala became a defining moral story for Shias, and Sunni caliphs worried that the Shia Imams—the descendants of Husayn who were seen as the legitimate leaders of Muslims (Sunnis use the term “imam” for the men who lead prayers in mosques)—would use this massacre to capture public imagination and topple monarchs. This fear resulted in the further persecution and marginalization of Shias. Even as Sunnis triumphed politically in the Muslim world, Shias continued to look to the Imams—the blood descendants of Ali and Husayn—as their legitimate political and religious leaders. Even within the Shia community, however, there arose differences over the proper line of succession. Mainstream Shias believe there were twelve Imams. Zaydi Shias, found mostly in Yemen, broke off from the majority Shia community at the fifth Imam, and sustained imamate rule in parts of Yemen up to the 1960s. Ismaili Shias, centered in South Asia but with important diaspora communities throughout the world, broke off at the seventh Imam. Most Ismailis revere the Aga Khan as the living representative of their Imam. The majority of Shias, particularly those in Iran and the eastern Arab world, believe that the twelfth Imam entered a state of occultation, or hiddenness, in 939 and that he will return at the end of time. Since then, “Twelvers,” or Ithna Ashari Shias, have vested religious authority in their senior clerical leaders, called ayatollahs (Arabic for “sign of God”). Many Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian converts to Islam chose to become Shia rather than Sunni in the early centuries of the religion as a protest against the ethnic Arab empires that treated non-Arabs as second-class citizens. Their religions influenced the evolution of Shia Islam as distinct from Sunni Islam in rituals and beliefs. Sunnis dominated the first nine centuries of Islamic rule (excluding the Shia Fatimid dynasty) until the Safavid dynasty was established in Persia in 1501. The Safavids made Shia Islam the state religion, and over the following two centuries they fought with the Ottomans, the seat of the Sunni caliphate. As these empires faded, their battles roughly settled the political borders of modern Iran and Turkey by the seventeenth century, and their legacies resulted in the current demographic distribution of Islam’s sects. Shias comprise a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than forty countries from Morocco to Indonesia XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Timeline
: Origins of the Sunni-Shia Schism
Early Muslims split into two camps following the death of the Prophet Mohammed. This chronology explains how the sects evolved from 632 until the late twentieth century. (Photo: Abbas Al-Musavi/Brooklyn Museum)
632A D
Combat between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Amr Ben Wad near Medina in Arabia. Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection/Brown Library
Early followers of Islam are divided over the succession of the Prophet Mohammed, who founded the religion in Arabia. Prominent members of the community in Mecca elect Abu Bakr, a companion of Mohammed, with objections from those who favor Ali ibn Abi Talib, Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law. Ali eventually becomes caliph, or ruler of the Islamic community, in 656, and is assassinated in 661 after a power struggle with the governor of Damascus, Mu’awiya. Mu’awiya claims the caliphate and founds the Umayyad dynasty, which rules the Muslim empire from Damascus until 750.
661 – 1258 A. D.
Map of the Ummayad Caliphate in 750. Courtesy University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin
Umayyads, and later Abbasids, who replace the Umayyads and rule from Baghdad after 750, oppress and kill the successors of Husayn, known as Imams, who pose a political threat to Sunni caliphs. The sixth Shia Imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq, orders his followers to hide their true beliefs for the survival of the faith. Shia branches such as Ismaili and Zaydi emerge from different interpretations of succession for Imams. The Sunni caliphate becomes hereditary.
661 A. D.
Painting of Ali being designated as the Prophet Mohammed’s successor. University of Edinburgh
The partisans of Ali, or shi’atu Ali, grow discontented after the murder of their leader in 661. They reject the authority of the caliphs during the Umayyad dynasty, which rules over an expanding empire stretching from Pakistan through northern Africa to Spain. Shias argue that the legitimate leaders of Islam must be the sons of Ali and Fatima, Mohammed’s daughter. Husayn, one of Ali’s sons, eventually leads a revolt from Kufa, in modern-day Iraq.
680 A. D.
Painting commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn. Abbas Al-Musavi/Brooklyn Museum
Yazid, the Umayyad ruler, dispatches an army to crush the Kufa revolt. A battle in Karbala, north of Kufa, ends with the massacre of Husayn and many of his companions. Husayn's martyrdom and its moral lessons help shape Shia identity, and the sect grows despite the murder of its leaders. Husayn’s death is commemorated by Shias during the annual ritual of Ashura, which includes practices, such as self-flagellation, that are distinct from Sunni Islam.
939 A. D.
Shia pilgrims gather at a shrine in Kerbala, Iraq. Mushtaq Muhammed/Courtesy Reuters
Most Shias today are Twelvers. They believe that the line of Imams continued to the twelfth Imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, or the guided one, who entered a state of occultation, or hiddenness, in 939. Shias expect the Mahdi to return at the end of time. Sunni Islam becomes a broad umbrella term for non-Shia Muslims who are united on the importance of the Quran and practices of Mohammed, though they may differ in legal opinion.
969 A. D.
Visitors at a shrine in Cairo believed to hold Husayn’s head. Mohammed Aly Sergie
Ismailis, who break off from the Twelver line after the sixth Imam, take control of Egypt and large parts of North Africa and expand to western Arabia and Syria, creating the Fatimid dynasty. The Fatimids, who assume the titles of both imam and caliph, establish al-Azhar Mosque, which centuries later becomes the intellectual center of Sunni Islam. The Shia Fatimid caliphate fades in the twelfth century, and the Ismaili community spreads to Yemen, Syria, Iran, and western India.
1268 A. D.
Ibn Taymiyya in Damascus
By the ninth century, Sunnis adhere to four schools of Islamic jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, and Hanbali. Ibn Taymiyya, a religious scholar, moves to Damascus in 1268 and studies the Hanbali school, which condemns Shias as rafidha, or rejecters of the faith. He preaches a return to the purity of Islam in its early days. Ibn Taymiyya opposes celebrating Mohammed’s birthday and other practices that resemble Christian and pagan rituals. His ideas help shape Wahhabi and Salafi thought centuries later. (Photo: Bernard Gagnon)
1501 A. D.
The renovated mosque of Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab in Riyadh. Mohammad Nowfal Areekode
Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab establishes a religious movement on the Arabian peninsula in the eighteenth century steeped in the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam. Wahhabis, as his followers are known, preach a puritanical faith that puts them in conflict with other Sunnis as well as Shias. Wahhabi fighters desecrate the shrine of Husayn in Karbala and destroy Mohammed’s tombstone in Medina. They join Mohammed bin Saud to found the first Saudi kingdom, which is defeated by Ottoman forces in the early nineteenth century.
1703 A. D.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement. The National Archives, United Kingdom
The secret Sykes-Picot agreement is reached between France and the United Kingdom to divide the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which has been in decline and weakens further during World War I. Colonial rulers elevate minorities to powerful positions in Iraq and Syria, a policy which later contributes to sectarian tensions in these countries. Tempering these tensions are new ideas of secularism and nationalism that sweep through the Turkish and Arab province of the former Ottoman Empire. The newly founded secular Republic of Turkey abolishes the caliphate in 1924. In the Arab world, identity politics stressing pan-Arabism and a unity among Muslims helps mute sectarianism, especially during the fight for independence against the European powers.
