The Heterodox Muslim and Non-Muslim Sects of the Middle East: First of a Series

When the rise of the Islamic State led to extensive killings and enslavement of Yazidis (Yezidis, etc.) in 2014, the media was not only unsure how to spell it (which is in part as much about etymology as transliteration), but how to characterize the faith: is it an offshoot of Islam? A heterodox Sufi order? Are they "devil-worshippers" as many Muslims believe? Are they polytheists? A sect of Zoroastrianism? Arguments can be made that they are a little bit of all these things, but not defined by any of them. And the Yazidis are just one of a number of relic sects, mostly found in remote areas (the Kurdish or Syrian mountains, the Iraqi Marshes) where Islam largely left them alone. Most are secretive about their beliefs in part to avoid accusations of heresy. And unlike the equally varied Christians of the Middle East and the remaining Jewish populations, they have no obvious foreign patrons, other than small diasporas, to advocate for them.

There are many of these small sects, or separate religions, some with overlapping or similar beliefs, others unrelated. They range in size and prominence from the Syrian ‘Alawites, who dominate the Asad regime, and the Druze, who are prominent in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel/Palestine, to tiny groups limited to a few villages.. Both of the big sects tend to portray themselves as Muslim sects, the ‘Alawites more convincingly than the Druze.

The Middle East is a palimpsest of all the peoples and faiths that have passed through, and many have left traces. Many of these surviving small groups combine bits of extreme (ghulat) Shi‘ism, Sufi mysticism, gnostic elements of esoteric (batini) versions of Islam, ideas of emanations of the divine from Neoplatonism and orthodox and unorthodox Zoroastrianism, and concepts like metempsychosis and reincarnation. Christian elements also can be found. (Not all at once, of course.) And some, like the Mandaeans of Iraq and southwestern Iran, and the Druze, do not fit this generalization perfectly.

An example of this syncretism are the Shabak, a small ethnic group and sect found in the Mosul area. Theologically they have links to the Yazidis and the Ahl-i Haqq or Yarsanis. (No relation to the Israeli Internal Security Service known as Shin Bet or Shabak.) They make pilgrimages to both Yazidi and Shi‘ite shrines, including Najaf and Karbala. They practice a form of confession similar to Christianity. They venerate the Sufi poetry of Shah Isma‘il I, founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, and some historians believe they may be descendants of the Qizilbash movement that backed him.

Most speak either Kurdish or the Shabaki dialect of Gorani, itself close to Kurdish, though a few speak Arabic. Yet their holy book, the Buyruk, is written in Turkoman.

If you are confused, welcome to the club. Adding to the confusion is the fact that like similar groups, they have an elite class, the pirs, who are privy to the full secrets of the faith, not necessarily shared with the rank and file. In the days before modern anthropology, these groups were mainly known through medieval Sunni catalogs of "heresies," such as Al-Baghdadi's Al-Farq bayn al Firaq and Al-Shahrastani's Kitab al-Milal wa'l-Nihal. These interpret the sects through a Sunni lens usually beginning from the hadith that runs, "‘The Jews were divided into 71 or 72 sects as were the Christians. My Ummah will be divided into 73 sects." But few of these groups pretend to be Sunni, so the heresiographers concentrate on refutation rather than description.

Though there is much anthropological literature out there, the inherent secrecy of these groups raises questions of reliability. And the early history and evolution of these groups remains obscure.

I want to spend as long as needed to survey as many as possible of these groups. By looking at several categories that make it easier to deal with several at a time. I see this as a long-term series to introduce these small, somewhat fossilized faiths. And I have resisted the temptation to title the series The Joy of Sects.
.

The Political History of the Butrusiyya, Site of Sunday's Coptic Church Attack

The bomb attack on Sunday near the Coptic Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint Mark in Cairo's Abbasiyya district, which killed at least 24, is clearly intended to strike at the heart of Coptic Christianity, occurring adjacent to the Patriarchal See of Pope Tawadros II.

It matched or surpassed the death toll from the bombing of the Church of Two Saints in Alexandria in January 2011, the previous worst church bombing. The attack came during Sunday Mass; the explosion occurred on the women's side of the church, so many of the dead were women and children, and the bombing came on the eve of Mawlid al-Nabi, the Prophet's birthday. Most of these details were widely reported.

But a particularly political connection of the site of the bombing has largely been missed. In fact, many of the reports have spoken of the location as taking place in a "chapel" of the Cathedral, or in a Church "attached" to the Cathedral.

The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, known as the Butrusiyya, sits in the shadow of the Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint Mark, but it is a separate building that predates the Cathedral by several decades. The Butrusiyya was built in 1911, while the Cathedral was completed in 1968. The area around the cathedral is the site of numerous churches, some, like Anba Ruis nearby, dating from the 1400s. The land was given to the Church in Fatimid times.

Boutros Ghali

The Butrusyya was built by the family of Prime Minister Boutros Ghali, who was assassinated in 1910, We dealt with the assassination and its background in my 2013 post about the Denshawai incident of 1906. Ghali, 1846-1910,  was a rarity as a Copt who became Egypt's Prime Minister, 1908-1910. His role in the Denshawai trials led to his being viewed as a tool of the British; his Christianity also worked against him. (He was also the grandfather of the late UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.)

