A Shiite Finds Discrimination And Distrust On His Pilgramage To Mecca

Special Correspondent: Looking for Allah as a Shiite in Saudi Arabia

I came to Mecca seeking spiritual enlightenment. I found discrimination and distrust.

MEDINA and MECCA, Saudi Arabia — It’s an image famous the world over: a teeming swirl of pilgrims, thousands upon thousands garbed in white, wending slowly in circles around a two-story gilded black cube. Islam’s holiest site, the Kaaba, and the mosque that surrounds it, has captivated both Muslims and non-Muslims alike for more than a millennium. It is the religion’s ultimate symbol of global spiritual unity, the direction toward which every Muslim in the world prays.

But photographs can lie. Praying at the spiritual center of Islam as a Shiite Muslim, the smaller of Islam’s two major sects, is like attending Catholic mass as a Southern Baptist. Or these days, perhaps more accurately, it’s like attending Catholic mass at the Vatican as a Protestant during the Counter-Reformation.

I performed a pilgrimage just a week after the Saudi government executed dissident Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose death set off a wave of protests in Shiite communities around the world, including a torching of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran, which prompted the kingdom to sever diplomatic ties with Iran. It was a culmination of years of worsening relations between the world’s premier Sunni power and its geopolitical and religious rival, the majority-Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran.

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WNU Editor: It is very revealing that the author for this report is keeping his name private ... I guess he knows many Sunnis who may object to his commentary. I have a Shiite friend who did the pilgrimage to Mecca a few years ago before today's Sunni-Shiite differences exploded. As he told me a few weeks ago .... it was pretty bad then, and he can only imagine what it is today. Now we have a good idea.

Has Yemen's Civil War United The Sunni Arab States?

Sunnis - Shiite demographics in the Middle East. Gulf Blog

(Foe an enlarged version of the above map, go here)

Bloomberg: Iran’s Shadow Over Yemen Unites Sunni States Behind Bombing

As Iran seeks an end to its isolation, the conflict in Yemen is uniting opponents in the Middle East behind what they see as a renewed threat from the country.

Only six weeks ago, Egypt and Qatar were barely speaking to each other after Egypt’s ambassador to the Arab League accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and the Gulf state withdrew its ambassador from Cairo. Today, the two countries, as well as other predominantly Sunni Muslim nations with competing interests, have joined or backed a Saudi-led offensive against Shiite rebels in Yemen who they view as Iranian proxies.

The show of unity is rare in a Middle East where four years of coups, protests and shifting borders have served to deepen divisions rather than dismantle them. The conversion of interests by countries including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan was brought about by fear of the perceived expansion of Iranian influence in the region, according to Shadi Hamid, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

WNU Editor: For the moment the answer is yes .... Yemen's civil war and the rise of Shiite Iran has united the Arab Sunni states. But is this unity sustainable .... it all depends on what happens in Yemen, in Syria's civil war, in Iraq, and what will eventually come out of Iran's nuclear program.

Is An 'Arab Sunni-Bloc' About To Be Established To Counter The Islamic State And Iran?

Saudi Arabia's King Salman is seen during U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Erga Palace in Riyadh January 27, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg

Reuters: Saudi king aims for new Sunni bloc vs Iran and Islamic State

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is pushing for Sunni Muslim Middle East countries to set aside differences over political Islam and focus on what it sees as more urgent threats from Iran and Islamic State.

Its new monarch, King Salman, has used summits with leaders of all five Gulf Arab states, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey over the past 10 days to reinforce the need for unity and find a way to work around disagreements over the Muslim Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabia's deep-seated mistrust of the Islamist group is unchanged, diplomats say. But King Salman's approach to it is more nuanced than that of his predecessor King Abdullah, who died in January, and may include being more indulgent of allies who allow its members space to operate.

WNU Editor: At the moment I do not see this happening .... there are just too many differences within the Sunni community on how to establish such a bloc, and who would be included. But if the Islamic State continues to grow and if Iran continues to pursue its aggressive foreign/military policine in the Middle East .... this may actually come to fruition.

The Sunni - Shiite Sectarian Divide Is Increasing

Power Struggles in Middle East Exploit Islam’s Ancient Sectarian Rift -- David Kirkpatrick, New York Times

RIFFA, Bahrain — Black and yellow concrete barricades block the roads entering this wealthy Sunni enclave, where foreign-born Sunni soldiers in armored personnel carriers guard the mansions of the ruling family and the business elite.