1916 A. D.
King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud (seated) with his son, crown prince Saud. AP
Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud and his army of Wahhabi warriors consolidate control of the Arabian peninsula and form the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. During the founding battles, fighters attack fellow Sunnis in western Arabia and Shias in eastern Arabia and southern Iraq. Wahhabi preachers go on to dominate the kingdom’s judiciary and education system, and their teachings are spread first in Saudi Arabia and then internationally as the country grows wealthy from its large oil resources. The rise of Wahhabi and the related Salafi branches of Islam fuels Sunni-Shia tensions today.
1932 A. D.
Murad IV, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623 to 1640. (Public Domain/Wiki Commons)
Safavids briefly gain control of Iraq, an Arab territory, but lose it in 1639 to the Ottomans, who claim the title of the Sunni caliphate in Turkey. The Ottoman–Safavid wars eventually establish the modern contours of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Shia Islam dominates Iran, and Shia Muslims in Turkey are killed or displaced, shifting the demography in favor of Sunnis, a development that makes both these countries far more homogenous than their neighbors.
1501 A. D.
Painting of an early battle in the Safavid Dynasty by Mu'in Musavvir. Freer and Sackler, Smithsonian Institution
Ismail, leader of the Safavid dynasty, defeats the Mongols and brings the territories of former Persian empires under central authority, including modern-day Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey. Shi’ism becomes the official religion of the Safavids and is often spread through force. As the Safavid dynasty declines in the eighteenth century, the power of Shia clergy in civil affairs grows in Iran.
Syria’s first years of independence are riddled with coups until Ba’athists in the military seize power in 1963. The Ba’ath Party, popular in Iraq and Syria, promotes a secular, pan-Arab, socialist ideology and is hostile to Islamists. Hafez al-Assad, a Ba’ath leader and member of the heterodox Shia sect known as Alawis, takes power in 1970 and rules until his death in 2000, after more than a thousand years of Sunni dominance in Syria. His son Bashar continues to rule the country amid civil war in 2014.
1963 A. D.
Lebanese Civil War
Lebanon experiences a sectarian civil war that (with important exceptions at various times) pits the Christian minority that has held political power since independence in 1943 against the Muslim majority. Syria intervenes in the fighting in 1976 and Israel intervenes in 1982. After the Israeli intervention, Iran sponsors the establishment of a Shia Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, which over time becomes the most powerful force in Lebanese politics. Under pressure from Hezbollah, Israel withdraws its last forces from Lebanon in 2000. (Photo: AP)
1976 – 1989 A.D.
Al-Azhar Mosque in the old Islamic area of Cairo. Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Courtesy Reuters
Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltut, the rector of Cairo's al-Azhar Mosque, which Sunnis view as the preeminent religious institution, issues a religious ruling, or fatwa, that recognizes Shia law as the fifth school of Islamic jurisprudence. After decades of colonialism and then secular nationalism, many Sunni and Shia religious authorities throughout the Muslim world unite to confront these common threats. This harmony is tarnished as secular states weaken.
1947 A. D.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah Getty Images/Time & Life Pictures/Margaret Bourke-White
India’s struggle for independence includes an Islamic awakening, resulting in the creation of Pakistan in the partition of India at the end of British rule. The Sunni-majority country is founded by a Shia, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who emphasizes the need for a secular Pakistan where all citizens are equal irrespective of "religion or caste or creed." Pakistanis elect prime ministers from both sects. But the Islamization of the state, promoted by Saudi Wahhabi clerics, accelerates after army chief General Zia ul-Haq, a Sunni, seizes power in 1978. Sectarian violence escalates after the 1980s.
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Modern Tensions
Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 gave Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the opportunity to implement his vision for an Islamic government ruled by the “guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih), a controversial concept among Shia scholars that is opposed by Sunnis, who have historically differentiated between political leadership and religious scholarship. Shia ayatollahs have always been the guardians of the faith. Khomeini argued that clerics had to rule to properly perform their function: implementing Islam as God intended, through the mandate of the Shia Imams. Under Khomeini, Iran began an experiment in Islamic rule. Khomeini tried to inspire further Islamic revival, preaching Muslim unity, but supported groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Pakistan that had specific Shia agendas. Sunni Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, admired Khomeini’s success, but did not accept his leadership, underscoring the depth of sectarian suspicions. Saudi Arabia has a sizable Shia minority of roughly 10 percent, and millions of adherents of a puritanical brand of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism (an offshoot of the Sunni Hanbali school) that is antagonistic to Shia Islam. The transformation of Iran into an overtly Shia power after the Islamic revolution induced Saudi Arabia to accelerate the propagation of Wahhabism, as both countries revived a centuries-old sectarian rivalry over the true interpretation of Islam. Many of the groups responsible for sectarian violence that has occurred in the region and across the Muslim world since 1979 can be traced to Saudi and Iranian sources. Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980–1988 war with Iran and sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were primarily fighting against the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, but were also suppressing Shia movements inspired or backed by Iran. The transformation of Iran into an agitator for Shia movements in Muslim countries seemed to confirm centuries of Sunni suspicions that Shia Arabs answer to Persia. Many experts, however, point out that Shias aren’t monolithic—for many of them, identities and interests are based on more than their confession. Iraqi Shias, for example, made up the bulk of the Iraqi army that fought Iran during the Iran–Iraq War, and Shia militant groups Amal and Hezbollah clashed at times during the Lebanese civil war.
For their part, both mainstream and hard-line Sunnis aren’t singularly focused on oppressing Shias. They have fought against coreligionists throughout history, most recently in the successive crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia’s battles against al-Qaeda and related Sunni militant groups. Sharing a common Sunni identity didn’t eliminate power struggles among Sunni Muslims under secular or religious governments. But confessional identity has resurfaced wherever sectarian violence has taken root, as in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion removed Saddam Hussein, a dictator from the Sunni minority who ruled over a Shia-majority country. The bombing of a Shia shrine in Samara in 2006 kicked off a cycle of sectarian violence that forced Iraqis to pick sides, stirring tensions that continue today.
In the Arab world, Shia groups supported by Iran have recently won important political victories. The Assad regime, which has ruled Syria since 1970, relies on fellow Alawis, a heterodox Shia sect that makes up about 13 percent of Syria’s population, as a pillar of its rule. Alawis dominate the upper reaches of the military and security services in Syria and are the backbone of the forces fighting to support the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq unseated Saddam Hussein and instituted competitive elections, the Shia majority has dominated the parliament and produced its prime ministers.Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia and political movement, is the strongest political actor in Lebanon. Iran’s regional influence has swelled as its allies in these countries have accumulated power.
