After the death of Muhammad, Islam’s founder, in 632 AD, his followers disagreed over a successor (Caliph), thus ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’ branches of Islam were established, each later subdivided many times.
Sunnis advocated the leadership of the most qualified (Sunnis are now a strong, but shrinking, Muslim majority). Shiites insisted that the Caliph be the dead leader’s blood relative, as with royalty. Over the centuries until today, much blood has been spilled in conflict between the two groups. Although most Muslim countries contain sizeable numbers of both groups, for much of the past 100 years Saudi Arabia has led the Sunnis while Iran led the Shiites.
The recent collapse of law and order in parts of Syria and Iraq provided opportunities for radical Sunni Islamists to flood in by thousands from neighbouring countries. Mostly financed by rich Sunni Arabs, they arrived from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, other Arab and Gulf states, and places farther away like Bosnia, Chechnya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Even West European and North American jihadists have come. They hold one common objective – to re-establish the lost dream of a worldwide Islamic shari’a law-ruled nation.
A Worldwide Islamic theocracy
On June 30, ISIS or ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ (occupying parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq) announced a name change to ‘Islamic Nation’ (IN). Its leader, Abu Bakr el-Baghdady, was declared Mohammad’s new Caliph (successor) and all Muslims worldwide required to swear allegiance to him. A week later, a map of their ‘nation’ was published, claiming all the Middle East, most of Eastern and Western Europe, twothirds of Africa, all Western Asia, including much of India as well as Indonesia and other parts of the Far East. While world leaders may not take the claims of the new ‘Islamic Nation’ seriously, some Sunni Muslims are euphoric about the development.
Violence, fear, hatred and killing
As soon as Islamic Nation militants entered the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, they detained all official and security personnel suspected of disloyalty, including police and army officers plus local Sunni political, religious, and business leaders. In one hour they summarily condemned and publicly executed over 160 men in a Mosul square. Thus, as soon as his armed men came near to other cities, towns, villages and neighbourhoods, they were intimidated to declare loyalty to Baghdady. Local people in Iraq, Syria, and the surrounding region, including most Sunnis, are gripped with intense fear. All who could escape fled to other areas of Iraq and Syria or neighbouring countries.
This development has so far newly displaced over three million people. In less than four weeks, about 4,000 people have been executed by Islamic Nation in north and west Iraq alone. Many more are hiding or running for their lives. IN has formally demanded Shiites, Christians, and other minorities in areas under their control to convert to Sunni Islam, or cease from public religious practices and pay special taxes, or must leave, or face death by the sword.
The Iraq and Syria wars
Against the advice of those knowledgeable of the history and nature of the region, Western powers got involved in the Iraq and Syria wars. The consequences continue to unfold. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost; millions more grieve the loss of family members, homes, and entire livelihoods. Christians and other minorities in both countries have suffered the most from the resulting collapse of regional equilibrium. The rise of a new violent rivalry between radical Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups is fuelling more terrorism.
The impact
On the surface it appears there is a strong resurgence of a violent Islamic theocracy. Ironically, however, it has caused an unprecedented level of disenchantment since Islam’s rise 14 centuries ago. A young female journalist published an Arabic article, widely circulated on the Internet, announcing: ‘The death of our Islamic religion is at hand!’ She referred to 3,272 terrorist attacks attributed to Muslims on the soils of 37 nations from 1969 to 2005, with many more since then. (She lives in Syria, enjoying the secular government’s protection.)
One of the bloggers, a Tunisian intellectual, identified only as H.I., responded: ‘Yes! And our growing network of enlightened men and women from Tunisia and Algeria who abandoned this religion is already more than 260,000 strong. They include my father and two uncles who were among the most devout in North Africa’. He added that the numbers not officially linked to his network are in the millions, with many millions more in the urban areas of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and other Gulf states.
In the Lord’s goodness some are attracted to Christ. T.A.M. of Saudi Arabia says: ‘Issa [Jesus] is surely and truly the Light of the World... I wish that all Muslims, even all people have eyes to see what I now see...’
