Hamrah, Satgin S. Editor. Contextualizing Sectarianism in the Middle East and South Asia: Identity, Competition and Conflict.
London: Routledge, 2023.
192 pages. Paperback $35.96
Much has been written about the contemporary Arab Muslim World for having been plagued by sectarian conflict and violence. Most scholarship thus far has focused on the Sunni–Shia binary, which traces sectarianism to the ancient events that arose after the death of the Prophet Mohammad. Contextualizing Sectarianism, ten interdisciplinary and transnational scholarly essays, refocuses the discussion on the complexities of the conflict by foregrounding the political, social, and cultural domains the region has been experiencing in the more recent decades. The compiled scholarly essays challenge the misconceptions about sectarian divisions to reveal the intrastate and interstate factors that play into identity formation, competition, and conflict. According to editor Satgin S. Hamrah, the Middle East and South Asia had experienced a rise in sectarianism since the 1970s and into the 1980s, while she emphasizes the countries’ specificities across geographical spaces, national borders, and ideological beliefs. She rightly notes that it is important to examine the means by which state and non-state politicians manipulate sect-based identity to promote their interests. To do so, the editor explains the theoretical prisms to clarify the definition of the terms. She states: “sect is understood as a socio-religious grouping,” the construction of an exclusionary community that perceives other sects/communities as “other” (1). While the introductory exposé of the theoretical framework of conceptualizing modern sectarianism is enlightening, had the editor added a brief note about the organization of the book, it would have been helpful to readers.
The book comprises ten chapters with an introduction and a conclusion. Given the modern threat of war between state and non-state groups, Chapter 1 unravels the historical context of the seventh-century Muslim world, to reveal the political nature of the Sunni–Shia division at inception. Regarding the more modern conflation of religion and sect, Ayesha Jalal takes India as an example to trace the emergence of sectarianism to the founding of the nation-state in imperial Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Chapter 2 continues the same line of thought as it explores the exclusion of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan as a non-Muslim minority. This was the consensus of Muslim scholars from 50 Muslim countries who, in 2009, unanimously defined the “real Muslim” and “orthodoxy,” excluding the Ahmadiyya (22). Hamrah’s Chapter 3 sheds light on the complexity of the Soviet–Afghan War (1970–1988), which she designates as the historical point of reference for causing the sociopolitical shift in the region. She says that the interventions of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Iran in the Soviet–Afghan War resulted in unpredictable consequences. Although the short-term results were successful in defeating the Soviets, the interventions created long-term conflict and violence within Afghanistan. The Afghani Sunni and Shia had initially united to fight the communist Soviets. However, the US aided the mujahideen to counteract the possibility of establishing a communist satellite state. Saudi Arabia supported the Sunni mujahideen while Iran sustained the Shia, with each being motivated by conflicting goals for regional hegemony. The interventions created tensions and conflicts within, which ultimately evolved into terrorism.
Chapter 4 offers an interesting discussion of columnist visionary advice about the good life to Muslim Egyptians in the era of extremism, and Chapter 5 focuses on the complexity of the sectarian system of government imposed by colonial France on Lebanon. Delving more deeply into sectarianism vis-à-vis identity formation, ethnicity, and nationalism in fragmented societies, Chapter 6 considers the two cases of Lebanon and Iraq in the pre- and post-civil war. We learn about the difficult processes of institution-building, the crafting of constitutions, and the concerns for state security in relation to identity, nation-building, and power dynamics. Dylan Maguire clarifies how a possible balance can be achieved within military institutions and inclusive state interests while simultaneously overriding “national, ethnic, and sectarian groups” (77). Unfortunately, the unstable conditions in both Iraq and Lebanon have not sustained a balance, given the facts on the ground in 2024.
The two essays about Iraq in Chapters 7 and 8 are illuminating. While the former explores the causes of the Iraqi Civil War, the latter investigates the continuing cycle of violence in the post-2003 US invasion and occupation of the country. Frank Sobchak, in Chapter 7, suggests that attributing the cause of the civil war to the 2006 Al-Qaeda attack on the Samarra Shia shrine is too simplistic. His analysis offers a more tenable argument as he considers the Saddam Hussein years during which the Shia had been oppressed and disempowered. He rightly states that the growing sectarian tensions created during the first three years of the US invasion exacerbated the pre-existing sectarian divisions of former years. Furthermore, the re-distribution of political power, the holding of elections, the writing of a new constitution, and the constitutional referendum worsened ethnic relations. Competition among the various sects was exacerbated without providing enough time for negotiations and reconciliation. In rushing to establish democracy, stability, and normalcy, American insistence on holding elections for new Iraqi leaders, the appointment of interim and transitional governments, and the writing of a new constitution did not result in parliamentary democracy for all Iraqis. Not only were the nominees selected by Coalition forces, there were also attacks on leaders, “insurgent threats, Sunni boycotts, and logistical challenges,” a debacle which resulted in unpredictable consequences (103). The Sunni (20% of the population) boycotted the elections; the results favored the Shia Islamists and Kurdish nationalist parties, with the Sunni winning a minimal number of seats. The end result was the exchange of Sunni-controlled Iraq under Saddam with Shia extremists holding the reins of power for the first time in Iraq’s history: “… Iraq progressed from the violent removal of the Sunni-led Ba’ath regime to an approved constitution and an elected Shia government in roughly 30 months” (113).
Chapter 9 is equally enlightening about the intersection of sectarianism and counterterrorism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which have shaped state policy and practice at the international level and into which entered securitization, stability, and “neo-liberalism [and] democracy promotions” (137). The final chapter adds yet another layer to the present sectarian conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, by pointing out the past friendly relationship during the pre-revolutionary Iranian regime. Pouya Alimagham tells of the collaboration between the two conservative monarchies, the Pahlavi monarchy and the al-Saud kingdom, in the 1960s. Not only were they “stalwart allies” of the US during the Cold War, opposing Nasserism, Pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism. They actually had forged a tactical alliance to suppress Oman’s Dhofar rebellion, which had been inspired by Marxist ideology. This is evidence that the modern S. Arabia-Iran sectarian conflict is not caused by the seventh-century dispute. Alimagham rightly concludes that the current rivalry came about when the post-Iranian revolutionary leaders switched gears to support both Sunni and Shia Islam across the globe, in the interest of its own hegemony in the Muslim world.
Contextualizing Sectarianism is an excellent source for fleshing out and understanding the diversity and complex phenomenon of sectarianism in the Middle East and South Asia. It would be of value to scholars and students of history, political science, religion, and studies of the Middle East and international security.