By Sharmine Narwani
Source: RT
At the end of August, a meeting of Muslim clerics and scholars convened in the Chechen capital of Grozny to forge a consensus on the subject of ‘who constitutes a Sunni.’

Sunnism, the 200 or so Sunni clerics from Egypt, South Africa, India, Europe, Turkey, Jordan, Yemen, Russia warned, “has undergone a dangerous deformation in the wake of efforts by extremists to void its sense in order to take it over and reduce it to their perception.”

The Muslim world is currently under a siege of terror, led by a deviant strain that claims religious authority and kills in the name of Islam. So the Grozny participants had gathered, by invitation of the Chechen president, to make “a radical change in order to re-establish the true meaning of Sunnism.”

If their final communique was any indicator, the group of distinguished scholars had a very particular message for the Muslim world: Wahhabism – and its associated takfirism – are no longer welcome within the Sunni fold.

Specifically, the conference’s closing statement says this: “Ash’arites and the Maturidi are the people of Sunnism and those who belong to the Sunni community, both at the level of the doctrine and of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi’i, Maliki), as well as Sufis, both in terms of knowledge and moral ethics.”

In one fell swoop, Wahhabism, the official state religion of only two Muslim countries -Saudi Arabia and Qatar – was not part of the majority Muslim agenda any longer.

The backlash from the Saudis came hard and fast, honing in on the participation of Egypt’s Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb of Al Azhar, the foremost center for Sunni theological study in the Islamic world.

Saudi Arabia has, after all, subsidized the flailing Egyptian economy to the tune of billions of dollars in the past few years, alongside its Wahhabi neighbor Qatar, which has in turn bank-rolled the Muslim Brotherhood – a group also excluded from the Grozny meeting.

While Tayeb did not single out the Saudis in his conference speech, his elevated position in the global Sunni hierarchy lent a great deal of weight to the proceedings. And Al Azhar’s prominence in the Sunni world is rivaled only by the relatively new role of the Al Saud monarch as the custodian of the two holy sites, Mecca and Medina.

Just last year – in Mecca, no less – Tayeb slammed extremist trends during a speech on terrorism, lashing out at “corrupt interpretations” of religious texts and appealing to believers “to tackle in our schools and universities this tendency to accuse Muslims of being unbelievers.”

It is Wahhabism that is most often accused of sponsoring this trend globally.

The radical sect, borne in the 18thcentury, deviates from traditional Sunni doctrine in various ways, most notably sanctioning violence against nonbelievers – including Muslims who reject Wahhabi interpretation (takfirism).

Saudi Arabia is the single largest state contributor to tens of thousands of Wahhabi-influenced mosques, schools, clerics and Islamic publications scattered throughout the Muslim world – many of them, today, feeders for terrorist recruitment. By some accounts that figure has reached almost $100 billion in the last three decades or so.

In Grozny, conference participants made reference to this dangerous trend, and called for a “return to the schools of great knowledge” outside Saudi Arabia – in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen.

Saudi officialdom took to social media to express their outrage. Saudi royal, Prince Khalid al-Saud, warned that the event represented “a conspiracy that openly targets our country and it’s religious standing, specifically.”

For the Saudis, the bad news kept on coming. On Friday, at the start of the annual 5-day Hajj pilgrimage, Lebanese daily Al Akhbar published online a shocking database from the Saudi Ministry of Health.

The leaked documents list, in painstaking detail, the names of 90,000 pilgrims from around the world who have died visiting Mecca over a 14-year period. If there was ever any question about the authority of the Saudi king as “custodian” of Islamic holy sites, this revelation should have opened those floodgates.

But even before these documents became public, calls for the Saudis to relinquish their administration of the Hajj were coming from Iran and elsewhere. Exactly one year ago, a stampede in Mina became the deadliest disaster in the history of the Hajj. Instead of tending to the dead and wounded as their utmost priority, the Saudi authorities went into lock down – concealing casualties, downplaying the death toll, blocking international efforts to investigate, forcing Hajj families to pay for the retrieval of bodies, denying wrongdoing and refusing to apologize for the disaster.

According to official Saudi government figures at the time, the total casualty toll stood at 769 dead and 934 injured. The leaked database now shows those numbers to be false. According to the Ministry of Health’s own statistics, the Mina death toll was in reality more than 10 times higher, with over 7,000 killed.