Sunni governments, especially Saudi Arabia, have increasingly worried about their own grips on power, a concern that was exacerbated with the protest movement that began in Tunisia in late 2010. The Arab Awakening, as the uprisings are known, spread to Bahrain and Syria, countries at the fault lines of Islam’s sectarian divide. In each, political power is held by a sectarian minority—Alawis in Syria, where Sunnis are the majority, and a Sunni ruling family in Bahrain, where Shias are the majority. The civil war in Syria, which is a political conflict at its core, has exposed sectarian tensions and become the staging ground for a vicious proxy war between the region’s major Sunni and Shia powers. Some analysts view the Syrian conflict as the last chance for Sunnis to limit and reverse the spread of Iranian power and Shia influence in the Arab world. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Iran’s Islamic revolution, which brought Shias to power in 1979, and the Sunni backlash have fueled a competition for regional dominance. This timeline highlights Sunni-Shia tensions in recent decades. (Photo: Henri Bureau/Corbis)
January 16,1979
Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Tehran in 1979 after fourteen years of exile. AP Photo
Iran’s ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, flees the country after months of increasingly massive protests. Exiled Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns and leads an Islamic republic based on a constitution that grants him religious and political authority under the concept of velayat-e faqih (“guardianship of the jurist”). Khomeini is named supreme leader and starts to export the Islamic revolution, which is viewed with suspicion by Sunni rulers in countries with significant Shia populations, such as Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.
Soviet forces invade Afghanistan after the communist government in Kabul requests military aid to fight Islamist rebels. The insurgents, known as mujahadeen (“those who fight jihad”), attract mainly Afghan fighters and are augmented by thousands of foreign Sunni fighters, including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden. Weapons and cash for the mujahadeen are supplied through Pakistan by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The war, which is framed as a resistance to Soviet occupation, raises the profile of fundamentalist Sunni movements.
July 5, 1980
Muhammad Zia Ul-Haq, Pakistan's sixth president, ruled from 1978 to 1988. Central Press/Getty Images
Shia Protests in Pakistan Exposes Sectarian Tensions
Tens of thousands of Shias protest in Islamabad against the imposition of some Sunni laws on all Muslims. Pakistan’s president gives Shias an exemption, but the sectarian confrontation becomes an important political issue in the country. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, funded by Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, kill thousands of Shias over the next three decades. Smaller Shia sectarian militant groups such as Tehrik-e-Jafria also emerge but are responsible for fewer attacks.
September 22, 1980
An Iraqi soldier watches the Iranian Abadan refinery burn during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Henri Bureau/Corbis
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni ruling over a majority-Shia country who fears the spillover effects of the Iranian Revolution, sends his troops to occupy part of an oil-rich province in Iran. The move sparks an eight-year war, resulting in roughly one million deaths. Iraq is backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the latter responding to hostility from Tehran’s new government following the Islamic revolution and taking hostage of U.S. diplomats.
February 28, 1991
Bodies suspected to be Shias killed by Saddam’s regime are found in a mass grave in 2003. Damir Sagolj/Courtesy Reuters
Riots erupt in the Shia cities of Basra and Najaf after U.S.-led allies drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait and rout them on the battlefield in the first Gulf War. The Shia protestors are in part motivated by a perception that they will receive U.S. backing if they turn against Saddam. U.S. officials say this was never promised. Saddam’s forces
mount a brutal crackdown, killing tens of thousands of Shias, shelling the shrines of Najaf and Karbala, and razing parts of Shia towns.
August 8, 1998
Afghans flock to the Blue Mosque, also known as the Tomb of Ali, in Mazar-e-Sharif. (Courtesy Reuters)
Taliban militants, Sunni fundamentalists who seized power after the defeat of Soviet forces, capture the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northwest Afghanistan. The Taliban kills at least two thousand Shias in Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan in 1997 and 1998. The offensive in northwest Afghanistan, backed by Pakistan, helps the Taliban consolidate power in the country. Militants kill eight Iranian diplomats based in Mazar-e-Sharif, prompting Tehran to deploy its troops to the border, but United Nations mediation averts a confrontation
September 11, 2001
The second tower of the World Trade Center explodes into flames on September 11, 2001. Sara K. Schwittek/Courtesy Reuters
In response to the attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. forces pursue al-Qaeda leaders and militants to their bases in Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban government. U.S.-led international troops help set up a new order in the country. The toppling of the anti-Iranian Taliban government in Afghanistan, followed shortly thereafter by the U.S. invasion of Iraq that brings down another Iranian foe, Saddam Hussein, fans Sunni fears in Jordan and Gulf states of a Shia revival.
March 19, 2003
U.S. troops pull down a twenty-foot statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad. Goran Tomasevic/Courtesy Reuters
A coalition led by the United States invades Iraq and ends Saddam’s regime and centuries of Sunni dominance in Iraq. Sectarian violence erupts as remnants of the deposed Ba’ath party and other Sunnis, both secular and Islamist, mount a resistance against coalition forces and their local allies, the ascendant Shia community. Shia militias also emerge, some of which also oppose the U.S. military presence. Foreign Sunni militants, many affiliated with al-Qaeda, flock to Iraq to participate in what evolves into a sectarian war. Iranian influence in Iraq grows dramatically as Tehran backs Shia militants, as well as the Shia political parties that come to dominate the electoral process.
February 14, 2005
Supporters of Rafik Hariri in protest over his killing. Ali Hashisho/Courtesy Reuters
Assassination of Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
Former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is killed in a car bomb after spearheading an effort to raise international pressure on Syria to withdraw its forces, which have been in Lebanon since 1976. His assassination is seen as a Syrian plot supported by Syria’s Lebanese allies, including Hezbollah, and leads to massive demonstrations that convince Syria to withdraw. The assassination and subsequent mobilization pit the Lebanese Sunni community, whom Hariri had come to represent, against Hezbollah and Lebanese Shias, who remain allied with Syria. Lebanese Christians split, with some supporting the Hariri camp and others supporting Hezbollah.
February 22, 2006
Iraqis walk past the damaged al-Askari mosque following an explosion in Samarra. Hameed Rasheed/AP Photo
Sectarian killings become normal in Iraq, with both Sunni and Shia militias targeting civilians across the country. The bombing that destroys the golden dome of al-Askari mosque in Samarra, home to the tombs of the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, triggers a more intense wave of violence that almost doubles the monthly civilian death toll in Iraq to nine hundred
December 30, 2006
Indian Muslims protest the execution of Saddam Hussein. Ahmad Masood/CourtesyReuters
Saddam Hussein, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Shias and Sunnis in Iraq, is executed amid taunts by witnesses who chant the name of Shia cleric and Mahdi army militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The unruly scene, captured on video, elevates Saddam’s status as a martyr among many Sunnis in the region and underscores the new reality of rising Shia power in Iraq.
