Starred review from January 30, 2023
Matthiesen (The Other Saudis), a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Stanford University, delivers a monumental review of Suniism and Shiism’s complicated relationship. Tracing nearly 1,400 years, Matthiesen contends that “Islam’s foundational conflict” began as a political disagreement and devolved into a sectarian split defined by social, spiritual, and intellectual differences. Matthiesen takes readers from Karbala, Iraq, to Mount Tomor, Albania, and beyond, illustrating that while standard narratives of the Sunni/Shia split suggest a perennial state of conflict, the relationship has shifted constantly due to social and political forces. Focusing particularly on post-1500 history, Matthiesen examines conflicts between the Safavid and Ottoman empires (in which “Ottoman scholars extended the notion of jihad to justify going to war against fellow Muslims”), the post-WWI contest for hegemony (after colonial interventions, religious divisions were “institutionalized”), the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 to elucidate how Sunnis and Shiites are not “hermetically sealed” opposites, and took centuries to become distinct groups with cohesive identities. Matthiesen manages to balance thoughtful analysis of broad religious shifts with rigorous detail, making for a comprehensive yet readable resource. This is destined to become a standard text in the field.
January 1, 2023
Deeply researched history of the divergence of Shia and Sunni Islam and its geopolitical implications. The epicenter of the Shia and Sunni split lies in the middle of the always fiercely contested territory of Iraq, where the Battle of Karbala was fought in 680 B.C.E. On one side was an army led by Prophet Muhammad's grandson, massacred by the forces of the second caliph, who would lead the newly established religion. Shia embrace the claim of Muhammad's bloodline, Sunnis that of the caliphs, and both sides have solid reasons for their stances. Yet, global religious studies lecturer Matthiesen shows, "key doctrinal positions, such as the ideas that Sunnis accept the first four Caliphs and Shia only the Caliphate of Ali, developed over time, and some adopted a middle ground." Furthermore, notes the author, Sunnis and Shia have lived side by side without conflict; when the two factions come to blows, it is often because enmity has been put into motion by outside powers and proxies. Russia, for example, supported the Assad regime in Syria as a "continuation of Cold War ties," taking part in a genocide that was "the result of the activation of communal memory in the context of civil war, regional polarization, foreign intervention and the institutionalization of sectarian identity in the modern state." Meanwhile, the Islamic State group has attempted to rally the Shia in the Persian Gulf States to rise up against the hated Sunni Saudi Arabia even though many in the region consider IS "a Sunni vanguard against the Assad regime, Iran, and Shiism as a whole." The competition for regional supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran may unfold in superficially religious terms, but Matthiesen demonstrates that it goes far beyond merely sectarian considerations--and the U.S. has not been shy about taking sides. The split may never entirely heal, but in Iraq, all sides have resisted intervention by American hands. A lucid explanation of Islamic history in the context of both the ancient and modern worlds.
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