A thousand words!
The ISL NAZI Reich in Context
Obama’s quest to find friendly enemies
among his enemy’s enemies
Frida Ghitis, the columnist made this assertion recently:
“If president Obama can pull off the complicated maneuver of eradicating the Islamic State without handing a victory to Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad and his Shiite allies in Iran and Iraq, he will salvage the foreign policy record of his presidency. The task is extraordinarily challenging for many reasons.”
That's for sure.
Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Iran has 66 million to 70 million Shias, or 37-40% of the world’s total Shia population. Iraq, India and Pakistan each are home to at least 16 million Shias.
So if helping the Shiite leader Al Assad defeat the Sunni-backed ISIS not only helps Iran and Iraq it should also benefit our allies in Pakistan and India, if the logic holds. In four countries – Iran, Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Iraq – Shia Muslims make up a majority of the total population.
And it might create some concern in Lebanon where Hizbullah, Hizballah, etc.—is a Shi'a Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon but primarily funded by Iran. But the Shiites are a minority. Lebanon's population is estimated to be 48% Muslim (25% Shia; 23% Sunni).
Instead, it seems, Obama has decided to make his enemy’s enemy his friends by backing the Syrians who are not Shiites, and those are the Sunnis, Christians and Kurds; buying them some fancy war boots and letting them do the walking against ISIS and Al Assad. And why should they fight ISIS and the Shiite Assad on our behalf?
1. The US and its allies will give them some fine weapons and most of the men in this region really appreciate a good weapon.
2. The leaders of ISIS are seeking both a self-proclaimed caliphate to politically rule all Muslims, and religious authority over all Muslims across the world. Muslims don't like to be told what to do by anyone but their own leaders.
3. ISIS identifies itself as jehadist Sunni, not unlike the early Taliban under Osama Bin Laden, but far more rutheless and willing to murder across tribal and family ties a far less interested in enforcing the Quoran.
And that is the reason why Obama has tried to alter the religious landscape by claiming the ISL or ISIS is not Islamic. By doing so he is attempting to blur the Sunni background of its leaders and diffuse the potential problems inherent in asking Sunnis to join with Shiites, Kurds and Christians to kill Sunnis. “
“No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim,” Obama said. “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”
Let us put aside the contrived labels and look at this Islamic conflict in historic terms. The competition is, as it has always been, among the Sunni tribes and the Shiite tribes (Shia) whatever else they call themselves.
The Islamic radicals are simply the members of those two rival political/religious groups who are willing to murder anyone and everyone to achieve the destruction of their rivals under the bogus façade of their religious background.
Now ISL has emerged like the NAZI version of Islamic radicalism willing to slaughter Sunni and Shia, women and children to accomplish its Reich, the Caliphate Reich that dominates all Muslims and their natural resources.
But you cannot start with nothing and create a movement. You need a tradition of retribution and some festering hate.
It began with Muhammad's death in AD 632, when disagreement broke out over who should succeed him as leader of the Muslim community. None of Muhammad's sons survived into adulthood, therefore direct hereditary succession was never an option.
Umar (Umar ibn al-Khattab), a prominent companion of Muhammad, nominated Abu Bakr. Others added their support and Abu Bakr was made the first caliph. This choice was disputed by some of Muhammad's companions, who held that Ali (Ali ibn Abi Talib), had been designated his successor.
Ali bin Abu Talib was a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, the son of the Prophet's uncle Abu Talib.
Muhammad Ali was adopted into the Prophet's household when he was a young boy, and he embraced Islam at an early age.
Ali married the Prophet's daughter, Fatima, and lived a very humble life. The couple had two children, Hassan and Hussain. Ali was known for being brave and heroic, frequently fighting in defense of the Muslim community. He became known as "the lion of Allah."
The Shia Muslims believe that following the Prophet Muhammad's death, leadership should have passed directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali bin Abu Talib.
Throughout history, Shia Muslims have not recognized the authority of elected Muslim leaders, choosing instead to follow a line of Imams which they believe have been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad or God Himself; the Islamic version of Catholic bishops.