February 11, 2011
Protests Erupt in the Middle East, Exposing Sectarian Fault Lines
A wave of pro-democracy protests sweeps across the region, starting with the overthrow of Tunisia’s president, and then Egypt’s on February 11, eventually spreading to other Arab states in what is known as the “Arab Spring” or the “Arab Awakening.” Iranian officials welcome the fall of long-term U.S. allies like Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, and unrest in Bahrain, home to an oppressed Shia majority. As protests reach Syria in March, Tehran backs the government, which is dominated by Alawis, a heterodox Shia sect, while the opposition is dominated by members of the majority Sunni community. Dormant sectarian tensions in Syria are revived and a regional sectarian showdown begins. (Courtesy Reuters)
August 30, 2012
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks to Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi, during the sixteenth summit of the Nonaligned Movement in Tehran. Courtesy Reuters
President Mohamed Morsi’s trip to Tehran, the first visit by an Egyptian leader since Cairo’s recognition of Israel in the 1980s, signals the potential for a new relationship between Iran and Sunni Islamists. Iran tries to rebrand the Arab uprisings as an “Islamic Awakening” and an extension of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But the visit by Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, exposes Islam’s deep cleavage. He praises Islam’s first three caliphs, whom Shias reject, and says opposing the Assad regime is a “moral obligation,” remarks that Iranian officials criticize.
October 1, 2012
Hezbollah members carry the coffin of commander Ali Bazzi, who was killed in Syria. Ali Hashisho/ Courtesy Reuters
Civil war divides Syrians largely along sectarian lines, with Sunnis supporting rebels, and Alawis, Shias, and other minorities backing the Assad regime. Foreign Sunni fighters trickle and then flood into the country, and signs of increased involvement from Iran and its Lebanese proxy militia, Hezbollah, emerge. The death of Hezbollah founding member Ali Hussein Nassif comes months before the group publicly acknowledges its role in the war. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries fund rebels, turning the fighting in Syria into a regional proxy war.
April 8, 2013
Al-Qaeda’s Iraq Affiliate Expands in Syria
The Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, extends its activities into Syria, creating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Known for its brutality against Shias and most Sunnis who oppose it, the group proves to be too extreme for al-Qaeda and is eventually expelled from the network. ISIS attacks in Iraq and Syria add an additional layer of sectarian violence to the region, and its control of territory in both states threatens to dissolve borders and fracture countries in the Middle East. (Yaser Al-Khodor/Courtesy Reuters)
April 20, 2014
Indonesian Shias protest plans to relocate hundreds who had been driven from their village. Ibnu Mardhani/Demotix
Asian Muslims, influenced by the sectarian violence in the Middle East and Pakistan, aim to avoid potential tensions by suppressing the growth of their tiny Shia communities. Indonesian clerics and radical Islamists hold an “Anti-Shia Alliance” meeting in the world’s largest Muslim country, which is more than 99 percent Sunni. Malaysia, where Sunnis are also dominant, has implemented laws forbidding the propagation of the Shia faith.
June 10, 2014
Mahdi Army fighters loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr march in Najaf. Alaa Al-Marjani/Courtesy Reuters
ISIS militants and other armed Sunni groups seize Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, with little resistance from the Iraqi army. The Sunni insurgency, brewing for years in response to what it sees as exclusionary policies of Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, expands toward Baghdad and the borders with Syria and Jordan. ISIS threatens to destroy sacred Shia shrines, prompting a call to arms by Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Shia civilians respond to a mass recruitment drive that swells the ranks of militias and elevates sectarian tensions.
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Practicing the Faith
Sunnis and Shias agree on the basic tenets of Islam: declaring faith in a monotheistic God and Mohammed as his messenger, conducting daily prayers, giving money to the poor, fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. There are divisions even over the precepts of Islam, but the main difference relates to authority, which sparked the political split in the seventh century and evolved into divergent interpretations of sharia, or Islamic law, and distinct sectarian identities. Shias believe that God always provides a guide, first the Imams and then ayatollahs, or experienced Shia scholars who have wide interpretative authority and are sought as a source of emulation. The term “ayatollah” is associated with the clerical rulers in Tehran, but it’s primarily a title for a distinguished religious leader known as a marja, or source of emulation. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was appointed by an elected body of Iranian clerics, while maraji (plural of marja) are elevated through the religious schools in Qom, Najaf, and Karbala. Shias can choose from dozens of maraji, most of whom are based in holy cities in Iraq and Iran. Many Shias emulate a marja for religious affairs and defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran for political guidance. For Sunnis, authority is based on the Quran and the traditions of Mohammed. Sunni religious scholars, who are constrained by legal precedents, exert far less authority over their followers than their Shia counterparts. Both sects have subdivisions. The divisions among Shias were discussed above. Four schools comprise Sunni jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, and Hanbali, the latter spawning the Wahhabi and Salafi movements in Saudi Arabia. Sunnism, a broad umbrella term for non-Shia Islam, is united on the importance of the Quran and practice of Mohammed but allows for differences in legal opinion
Roughly 85 percent of the world’s Muslims are Sunnis. The sect includes various schools, from liberal to fundamentalist, which all agree that authority is based on the Quran and the traditions of Mohammed. Sunni clerics have historically been associated with ruling elites. While in recent times many Shia clerics have involved themselves directly in fights for political power, Sunni clerics tend to support and ally with the political status quo.
Shia Muslims make up around 15 percent of Muslims. The early Shias rejected the authority of Mohammed’s successor, Abu Bakr, and backed the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as Islam’s legitimate ruler. Shias believe that God always provides a guide, first in the direct descendants of Ali, known as Imams, and then ayatollahs, or experienced Shia scholars who are sought as a source of emulation. The sect splintered due to differences over the proper line of succession among Ali’s descendants.
Dear Karbala, dear Najaf, dear Kadhimiyah, and dear Samarra, we warn the great powers and their lackeys and the terrorists, the great Iranian people will do everything to protect them.
Communal violence between Islam’s sects has been rare historically, with most of the deadly sectarian attacks directed by clerics or political leaders. Extremist groups, many of which are fostered by states, are the chief actors in sectarian killings today.
The two most prominent terrorist groups, Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia Hezbollah, have not defined their movements in sectarian terms, and have favored using anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, and anti-American frameworks to define their jihad, or struggle. They share few similarities beyond the use of violence. Hezbollah has developed a pragmatic political wing that competes in elections and is part of the Lebanese government, a path not chosen by al-Qaeda, which operates a diffuse network largely in the shadows. Both groups have deployed suicide bombers, and their attacks shifted from a focus on the West and Israel to other Muslims, such as al-Qaeda’s killing of Shia civilians in Iraq and Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war.
Conflict and chaos have played a role in the reversion to basic sectarian identity. In Iraq, for instance, remnants of the Ba’athist regime employed Sunni rhetoric to mount a resistance to the rise of Shia power following the ouster of Saddam. Sunni fundamentalists, many inspired by al-Qaeda’s call to fight Americans, flocked to Iraq from Muslim countries, attacking coalition forces and many Shia civilians. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq, evoked ancient anti-Shia fatwas, or religious rulings, to spark a civil war in hopes that the Shia majority would eventually capitulate in the face of Sunni extremist violence. The Shia community absorbed thousands of deaths before fighting back with their own sectarian militias.
