It was with great shock that I read a report entitled “Shi’ites Threaten Nigeria’s Security, say Islamic scholars” in the 7/7/2011 edition of The Nation newspaper. Shiites are the second of the two branches of Islam: Sunni and Shia. They constitute about 20% of world Muslims and are between 5-10 million of Nigeria ’s population.
Therefore, if Shiites were really a security threat, then Nigeria is only managing its last breath! You can imagine how any country with 5-10 million people constituting security threats would look! Boko Haram, a strict Sunni group, formally known as Jama’at Ahli Sunnah li Da’wah wa al-Jihad (the Sunni group for Islamic propagation and Holy War), are at most only a few thousands in number. We all are witnesses to how they have held the country hostage. Even the police headquarters is no longer a safe haven.
Every man is now his own real guard, and God is the Protector of us all. The atmosphere is indeed very tense. Nigerians are much more security-wary and panicky than ever; and the slightest prospects of terror campaign could send jitters all over the country. Responsible journalism demands that, in this kind of situation and at all other times, any report of a security threat must be absolutely genuine and based upon reasonable proofs. This is what is expected from The Nation as a responsible newspaper. We expect to see exactly what this new mammoth threat was.
The report, written by one Adekunle Jimoh, was about an annual seminar organised by As-Sunnah Academy for Da’awah and Research, held at Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara State. The seminar was titled: “Shi’ism Incursion And The Attendant Threat To Communal Peace and National Security.” The As-Sunnah Academy like Al-Hikmah University is run by a portion of Sunnis, who take opposing other Muslims, particularly Shiites, as their religious responsibility. So, ordinarily,
I would never take what this types of “Sunnis” say about Shiites, or vice versa, seriously unless tangible evidence is produced. There is every likelihood of bias in any such unsubstantiated claims, considering the extremely hostile history between the main branches of Islam.
The so-called Islamic “scholars” while referring to Shiites asserted that “the worst and most dangerous of them is a group, known as Al-ithnaa Asariyyah.” To an uninformed Nigerian readership, this suggests that a number of Shiites in Nigeria and elsewhere have come together to form a dangerous organization called Al-ithnaa Asariyyah. This casts a huge shadow on the “knowledge” and honesty of these so-called “Sunni scholars”. First and foremost, Al-ithnaa Asariyyah is an utterly meaningless phrase! Perhaps, these “scholars” wanted to say Al-Ithna Ashariyyah (i.e. the Twelvers), which is one of the formal names of Shiites. They are called the Twelvers on account of their belief in the twelve Imams after the Prophet Muhammad. It is quite strange that these Sunni “scholars” could not even spell this common Arabic phrase correctly!
The so-called “Sunni scholars” repeatedly referred to the Shiite creed as “evil beliefs” without making any attempt to pinpoint any particular “evil” Shiite belief. They, as I have already indicated, also called Nigerian Shiites “worst” and “most dangerous”. I started to wonder what these “scholars” sought to achieve by classifying 5-10 million Nigerians with such clearly defamatory terms. This is like if a group of Muslim clerics issued a communiqué calling all Nigerian Christians “worst”, “most dangerous” and holding “evil beliefs”. Such a step, obviously, would have been uncivilized, malicious and ill-intended. One would have rightly concluded that such
Muslims “scholars” had only wanted to incinerate Nigeria and set the lives, properties and reputation of millions of Nigerians in harm’s way. Security and law enforcement agencies would have been expected to act against such Muslim “scholars” in the interest of peace, security and national unity. These so-called “Sunni scholars” apparently sought to incite the Nigerian government and it good populace against millions of law-abiding citizens simply because they have chosen to follow the minority branch of Islam. They defamed and demonized Shiites and deliberately or ignorantly misrepresented them to create a phobia of them in the minds of Nigerians. The timing is equally mischievous. To achieve maximum rash reactions, these so-called “Sunni scholars” have placed this in the midst of the Boko Haram scare.
The whole episode climaxed into a farcical melodrama when the so-called “scholars” started giving their reasons for declaring Shiites a national security threat. Their communiqué states about the Shiite branch of Islam:
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“In particular, it has an automobile assembly in Senegal and a university in Ghana – both in West Africa – through which it lures unsuspecting citizens to its evil beliefs ; also gives scholarship to unsuspecting Muslims to study in various disciplines in Iranian institutes and universities, associates closely with people in high places and positions in government offices and agencies such as security forces, educational institutions and health organizations and the like, planting its adherents among them; employs the influence of the Iranian Embassy in Nigeria to assiduously propagate its evil beliefs among the top shots, ministers and other government officials in Nigeria.”
In the first place, these “scholars” have given no proofs for their statements. So, we can only take them with a pinch of salt. Besides, they have basically declared tens of millions of Nigerians to constitute a security threat! The differences between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims pale into insignificance when we consider the Christian view of Islam. Christianity regards Islam as a false religion, the Prophet Muhammad as a false prophet, and the Qur’an as a forgery. If the beliefs of Shiite Muslims are “evil” according to these Sunni “scholars”, then certainly Christian beliefs, to them, must be several times more evil! Of course, Christian business moguls from the West have established factories and plants here in Nigeria while Christian missionary organizations also operate several universities in the country. Sunni Muslims from Nigeria get scholarships, every year, to study various disciplines in European and American institutes and universities. Moreover, Christians spread their message to all classes of the society, including people in government and its agencies. There are also Christians in al cadres of the Nigerian political establishment.