The Butrusyya Church contains the grave of the original Prime Minister Boutros Ghali. So there are whole layers of potential political and sectarian symbolism.

In the photo below, the church of St. Peter and St. Paul is the Romanesque-style church in the center; the large Coptic-style vaulted church on the right is the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Mark.

i

Beware the "Sunni-Shi‘ite Conflict" Narrative: the Houthis from a Local Rebellion to Geopoliticization

In January, I noted that although the Yemeni Houthis are certainly radical in their rhetoric, Zaydi Islam traditionally is not, and that while technically Shi‘ite in that their Imams must be descended from ‘Ali, they have never identified with the Twelver Shi‘ism of Iran, nor has it generally considered them genuinely Shi‘a. The same is true of the ‘Alawites of Syria, yet today both ‘Alawites and Houthis are loosely aligned with Iran's geopolitical goals (though the links between the Houthis and Iran have more often been asserted than demonstrated).

Iran has been partly responsible for this, but the readiness of the West to accept the narrative of an "ancient" enmity between Sunnis and Shi‘ites, some sort of inexorable clash, has also helped reinforce a regime narrative on the part of Sunni majorities who want to paint non-Sunni minorities as Iranian-backed fifth columns. This narrative has already led to a tendency to paint the conflicts in Iraq and Syria not as complex fractures along complicated lines but as a Sunni-Shi‘ite dichotomy. (The only reason this oversimplification has not been extended to the equally complex conflict in Libya is that there are no Shi‘ites to speak of in Libya.)

The danger is that the more the world accepts the dualistic view, which to some extent reinforces both the Iranian and Saudi regimes' dueling propaganda, the more the various regional conflicts with their complex historical, social, economic, ethnic (and yes, sometimes sectarian) roots, the more these local conflicts are merged into a regional general war, and the sectarian dualism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the Houthis, let me note that back in 2009 I was already blogging about border clashes between the Saudis and the Houthis, though accusations about Iranian support were just beginning.

I keep hearing the war in Yemen, which is complex (consider the role of ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih, old friend of the Saudis, new friend of the Houthis), described in simplistic ways which see broad geopolitical motives behind people fighting for quite different motivations (power, tribe, ideology). If one side misinterprets the motivation of their adversary, disastrous results are inevitable.

The Assyrian Christians on Syria's Khabur River: A Century of Multiple Displacements

When the Islamic State recently abducted/kidnapped/"arrested" over 200 and perhaps as many as 373 Assyrian Christians from towns along the Khabur River in northeastern Syria, it gained worldwide attention, and though reportedly 19 or 20 were subsequently released, the remainder were not and face an uncertain fate.

While I'm sure many Westerners aren't even aware of the existence of Assyrian Christianity, I assume my readers are better informed. Even so, I suspect even many Middle East specialists associate the Assyrians with northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey, and may have been surprised to learn of the 35 towns and villages along the Khabur in northeastern Syria. This community largely settled there in the 1930s after the expulsions and massacres by the Ottomans in 1915 and the massacre of Assyrian in Iraq in 1933. And now they are under fire again. In that sense, their history is a microcosm of the history of the Assyrian people as a whole.

The varied minority faiths of the Jazira, the region of Upper Mesopotamia embracing both northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq (and thus the heartland of the "Islamic State"), need to be understood, and I plan to offer a number of posts dealing with these groups, Assyrians, Yazidis, Shabak, and others.

The Khabur is a major tributary of the Euphrates. The Old Testament Book of 1 Chronicles 5:26, says it was where Tiglath-Pileser III (Tukultī-apil-Ešarra III) of Assyria settled the captive tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (among the "10 lost tribes" of the Northern Kingdom of Israel). Many also identify it with the "River Chebar" where the Prophet Ezekiel had his visions, but others place that closer to Babylon.

The Assyrian Christian communities along the Khabur include members from all four of the faith (doctrinal/liturgical) communities that are sometimes called "Assyrian" the Assyrian Church of the East, historically called "Nestorian" by rival Christian communities; the Chaldean Catholic Church, formed by those elements of the Church of the East who acknowledged the Pope from the 16th century onward in several waves; the Syriac Orthodox Church, an "Oriental Orthodox" Church often called "Jacobite" and formerly known in English as "Syrian Orthodox"; they now prefer Syriac, which is a better translation of their name in Arabic and Syriac; and the Syriac Catholic Church, the Roman "Uniate" analogue of the Syriac Orthodox.

I won't deal with the complicated doctrinal and liturgical disputes here (much as I thrive on such things), but merely note that all these people are historically, ethnically, and linguistically kin. All speak today, or until recently spoke, varieties of Eastern Neo-Aramaic. All are, at least arguably,descendants of the pre-Islamic Semitic-speaking Christian populations of Upper Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia. Let me note that Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholics in other parts of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan may reject the label "Assyrian," but those in the Khabur valley have their origins in the Turkish region of ancient monasteries known as Tur Abdin ("Mountain of the Servants [of God]), which for the Syriac Orthodox was an analogue of Wadi Natrun for the Copts and Mount Athos for the Greek Orthodox. While they call themselves Suroyo (Syriac) or similar terms, they are part of the greater Assyrian Christian mosaic.

