Imams and Emirs

State, Religion and Sects in Islam

Fuad Ishaq Khuri, Fuad I. Khuri

• Publisher: Saqi Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780863564260
• eBook ISBN: 9780863565182
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie islamique

In this classic, comprehensive study of Islamic sects in the contemporary Arab world, Khuri focuses on the Sunni, Shi'a, Alawis, Druze, Ibadis, Zaidis, Yazidis and the Maronites (who, although Christian, are included because they share certain distinguishing features). His placements of these groups on a single comparative scale was unprecedented. Khuri argues that conflicts among Muslims arise from the struggle between two opposing forces: religious, doctrinaire authorities (imams) and leaders who derive their authority from power and coercion (emirs). He discusses the role of dogma but also, uniquely, the critical factors that differentiate sects from religious communities and religions from sects. Following a thorough review of the structural characteristics of individual sects, Khuri addresses issues of religious change, dealing with the interplay between religions, states and nationalism. Here he explores the contradictions between modern state structures and the Islamic umma, showing how some religious concepts had begun to take on nationalistic meanings.

1

Introduction

I have always been fascinated by religion, particularly in Islam, but only decided to approach it systematically in 1978, after I had completed my book on Tribe and State in Bahrain (1980). Two things gave rise to this determination: the general sectarian orientation of Bahraini society and the devastating sectarian war in Lebanon. My work on Bahrain had convinced me that ‘sectarianism’ is a generalized phenomenon in the Middle East, and not peculiarly Lebanese. What is peculiar to Lebanon is the way sectarianism has been dealt with politically as an official policy of government. In Lebanon, it has been a public system; elsewhere in the Middle East, where the ideology of a ‘consensus society’ prevails, sectarianism is a publicly suppressed private system, a social taboo. Not that it is not a social or political force; it undoubtedly is. But people do not acknowledge it publicly. It is a ‘public secret’, so to speak.

The present work is a comparative study of Islamic sects with an emphasis on the ideology and organization of religion. ‘Ideology’ refers to the premises that are held true sui generis about the origin and formation of the religious community, and ‘organization’ to the recruitment, training and performance of the ulama specialists in society. Two basic themes dominate the text: one relating to the contradiction between sects and states, and the other between imams (the religious elite) and emirs (the power elite). The contradiction between imams and emirs takes different forms in different religious communities irrespective of whether they are adapted to state structures or to group sovereignties.

The various sects that emerged at different times in Islam were essentially instruments of moral control, operating in peripheral territories lying outside the domain of state authority. In this sense, sect and state stand in opposition to each other; and so do imams and emirs. Whereas sects manipulate moral ties, states use force, coercion and standardized legal references. In fact, one of the main concerns of the book is to deal with precisely the kind of religious ideology and organization that are adapted to state structures, as opposed to those adapted to the sectarian communities. The first is an instance of Sunni Islam; the second of sects in Islam.

In adapting to sovereign communities existing outside centralized authority, Islamic sects have developed peculiar instruments of control based on puritan and rebellious ideologies, diffuse religious organizations, intensified rituals and strict socio-religious codes. Take, for example, the way they deal with adultery, theft and divorce. According to Sunni law, adultery is punishable by stoning or whipping (sometimes to death), theft by hand-cutting and divorce strictly according to the terms of the marriage contract—these are all coercive measures subject to standard procedures. Among sects, by contrast, these transgressions are handled using moral measures. The Ibadis, the Druzes and the Yazidis excommunicate the adulterer and the thief until they repent publicly before a ‘court’ composed of a pious jury. Whereas the ‘jury’ in Sunni Islam are versed in Islamic law, among sects they are men of good religious reputation. Adultery among the Druzes is considered a serious crime, like murder or prostitution, and is punished by withholding the ‘prayers of mercy’ customarily recited at the funerals of the dead. Among the Ibadis, a divorcee is not permitted to remarry, and among the Druzes she is not allowed to see her husband, talk to him or sit in his council. On the other hand, the Sunni and the Shi‘a allow the man to remarry his divorced wife after she has been married to somebody else first.

