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The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics and Terrorism in ...

The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics And TerrorismIn The Arab Middle EastBy Samuel HelfontCenter on Terrorism and Counterterrorismat the FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA :UNDERSTANDINGPOLITICS ANDTERRORISMIN THEARABMIDDLEEASTBy Sa m u e l He lfo n tNovember2009 FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA FPRIF ounded in 1955, the Foreign Policy Research Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofitorganization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development ofpolicies that advance national interests. We add perspective to events by fitting theminto the larger historical and cultural context of international FPRI sCenter on Terrorism and CounterterrorismThe Center s mission is to study the goals, tactics, and strategies of Terrorism and developresponses to it, using: advanced technology, scenarios and storyboarding, and simulationand modeling.

The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics And Terrorism In The Arab Middle East By Samuel Helfont Center on Terrorism and Counterterrorism at the FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

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1 The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics And TerrorismIn The Arab Middle EastBy Samuel HelfontCenter on Terrorism and Counterterrorismat the FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA :UNDERSTANDINGPOLITICS ANDTERRORISMIN THEARABMIDDLEEASTBy Sa m u e l He lfo n tNovember2009 FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA FPRIF ounded in 1955, the Foreign Policy Research Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofitorganization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development ofpolicies that advance national interests. We add perspective to events by fitting theminto the larger historical and cultural context of international FPRI sCenter on Terrorism and CounterterrorismThe Center s mission is to study the goals, tactics, and strategies of Terrorism and developresponses to it, using: advanced technology, scenarios and storyboarding, and simulationand modeling.

2 The focus of the Center s research is on terrorists, their strategies andtactics, and their objectives, resources, and capabilities for creating multilateralunconstrained disruption. The Center makes projections on future terrorist actions anddevelops improved systems for protecting our nation svital institutions and , 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA of Note on Terms and 1: History and of Muslim Between the Brotherhood and 2: Regional Shia Gulf Arab 3: Terrorism and Muslim Brotherhood and and Case Study in and Policy the Officers and Board of Policy Research InstituteIntroductionFollowingthe invasion of Iraq in 2003, a bloody conflict broke out betweenIraq s Sunnis and Shias.

3 This conflict has led someobserversto see the entire regionthrough the prism of the age-old Sunni -Shia ,dividing the Middle Eastalong sectarian lines is not an accurate way to assess the loyalties or predict the actions ofvar ious r egional actor s. For example, in 2006 Isr ael went to war with Hezbollah inLebanon and in 2008-2009withHa m a s in Ga both of these conflicts, Shias fromHezbollah and Ir ansidedwith Sunni Islamistsfrom Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhoodassociated organizations. On the other side of the regional divide were Sunni ArabNationalists, traditional Sunni monarchies, and Sunni Islamists with Wahhabist groupings are generally indicative of the political order in the Middle exists in regional Politics , but it is not between Sunnis and it is clear that the Shias fall on one side of the political divide and that they are generally opposed by theSunni Arab nationalists and Sunni Arab monarchists, the sectarian divisions becomeblurred when considering Sunni Islamists.

4 Divisions within Sunni Islamism run deep andare extremely important, both to the regional balance of power and to the United States effor t s t o com batterrorism, for example. In fact, the division that will shape the future ofArabpolitics is not between Sunnis and Shias butamongvariousunderstandings distinct forms of Sunni IslamismexistintheArabMiddleEast,eachwit haseparate history and world view. In reality these forms of Islamismare not even the sametype of a theological movement withitsor igins in pr e-moder n Ar is a modern political ideologywithrootsin the cosmopolitan cities of20thcentur y overlapexistsbetween these movements (just as there arein any two ideologies), they remain distinct. The firstmovementis Wahhabismandfollowsthe theological teachings of the18thcentury reformer, Muhammad ibn abd al-Wahhab.

