The children of Fatah supporters now scream insults at their Hamas counterparts in the streets of Gaza, calling them Safavid and Shiites. The Safavid Empire is a footnote in history, and its people were not Arabs. The Hamas are not Shiites, they are Sunnis. These insults require more explanation: the Arabs are great students of history, if we are not.
Within sight of the mysterious Kaaba, holiest and most central point of all Islam, the Saudis are angrily gripping the sleeves of Hamas and Fatah’s representatives, attempting to put an end to the current infighting within the Palestinian communities. I use the plural, for there is no single Palestinian community.
The Saudis, self-appointed Guardians of the Holy Shrines, have purposely and meaningfully drawn the Hamas and Fatah delegates within the walls of Mecca and within sight of the Kaaba to negotiate. The symbolism is inescapable: though the Saudi Kingdom is resolutely Salafi / Wahaabi, they host every Muslim of every sect, disarming, undressing and dressing them in white pilgrim’s robes before they may enter into Mecca. While the Hamas and Fatah argue, thousands of Muslims ceaselessly orbit the Kaaba, every hour of every day of every year. In that city, the rich and poor are dressed alike: in that place, sectarian identification is forbidden. Sunni and Shiite, Hamas and Fatah are equal.
Hamas is an Islamic institution, child of the Islamic Jihad, and refuses to acknowledge the State of Israel. Yasser Arafat’s Fatah is a secular organization, and does recognize the State of Israel. The current Mecca agreement makes no mention of Israel, or the continuing problems between Hamas and Fatah.
While he had his freedom, Arafat would attend Christmas Eve services in Bethlehem, at the Church of the Nativity. While Israel confined him to his headquarters, Arafat’s kaffiyeh headdress was folded on a seat in the front row of the Church of the Nativity. Sadly, the Christians of Bethlehem have mostly left their homes, that historic town and church are no longer safe for them. The Church of the Nativity was besieged in April and May of 2002, hundreds of Arafat’s fighters holed up in that sacred place, leaving behind a terrific mess. Few tourists now visit Bethlehem, and the West Bank sinks into grinding poverty and isolation behind Israel’s imposing walls of separation.
I make no apology for Arafat, but it is useful to understand Arafat’s position was secular, and Fatah had the support of many Arab Christians.
Iran funds Hamas. Why would Shiite Iran fund Sunnis, while Sunnis and Shiites fight in Iraq? Hamas seeks to overthrow the State of Israel and found an Islamic state. Fatah hates Israel no less than Hamas, but it seeks to establish a secular state.
All this you know, and it scarcely bears repeating. We in the West view the picture of the current struggles in the Middle East cropped down to our involvement since WW2 and the foundation of the State of Israel. The children of Fatah who scream Safavid and Shiite at their Hamas enemies see themselves as figures in a landscape, in a vastly larger frame. We should enlarge our own frame of reference: Ambrose Bierce once remarked "Americans learn their geography from the war reporting." Herodotus, the writer of the first tour guide book said, "The untutored eye sees nothing". To understand the geography, we must first come to terms with the history, especially as it is understood by the troublesome factions whose endless fighting drags us, inevitably, into these situations.
The fighting between Hamas and Fatah is but a microcosm of other such struggles going on across the world. In Pakistan and Iraq, Shiite mosques are bombed, followed by dreadfully predictable reprisals against Sunnis. In Detroit, two Shiite facilities have been vandalized, and fingers now point to sectarian culprits. Islamic authorities grow fearful of Fitna, among the worst of all sins in the Islamic canon: Muslims must never fight against each other, it is multiply and explicitly forbidden by Muhammad the Prophet. It is routinely condemned in our times as well, may I refer the reader to this authoritative Fatwa against the killing of civilians and the invocation of Fitna. Honest Muslims are as horrified as we are by the disgusting Fitna. How could Islam have come to this sorry pass?
This horrid war in Iraq has taught the words Sunni and Shiite. I do not propose to explicate the matter completely, except to say Islam’s divisions are as much political as religious, and religious labels are often applied to purely political divisions. We must see further into the problem, beyond the theological labels, into the history and politics.
Here we encounter the Safavid Empire I consider this link required reading, for I will not reiterate simple history. It is enough to say the Safavid Empire emerged from the chaos and slaughter of the Turkish-Mongol Empire of Tamerlane on the one hand and the Sunni Ottoman Empire on the other, militantly Shiite in form. The Safavid emperors cruelly repressed all forms of Islam but their own form of orthodox Shiism, despite the fact their namesake, Safi al-Din, was a mystic Sufi. The Safavid Empire was nearly constantly at war with the Ottomans. The Safavids conquered Baghdad, lost it, regained it, and lost it again.
How hateful children are, how cruelly accurate are their curses! Calling a Sunni a Safavid is to say in a word what a month of history could not convey. Sunni Hamas has compromised itself deeply by accepting the King’s Shilling from Iran’s Shiite regime. Hamas, until now, despised Fatah for its rapprochement with Jewish Israel: now Hamas is as guilty of conniving with the historical oppressors of Sunnism.
The fires of the Safavid Empire slowly died out, as the Silk Road lost its importance. Khan succeeded Khan, each more disgusting and effete than the previous Khan. The Safavid emperors paid fortunes to foreign mercenaries, but it did not save them. Eventually, the last of the Safavid emperors were murdered off, and the Qajar dynasty made Tehran its capital city. The legacy of the Safavid emperors was Imperial Shiism and a legacy of intolerance. How entirely fitting to hear it in the mouths of small Muslim children, cursing the murderous zealotry within their own camp.