The Sunni insistence on coercive measures and standard procedures is clearly an instance of religious adaptation to state structures. On the other hand, the sects’ insistence on the use of moralistic measures such as excommunication, separation, ‘mercy-giving’ and repentance provide clear instances of adaptation to small-scale sectarian communities. Even the Sunni preference for the exoteric understanding of the Qur’an could be considered an extension of this form of religious adaptation to centralized authority. No state could run its affairs on the basis of the esoteric understanding of the text of law. Unlike the exoteric and the explicit, which can be standardized, the esoteric and the implicit must remain fluid and elusive.

In brief, Sunni Islam, state structures, centralized authority, the exoteric understanding of the Qur’an, the centrality of religion, consensus, the resort to coercive measures in government, the tendency to standardize procedures—all these constitute a ‘fabric’ fitted together by the logic of power and conquest. By contrast, Islamic sects, peripheral status, the esoteric understanding of the Qur’an, the resort to moral measures and unstandardized procedures constitute a fabric suited to the maintenance of the sovereignty of the sectarian community.

Even the distinction between islam (surrender to law) and iman (faith) on the grounds that the first is an act of public policy and the second a matter of personal conviction can be interpreted in the same fashion. The Sunni, who use the logic of power and conquest, do not distinguish between islam and iman; abiding by the dictates of Islam is a measure of faith, and any deviation from one is a rebellion against the other. Religion among the Sunni is not simply a personal matter; it is a public right that cannot be forfeited by individual whims. This contrasts with the view of sects, which draw a sharp distinction between islam and iman, ranking the latter higher than the former. The Zaidis call themselves al-mu’minun (the faithful) and all other Muslims al-muslimun (the Muslims); the Ibadis believe that ‘there dwells an imam in every soul’, thus giving priority to iman (faith) over din (religion, Islam). The Druzes and the Alawis see iman and islam as instruments of esoteric knowledge and exoteric understanding respectively, assuming that religion cannot be perfected without knowledge of the esoteric.

The ‘peripherality’ of Islamic sects is closely linked to their rebellious character. All sects in Islam initially emerged as groups in rebellion against the established Sunni dogma and/or authority and developed later into routinized religious systems. Among some groups, such as the Shi‘a, rebelliousness continued as a ritualistic exercise, thus continuously reinforcing the collective consciousness of the sect. It often happened in Arab-Islamic history, however, that sects such as the Buwaihids, the Hamdanis and the Fatimids took power in individual states, but their influence either did not endure or was confined to particular regions in the Arab world. When individual sects came to dominate, they often followed non-assimilative, non-incorporative policies and their territorial expansion was consequently limited. There seems to be an inverse correlation between the status of the state and the rise of sects: as the authority of the centralized state weakens, sects erupt, spread and stabilize. It is not surprising, then, that a large number of Islamic sects emerged in the eighth and ninth centuries when the centralized state authority was weak.¹

The resort to moral instruments of control among sects has given rise to a comprehensive religious system covering a broad field of social interaction. Among sects, as we shall see, many aspects of social behaviour carry religious significance. Religious specialization and ‘presence’ proliferate in various directions, thus engulfing the totality of man’s day-to-day interpersonal relations. Strictly speaking and from the point of view of social control, din (religion)—the public deterrent—in state situations parallels the moral order—the private deterrent—in sectarian conditions.²

The fact that sects operate as instruments of control outside the domain of centralized authority by no means reflects upon the quality of faith, either positively or negatively. In this book, religious identity, including beliefs, rituals and symbols, is taken for granted; it is what the faithful believe it to be. We are concerned here mainly with the interplay between religious identity and collective behaviour, the focus being on the way or ways in which religious systems are adapted to state structures or, on the contrary, to the sovereignty of the sectarian community. While state-oriented groups, in this case the Sunni, manipulate the law, shari‘a (divine law) and coercion to enforce religious (public) order, the sects manipulate moral control. This is a case of law and shari‘a versus morality, or what the fourteenth-century Muslim Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun calls wazi (the internal deterrent). ³

Sects are seldom studied as religious phenomena. They are often dealt with as if they were mere historical realities, which obviously reflects a Sunni point of view. Ma‘ruf’s work on the Kharijis (1977), Laoust’s on schisms in Islam (1965), al-Zain’s on the Shi‘a (1979), al-Tawil’s on the Alawis (1966), Zakkar’s on the Qaramita (1980), Hitti’s on the Druzes (1928), Wilkinson’s on the Ibadis (1972) and Little’s on the Zaidis (1968) are but a few examples that illustrate the point. These works place more emphasis on the historical origin and development of individual sects than on religious ideology and organization, much to the detriment of the sects’ self-image.

