Download Religious Diversity in the Middle East

Religious Diversity in the Middle
East
Carl Ernst
Carolina Center for the Study of the
Middle East and Muslim Civilizations
UNC at Chapel Hill
What is diversity?
Ethnicity
Language
National origin
Religious identity
Gender
Economic class
Urban-rural
Sura 110 in
his hand
Omar ibn Sayyid (1772-1864), enslaved
Muslim scholar in NC
‫ما االسالم؟‬
What do we
mean by Islam?
Religious meaning: submission to God
(Muslim: one who submits to God)
Social meaning: one who conforms to religious
practices (prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, alms, statement
of faith)
Political meaning: group religious identity with no
reference to belief or religious practice
Ideological meaning: anti-colonial identity formulated
against “the West”
Islam, history, and culture
Islamic: relating to Islamic religious texts, Islamic
law, worship, religious practices
Islamicate: non-religious cultural and social
traditions associated with Muslims but which
also include non-Muslim participation
Multiple pre-Islamic traditions and cultures
(Egypt, Iran, India, etc.)
Who defines Islam?
Nation-states
Tax-free status (IRS), visas (INS),
prisons, military
al-Azhar
Constitutions and legal codes, most of European colonial
origin
State-approved academies (madrasas) like al-Azhar in Cairo,
or new Uzbekistan college
Other agents
Shi`i jurists like Iraqi leader Sistani
Sunni academies: Deoband in India
European and American scholars
Religion by the
numbers –
1.6 billion
Muslims
worldwide
Muslims
by
region
Middle East Muslim populations
Islamic religious pluralism
Perhaps 15% are Shi`is (esp. Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, also
South Asia)
Including Twelvers, Isma`ilis, Bohras
Offshoots: Druze, Alawis, Baha’is
Perhaps 85% Sunni
4 classical legal schools
New reformist movements (Wahhabi, Salafi; “fundamentalism”)
Sufi spirituality
Local saints, Sufi orders (both Shi`i and Sunni)
Music, poetry, dance traditions
Secularism
`Ali and Shi`ism
• first four Caliphs (successors to
Muhammad)
– Abu Bakr, 632-634
– `Umar, 634-644
– `Uthman, 644-656
– `Ali, 656-661
• Rise of the party or faction (shi`a) of `Ali;
his partisans called Shi`is
10
The declaration of
Ghadir Khumm
• Muhammad: “him
for whom I am the
master, so this Ali
is his master”
• Was `Ali named as
Muhammad’s
successor?
11
Ali’s death, Karbala, and martyrdom
• Mu`awiya, member of the old Meccan
family opposing Muhammad, establishes
Umayyad dynasty, which is criticized for
immorality
• `Ali’s son Husayn raises revolt, massacred in
Karbala (680) by army of Yazid (son of
Mu`awiya)
12
Karbala
13
Husayn
•
14
Varieties of Shi`ism
• Twelvers recognize 12 Imams succeeding
Muhammad; dominant in Iraq, Iran
• Ismai`ilis broke away after 6th Imam:
– Nizaris (15 million) led by Agha Khan, regarded as
49th Imam
– Bohras (1 million, India) led by Syedna, counted as
53rd absolute representative of Fatimid caliphs
• Zaydis, open to competitive selection of
Imams, 35% of population in Yemen (Houthis)
Where Shi`is are found
Sunni
acceptance of
Shi`is –
or the lack
thereof
Controversy:
Visiting
Imams’ or
Sufi saints’
Shrines
Note: Egypt figure is
questionably low
Offshoots of Shi`i Islam
• Alawites (a.k.a. Nusayris), Syria (4 million)
– Affiliated with Twelver Shi`ism; revere `Ali,
Muhammad, and Salman the Persian
• Alevis, Turkey (ca. 7 to 11 million)
– Linked with Bektashi dervishes (Ottoman empire) and
Qizilbash tribes (involved in post-1500 Safavid
revolution in Persia)
• Druze, Lebanon-Syria-Palestine (1 million)
– Breakaway followers of deified Fatimid Caliph alHakim (11th cent.); esoteric philosophy
• Baha’is, Iran-Israel-US-etc. (7 million)
– Outgrowth of 19th-cent. Persian Shi`ism, transformed
into universalist movement; persecuted in Iran
Pre-Islamic religious groups
• Zoroastrians: followers of Persian prophet
Zoroaster (ca. 1200 BCE; 30,000 in Iran;
100,000 in India, called Parsis)
• Mandeans, Iraq-Iran (ca. 75,000); ancient
dualistic Gnostic teachings
• Yezidis, worshipers of Peacock Angel, 1M
• Ahl-e Haqq (People of Truth): Kurdish esoteric
group with Sufi and Bektashi elements; 2M?
Middle Eastern Christians
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Copts, Egypt, 10-15 million
Armenians, 8 million
Syria, 2M (“Assyrians”, Syriac-Aramaic speakers)
Lebanon, 1.5M (Melkite, Catholic)
Iraq, 400,000
Iran, 350,000 (Armenian, Georgian)
Turkey, 300,000
Palestine, 50,000
Mizrahi (Arab/Oriental) Jews
• Israel: 3M
• Iran: 8,700
• Communities in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Azarbaijan, Georgia (8000 to 15,000 each)
The new intolerance of ISIS:
diversity under threat