5 Thesecond movement is the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization that emergedin20thcentury Egypt. Each of these movementsoriginatedinlargely unrelated been completely different, as aretheir goals and means forachievingthem. One of the primary aims of this monograph is to disentangle the positions ofthesetwo groups so that policymakers can better understand the strategic balance and potentialthreats in the Middle differentiation is important because scholars andpolicymakers have often confused Wahhabism and the Muslim , Islamism isviewed as a monolithic movement with the onlyvariationbeingthe level ofextremism or moderation that an individual or organization professes. In fact, terms suchas extremist and moderate ar e completely inadequateindistinguishing Islamism has eluded cor r ect under standing for a number of r are not formally organized andthusvery difficult to study.

6 Some scholars havecompletely over Jordan for instance, many researchersconsiderIslamismsynonymous with the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that Wahhabists make up anincreasing number ofIslamistsin Jordan and consider their ideology to be diametrically2 Foreign Policy Research Instituteopposed to the Muslim other instances, westerners simply fail todistinguish between differing groups of Muslims. A Note on Terms and DefinitionsPoorly defined termsplaguethe study of Islamism. A closer look at a few terms willhighlight theproblemand provide necessary clarity for the study that problematictermsis Salafist Islam. Asalafin Ar abic is an ear ly ancestor and oftenrefers to someone from the founding generation of Islam.

7 Salafist Islam,therefore,attemptsto return to the Islam practiced by Muhammad, his companions, and the first generationofMuslims. It disregards the centuries of innovation and development that took place in themiddle ages and early modern period. The problem, of course,isdetermininghow Islamwas practiced in the first generations and Understanding why. For example,sincethe firstgeneration of Islam, Islamic law permitted a Muslim man to marry as many as four the time, this was considered a significant advancement for women since no restrictionsexistedpreviously on the number of wives a man could s rights. The problem for Salafism is whether to abide by the exactterms of the law, or appeal to its essence which was beneficial are both compatible with Salafist Islam.

8 In contemporaryArabic, Salafism normally refers to strict literalists,butthe fir st Muslims to popular ize theterm were late 19thcentury reformers who wanted to get away from strict literalism. Today modernistreformerswhoattempttoliveaccord ingtothespiritof ear ly Islamic law, andliteralists who reject any innovation not spelled out in the canonical texts, both claim ,Salafistsrange from liberal-progressivesto within Salafism not only divide Islamists but ,some scholars lump a modernist such as the19thcentury reformer, Jamal al-dinal-Afghani, together with strict literalistslikethelate20thcentury Mufti of Saudi Arabia,Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz. In reality,thesemenhave almost nothing incommonand yet each considers himself to althoughal-Afghani s and ibn Baaz sdefinitions of Salafism are mutually exclusive, someresearchershaveactuallylinkedthemwhe n no such ther complicating the situation,other terms used to describe the literalistSalafism of ibn Baaz ar e equally pr oblematic.

9 In the West, his br and of Salafism is oftenreferred to as Wahhabism, but Muslimstowhom westerners refer as Wahhabists wouldnever use the term to describe themselves. In fact, enemies of Wahhabists first usedtheterm to discredit Wahhabists andlinkthem to the teachings of one man, Muhammad ibnabd al-Wahhab. The Wahhabists prefer to call themselves Salafists because it implies thatthey are following not a single man but the example of the Prophet Muhammad and of this history, some scholars have shied away from the term Wahhabismand have preferred to use Salafism in its place. The problem, of course, is thatviewingSalafism and Wahhabism as equivalent terms creates confusion when groups like the1 See: Quintan Wiktorowicz, The Salafi Movement in Jordan, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol.

10 32, no. 2 (May 2000).3 Foreign Policy Research InstituteMuslim Brotherhood, which rejects Wahhabism, calls itself Salafist. The lack of adequateterminology has led some to believe, incorrectly, that the Brotherhood is Wahhabist. Toavoid confusion, I will therefore refer to the followers of Muhammad ibn abd al-Wahhab asWahhabists and refrain, as much as possible, from using the term have led researchers and policymakers astray. Islamicstate or Is la m ic la w mean very little by themselves. Different groups use I hope to show, while Wahhabists and the Muslim Brotherhood both usethese, and other similar terms, their definitionsvaryand sometimesareeven language of the Muslim Brotherhood and theWahhabists,eachgroup s history and ideology needs to be examined.


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