Syria’s civil war, which exceeded the brutality and casualty toll of Iraq’s decade-long conflict in just three years, has amplified sectarian tensions to unprecedented levels. The war began with peaceful protests in 2011 calling for an end to the Assad regime, which has ruled since 1970. The Assad family and other Alawis have stirred resentment by Syria’s majority Sunnis after decades of brutal repression and a sectarian agenda that elevated minority Alawis in government and the private sector. The 2011 protests and brutal government crackdown uncovered sectarian tensions in Syria, which have rippled across the region.
Tens of thousands of Syrian Sunnis joined rebel groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic Front, and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which all employ anti-Shia rhetoric; similar numbers of Syrian Shias and Alawis enlisted with an Iran-backed militia known as the National Defense Force to fight for the Assad regime. Foreign Sunni fighters from Arab and Western countries joined the rebels, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah and some Shia militias from Iraq such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah backed the Syrian government. Even Afghan Shia refugees in Iran have reportedly been recruited by Tehran for the war in Syria, pitting them against Sunni foreign fighters who may have forced the Afghans into exile decades earlier. Syria’s civil war has attracted more militants from more countries than were involved in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Bosnia combined.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, decimated by the “Awakening” of Sunni Iraqis who joined the fight against extremists, the U.S.-led military surge, and the death of Zarqawi, found new purpose in exploiting the vacuum left by the receding Syrian state. It established its own transnational movement known as theIslamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The group expanded its grip on Sunni provinces in Iraq and eastern regions in Syria, seizing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June 2014. It defied orders from al-Qaeda’s top commanders to curtail its transnational ambitions and extremism, which led to ISIS’s expulsion from al-Qaeda in February 2014. ISIS rebranded as the Islamic State in July 2014 and declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph.
Extremist groups have come to rely on satellite television and high-speed Internet over the past two decades to spread hate speech and rally support. Fundamentalist Sunni clerics, many sponsored by wealthy Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, have popularized anti-Shia slurs. Shia religious scholars have also taken to the airwaves, mocking and cursing the first three caliphs and Aisha, one of Mohammed’s wives.
Sectarian rhetoric dehumanizing the “other” is centuries old. But the volume is increasing. Dismissing Arab Shias as Safawis, a term that paints them as Iranian agents (from the Safavid empire) and hence traitors to the Arab cause, is increasingly common in Sunni rhetoric. Hard-line Sunni Islamists have used harsher historic terms such as rafidha, rejecters of the faith, and majus, Zoroastrian or crypto Persian, to describe Shias. Iranian officials, Iraq’s prime minister, and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, routinely describe their Sunni opponents as takfiris (code for al-Qaeda terrorists) and Wahhabis. This cycle of demonization has been exacerbated throughout the Muslim world.
For Sunni extremists, new technologies and social-media channels have revolutionized recruitment opportunities. Fundamentalists no longer have to infiltrate mainstream mosques and attract recruits surreptitiously, but can now disseminate their call to jihad and wait for potential recruits to contact them. These channels aren’t as useful for recruiting Shia militants, who benefit from state support in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and can openly advertise their calls for sectarian jihad.
Sunni-Shia tensions contribute to multiple flash points in Muslim countries that are viewed as growing threats to international peace and security. The following arouse the most concern among regional specialists:
Notable concern about the role of sectarian violence increased in 2013. Extremists were “fueled by sectarian motivations” in Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan, according to the U.S. State Department. After years of steady losses for al-Qaeda–linked groups, Sunni extremist recruitment is rising, aided by private funding networks in the Gulf, particularly in Kuwait, with much of the violence directed at other Muslims rather than Western targets. Shia militants are also gaining strength, in part to confront the threat of Sunni extremism, miring many Muslim communities in a vicious cycle of sectarian violence.
U.S. officials such as FBI director James B. Comey have warned that the war in Syria, which attracted thousands of fighters from Europe and the United States, poses a long-term threat to Western interests. The eventual outflow of these militants, battle-hardened and with Western passports, is viewed as a potential “terrorist diaspora” that could eclipse the global terror networks that emerged after the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have deployed considerable resources to proxy battles, especially in Syria, where the stakes are highest. Riyadh closely monitors potential restlessness in its oil-rich eastern provinces, home to its Shia minority, and has deployed forces along with other Gulf countries to suppress a largely Shia uprising in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia is also providing hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the predominantly Sunni rebels in Syria, while simultaneously banning cash flows to al-Qaeda and extremist jihadi groups fighting the Assad regime.
Iran has allocated billions of dollars in aid and loans to prop up Syria’s Alawi-led government, and has trained and equipped Shia militants from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan to fight with various sectarian militias in Syria. At the same time, the widening proxy battle may also be stirring concern among leaders in Riyadh and Tehran about the consequences of escalation. The two sides were reported to be in talks in May 2014 to establish a dialogue for settling disputes diplomatically.
The ongoing civil war in Syria has displaced millions internally, and almost three million civilians, mostly Sunni, are now refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. The influx of more than a million Syrians into Lebanon, a state with a historically combustible religious mix that experienced its own fifteen-year civil war in the 1970s and 1980s, has burdened its cash-strapped government and pressured communities hosting refugees. Jordan and Iraq are still struggling to provide housing and services to an impoverished and traumatized population. Turkey has the greatest capacity to provide humanitarian aid, yet Ankara must increasingly balance “the public’s sympathy for and unease toward refugees,” the International Crisis Group reports.
Syria’s civil war, as well as Iraq’s sectarian conflict, is threatening to redraw the map of the Middle East bequeathed to the region by British and French colonial authorities. The Assad regime in Syria has consolidated control over the Mediterranean coast, the capital of Damascus, and the central city of Homs, which together comprise a rump state that connects with Hezbollah strongholds, threatening the territorial integrity of Lebanon. Other parts of the country are contested or controlled by various rebel and Islamist groups, including ISIS, which seeks to dominate the eastern regions of Syria that link to its territory in Iraq. And Kurdish groups in northern Syria, which, like their Iraqi cousins, have long campaigned for basic rights denied under the Ba'athist government, are on the verge of gaining de facto independence.
The United States spent more than one trillion dollars to stabilize Iraq, but the country remains in a precarious state. Sectarian tensions are mounting in Iraq as the newly ascendant Shia majority struggles to accommodate the Sunni minority and deal with the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of the country while confronting extremist Sunni groups. Most politicians and activists in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon reject attempts to redraw the map of the region, but the vanishing borders and emergence of new areas of influence based on sectarian and ethnic identities are a growing existential challenge.
Blood flowing like a river. The vanquished Ravana lying on the ground, groaning in pain, awaiting his death.
Rama calls Lakshmana .
Lakshmana, the ever obedient brother says “Yes brother, what do I have to do”
Dear Lakshmana, I have a very important job for you. For all his faults, Ravana is still a great man, very learned, full of wisdom. A great Siva Bhakta. A benevolent Chakravarty. Singer, musician, expert in Veena, knows al the Vedas by heart. Please go to him, pay your respects and request him to share his learning before he departs from this world.
The ever obedient Lakshmana immediately proceeds to the place where Ravana is lying. He stood near his head. Hearing the footsteps and recognising that Lakshmana is standing near his head, Ravana keeps quiet.