The word "Shia" in Arabic means a group or supportive party of people. The commonly-known term is shortened from the historical "Shia-t-Ali," or "the Party of Ali." They are also known as followers of "Ahl-al-Bayt" or "People of the Household" (of the Prophet).
Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by many of the Prophet's companions, that the new leader should be elected from among those capable of the job. This is what was done, and the Prophet Muhammad's close friend and advisor, Abu Bakr, became the first Caliph of the Islamic nation. The word "Sunni" in Arabic comes from a word meaning "one who follows the traditions of the Prophet."
In both sects the belief of the other is considered apostacy if not heresy punishable by death or other serious punishment. It may seem as trivial to us in the West as the rift among those who believe that faith alone saves men and those who believe good works are also required for salvation seems to Muslims. In both cases the division has festered into generations of violence and retribution.
Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq according to the Pew Research Center report: Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population.
Sunnis include followers of the Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki and Hanbali schools of Islamic jurisprudence as well as the Wahhabi or Salafi movement.
Shias include Ithna Asharis (Twelvers), Ismailis, Zaydis, Alevis and Alawites.
There also are a few Muslim groups that are difficult to classify as either Sunni or Shia. These include Kharijites in Oman and the Nation of Islam movement in the United States, as well as the Druze, who are located primarily in and around Lebanon.
Living as Majorities and Minorities
While 80% of the world’s Muslims live in countries where Muslims are in the majority, significant numbers – about one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population – live as religious minorities in their home countries.
Of the roughly 317 million Muslims living as minorities, about 240 million – about three-quarters – live in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million). Two of the 10 countries with the largest number of Muslims living as minorities are in Europe: Russia (16 million) and Germany (4 million).
These minority populations are often quite large. For example, India, a Hindu-majority country, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. The Muslim population of Ethiopia is about as large as that of Afghanistan. China has more Muslims than Syria; Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined; and Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon.
Between 116 million and 147 million Shias live in Asia, representing about three-quarters of the world’s Shia population (note that Iran is included in the Asia-Pacific region). Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of the world’s Shias (36 million to 44 million) live in the Middle East-North Africa.
Looked at in a different way, 12-15% of the Muslim population in the Asia-Pacific region is Shia, as is 11-14% of the Muslim population in the Middle East-North Africa region. The figures for Shias are generally given as a range because of the limitations in the secondary-source data, according to the Pew Study.
More than half the countries in the Middle East-North Africa region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater. These include Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Western Sahara and Yemen.
Other countries in the region also have populations with a high percentage of Muslims, including Syria (92%), Oman (88%), Bahrain (81%), Qatar (78%), United Arab Emirates (76%) and Sudan (71%).
Although most of the citizens of the Persian Gulf countries of Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and United Arab Emirates are Muslim, these countries have a substantial number of non-Muslim workers who are not citizens; this brings down the total percentage of their populations that is Muslim.
North Africa is home to the three largest Muslim populations in the Middle East-North Africa region: Egypt (79 million), Algeria (34 million) and Morocco (32 million).
Other countries in the region with large Muslim populations include: Iraq (30 million), Sudan (30 million), Saudi Arabia (25 million), Yemen (23 million), Syria (20 million) and Tunisia (10 million).
The population of the remaining 11 countries and territories in the region – Libya, Jordan, Palestinian territories, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain and Western Sahara – totals about 31 million.
The Palestinian territories are home to about 4 million Muslims. In addition, Israel is home to roughly 1 million Muslims, slightly more than Qatar. Although Israel has a Muslim population similar in size to those of some western European countries, Muslims constitute a much larger portion (about 17%) of its population. By comparison, the United Kingdom is home to between 1 million and 2 million Muslims, about 3% of its total population.
Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Iran has 66 million to 70 million Shias, or 37-40% of the world’s total Shia population. Iraq, India and Pakistan each are home to at least 16 million Shias.
Sizeable numbers of Shias (1 million or more) are found in Turkey, Yemen, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Nigeria and Tanzania. Shias constitute a relatively small percentage of the Muslim population elsewhere in the world. About 300,000 Shias are estimated to be living in North America, including both the U.S. and Canada, constituting about 10% of North America’s Muslim population.
