Objectives 1.4-1.7 (Outline)

Part 1: Origins

        I.            Overview

a.       1.3 million Muslims are Shia

b.      Shia are minority

c.       Concentrated in Iran and southern Iraq

      II.            Oil in Iraq and Iran

a.       Shiites predominate

    III.            Sunni vs. Shia

a.       The split occurred after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the year 632

b.      Shia believed that leadership should stay within the family of the prophet

c.       Sunnis believed that leadership should fall to the person who was deemed by the elite of the community

d.      Shia call their leaders imam with Ali being the first and Hussein the third

e.      Sunnis believe that some of the Shia are attributing divine qualities to the imams, and this is a great sin because it is associating human beings with the divinity

f.        Shiites are looking for the coming of the Messiah.

Part 2: Mideast Turmoil/Rise of Shiites

        I.            Shiites History

a.       Shiites of Iraq and Lebanon were ruled by Sunni Ottoman sultans.

b.      The Shiites of Arabia were under the authority of Sunni tribal leaders.

c.       Pahlavi changed the name of the state to Iran and set about creating a secular government, much to the dismay of some of the Shiite clergy.

      II.            Revolution

a.       Khomeini's revolution had a powerful influence in Lebanon

b.      The powerful influence came after Israel mounted an invasion in 1982 to eliminate Lebanon as a base for guerilla attacks of the Palestine Liberation Organization

c.       Most Sunni rejected the Iranian revolution as a model for their own societies

Part 3: Sunni Reaction

        I.            Shi’ism Islam

a.       The minority branch of Islam known as Shi'ism first became widely known in the U.S. and established the modern world's first Islamic State.

b.      The revolutionaries believed they could export their Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East and beyond.

c.       They encountered resistance from the Arab states led by Sunnis

      II.            Sunnis

a.       Islam's majority branch

b.      Resistance between Sunni and Shi’ism would be both subtle and violent

c.       Their objective was to overthrow of secular governments and establishments of Islamic states,

d.      Wanted anti-Shi'ism.

    III.            United States’ Role in Revolution

a.       President Ronald Reagan sent U.S. troops to Lebanon as part of a peacekeeping force

b.      President Reagan soon reversed himself and pulled U.S. troops out of Lebanon, leaving the divided nation to another six years of war

c.       The invasion of Iraq in 2003 unleashed forces of Muslim sectarianism unseen in the Middle East

Part 4: Iraq War Deepens the Divide

        I.            US Invasion

a.       The United States invasion of Iraq began on March 20th, 2003.

b.      Thought the war would be over quickly, and that Iraq would return to peace

c.       The U.S. claimed that Iran was responsible for much of the violence in Iraq

      II.            Shiite Clerics

a.       Shiite clerics led movements, advocating parliamentary rule and just governance in the Middle East

b.      Clerics took the lead because there's hardly any form of secular civil society in the country today that can act as the nucleus of an Iraqi political system

c.       Shiite clerics in Iraq worked hard to pursue their own model of government

    III.            Shia

a.       Shia never governed a modern Arab state.

b.      They were in control in Persian Iran, but the Sunnis led most Arab states in the Middle East

Part 5: US Policies and the Shia-Sunni Conflict

        I.            Conflict

a.       The sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni deepened

b.      U.S. aims changed as conflict deepened

c.       U.S. view of some Shiite forces in the Middle East is overtly hostile

 Sufism: The Heart of Islam

        I.            Living Sufism

a.       Started as a refuge for people to learn about Islam

b.      Fate connected to action

c.       Only go with good action when you die

d.      Men go out to work

e.      Women work at home

f.        Sufi is a good Muslim who looks for meaning and traveler on a path of his heart

      II.            Eternal Life

a.       Life doesn’t end at death

b.      Live in the present

    III.            Losing Self

a.       No necessary connection between Sufism and Islam

b.      Be yourself

c.       Get on with life, live life fully

d.      Trying to discover God within us

e.      Sufism: journey of slave to king

f.        Some people die never knowing they took this path in life

 PBS Frontline- Salafism

        I.            Salafism Background

a.       Salafism is an ideology that posits that Islam has strayed from its origins

b.      Salafists originally are supposedly not violent

      II.            Salafism Jihadists

a.       Constitute less than 1 percent of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims

b.      See life as being divided between the world of Islam and the land of conflict or war

c.       The origins of Salafi jihadism can be traced to the Muslim Brotherhood

    III.            Takfir wal-Hijra

a.       Takfir wal-Hijra emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood

b.      Inspired some of the tactics and methods used by Al Qaeda

 Salafism and the Arab Spring

        I.            Assassination

a.       The assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaid plunged the country into its biggest crisis since the 2011 Jasmine Revolution

b.      The assassination was also the destabilizing threat of violent Islamist extremists has emerged as a pressing and dangerous issue

      II.            Salafists

a.       The Salafists are spread between three broad groups

b.      New small political movements that have formed in recent months

c.       Non-violent Salafists

d.      Violent Salafists and jihadists who, though small in number, have had a major impact in terms of violent attacks

e.      The main Salafist political parties have far more of a stake in democratic transition than in Tunisia and Libya.

 Essay Question:  By examining the similarities and differences between the two main sects of Islam, Sunni and Shi’a, how does one sect affect the other?