Lakshmana waits a long time and returns frustrated.
Reports to Rama what happened. Rama, the all knowing, smiles. Lakshmana, when you go to someone for learning, you have to stand at their feet, not sit on their head. Learn to pay proper respect to Ravana so that he can impart his learnings.
Lakshmana goes back and stands near Ravana’s feet. Looking at Lakshmana, Ravana smiles and welcomes him. Dear brother Lakshmana, welcome. How can I be of service to you asks Ravana. Lakshmana keeps silent.
Ravana understands the purpose for which Lakshmana has come. He requests Lakshmana to come near him so that he can whisper in his ears.
Says Ravana, I will teach you the 3 most important things which all must follow in their lives : ----
Allow me as a citizen of the Republic which has the good fortune of having you at the helm of affairs, to thank you for the bold decision to create a memorial for the much-underrated P.V. Narasimha Rao, whose prime ministership not only ushered in economic reforms in 1991 that launched India on economic growth trajectory, but also conclusively demonstrated the dispensability of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to provide leadership for governing India.
As one who has over the last six and a half decades been a witness to the goings-on of our polity, I crave your indulgence to set right another egregious wrong of our post-Independence history. And that is to show the nation’s gratitude to a great soldier who won a decisive war for the country, but was treated most shabbily because he refused to kowtow to his political masters. I’m referring, Sir, to Field Marshal Manekshaw who did India proud by winning the Bangladesh war in 1971. Soldiers, Prime Minister, live and die for izzat – their izzat as much as for their country. This virtually untranslatable concept symbolizes at once a sense of pride in one’s calling, a resolve to uphold professional traditions built over decades by human sweat and blood, an unflinching determination to vanquish the aggressor and, above all, to live up to the exhortation of the Gita (IV:8): vinashaye cha dushkritam (for the extermination of evil deeds of the wicked). And nothing symbolizes all this better than the repression and genocide in the then Eastern Pakistan in 1970 and 1971. This we successfully ended under the leadership of Gen. Sam Manekshaw. Not only that. The 1962 war had severely dented the izzat of the Indian fauj. It was given to Manekshaw to resurrect that most precious possession of the men he commanded. It is he who (almost singlehandedly) re-instilled the sense of confidence in the Indian jawan – the feeling of pride built on the foundation of decades of sacrifices. The Government took the decision to honor the General who not only wiped off the stigma of 1962 reverses but won a decisive victory. Someone had repeated the feat after over two millennia. Chandragupta Maurya had done it in 300 BC when he drove the remnants of Greek armies that opened the gateway to the invasions of India. Only Maharaja Ranjit Singh thereafter not only repulsed the attacks from the North West but actually ruled over the territories that the invaders hailed from. It was in the fitness of things that the Government decided to give, after the Bangladesh War, the Indian Army its first Field Marshal who achieved a decisive military victory over an adversary and thereby dismembered that country. Since no Indian had held the rank earlier, neither the insignia nor the replica of the baton was available,Encyclopaedia Britannica was consulted and the insignia fabricated overnight in an Army workshop in Delhi.
On January 03, 1973 Padma Vibhushan General SHFJ Manekshaw, Military Cross, smartly stepped forward to the Presidential dais in Rashtrapati Bhavan and saluted stiffly President V V Giri, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, who ceremoniously handed Manekshaw an ornate silver-tipped baton to give the nation her first IndianField Marshal in history. And soon thereafter started the Field Marshal’s troubles with politicians of the day. An interesting sidelight of the investiture concerns the baton, which is traditionally used by a Field Marshal for paying or accepting compliments. After the ceremony, some politicians were smart enough to point out that Manekshaw had become swollen-headed and did not salute the President properly after investiture as Army officers normally do. The Service officers present on the occasion had to explain the know-all politicians and the senior bureaucrats that a Field Marshal traditionally uses his baton to salute, instead of his hand. We created a Field Marshal but didn’t know how he conducts himself. Indira Gandhi had also decided after the Bangladesh War to appoint Gen. Manekshaw as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). However, the bureaucracy was not in favour of this. The CDS would become part of the Ministry of Defence and perform most of the tasks presently handled by the babus of the jack-of-all-trades Indian Administrative Service. There was a hitch when Y.B. Chavan, as Defence Minister, recorded his opinion that he felt that the effect of Gen. Manekshaw’s promotion on the other two Services should also be considered. This delayed his promotion. Eventually, the proposal to appoint the Chief of Defence Staff was torpedoed by the time honoured strategy of divide and rule that senior bureaucrats had learnt from their British masters. Manekshaw had a puckish sense of humour, which was as unmatched as it was irrepressible, howsoever serious the occasion might be. (And that, as in case of Laurel and Hardy, invariable landed him in a mess.) His sense of humour was legendary. In October 1996, while delivering the inaugural Cariappa Memorial Lecture on Leadership in New Delhi, he began to reflect (in a philosophical vein) on how times had changed. Even the English language had changed, he lamented, and went on to cite several examples. In his younger days he said, the word gay was used to describe someone full of the joys of spring; a queer was a chap who’d rather spend his evenings in his room reading Milton than playing games; and only generals had aides.(The whole house burst out in laughter.) Admittedly, he had unconventional views on everything. Even leadership was not an exception, In April 1993, well into his post-retirement life, he was invited by the Bombay Parsi Panchayet to deliver the inaugural address of a programme for Parsi youth. Imagine the horror and consternation of the elders in the community hearing their maverick idol talking about leadership: “By and large, men and women like their leaders to have all the manly qualities. The man who says he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t ... that man doesn’t make a good leader. He may make a mahatma, he may make a saint, and he may make a priest, but he doesn’t really make a leader.” He went to add, “Julius Caesar was a great leader. He had his Calpurnia, and he had his Cleopatra. And when he came to Rome and walked down the streets, senators used to lock up their wives”. Indira Gandhi was always apprehensive of Manekshaw. As a person she was, deep within her, a very insecure being. One day – so goes the story – Manekshaw was summoned by the Prime Minister to her office in Parliament House. When he entered, he found Indira Gandhi in very low spirits. She was sitting at her table, with her head in her hands. On being asked what was troubling her, she replied that she had problems. He asked her what the problem was and was surprised when she told him that he was the problem. When Manekshah asked her to elaborate, the Prime Minister said that she had heard that he was going to take over. Sam was shocked. He assured her that he did not harbour any political ambition. He knew more than anyone else that military coups had not succeeded in the long run in any country in the world. (England perhaps was the first to try and discover its futility. Remember Cromwell!) India was, he firmly believed, a democratic country and would always remain so. He was quite happy commanding the Indian Army, and as long as he was allowed to do that, she could run the country the way she wanted. Indira Gandhi seemed to be relieved and, it is said, thanked him profusely. But Indira’s aides were always ready to misconstrue the irrepressible Field Marshal as a threat largely because of his unabated popularity. The Prime Minister soon found a chance to cut him to size. A young lady reporter asked him for an interview and he agreed. She came to his house and during their conversation, Manekshaw mentioned that during Partition he had been asked to opt for Pakistan, but he had chosen to remain in India. When the reporter asked him what would have happened if he had opted for Pakistan, and been commanding the Pakistani Army instead of the Indian, he replied, “they would have won”. The Field Marshal undoubtedly made the witty remark without considering how it could be taken. Soon afterwards, he had to go to UK and while he was there, there was a question in Parliament based on the story which the reporter had written, giving undue prominence (as reporters usually do) to his remark. The Prime Minister was in the House but chose to remain silent. Manekshaw was branded an egotist, and soon became persona non grata. After her triumphal return from Shimla Conference Indira Gandhi in a meeting with Gen Manekshaw apprised him with the terms of the agreement with Bhutto. The irrepressible Manekshaw told her: “He (Bhutto) had made a monkey of you.” (For once Manekshaw understated. Actually, Bhutto made an ass of her.) And that was the last nail in the coffin of the Field Marshall-Prime Minister equation.