The First Displacement: 1915

Much of what follows here on the history of the Assyrians on the Khabur is from Alberto M. Fernandez' article "Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River," 
Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Volume XII, Number 1), reproduced at the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) site.

Although the fate of the Armenians during World War I is by far the best known (and largest), other Christian minorities were also displaced  under Ottoman rule, including the Assyrians, and Pontic and Anatolian Greeks. As Fernandez notes:

The coming of World War One exacerbated difficult relations existing between the Muslim and Christian populations in Anatolia and resulted in the flight/massacre/expulsion of historic Assyrian communities in the highlands of the Hakkari during the 1915-1918 period and the relocation of most of the survivors to camps in Iraq and Iran. Indeed, between 1915 to 1920, many of the future Khabur Assyrians would be driven from the Hakkari Mountains, to Urmiyya in Iran, to the safety of the British lines at Hamadan, also in Iran, then to Baquba in Central Iraq, and then Mindan in Northern Iraq.

Second Displacement: 1933
 
 Other Assyrian groups may have migrated more directly rather than via Iran.The Assyrians in northern Iraq tended to support British rule during the Mandate period, and the British, who often used minority populations to enforce colonial rule, recruited many of them into the notorious "Assyrian Levies," which were much resented by Arab nationalists. When Iraq became independent in 1932, those Assyrians who had served in the Levies became targets.

Fernandez again:

Tensions between Assyrian and Iraqi nationalists eventually led to open fighting and horrific massacres of Assyrians in Northern Iraq in 1933 at the hands of Iraqi Army units and the flight of Assyrian refugees into French Mandate Syria. The  first 415, led by chieftains Malik Yaco (Upper Tiari) and Malik Loco (Tkhuma) crossed the Tigris on July 18, 1933. The young Patriarch of the Assyrian Church off the East, Mar Shimun Ishaya XXI, was stripped of his Iraqi citizenship and became a stateless person eventually moving to Cyprus and then America. After much discussion between the French, the British, and the League of Nations, the decision was taken to settle the Assyrians in the sparsely settled Jezira where they would join other recent Christian arrivals, Syrian Orthodox and Armenians mostly, who had also escaped the destruction of their communities in Anatolia. Although some thought was given to settling these Assyrians in the more fertile Ghab valley in Western Syria, British Guiana, Niger,or even on the banks of the Parana in Brazil, the Khabur River basin in the extreme Northeast corner of the country was eventually settled upon. Some of the Iraqi Assyrians were already near there, living in refugee camps. Lt. Colonel Stafford noted that “their settlement here, however, cannot be, and is not intended to be, other than temporary.”

But of course, as has so often happened to the "temporarily" displaced, the settlement became permanent. At least until now, when the Assyrians on the Khabur are under threat yet again, a full century after their first displacement.

Below, from the AINA site, the 35 villages along the Khabur:

Source: AINA

Apocalypse Now? Part II: Rafidi, Safavi, Sufyani

In Part I of this post, we discussed the growing use of end-times imagery by both sides in the conclict between ISIS and its adversaries, particularly Shi‘ites, and looked in some detail at the term Dabiq, chsen as the name of ISIS' English propaganda magazine. In Part II I want to discuss other terms on both sides of the debate.

And I should note that I'm only discussing historical and eschatological terms here, not conspiracy theories, though there are plenty of those. (ISIS was created by the US according to some, or by (inevitably) Israel ("Caliph Ibrahim" is secretly Jewish, naturally). That's an entirely different sort of fixation.

ISIS, like many jihadi movements before it and some Sunni Islamists, routinely uses Rafidi, a Sunni disparaging term for Shi‘ites. It means "Refuser," as in those who refuse to acknowledge Abu Bakr as the successor to the Prophet, and by extension, the dynasties of Caliphs recognized by Sunnis. In Part I I said they refused to acknowledge the Rightly-Guided Caliphs (Rashidun). A commenter took me to task, noting that ‘Ali is one of the four Rashidun. This is true of course, but in Sunnism he is the fourth Caliph, elected after three successors; in Shi‘ism he is the First Imam,  and the other three Rashidun are seen as usurpers.

Another common slur used by Sunnis (Arabs in particular) is Safawi (Persian Safavi.), after the Iranian dynasty usually known in English as the Safavids. Iran was only partially and sporadically Shi‘ite until the Safavids in the 16th Century AD made it Iran's official religion. The Sunni Ottomans fought a series of wars with the Shi‘ite Safavids, and so when used against Shi‘ites, particularly against Arab Shi‘ites, the term also has the connotation of "Persian," and hence foreign, alien, non-Arab.

Though many Sunni Arabs forget or don't know it, Shi‘ism was Arab long before it put down roots in Iran. Of the 12 Imams, only one is buried in Iran, ‘Ali al-Rida (‘Ali Reza) in Mashhad. Four Imams are buried in Saudi Arabia all in Medina), and six in Iraq (‘Ali in Najaf, Hussein in Karbala, two in Kazimiyya in Baghdad, and two in Samarra.) The 12th, of course, is in occlusion, but he disappeared in Samarra.

