The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future - Hardcover

Nasr, Vali

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393062112 ISBN 13: 9780393062113

Publisher: W. W. Norton, 2006

Synopsis

The critical struggle between Shia and Sunni for the future of the Middle East.

To most Western eyes, all Islamic movements look alike, and the central conflict in the Middle East is one between religion and secularism. Shockingly little has been written about the bitter divide between Shia and Sunni. Yet without understanding their ancient conflict—and its modern embodiment in the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for political and spiritual leadership of the Muslim world—it is impossible to comprehend events across the so-called Shia Crescent, from East Africa through Iraq and Pakistan to India.

The provocative rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Saudi pressure on the United States not to unseat Saddam Hussein in 1991, the critical role of the Ayatollah Sistani and the religious establishment in Najaf (Iraq), the volatility of Pakistan today, and the consequences of the shift toward Shia power through American intervention—all this and more is explained in the light of the Shia/Sunni divide.

About this title

About the Author:

Vali Nasr is professor of Middle East and South Asia politics and associate chair of research at the Department of National Security at the Naval Postgraduate School. He lives in La Jolla, California.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* About 15 percent of Muslims worldwide are Shia. In Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain, Shia constitute a majority or plurality of the populace, and areas of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (in the latter, the oil fields) host Shia majorities. Iran's Islamic Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini, which rushed Islam to the forefront of non-Islamic consciousness internationally, was a Shia phenomenon. Iranian Middle East researcher Nasr, who teaches, consults, and writes in the U.S., says that Khomeini was rather a maverick who discountenanced the quietism, ritualism, and celebratoriness of mainstream Shia. If that is a revelation to Westerners, so, probably, are Nasr's arguments that the Shia have been persecuted and oppressed by the Sunni majority ever since the divergence of the two Islamic strains more than 1,300 years ago, and that Islamic terrorism from well before 9/11 to the current insurgency in post-Saddam Iraq is a tactic of intransigent Sunnism. Nasr never pontificates or accuses, always choosing to show both sides' reasons for even the most heinous actions. He never so much as hints at what many readers must infer from his presentation--that the U.S. should think again and again and again before attacking Iran. So enlightening and perspective altering that no one concerned about the Middle East should miss reading it. Ray Olson
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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0393062112
• ISBN 13: 9780393062113
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 287