Even the President, at this moment, is a Christian! Now, do all these facts make Christians a national security threat?! The weird logic of this apparently intolerant faction of “Sunni scholars” yells YES!
Interestingly, the so-called Shiite “automobile assembly in Senegal” that they mentioned is only a reference to SENIRAN Auto, a joint venture by Iran Khodro
Industrial Group (the largest automobile manufacturing company in the Middle East), the Senegalese government and the Senegalese private sector. It has absolutely nothing to do with Shiism. It is only a purely secular business partnership involving an Iranian company and the Senegalese nation. An initial capital of $70 million was invested in 2008, and the plant produces 10,000 automobile units every years. According to ikcopress.com, there are plans to increase the output to 30,000 per annum in the very near future. Senegal benefits both economically and technologically from the joint venture. In all honesty, it completely escapes sound logic how it makes Nigerian Shiites a national threat!
Moreover, the university in Ghana which the “scholars” cite as another reason why Nigerian Shiites are a national threat is only the Islamic University Ghana (iug.edu.gh and islamicug.com). It is a very small university founded by the Ahlul Bait Foundation of Iran in 1988 and was granted provisional accreditation by the Ghanaian National Accreditation Board with effect from 2001. It offers courses in business administration, religious studies, languages and computing. It is located in East Legon, Greater Accra Region, Ghana . Most of its Governing Council members are Ghanaian nationals, with a great number of them being Christians. Finally, it is an affiliate of the University of Ghana . For God’s sake, how logically does this university make Nigerian Shiites a national security threat?
These weird “scholars” capped everything with a last and only remaining “reason”. They stated that Shiism “declares Muslims other than its members unbelievers and thus declares their killing permissible by various means as long as it does not lead to their arrest.” This is the most criminal aspect of the entire report. There are two absurd fabrications here alone. Firstly, it is not true that Shiites consider Sunnis to be unbelievers. Grand Ayatullah Naasir Makaarim Ash-Shirazi states the official Shiite position on Sunnis in these words in his A Summary of Rulings According to the Verdicts of Grand Ayatullah Naasir Makaarim Ash-Shirazi: A Translation of His
Original Work Zubdatul-Ahkaam [trans. Ali Abdur-Rasheed] (First edition, 1996), page 12: “ISSUE 62: All of the Islamic sects are pure except the Nawasib who are at enmity with the infallible A’immah, peace be upon them, the Khawaarij and the Ghulaat who were extremists in the matter of the A’immah, upon them be peace, then they are in the ruling of a non-Muslim.” Sunnis are clearly excluded from the list of impure (disbelieving) peoples. Secondly, Shiites do not deem it permissible to kill any non-Muslims. The first Shiite Imam, Imam Ali, in his written instructions to his governor, Malik al-Ashtar, told him how to behave with his subjects (both
Muslims and non-Muslims: “Habituate your heart to MERCY for the subjects and to AFFECTION and KINDNESS for them. Do not stand over them like greedy beasts who feel it is enough to devour them, since they are of two kinds, either your brother in religion OR ONE LIKE YOU IN CREATION. They will commit slips and encounter mistakes.
They may act wrongfully, willfully or by neglect. So, extend to them your forgiveness and pardon, in the same way as you would like Allah to extend His forgiveness and pardon to you, because you are over them and your responsible Commander (Imam) is over you while Allah is over him who has appointed you through what He has given to you of the knowledge of His Book and the practices of His Prophet (p)”. See Abu Mohammed Al-Hasan bin Ali bin Al-Hussein bin Shu’ba Al-Harrani, Tuhaf Al-Uqoul:
The Masterpieces of the Intellects [trans. Badr Shahin] ( Qum , Iran : Ansariyan Publications; Second Reprint, 2004) p. 147. Look at that! Malik al-Ashtar was the governor, who had all the power to execute Sunnis and especially non-Muslims without any consequence. Yet, look at the clear instructions of the foremost Imam of all Shiites all over the world. In other words, Shiites are under obligation to consider Sunnis as Muslims, and to be merciful, loving and kind to all human beings, whatsoever their religion. What matters is that a person is a human being, and nothing else! My brothers and sisters, how does it make sense to consider such people a security threat?
I cannot end this article without making a few points about The Nation itself. On what basis did they publish the defamatory fabrications and false alarms of these so-called Sunni “scholars”? What did they find newsworthy in any part of their activities? Shouldn’t The Nation have condemned the saboteur activities of these ungodly “scholars” intended to breed hatred, intolerance and violence within the Nigerian society? However, it is possible that The Nation was only misled by its innocent reliance upon these so-called “scholars”, and therefore published that defamatory material wrongly believing it to be true. Perhaps, The Nation only wanted to alert the authorities to what they wrongly perceived as a genuine security threat! Nonetheless, it should have been more careful, considering the kind of childish “proofs” proffered by the “scholars”.
What is more? In which sect belong all the universally recognized Islamist terrorist groups across the world today? From which sect the groups are Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram eninate from? If these so-called “Sunni scholars” really want to help this country and the world, they should directly confront the crisis within their camp, rather than transferring the blame, creating diversions and brewing hate and violence as they are doing.
Abu Ishaq wrote in from Ilorin, Kwara State
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