Other, stronger disparaging terms may be used against Shi‘ites, or more commonly against more heterodox or esoteric movements like the ‘Alawites, Yazidis and others whose Islamic identities are denied, such as Murtadd (apostate).

But if all the terms used so far have been used by Sunni Islamists, some Shi‘ites with an eschatological bent (and Shi‘ism with its expectation of the return of the Twelfth Imam has a strong eschatological predilection), have applied to ISIS or explicitly to its "Caliph Ibrahim," another term, discussing whether he might be the expected Sufyani,

The Umayyad Caliph who presided over the martyrdom of the Third Imam Hussein ibn ‘Ali was Yazid ibn Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan. Yazid is the greatest villain in the Shi‘ite narrative, and the entire Umayyad dynasty, and particularly the descendants of Abu Sufyan (who until his conversion was the Prophet's greatest adversary) are excoriated in the Shi‘ite tradition. Shi‘ites never use the name Yazid or Sufyan, except as curses.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that Shi‘ite eschatology evolved the idea of a descendent of Yazid
id who would appear (in Syria!) in the end times to fight against Imam Mahdi, the Sufyani. He is distinct from the Dajjal, and is generally believed to be a direct literal descendant of Yazid.

"Caliph Ibrahim" has declared his descent from the tribe of Quraysh, and many Shi‘ites are wondering
if he is the Sufyani. Shiachat has a forum topic on whether ISIS or al-Baghdadi is the Sufyani; this strange Nostradamus/Prophecy site picks upon the theme; and other s appear to be vetting Baghdadi's Qurayshi line.

Obviously, if people on both sides think they're living in the end times, it can mean trouble. I'm not trying to be alarmist, but I thought the growing evidence of these themes deserved attention.

The Huthis, Zaydis, and Trying to Get the Yemen Story Right

Though overshadowed by events elsewhere, major developments have taken place in Yemen. The Houthi or Huthi movement, after years of resistance to the Transitional Government in Sana‘a', has signed a peace agreement, and now seem to have fully occupied the Yemen capital.

For general background, see my MEI Colleague Charles Schmitz' "The Huthi Asccnt to Power," which covers the basics. But I also want to revisit a point I made over five years ago in a post about the Huthis and Zaydism in August 2009: If you insist on interpreting Yemen in dualist Sunni/Shi‘ite terms, you're going to mislead. For years media analysis interpreted the struggle between the Huthis and President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih's regime in precisely those terms, though like the Huthis, Dalih was a Zaydi. He was a republican Zaydi but a Zaydi nonetheless.

And Zaydis are Shi‘ites in the sense that traditional Zaydis insist on rule by the Sada, the descendants of the Prophet (they are called "Fiver" Shi‘ites by some, but generslly do not restrict the Imamate to a single line), but they are not Twelver Shi‘ites like Iranians, Iraqis, and Lebanese and Bahrainis. I'm not a Yemen specialist and have never even set foot in the country, but the tendency to identify the Huthi struggle as a simple Sunni versus Shi‘ite dichotomy is just wrong. Saudi Arabia has long had a somewhat excessive focus on Yemen, and separately and for different reasons on Twelver Shi‘ism, and I suspect the Saudi perspective has influenced much of the media commentary.

Now that the Huthis seem to have taken over the capital, we'll see what comes next, but Yemen is a mix of Zaydi revivalists (the Huthis), Zaydi traditionalists, Sunni Salafis, Sunni secular republicans, and even jihadis like AQAP. It doesn't resolve itself into neat sectarian dichotomies.
 .

IS Takes Sinjar, Moving to Expel the Yazidis

Another Iraqi minority is now in jeopardy; over the weekend the Islamic State defeated a Kurdish peshmerga force and took over the town if Sinjar and its hinterland, the Jabal Sinjar, in western Iraq along the Syrian border, the traditional mountain  redoubt of Iraq's Yazidis. The other main concentration of Yazidis, at Shekhan near Mosul, was already threatened. As it previously expelled Christians an other minorities from Mosul, Yazidis are now reportedly being expelled from Sinjar.

Because the Yazidis are not "People of the Book" in Muslim eyes, they have had less protection than Jews, Christians, and Mandaeans. Their ancient syncretistic religion venerates an angel known as Malak Ta'us, they are often accused of idolatry or even devil worship. They have been under increasing pressure since 2003, but the present wave of Yazidi refugees seems unprecedented. The United Nations is warning of a major humanitarian disaster.


For more details, see (note that Yezidi and Ezidi are also used in these citations):

Matthew Barber at Syria Comment: IS Routs Peshmerga, Takes Control of Sinjar Mountains, Jeopardizes Yazidi Homeland. 

At the Kurdish news site Rudaw: "Yezidis: Living in the Shadow of the Islamic State."

At the Yazidi news site Ezidi Press: "IS terrorists Take Over Yezidi villages: A short chronicle."


The Rudaw an Ezidi Press sites also provide ongoing coverage.