Iranians, who appeared initially to have suffered disproportionate losses – including from the collapse of a crane 12 days earlier at the Grand Mosque in Mecca where 107 died – lost around 500 citizens. Included in that number was senior foreign ministry official, Dr. Ghazanfar Roknabadi, Iran’s former ambassador to Lebanon and a key figure in regional geopolitical affairs. Saudi authorities initially denied he was even in the country and then took months to identify and repatriate his body.

But most disturbing of all was the manner in which the Saudis treated the dead and injured. Pictures that emerged from Mina in the aftermath of the disaster showed authorities shoveling up bodies in digger-like vehicles, then dumping them in piles as if they were sacks of sand. There appeared to be no care taken to even ascertain whether the victims were dead or alive.

The Iranians were justifiably outraged, but the Saudis politicized that reaction and turned it into an affront to Sunni authority by a Shia authority in Tehran. The Al Akhbar stats, however, tell another story. It was mostly Sunnis who were killed in Mina – from Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and other countries – with victims from some states surpassing even the Iranian death toll.

One year on, Iran is not letting this issue lie. The Iranians have boycotted the Hajj this year, claiming that Saudi Arabia was unprepared to assure them of basic security requirements during lengthy negotiations between the two nations.

In his most confrontational address to the Saudi state yet, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei last week – during his annual Hajj message – railed against the injustice:

“The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers — instead of providing medical treatment and helping them or at least quenching their thirst. They murdered them…Because of these rulers’ oppressive behavior towards God’s guests, the world of Islam must fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of hajj.”

And then Khamenei went to the heart of the matter: “The fitna-promoting rulers who by forming and arming wicked takfiri groups, have plunged the world of Islam into civil wars, murdering and injuring the innocent and shed blood in Yemen, Iraq, the Levant, Libya and other countries.”

In one short month, the Saudis have been challenged by Islam’s two mainstream sects – by the Sunni and by the Shia, equally – striking out at the religious authority claimed by the Saudi state and challenging the destructive, divisive, violent sectarianism of their Wahhabi faith.
Geopolitical losses

As if to prove Khamenei’s point – and the Grozny consensus – Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Abdulaziz Al Sheikh shot back, describing Iranian leaders as nonbelievers: “We have to understand that they are not Muslims. … Their main enemies are the followers of Sunnah (Sunnis).”

But, with that last sectarian sling, it seems the Saudis may have finally hit their limit. Within days of his statement, citing “health reasons,” the Mufti was removed from delivering the Hajj sermon he has delivered for 35 years straight.

Why stop now? It isn’t like the Saudis don’t have the appetite for a fight with the Iranians.

That fight has been playing out throughout the Middle East and beyond, in various battlefields and media outlets, to the detriment of millions.

What may have started off as Riyadh’s desire to thwart the success of a populist Islamist revolution that dethroned a neighboring king – Iran, circa 1979 – has spiraled into an existential Saudi battle to claw onto hegemony and legitimacy in every sphere.

The Saudis have long lost the ability to engage in cold, hard calculation, and have thrown themselves headfirst into ‘winning by all means.’ This has meant releasing the demons of takfirism throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Wahhabi funded and enabled jihadi foot soldiers have sprung up in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and any other place where Saudis and their fellow co-religionists/ideologues have sought out hegemonic interests.

And the lack of coherent strategy has drawn the Saudis into a number of unnecessary quagmires that have now encircled their borders (Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen), wiped out their strategic depth and emptied the state coffers.

What was meant to be a swift aerial blow to Yemeni rebels for daring to defy Saudi authority, has morphed into an entrenched, 18-month-long, money-pit of a war, with 10,000-plus deaths, war crimes accusations, proliferation of jihadist terror and enemy encroachment into Saudi territory.

Riyadh’s leading role in the destabilization of Syria and Iraq has unleashed sectarian mass murder that has gutted the Muslim world, unmasked Saudi complicity, and galvanized its adversaries into historic cooperation.

These wars have drawn in powerful benefactors like Russia and China as buffers against Saudi overreach, and has reshuffled the balance of power in the region – against Saudi interests.

All of which has chipped away at Saudi political, economic and religious clout on the international stage.