Shabby Treatment
Though the Government could not take away his rank, it did take away everything else and treated him shabbily indeed. He retired in January 1973. Field Marshals get full pay and allowances till death. Manekshaw never got even the pension of the rank he held nor a house or a car to live after retirement. It took the Government of India – hold your breath, Prime Minister – 36 years to decide his scale and entitlement. That’s how it works, Sir, the system you preside over today. When he was in Coonoor Military Hospital in June 2007 suffering from complications of pneumonia, a babu from your Ministry of Defense called on him in the hospital to hand over a cheque of Rs one crore sixty lakhs towards arrears of his entitlement. I don’t have the heart to type what he told the august functionary of a heartless system that presides over our destinies. A few days later on June 27, 2007, he passed away. None of the VVIPs of Delhi – and India’s metropolis teems with that tribe – was present at his funeral. The ruling sovereign in England – the custom has it – attends the funeral of every Field Marshal with the Prime Minister and Service Chiefs in tow. The President of India, the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the three Service Chiefs (obviously, on orders from above) were too busy to attend the last rites of India’s first Field Marshal. Minister of State for Defense, Pallam Raju was the sole political representative. That’s how, Prime Minister, the political establishment chose to honor the victor of Bangladesh war – a great soldier who restored the ‘izzat’ of the Indian fauj after the debacle of the 1962 China war, and thereby instilled a sense of confidence in a de-moralized nation. Field Marshals, goes the adage, never retire. This legendary figure is, however, an exception. He will not die either at least in public memory. He will always be remembered – an image of an upright and highly professional soldier with that jaunty Gorkha cap and a twinkle in his eye. Indira Gandhi did an unpardonable injustice to the man, which the Congress Party loyalists further compounded. Will you, Prime Minister, be gracious enough to set the wrong right? If ever there was a soldier who deserved a Bharat Ratna it was Manekshaw – the man who did the Indian polity proud by scoring a decisive military victory for his country in the Bangladesh war, which is deemed along with the Six-Day War (as the Third Arab–Israeli War of 1967 is called) and the 1982 Falkland War as the three most notable military achievements after the Second World War. Additionally, will you be kind enough to sanction immediate demolition of the statue of V K Krishna Menon in Lutyens zone of Delhi and have it replaced by a statue of Manekshaw? One put the nation to shame by his pig-headedness and the other, brought glory to it. Those who lose wars and national territory, are not honored. They are only forgotten, and as quickly as possible. A grateful nation perpetuates the memory of victors of just wars.
In Hindu culture, people greet each other by joining their palms – termed as “Namaskar.” The general reason behind this tradition is that greeting by joining both the palms means respect. However, scientifically speaking, joining both hands ensures joining the tips of all the fingers together; which are denoted to the pressure points of eyes, ears, and mind. Pressing them together is said to activate the pressure points which helps us remember that person for a long time. And, no germs since we don’t make any physical contact!
Wearing toe rings is not just the significance of married women but there is science behind it. Normally toe rings are worn on the second toe. A particular nerve from the second toe connects the uterus and passes to heart. Wearing toe ring on this finger strengthens the uterus. It will keep it healthy by regulating the blood flow to it and menstrual cycle will be regularized. As Silver is a good conductor, it also absorbs polar energies from the earth and passes it to the body.
3. Throwing Coins Into A River
The general reasoning given for this act is that it brings Good Luck. However, scientifically speaking, in the ancient times, most of the currency used was made of copper unlike the stainless steel coins of today. Copper is a vital metal very useful to the human body. Throwing coins in the river was one way our fore-fathers ensured we intake sufficient copper as part of the water as rivers were the only source of drinking water. Making it a custom ensured that all of us follow the practice.
4. Applying Tilak/KumKum On The Forehead
On the forehead, between the two eyebrows, is a spot that is considered as a major nerve point in human body since ancient times. The Tilak is believed to prevent the loss of “energy”, the red ‘kumkum’ between the eyebrows is said to retain energy in the human body and control the various levels of concentration. While applying kumkum the points on the mid-brow region and Adnya-chakra are automatically pressed. This also facilitates the blood supply to the face muscles.
5. Why Do Temples Have Bells
People who are visiting the temple should and will Ring the bell before entering the inner sanctum (Garbhagudi or Garbha Gruha or womb-chamber) where the main idol is placed. According to Agama Sastra, the bell is used to give sound for keeping evil forces away and the ring of the bell is pleasant to God. However, the scientific reason behind bells is that their ring clears our mind and helps us stay sharp and keep our full concentration on devotional purpose. These bells are made in such a way that when they produce a sound it creates a unity in the Left and Right parts of our brains. The moment we ring the bell, it produces a sharp and enduring sound which lasts for minimum of 7 seconds in echo mode. The duration of echo is good enough to activate all the seven healing centres in our body. This results in emptying our brain from all negative thoughts.
6. Why We Start With Spice & End With Sweet:
Our ancestors have stressed on the fact that our meals should be started off with something spicy and sweet dishes should be taken towards the end. The significance of this eating practice is that while spicy things activate the digestive juices and acids and ensure that the digestion process goes on smoothly and efficiently, sweets or carbohydrates pulls down the digestive process. Hence, sweets were always recommended to be taken as a last item.
7. Why Do We Applying Mehendi/Henna On The Hand And Feet
Besides lending color to the hands, mehndi is a very powerful medicinal herb. Weddings are stressful, and often, the stress causes headaches and fevers. As the wedding day approaches, the excitement mixed with nervous anticipation can take its toll on the bride and groom. Application of mehndi can prevent too much stress because it cools the body and keeps the nerves from becoming tense. This is the reason why mehndi is applied on the hands and feet, which house nerve endings in the body.
8. Sitting On The Floor & Eating
This tradition is not just about sitting on floor and eating, it is regarding sitting in the “Sukhasan” position and then eating. Sukhasan is the position we normally use for Yoga asanas. When you sit on the floor, you usually sit cross legged – In sukhasana or a half padmasana (half lotus),which are poses that instantly bring a sense of calm and help in digestion, it is believed to automatically trigger the signals to your brain to prepare the stomach for digestion.