A Glimmer of Good News: Cairo Synagogue Hosts Ramadan Iftar

So much is depressing right now, here's something that isn't: Cairo's last synagogue has hosted  a Ramadan Iftar meal sponsored by the Egyptian Alliance for Minorities. This photo alone speaks volumes:

Gestures will not end war and intolerance, but they do show hope. It takes a long time for water to erode a Grand Canyon, but here is a promising drop.

Video below: among the speakers are Magda Haroun, head of Cairo's tiny Jewish community, a member of the Amazigh Movement in Egypt, and an Azhari sheikh from a group called Azharis for a Civil Society.  (The English report quotes Haroun as saying "We are all Egyptians," which she does, but note that in her Arabic clip she also mentions Shi‘ites and Baha'is along with other minorities.

A Reminder that Even in an Age of Sectarian Division . . .

. . . there are mixed families with a sense of humor:

Algeria's Ghardaia: Spelling and Etymology as Identity?

I haven't blogged about it, but there has been a recent resurgence of ethnic/sectarian clashes in Algeria's Mzab Valley, an oasis region in the Sahara where Berber tribesmen who speak Berber and practice the Ibadi sect of Islam live alongside Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims of the Maliki legal school (like most North African Sunnis). Actually, in my second month of blogging I wrote about an earlier outbreak of Sunni-Ibadi violence in the town of Berriane. The latest round of violence involves the town of Ghardaia, largest town in the Mzab.

The Algerian linguist-blogger Lameen Souag, whose Jabal al-Lughat blog I frequently quote, (as recently as noting his new book just a week ago), has a new post on a linguistic aspect of the conflict: "Ghardaia: etymology, spelling, and politics." It's interesting, and I hope he won't mind my doing such extensive quoting (the Linguistics professor explains it better than I could). Please go read the whole thing. He sets the stage thus:

What's going on is far too localised to be explained in terms of "Arabs" and "Berbers" (contra AFP); at most, it's between Chaamba (Sh`ānba) and Mzabis (Mozabites). But the Mzabis speak Berber, practice Ibadi Islam (a small minority sect), are native to the town, and have a famously strong mercantile tradition; the Chaamba speak Arabic, practice Maliki Islam (like the rest of Algeria), used to be nomads with a strong martial tradition, and by and large are less well off. . . .

And after some more background, gets to the linguistic aspect:

Oddly enough, however, not only language but even etymology is being used as a tool of division. As I looked through page after depressing page on the events, I was surprised to notice that, while Mzabi pages, and neutral ones, spelled Ghardaia غرداية (Ghardāyah), Chaambi pages rather consistently spelled it غارداية (Ghārdāyah). The latter spelling turns out to be based on a folk etymology, deriving the name of "Ghardaia" from Arabic ghār "cave" plus Dāyah, the name of a woman – who some Chaamba claim was from the Arab tribe of Said Atba, proving that Arabs got there before the Mzabis did (قبائل الشعانبة… بنو سُليم الجزائر.) Mzabis have a version of the same etymology, in fact (chanson amazigh mozabit) – but according to them, Daya was a saintly Ibadi woman from Touat, proving that they were there first.

Either version is problematic, since the name is pronounced ɣərdāya (Berber taɣərdayt), not ɣārdāya. The Said Atba idea is especially implausible: in 1053, when Ghardaia was reportedly founded, Ibadi Berbers had been trading across the Sahara for centuries, whereas Arab nomads had barely begun to reach the area. Phonetically, the more obvious etymology is Mzabi Berber taɣərdayt "mouse" – but who'd name a town "Mouse"? Delheure suggested a derivation from tiɣərdin "shoulders", a term found in Ouargli Berber, based on its topography (followed eg here). Dabouz compares it to a Nafusi term reportedly meaning "land next to a wadi". No proposal seems entirely satisfactory, which is itself an indicator of the placename's antiquity.

Be that as it may, this pointed use of "cave of Dāyah" reinforces my impression that what's going on is a mapping of economic grievances onto ethnic/religious categories. Adding this one letter effectively says "Mzabis own this place, but by rights it should be ours" – a thoroughly wrong attitude. الله يهديهم ويهدينا!

 The last line means "May God guide them and guide us."

So Who Killed Hasan Lakkis?

Lakkis (Al-Manar TV)

Last night's assassination of senior Hizbullah military figure Hasan Lakkis (اللقيس) was the latest direct attack on Hizbullah and Iranian interests in Lebanon. Just before it, Hizbullah keader Hasan Nasrallah had blamed the bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut on Saudi Arabia, but Hizbullah quickly and reflexively blamed Israel for Killis. What is interesting is that Israel, instead of declining comment as it usually does in such cases, flatly denied the accusation and said it was likely Sunni elements.

That underscores the increasingly complex situation in Lebanon (though it doesn't mean Israel didn't do it), where Hizbullah is deeply embroiled in both the conflict with Israel and the civil war in Syria, as well as broader regional sectarian rivalries. Discussing suspects quickly takes on a  Murder on the Orient Express feel: everyone has a motive. Even if we leave out conflicts within Hizbullah or with other Shi‘ite elements, reasonable suspects would include Israel; Syrian rebels; Lebanese Sunnis; Saudi Arabia; Jordan; Turkey; France; and the US. If he had been killed by a drone I'd put the US first (though Israel has used them this way in Gaza), but he was shot at close range, so I think the US is probably off the hook on this one, though unlikely to send flowers.