Shia Muslims are in the majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and, according to some estimates, Yemen. There are large Shia communities in Afghanistan, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Egypt
Shia are 2% of the population.
Malaysia
Malaysia bans Shias from promoting their faith.
Bahrain
Over two thirds of the citizen population of Bahrain are Shia Muslims. The ruling Al Khalifa family, who are Sunni Muslim, arrived in Bahrain from Qatar at the end of the eighteenth century. Thus the Sunni rule the majority Shiites
Indonesia
I
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world which is dominated by Sunni.
Lebanon
The most recent study conducted by Statistics Lebanon, a Beirut-based research firm, found that Lebanon's population is estimated to be 48% Muslim (25% Shia; 23% Sunni), 4.6% Druze, who do not consider themselves to be Muslims, 46.4% Christian.
Hezbollah (pronounced /ˌhɛzbəˈlɑː/;[9][10] Arabic: حزب الله Ḥizbu 'llāh, literally "Party of Allah" or "Party of God")—also transliterated Hizbullah, Hizballah, etc.—is a Shi'a Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon but primarily funded by Iran.[12][13][14] Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council;[15][16] once seen as a resistance movement throughout much of the Arab world,[12] this image upon which the group's legitimacy rested has been severely damaged due to the sectarian nature of the Syrian Civil War in which it has become involved since 2012
United Arab Emirates (Dubai)
The United Arab Emirates is a federation of absolute hereditary monarchies. It is governed by a Federal Supreme Council made up of the seven emirs of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah and Umm al-Qaiwain. All responsibilities not granted to the national government are reserved to the emirates. A percentage of revenues from each emirate is allocated to the UAE's central budget.]
Article 7 of the UAE's Provisional Constitution declares Islam the official state religion of the Union. The Government funds or subsidizes almost 95 percent of Sunni mosques and employs all Sunni imams; approximately 5 percent of Sunni mosques are entirely private, and several large mosques have large private endowments. The government distributes guidance on religious sermons to mosques and imams, whether Sunni or Shi'a, and monitors all sermons for political content. Shias are 10%-20% of UAE's native population.
Saudi Arabia
Islam is the state religion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the location of the cities of Mecca and Medina, where Muhammad, the messenger of the Islamic faith, lived and died, and which attracts millions of pilgrims annually, and thousands of clerics and students who come from across the Muslim world to study. The official title of the King of Saudi Arabia is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"—the two being Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina—considered the holiest in Islam. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the Arabic language, the language of the Quran, the central religious text of Islam.
In the 18th century a pact between Islamic preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and a regional emir, Muhammad bin Saud, brought a fiercely puritanical strain of Sunni Islam first to the Najd region and then to the Arabian Peninsula. Referred to by supporters as "Salafism" and by others as "Wahhabism", this interpretation of Islam became the state religion and interpretation of Islam espoused by Muhammad bin Saud and his successors, (the Al Saud family), who eventually created the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
In modern day Saudi Arabia, the Sunnis limit Shia political participation. Saudi Shias comprise roughly 15% of the 28 million Saudis (estimate 2012)
Unlike Iraq and Lebanon which have a sizable number of wealthy Shia, Saudi Arabia has nothing resembling Shia elite of any kind. There have been no Shia cabinet ministers. They are kept out of critical jobs in the armed forces and the security services.
Iran
Islam is the religion of 98% of Iranians. 89% of Iranians are Shi'a and 9% are Sunni, most Sunnis in Iran are Larestani people (from Larestan), Turkomen, Baluchs, and Kurds living in the south, southeast, northeast and northwest.
Almost all of Iranian Shi'as are Twelvers. Iranians are do not consider themselves a part of the Arab world.
Iraq
More than half of the population of Iraq (ca. 60%-70%) are Shia Muslims. Most Iraqis identify strongly with a clan (العشيرة 'ashira). Thirty of the 150 or so identifiable tribes in Iraq are the most influential. Tribes are grouped into federations (qabila). Below the tribe, there are the clan (الفخذ fukhdh), the house (البيت beit) and the extended family (الخمس khams).