In 2010, Saudi Arabia was crossing borders peacefully as a power-broker, working with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Qatar and others to troubleshoot in regional hotspots. By 2016, it had buried two kings, shrugged off a measured approach to foreign policy, embraced takfiri madness and emptied its coffers.

The hundreds of thousands dead in the wake of this ‘Saudi madness’ are mostly Muslim and mostly Sunni. As the Muslim world wakes up to this atrocious state of affairs, like the Sunni scholars of Grozny, they will not look to censure Tehran, but to disengage with Riyadh.

And to write the final chapter on an aberrant sect called Wahhabism.

Other articles on this subject here: First World and here: Robert Fisk

By Alex Ray
Source: Between Deserts – WordPress
In the media war for Syria, half-truths and redacted explanations are par for the course. While most common narratives romanticize the trajectory of the war into pre-assumed moulds, others such as “sectarian war” or “baddies versus baddies” shift blame from outside powers and their part in the conflict and largely onto the people caught up in it.

Such labels subtly but firmly press the message “those people are a mess and it isn’t really our fault.” – or as a Sydney-sider said to me recently “They’re all mad, they just want to kill each other.”

The Australian’s report on the issue of Syria’s partition featured a prime example of these erroneous blame-shifting explanations – “Mr [Bob] Carr said the carnage being wrought in the Middle East underscored the “immaturity’’ of the region’s political cultures.”

Occasionally, important details slip through which spoil such simplistic narratives. Take this recent report by The Australian. It concerns ISIS’ January massacres of hundreds of civilians and pro-government fighters in Deir ez-Zor province. Quoting the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights The Australian reported:

The monitor said yesterday that Islamic State had also kidnapped more than 400 civilians from captured territory. Those abducted, all of whom are Sunnis, include “women, children and family members of pro-regime fighters,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The detail “…all of whom are Sunnis,” flies in the face of many of the divisions that are supposed to characterise the Syrian conflict. Deir ez-Zor is a rural town, on the eastern fringes of regime influence that has been under siege for years from ISIS. Yet its majority Sunni population is still supporting the regime and Syrian soldiers embedded there have suffered heavy casualties. This brings into question a few over-simplifications common to the conflict:

(1) that the regime has done little to fight ISIS – just ask the families of Syrian Army soldiers killed and executed at Tabqa Airbase or Deir ez-Zor, many of whom receive goading photos of their sons decapitated heads.

(2) that rural areas are opposed to the regime – this fails to explain why rural areas such as Suweida (Druze) and Deir ez-Zor are either neutral or pro-government.

(3) that the conflict is divided between Sunni opposition and non-Sunni government supporters.

Like previous forays in the Middle East, Western propaganda concerning our involvement in the Syrian conflict also seeks to paint the Syrian conflict as a moral problem. Initially between a tyrant and brave revolutionaries then between a tyrant and Islamist militia– with the accompanying image of Western powers standing around wringing their hands about what to do. Very little coverage informs us of the Western geo-political interests fueling the crisis that have little to do with morality, human rights and international law.

The actual effect of the multitude of misleading narratives on Syria is one of useful distraction. Anyone with some semblance of morality should be horrified at all conflicts – but shouldn’t for a minute think that this is why governments care or the conflict gains so much attention. Regime change in Syria and the ripple effects it promises for status quo powers such as Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the US and its NATO allies is still the number one game. The plan is just now being reworked – under the guise of ending the conflict.

Eliminating the uncooperative Syrian state would benefit every major power in the region except Iran, who despite the nuclear deal is still a disruptive force as far as global hydrocarbon politics and regional dominance are concerned. That is why the partition of Syria is again being floated as an option, as was confirmed in Prime Minister Turnbull’s discussions with President Obama.

For status quo powers involved, partition is the next best option to regime change via proxies. Syria’s partition was backed by former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, whose track record of bright ideas includes publicly advocating the assassination of President Assad.

In some regards the partition option could be more expedient for the powers opposed to Syria’s regional role as it means they do not even need to arrange the removal of Bashar al-Assad as head of state. They simply have to divide the state administration and the factions vying for power into entities so small they have no choice but to cooperate or are too weak to cause trouble.

In a surprising remark from the usually ill-informed Australian Labor Party, Carr was contradicted by deputy Labour leader Tanya Plibersek who rightly asserted: “There are generations of people who have grown up with an identity as a Syrian or an Iraqi … Recent polls confirm many people feel a sense of national identity and feel the conflict is soluble.’’