I'm not sure it matters, or if we'll ever know for sure. For decades, Hizbullah mostly limited itself to Lebanon and Israel, or to US targets in the region. By throwing itself openly into the Syrian conflict it has found itself with a whole spectrum of new enemies, and further destabilized Lebanon, which more than ever seems to deserve the title Michael Hudson used in his 1968 (several wars ago) book, The Precarious Republic.

Assassination Attempt Against Coptic Bishop of Minya

Coptic Bishop Anba Makarious, General Bishop of Minya, escaped an apparent assassination attempt earlier today, one of the highest-ranking Christian figures to come under fire in the sectarian violence that has torn Upper Egypt since August. Bishop Makarious was reportedly visiting a church in the Abu Qurqas region of Minya Governorate when his car was fired upon; he and his driver escaped unharmed.

Minya Governorate has one of the largest populations of Copts in Upper Egypt and is also a hotbed of political Islamists; church burnings in Minya were reported after the crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood in August.

Sectarianism Breaks Out in Egypt and Lebanon

The growing threat of sectarian conflict in the Arab world has seen two new outbursts: an anti-Shi‘ite pogrom in a village in Egypt, and the bloody clashes between the Lebanese Army and a Salafi sheikh's followers in Sidon, Lebanon.

We've talked about the curious fact that Egyptian Salafis and even the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have a strong streak of anti-Shi‘ite rhetoric, despite the country that Egypt's Shi‘ite minority is minuscule.

Today is the 15th of the month of Sha‘ban, and the night before is celebrated in Muslim tradition (Sunni and Shi‘i) as a nignt when God's mercy is at its most forgiving, a night for prayer and repentance. In a village in Giza Governorate, a small group of Shi‘ites were gathered privately in a private home, with an Egyptian Shi‘ite figure and spokesman named Hasan Shehata attending. A mob, learning of the gathering, surrounded the house, dragged the worshippers out, killed Shehata and three others and injured more, destroying several houses in the process. Zeinobia has details and photos, including some bloody ones. While the lynch-mob killed its victims, police reportedly looked on without intervening.

The fighting in Lebanon is on a larger scale and involves the Lebanse Army, but is also sectarian in inspiration. At least 16 Lebanese soldiers have died in a confrontation between the Army and the supporters of raidcal Salafi leader Ahmad al-Assir in Sidon. Qifa Nabki offers some background on Assir's gamble, which is quickly turning against him; he's denouncing the Lebanese Army as instruments of Iran and Hizbullah. But in a country that has already postponed Parliamentary elections and witnessed fighting in its north and east as the war in Syria echoes inside Lebanon, it adds another front in southern Lebanon.

Egypt's Syria Break and the MB's New Anti-Shi‘a Rhetoric

Egypt's break with Syria over the weekend followed almost immediately after a meeting of senor Islamists with President Morsi in which the Islamists, particularly well-known preacher and senior Muslim Brotherhood adviser Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for "jihad" against the Asad regime. The Syrian conflict has increasingly been a subject of Qaradawi's statements; his anti-Shi‘ite rhetoric has become more pronounced lately, and on his website he has published congratulations from the Saudi Crown Prince for his stance. Once an advocate of Sunni-Shi‘i cooperation, he has become more and more confrontational; the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole has endorsed similar rhetoric, always having been rather suspicious of Shi‘ism.

The new anti-Syria rhetoric, combined with the recent tough talk about Ethiopia's dam project, may be intended to provide external enemies to rally support at a time of domestic dissent. Most recently Morsi's appointment of new governors for the provinces raised eyebrows when the new governor of Luxor turned out to be a member of al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the group that staged the 1997 attack on tourists at Luxor. Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya has since renounced violence, but critics fear an impact on the already badly hit tourism sector.

But rhetoric aimed at Ethiopia and Syria at the same time could prove risky, and raises new questions about Morsi's (and the FJP Party's and its Brotherhood sponsors') foreign policy positions.

Hizbullah and Palestinian Backlash: Paying the Price for Syrian Intervention

Hizbullah used to justify its continuing armament by insisting it was resisting Israel. Now, it's reportedly told Hamas, which claims to be doing the same thing, to get out of Lebanon immediately.

And in a Palestinian refugee camp at Ain  al-Hilweh in Lebanon, Palestinians burned humanitarian aid sent by Hizbullah, protesting the latter's role in Syria.

Of course, Lebanon has been feeling the impact of the Syrian civil war for some time. With Hizbullah's open engagement on the side of the Syrian regime, we're likely to see more blowback in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Qifa Nabki considers the risks and calculations Hizbullah is taking.

Back to the Future? The French Mandate's Confessional Partition of Syria

On several occasions we've looked at "vanished states"of the 20th century Middle East, among them some in Syria: including the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria, and the briefly independent Republic of Hatay. As the Syrian tragedy continues to unfold, we are hearing talk of a disintegration into ethnic/confessional enclaves, including a possible ‘Alawite enclave in the northwest.