Beyond the enclave are impoverished villages of Shiites, about 70 percent of Bahrain’s more than 650,000 citizens, where the police skirmish nightly with young men wielding rocks and, increasingly, improvised weapons like homemade guns that use fire extinguishers to shoot rebar.

Their battles are an extension of sectarian hostilities nearly as old as Islam. But they are also a manifestation of a radically new scramble for power playing out across the region in the aftermath of the United States invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring revolts.

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My Comment: This is a 1,400 year old conflict .... attempts to resolved it in the past have always failed .... and they will fail today. The difference is that this is the modern age, and the foreign powers (the U,S. being the last one) are now vacating the region to leave these groups to themselves. My prediction .... this conflict is just starting.

Sunni-Shiite Divide Explained In Two Minutes (Video)

The battle between Islam's two major branches began centuries ago and is threatening Iraq's path to a stable democracy today. The Post's senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung explains. (Davin Coburn and Kate M. Tobey / The Washington Post)

The Sunni - Shiite Holy War Is Getting Hot

Why Sunnis Fear Shiites -- Hillel Fradkin & Lewis Libby, Commentary

The recent Arab revolts in the Middle East and the concomitant “Islamic Awakening” have not merely shaken up the order of an already violent and unstable region. They have reanimated the bloodiest and longest-running dispute in Muslim politics: which branch of Islam, Sunni or Shia, is to rule the Muslim polity. This rivalry dates back some 1,300 years to the death of Muhammad, and while it has occasionally been set aside for reasons of expedience, it has never been resolved. The continuing conflagrations following the mislabeled Arab Spring, increasingly shaped by this ancient Sunni–Shia tension, are set to rage on indefinitely. Affairs in the Middle East are accelerating back to the old normal: a state of hot holy war.

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My Comment: One of the best explanations of today's Sunni - Shiite conflict .... read it all.

The Start Of The Sunni - Shiite War

The Awakening Sunni Giant -- Michael Weiss, NOW

Last Friday, King Abdullah cut short his summer vacation in Morocco and flew back to Riyadh not only to meet with his national security advisors but to coordinate a new strategy for winning the war in Syria, one that encompasses a unified regional bloc of Sunni-majority powers now ranged against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime. The Wahhabi kingdom has exhausted its patience with miscarried attempts to resolve the Syria crisis through diplomacy and it will not wait to see the coming battle in Aleppo play out before assuming control of the Syrian rebellion. State-backed regional efforts to bolster moderate Free Syrian Army elements will thus be joined with the fetid call to jihad emanating from clerical quarters in Cairo, Doha, Mecca, and beyond. The mullahs have only themselves to blame. "Nasrallah fucked up," one well-connected Syrian source told me recently. "He awakened the Sunni giant. The Saudis took Hezbollah's invasion of Qusayr personally."

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My Comment: After being dormant for a few centuries, the Sunni-Shiite conflict is being rekindled.No one is interested in talking peace right now .... this is a fight to the finish. And while Western powers may dither and debate amongst themselves on what to do, the powers in the region have made the strategic decision to go to war .... even though it is undeclared.

Syria's Sectarian Civil War Is Spreading Across Borders

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Syria's Deepening Sectarian War Bleeds Across Borders -- USA Today

AMMAN, Jordan — The Syrian civil war is increasingly drawing in nations across the Middle East, a regionwide conflict that threatens to pit world powers against each other.

On Wednesday, the United Nations Human Rights Council pushed through a resolution to investigate the abuses of the Syrian regime, over the objections of the regime's ally Russia, who insisted the West was making matters worse.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry continued his travels in the region, trying to get all parties to agree to a peace conference in Geneva in the next few weeks. But councils representing the Syrian rebels again refused to join, demanding representatives of Bashar Assad's regime be banned.

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My Comment: These two different Islamic sects have been at war against each other since the founding of Islam .... the only difference is that in today's conflicts modern day weapons are being used. A must read on this growing Sunni - Shiite split can be read here.

The Lebanese Sunni/Shiite Civil War -- Why We Should Care

As an amateur historian buff ..... and doing the necessary research for this blog ..... I have made it a study to understand how political and economic trends can influence and produce future conflicts and wars. In particular, how if the right ingredients are in place a small conflict can quickly evolve into a major one.