In summary Plibersek rightly said that partition ignores the strong national identity and sentiment that has dominated the lives of nearly every Syrian alive today. She could have added further reasons why partition is a hasty, self-serving and reckless solution to the conflict:

(1) Partition along sectarian lines – because that is likely all that the Islamist opposition will accept – plays into ISIS and al-Qaeda’s hands – they would love an official Sunni state that re-enforces sectarian divisions. Sunnis who do not agree with their vision would then have little choice but to live under their control.

(2) Ideologically, partition along ethnic and religious lines is a white flag of surrender to the extremist belief that societies and communities cannot co-exist and except difference amongst one another – in stark contrast to modern Syrian history. This xenophobic falsehood is founded on the claim that “At its root, the Syrian imbroglio is a sectarian one, produced by a mix of age-old conflict between Sunnis and Shias, and an old imperialist policy of divide-and-rule” – Dilip Hiro, Yale Global Online

(3) There is no reason why this partition would be any more ‘accurate’ at drawing ethno-religious boundaries than the original Sykes-Picot agreement. Syria’s ethnic and religious landscape is unique in that while there are broad sections of the country that can be predominantly identified as Sunni or ‘Alawite, Armenian, Kurd or Druze etc, nearly all of these areas are dotted with other groupings. Also inter-religious marriage has been relatively common. Any attempt to redraw its boundaries likely to be based on territory now controlled by various militia rather than its pre-war demography.

By Father Dave
Source: Christians&Muslims Web
There are only two people who have ever brought me to tears the first time I’ve met them.

The first was Dom Helder Camara, the late great Archbishop of Recife in Brazil – the man who said “when I give food to the poor they call me a saint but when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist!”. Dom Helder spoke once at the Sydney Opera House while I was still in my teens, and my tears started welling up as he started to speak. The only other man who has had this effect on me was Dr Ahmad Badreddin Al-din Hassoun – the Grand Mufti of Syria.

I met Dr Hassoun for the first time a little over two years ago. We were in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus at the end of a week-long pilgrimage though the devastation and suffering of war-torn Syria. The beauty of the singing and the wondrous architecture no doubt had an effect on me, but it was when the Mufti began to speak that I felt a tingle run down my spine!

Even though he was speaking in language I didn’t understand (except via our translator) I sensed an extraordinary presence about the man. His words carried deep emotion and sincerity. I was reminded of what they said of Jesus – that He spoke ‘as one who had authority’ (Matthew 7:29) and not like their regular preachers.

It was the content of Dr address though that brought me to tears – when he told us about how the rebels had murdered his son. Saria was a gentle boy, he told us. He was never interested in politics. They sought him out and killed him nonetheless. And yet, the Mufti said, he desired only to forgive those who had killed his son and see his country reconciled!

Apparently Dr Hassoun had first made this offer of forgiveness during the eulogy at his son’s funeral, and when, a year later, the authorities caught two of the four men responsible for the boy’s death, he went to the court and personally offered forgiveness to the men, and asked the judge to forgive them too. The judge told him though that it was not his call as these men had killed many others apart from his son!

That was my first meeting with Dr Hassoun, back in 2013, and after his speech he presented me with a lovely plaque of the Umayyad Mosque. I still have no idea why I was privileged with that gift. I think he was trying to explain when he gave it to me but I couldn’t understand a word of Arabic then and wouldn’t have heard him beyond the tears anyway.

I’ve met Dr Hassoun twice since – in 2014 and now in 2015 – and my respect for the man only grows with each meeting. It was such a great privilege for me that he agreed to this private interview!

Please understand me – I’m not saying that I see eye-to-eye with Dr Hassoun on theological issues, nor am I saying that I necessarily share all his political convictions (which we didn’t discuss anyway). What I am saying is that I know a good man when I meet one, and Dr Hassoun is a good and deeply spiritual man, and an example to me as a Christian.

When Jesus tried to teach his disciples how a good Jew should live he told them a story (Luke 10). The surprise in the story was that the key character wasn’t a good Jew at all. It was a good Samaritan – a person no self-respecting Jew would think he had anything to learn from! Similarly, I think it’s time for us self-respecting Christians to discover what God has to teach us through this man – the good Mufti.