9. Why You Should Not To Sleep With Your Head Towards North
Myth is that it invites ghost or death but science says that it is because human body has its own magnetic field (Also known as hearts magnetic field, because the flow of blood) and Earth is a giant magnet. When we sleep with head towards north, our body’s magnetic field become completely asymmetrical to the Earth’s Magnetic field. That cause problems related to blood pressure and our heart needs to work harder in order to overcome this asymmetry of Magnetic fields. Apart from this another reason is that Our body have significant amount of iron in our blood. When we sleep in this position, iron from the whole body starts to congregate in brain. This can cause headache, Alzheimer’s Disease, Cognitive Decline, Parkinson disease and brain degeneration.
10. Why We Pierce Ear
Piercing the ears has a great importance in Indian ethos. Indian physicians and philosophers believe that piercing the ears helps in the development of intellect, power of thinking and decision making faculties. Talkativeness fritters away life energy. Ear piercing helps in speech-restraint. It helps to reduce impertinent behavior and the ear-channels become free from disorders. This idea appeals to the Western world as well, and so they are getting their ears pierced to wear fancy earrings as a mark of fashion.
11. Surya Namaskar
Hindus have a tradition of paying regards to Sun God early in the morning by their water offering ritual. It was mainly because looking at Sun rays through water or directly at that time of the day is good for eyes and also by waking up to follow this routine, we become prone to a morning lifestyle and mornings are proven to be the most effective part of the day.
12. Choti On The Male Head
Sushrut rishi, the foremost surgeon of Ayurveda, describes the master sensitive spot on the head as Adhipati Marma, where there is a nexus of all nerves. The shikha protects this spot. Below, in the brain, occurs the Brahmarandhra, where the sushumnã (nerve) arrives from the lower part of the body. In Yog, Brahmarandhra is the highest, seventh chakra, with the thousand-petalled lotus. It is the centre of wisdom. The knotted shikhã helps boost this centre and conserve its subtle energy known as ojas .
13. Why Do We Fast
The underlying principle behind fasting is to be found in Ayurveda. This ancient Indian medical system sees the basic cause of many diseases as the accumulation of toxic materials in the digestive system. Regular cleansing of toxic materials keeps one healthy. By fasting, the digestive organs get rest and all body mechanisms are cleansed and corrected. A complete fast is good for heath, and the occasional intake of warm lemon juice during the period of fasting prevents the flatulence. Since the human body, as explained by Ayurveda, is composed of 80% liquid and 20% solid, like the earth, the gravitational force of the moon affects the fluid contents of the body. It causes emotional imbalances in the body, making some people tense, irritable and violent. Fasting acts as antidote, for it lowers the acid content in the body which helps people to retain their sanity. Research suggests there are major health benefits to caloric restriction like reduced risks of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, immune disorders etc.
14. The Scientific Explanation Of Touching Feet (Charan Sparsh)
Usually, the person of whose feet you are touching is either old or pious. When they accept your respect which came from your reduced ego (and is called your shraddha) their hearts emit positive thoughts and energy (which is called their karuna) which reaches you through their hands and toes. In essence, the completed circuit enables flow of energy and increases cosmic energy, switching on a quick connect between two minds and hearts. To an extent, the same is achieved through handshakes and hugs. The nerves that start from our brain spread across all your body. These nerves or wires end in the fingertips of your hand and feet. When you join the fingertips of your hand to those of their opposite feet, a circuit is immediately formed and the energies of two bodies are connected. Your fingers and palms become the ‘receptor’ of energy and the feet of other person become the ‘giver’ of energy.
15. Why Married Women Apply Sindoor Or Vermillion
It is interesting to note that that the application of sindoor by married women carries a physiological significance. This is so because Sindoor is prepared by mixing turmeric-lime and the metal mercury. Due to its intrinsic properties, mercury, besides controlling blood pressure also activates sexual drive. This also explains why Sindoor is prohibited for the widows. For best results, Sindoor should be applied right upto the pituitary gland where all our feelings are centered. Mercury is also known for removing stress and strain.
16. Why Do We Worship Peepal Tree
‘Peepal’ tree is almost useless for an ordinary person, except for its shadow. ‘Peepal’ does not a have a delicious fruit, its wood is not strong enough for any purpose then why should a common villager or person worship it or even care for it? Our ancestors knew that ‘Peepal’ is one of the very few trees (or probably the only tree) which produces oxygen even at night. So in order to save this tree because of its unique property they related it to God/religion.
17. Why Do We Worship Tulsi Plant
Hindu religion has bestowed ‘Tulsi’, with the status of mother. Also known as ‘Sacred or Holy Basil’, Tulsi, has been recognized as a religious and spiritual devout in many parts of the world. The vedic sages knew the benefits of Tulsi and that is why they personified it as a Goddess and gave a clear message to the entire community that it needs to be taken care of by the people, literate or illiterate. We try to protect it because it is like Sanjeevani for the mankind. Tulsi has great medicinal properties. It is a remarkable antibiotic. Taking Tulsi everyday in tea or otherwise increases immunity and help the drinker prevent diseases, stabilize his or her health condition, balance his or her body system and most important of all, prolong his or her life. Keeping Tulsi plant at home prevents insects and mosquitoes from entering the house. It is said that snakes do not dare to go near a Tulsi plant. Maybe that is why ancient people would grow lots of Tulsi near their houses.
18. Why Do We Worship Idol
Hinduism propagates idol worship more than any other religion. Researchers say that this was initiated for the purpose of increasing concentration during prayers. According to psychiatrists, a man will shape his thoughts as per what he sees. If you have 3 different objects in front of you, your thinking will change according to the object you are viewing. Similarly, in ancient India, idol worship was established so that when people view idols it is easy for them to concentrate to gain spiritual energy and meditate without mental diversion
19. Why Do Indian Women Wear Bangles
Normally the wrist portion is in constant activation on any human. Also the pulse beat in this portion is mostly checked for all sorts of ailments. The Bangles used by women are normally in the wrist part of ones hand and its constant friction increases the blood circulation level. Further more the electricity passing out through outer skin is again reverted to one’s own body because of the ring shaped bangles, which has no ends to pass the energy outside but to send it back to the body.
20. Why Should We Visit Temple?
Temples are located strategically at a place where the positive energy is abundantly available from the magnetic and electric wave distributions of north/south pole thrust. The main idol is placed in the core center of the temple, known as “*Garbhagriha*” or *Moolasthanam*. In fact, the temple structure is built after the idol has been placed. This *Moolasthanam* is where earth’s magnetic waves are found to be maximum. We know that there are some copper plates, inscribed with Vedic scripts, buried beneath the Main Idol. What are they really? No, they are not God’s / priests’ flash cards when they forget the *shlokas*. The copper plate absorbs earth’s magnetic waves and radiates it to the surroundings. Thus a person regularly visiting a temple and walking clockwise around the Main Idol receives the beamed magnetic waves and his body absorbs it. This is a very slow process and a regular visit will let him absorb more of this positive energy. Scientifically, it is the positive energy that we all require to have a healthy life.