As a much older Middle Easterner once put it, there is nothing new under the sun. When the French mandate was first created after World War I, they partitioned the hell out of Syria:

Initially, in 1922, there were actually five separate states in what would be the French Mandate: a Syrian Federation consisting of two states, Aleppo (including after 1923 the Sanjaq of Alexandretta, the later Hatay, which had briefly been autonomous) and Damascus; a separate ‘Alawite ("Alaouite" in French) state in the northwest, initially (1922-24) part of the federation but thereafter autonomous, a Druze state in the Hawran (Jabal al-Druze State), and Greater Lebanon (Gran Liban), combining the Maronite and Druze Mount Lebanon, the Sunni north around Tripoli, and the Shi‘ite south and Baqa‘a, creating the mix that would become the republic of Lebanon.

Flag, State of Syria

Each of these "states" had its own flag, with the French tricolor in canton. The "State of Syria" was formed in 1924 out of the federation of the states of Damascus and Aleppo. The Alaouite State did not join.

Flag, State of Damascus

This "State of Syria" was created in 1924, but the next year a full-scale revolt broke out, led by the Druze leader Sultan al-Atrash in the Druze state, but becoming Syria-wide. The French crushed it with aerial bombardments and sieges of cities, including Damascus.

Flag, State of Aleppo

The Syrian revolt would ultimately lead, in 1930, to the French renaming the State of Syria as the Republic of Syria, though still under French mandate.

Flag, Alaouite State

As for the Alaouite state, it had been less affected by the uprising, though in 1930 it was renamed the District of Latakia. Finally in 1936 it was merged into the "Republic" of Syria. Lebanon always remained a separate entity. Efforts toward independence were sidetracked by World War II and Vichy control, but after Britain expelled Vichy Lebanon and Syria declared their independence and had secured it by 1946.

Flag, Jebel Druze State

In short, Syria has been partitioned before, under colonial divide-and-rule strategies, but nationalism ultimately overcame internal division in the name of fighting a common enemy. Whether that will happen again is of course another question entirely.

Flag, Gran Liban

Easter in Cairo: Morsi Wasn't There, But the Army Was

Pope Tawadros II at Easter

Yesterday, of course, was Orthodox Easter. (And today is Sham al-Nassim in Egypt and Sudan, but that post is coming.)

As we already knew on Friday, President Morsi of Egypt did not attend Coptic Pope Tawadros II's first Easter service at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. Instead, the senior civilian government official attending was Prime Minister Hesham Qandil.

But the country's senior military figure, Gen. ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, Defense Minister and head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, was there. I note this for those tea-leaf readers who are trying to discern the uneasy and sometimes obscure relations between the Armed Forces and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In other Easter-related commentary from Egypt: Yasmine Fathi atAhram Online offers a summary of setarian tensions since the Revolution: "M is for Mosque: How Egypt's Copts were Sidelined". Ahram, of course, is state-owned; the independent liberal Al-Tahrir's take (in Arabic) is entitled الملف الأخطر فى تاريخ الصحافة المصرية.. الأقباط تحت حكم الإخوان ["The Most Dangerous File in the History of the Egyptian Press: The Copts Under the Rule of the Brotherhood."]

In the blogosphere, Issandr at The Arabist adds "Further Reading on Salafi Attitudes to Greetings on Non-Muslim Holidays."

Morsi Will Not Attend Easter Mass, While Salafis Are Opposing Even Sham al-Nassim

President Morsi, who did not attend either Coptic Pope Tawadros II's installation ceremony last year, or Christmas services in January, also will not be attending Orthodox Easter services on Sunday. By now, I suppose that should occasion little surprise: while Morsi denounced the recent attacks on the Coptic cathedral and gives lip service to minority rights, he's much more concerned with his core constituency in the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi movements to its right.

And they are not exactly wrapping up chocolate rabbits for their Coptic neighbors. As the link above notes,

The Salafist Front asked President Morsi to consult with Muslim scholars before attending the Easter mass, and banned its own officials from acknowledging the Coptic Easter holiday. Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Office member Mufti Abdel Raham al-Barr, who is also a professor in the Al-Azhar University, said that congratulating the Copts on the Orthodox Easter is “religious haram [taboo],” adding in a statement that “it is illegitimate to offer greetings for something that blatantly contradicts our creed….Our creed, as Muslims, is unequivocal: Christ – peace be upon him – was neither killed nor crucified, as Allah protected him from the Jews and elevated him to His presence. [Prophet] Isa – peace be upon him – was not crucified to be resurrected. Accordingly, there is no need to congratulate someone on something we know to be a falsehood, even though we do not deny our partners in the nation the right to believe or act as they please.”

So they have a right to believe it but Muslims can't offer holiday greetings? Since I offer holiday greetings for every holiday I know about, I don't get it. Then he explains why Christmas greetings, however, are OK:

Al-Barr, who is an influential Muslim Brotherhood member, went on to distinguish between offering acknowledgment of other Christian holidays (like Christmas) and doing so for Easter: “Congratulating our Christian partners in the nation on their various occasions and holidays is an expression of charity ordered by Allah and of righteousness from which He has not banned us as long as it is not at the expense of our religion, and does not pronounce… any religious slogans or expressions that contravene the principles of Islam, and does not constitute any admission or acceptation of their religion or participation in their prayers. Rather, these would merely be words of courtesy common among people and would not entail any religious contraventions. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, in greeting [Copts] on Christmas, as we believe that Isa – peace be upon him – is one of the primary prophets, that he is human and that his birth was one of Allah’s miracles.”