On its accession to power in 1968, the Ba'ath party announced its opposition to tribalism ( القبلية al-qabaliyya), although for pragmatic reasons, especially during the war with Iran, tribalism was sometimes tolerated and even encouraged.
The Ba'th Party was founded in 1943 in Damascus, Syria, by Michel ʿAflaq and Ṣalaḥ al-Dīn al-Bīṭār, adopted its constitution in 1947, and in 1953 merged with the Syrian Socialist Party to form the Arab Socialist Ba’th (Renaissance) Party. The Ba'ath Party espoused nonalignment and opposition to imperialism and colonialism, took inspiration from what it considered the positive values of Islam, and attempted to ignore or transcend class divisions. Its structure was highly centralized and authoritarian.
The Syrian Ba'athists took power in 1963, but factionalism between “progressives” and “nationalists” was severe until 1970, when Ḥafiz al-Assad of the “nationalists” secured control. In Iraq the Ba’athists took power briefly in 1963 and regained it in 1968, after which the party’s power became concentrated under Iraqi leader Ṣaddām Ḥussein.
Differences between the Iraqi and Syrian wings of the Baʿth Party precluded unification of the two countries. Within both countries the Baʿthists formed fronts with smaller parties, including at times the communists. In Syria the main internal threat to Baʿth hegemony stemmed from the Muslim Brotherhood, while in Iraq Kurdish and Shīʿite opposition was endemic. The Iraqi branch of the party was toppled in 2003 as a result of the Iraq War.
Syria
Sunnis make up 74% of the total, mostly of Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman ethnicities. Shia's make up the remaining 13%: Alawites are the predominant Shia group, followed by Twelvers and Ismailis. Sunnis are mainly of the Shafi'i madhhab with pockets of Hanafi and Hanbali.
Afghanistan
Islam is the official state religion of Afghanistan, with approximately 99.7% of the Afghan population being Muslim. About 80-90% practice Sunni Islam, belonging to the Hanafi Islamic law school, while 10-20% are Shias. Majority of the Shiites belong to the Twelver branch and only a smaller number follow Ismailism.
al-Qaeda
Arabic: [ælqɑːʕɪdɐ], translation: "The Base" and alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida) is a global militant Islamist and Wahhabist (Sunni) organization founded by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other militants, at some point between August 1988[26] and late 1989, with origins traceable to the Soviet war in Afghanistan
ISIS
The Islamic State (IS) (Arabic: الدولة الإسلامية ad-Dawlah l-ʾIslāmiyyah), formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL /ˈaɪsəl/; Arabic acronym: داعش Dāʿish) or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS /ˈaɪsɪs/),[a] is a Sunni jihadist group in the Middle East. In its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate, it claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world[66] and aspires to bring most of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its political control beginning with Iraq, Syria and other territories in the Levant region which include Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus and part of southern Turkey.[68]
ISIS was preceded by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), that was established during October 2006, and comprised of various insurgent groups, most significantly the original Al Qaeda Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers (AQI) organization, al-Qaeda in Mesopotami - led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Mujahedeen Shura Council in Iraq, and Jund al-Sahhaba (Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions), which was integrated into the ISI.
ISIS members' allegiance was given to the ISI commander and not al-Qaeda central command. The organisation known as the ISIS was formed during April 2013 and has evolved in one of the main jihadist groups fighting government forces in Syria and Iraq. ISIS regards Baquba, Iraq, as its headquarters with its allegiance to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as the group’s emir. Baghdadi’s real name is Hamed Dawood Mohammed Khalil al-Zawi.
Taliban
The majority of the Taliban are made up of Afghan Pashtun tribesmen. The Taliban's leaders were influenced by Deobandi fundamentalism, and many also strictly follow the social and cultural norm called Pashtunwali.[27]
The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān "students"), alternative spelling Taleban, is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. It spread throughout Afghanistan and formed a government, ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001, with Kandahar as the capital. However, it gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Mohammed Omar is the founder and has been serving as the spiritual leader of the Taliban since its foundation in 1994.[21]