A commentary piece from the Investor's Daily investigates how Lebanon can quickly evolve into a major regional conflict. Like the beginning of the Second World War, Winston Churchill had no problem seeing the signs of the impending conflict long before most people did. There are many Churchills today who have the same perception of political trends and events ..... especially in regards to the Middle East.

When asked by President Franklin Roosevelt about what World War II should be called, Winston Churchill suggested it be labeled "The Unnecessary War." "There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle," he wrote in "The Gathering Storm."

Well, we may be about to see another one and, as in World War II, the enemy — in this case, Iran — is telling us exactly what it intends to do: wipe Israel off the map. As Hitler rebuilt the Wehrmacht, flaunting the Treaty of Versailles, Ahmadinejad builds his nukes and the missiles to carry them, in the face of ineffective sanctions. And Hezbollah wants Lebanon.

The latest warning in the current gathering storm comes from Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Hamas political activist and editor based in Ramallah in the West Bank. He told the Washington Times that the current turmoil in Lebanon is part of an inexorable process that began last year in Gaza when Hamas wrested control of Gaza and which will spread across the Middle East.

"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon," Khader said in the interview. "It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan, and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt. We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."

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My Comment: When Iran's President talks about his countries development of nuclear technologies and why such an effort must be completed in order to wipe Israel off the map ..... I must believe that he is actually telling the truth of what are his beliefs and goals. On the one hand it is easy to dismiss this little man's beliefs and goals. But he is the President of Iran, and he is the mouthpiece of the religious councils that rule Iran .... a powerful and influential group of religious mullahs that have made no attempt to hide their contempt of Israel, the Sunni sect of Islam, and the West.

But what makes the present situation so dangerous is that while Iran knows it is not in a position to attack Israel today, nor be in a position to support their Shiite brethren throughout the Middle East, they have obvious made a conscious decision to put themselves in a position to do so in the future.

Its support of Hamas and the elimination of Palestinian moderates is one step. Hezbollah's aggression in Lebanon is another. Cementing ties with the ruling Assad Family of Syria (a family that is from the minority Alawites, a small but powerful Shiite sect) is also another. Its support of Shiite groups in the Gulf states and Yemen, as well as international groups that are sympathetic to their cause is another.

In my opinion Iran is doing this for two reasons. (1) To have power and influence .... a feat that would be a fait accompli since much of the world's oil comes from that part of the world. (2) A continuation of the Sunni - Shiite religious conflict that has been ongoing since the birth of Islam.

While many in the West do not see the implications of these developments yet, many in the Sunni Arab world are. From Gateway Pundit -- " Saudi Arabia Warns Iran Over Hezbollah --Iran Responds"

The Saudi Kingdom warned Iran today about meddling in Lebanon. The Lebanese people in Tripoli ransacked and torched a Hezbollah office on Sunday after the Iranian-backed terrorist group attempted a coup on the government. Saudi Arabia lashed out at the Iranian Regime today over the attempted "coup" in Lebanon by the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah. AFP reported: Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal warned on Tuesday that Iran's relations with the Arab world would be affected if Tehran was supporting what he described as a "coup" in Lebanon.

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If this religious strife gets out of hand ..... a global Sunni/Shiite war ..... we could then have a conflict in which the magnitude would approach the slaughter and destruction that Europe's religious wars brought about when Catholics and Protestants went to war against each other during the period that is known as the Reformation.

We all had a taste of what could happen when the Shiite and Sunni communities of Iraq started to go at each other after Shiite Holy sites were bombed in 2006. Fortunately, the presence and involvement of U.S. and coalition forces to stop this conflict from spiraling out of control was successful, but not before hundreds of coalition forces were killed and tens of thousands of Iraqis murdered or wounded.

But in todays world of mass and easy communication, weapons of mass destruction, and a culture of persecution and/or hate .... a global religious war could easily dwarf all other past conflicts. The interruption (if not elimination) of oil supplies, mass population shifts, ethnic cleansing ..... followed by a tide of refugees ..... can only result in all major powers becoming involved both politically and militarily for their own personal self interests.

I personally hope that such a conflict will never come about. That with the spread of information and education, cultures in the Middle East would change before such a conflict could ever take root. But if we are not successful, Lebanon could easily be the first step to the commencement of such a conflict.

Recommended Reading:
The Looming Sunni-Shi'ite War? -- Kesher Talk
Roots of the Sunni-Shi'ite War -- Time Magazine
What Is the Difference Between Sunni and Shiite Muslims--and Why Does It Matter? -- History News Network