Issandr at The Arabist says he doesn't get the logic;

The lack of logic in the differentiation between the two suggests that al-Barr is either doctrinally a Salafi or that he does no want to offend Salafis. Like President Morsi's decision not to attend the mass, it is a striking lack of understanding of the symbolic value of having even an Islamist president pay respects to the church and the Christian community, which can only be explained by intolerance.

I agree. I can't, however, resist the temptation to call the hairsplitting reasoning almost Talmudic.  I'd compare it to Christian theologians debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but I'm betting "Talmudic" will annoy al-Barr even more.

The article notes that not everyone agrees:

In contrast, Egyptian mufti Dr. Shawqi Allam says “There are no objections to greeting Copts on [all] their holidays as they are partners in the nation, and there are no objections to sharing their joys and comforting them in their times of grief.” This statement by Egypt’s new mufti shows that he abides by a centrist line and is steering the Dar al-Fatwa away from what some believe is intransigence and immoderation on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

And, though Al-Barr is a Professor at al-Azhar the Sheikh al-Azhar himself will call on the Pope today, Orthodox Good Friday:

Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb will meet Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II on Friday at the papal premises in St Mark's Catherdral to give him best wishes for Easter, reported Ahram's Arabic website.

So the two real leaders of Egyptian Islam, the Mufti and the Sheikh al-Azhar, do not agree with al-Barr's alleged "fatwa."  I say alleged because that's actually the Mufti and the Dar al-Ifta's job.

Oh, but however bad the Brotherhood seems, you can generally count on the Salafis to make it worse. If this report (admittedly from a Christian source) is true they even want to ban Sham al-Nassim:

Fliers were distributed in the governorate of Beni Suef, outside of Cairo, which read "Sham el-Nessim is Not Our Holiday," and included a fatwa prohibiting citizens from celebrating the holiday.

"Sham el-Nessim is a national and Pharaonic feast related to agriculture, but it has become linked to Lent and Easter so Muslims should not imitate the [Christian] other and celebrate it," the flier said.

Sham al-Nassim, as I've noted in earlier years (most detailed posts here and here) is a spring festival that coincides with the Monday after Coptic Easter, but is celebrated by all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians alike (and the Jewish community before its disappearance). Families picnic along the Nile, color eggs, eat certain traditional spring vegetables and dried fish. The name Sham al-Nassim, "smelling the breeze" in Arabic, may also distantly echo the ancient Egyptian feast of Shemu, also a spring festival. In any event it is generally considered one of only two traditional holidays (the other being Wafa' al-Nil in August, celebrating the Nile Flood before the Aswan High Dam was built, but still celebrated today) with roots in Pharaonic times.

The Worsening Situation in Iraq

Disturbing headline at The Independent: "'The civil war in Iraq has already begun': Politician claims conflict has started and warns it will be ‘worse than Syria.’" So saith, allegedly at least, a "senior Iraqi politician," identity and sectarian affiliation unstated.

Hyperbole, I hope, but sectarian clashes are worsening and the UN says the death counts are up; also the potential conflicts between the central government and the Kurdish Region are intensifying.

While it's pretty bloody hard for anything to be "worse than Syria," there are also already enough synergistic interactions between Syrian Jihadis/Iraqi Jihadis, Syrian Sunnis/Iraqi Sunnis/Lebanese Sunnis, Syrian Kurds/Iraqi Kurds/Turkish Kurds, and Syrian Shi‘ites/Iraqi Shi‘ites/Iranian Shi‘ites/Lebanese Hizbullah, that just the headline is enough to give one pause, to put it mildly. The possibility of the Syrian conflict metastasizing into a regional sectarian war is everybody's nightmare scenario. Let's hope this is a worst-case scenario. Please.

The Copts Get Tough: Church Issues Demands

In the wake of the sectarian conflict in Egyot: a still from a 1960s Egyptian movie: a Muslim sheikh and a Coptic priest on a bicycle built for two. Too bad it's only an old movie.

In the real world, the Coptic Church, sounding tougher than in the recent past, has issued demands of the Presidency:

The Coptic Orthodox Church has identified five demands for President Mohamed Morsy to resolve the sectarian crises that have erupted in various parts of the country.

“We demand the president to apply the law to everyone, ensure safety and security in the entire country, activate fully the principle of citizenship, amend religious discourse, and teach Coptic history in schools,” Father Makary Habib, the personal secretary to Pope Tawadros II, told the Turkish Anadolu News on Wednesday.

“The absence of the law treated Copts as if they were second class citizens,” Habib said, adding that what is happening now is the result of thirty years of sectarian problems under the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“We are tired of painkillers,” he said, hinting to informal and customary solutions. “We need concrete steps.”

Though Egyptians marched yesterday against sectarian violence, tensions remain high. Anyone have a supply of bicycles?