The ‘expressive literature’ on sects regrets the fact that sects are dealt with as if they were historical accidents. On the contrary, sects believe they are eternally ordained manifestations of divinity. This ‘literature’ includes a wide variety of books written by people about themselves and their own sects. Not much of it has yet found its way into academic circles, where Islam has come to be understood mainly as a Sunni and then as a Shi‘a phenomenon. Islamic sects such as the Alawis, the Ibadis, the Druzes, the Zaidis and the Yazidis are more intensively studied for their ‘historical’ performance than for their religious dogma. The books mentioned above are not scholarly in the sense of searching for facts and truths, continuously building upon the findings of predecessors. They are meant to proselytize and to advocate peculiar understandings of religion, a sectarian viewpoint, and precisely here lies their value. Such works are vital for an understanding of religious ideology and organization, sectarian images and self-images, biases and stereotypes—in other words, the irrational elements that count.

In the present comparative study of sects, the emphasis is primarily placed upon present-day religious structures. This has logically led to the exclusion of many sects that emerged briefly in Islamic history but failed to endure. These include the Mamtura, the Mubarakiya, the Muhammadiya, the Qat‘iya, the Kisaniya, the Musawiya, the Baqiriya and many others. The bulk of the seventy-two sects that emerged at different times in Arab-Islamic history (al-Baghdadi, 1978) were not able to stabilize into religious systems and will therefore be excluded from the discussion. Only those seven sects that evolved into routinized structures will be discussed: the Alawis, the Druzes, the Ibadis, the Shi‘a Twelvers, the Yazidis and the Zaidis, in addition to the Christian Maronites who possess the very ecological, economic and demographic characteristics that distinguish sects from minority groups.

Just as we exclude from the discussion those sects that arose briefly and then disappeared, we shall likewise ignore those classified in this work as religious minorities or religious, patriotic movements. Sects, minority groups and religious movements should not be lumped together into a single category, as many writers on the subject have done.⁴ These groups are not alike, either in form or in content. They differ in organization, ideology, general orientation and the way they relate to the state and society.

Sources and Chapters

The data for this book have been collected from two main sources: field-work and the expressive literature.⁵ The field-work was carried out systematically in Lebanon between 1977 and 1985; in Bahrain in 1974-75; in North Yemen in summer 1980; and in Oman in spring 1982. In addition, I was able to interview a large number of ulama belonging to various religious communities and who happened to be living in Beirut. Specifically, I had the privilege of interviewing Alawi, Ibadi, Zaidi and Yazidi religious officials even though these sects, as total communities, have no significant presence in Lebanon. Beirut before the Lebanese war of the 1970s and 1980s was indeed a meeting-place for all kinds of Arab peoples.

In the first five chapters, a distinction is made between religion and sect on the basis of the centrality of religion as din and its adaptation to state structures, as opposed to the peripherality of sects and their attachment to the doctrine of the sovereignty of the community. Chapter 6 distinguishes between sects and religious minorities. Unlike sects, religious minorities live within the city walls subject to centralized (Sunni) authority, and here they seem to have worked out an accommodative formula accepting the ideology of Sunni rule. Whereas sects practise a comprehensive system of production in the territories they control, religious minorities follow a highly specialized mode of activity.

On the basis of this distinction between sects and religious minorities, the Christian Maronites of Lebanon are included in the first, not the second category. Other Christian Churches, plus the Jews, the Sabaeans, the Muslim Isma‘ilis and the Baha’is are classified as minority groups. However, it must be borne in mind that this is a dynamic classification subject to economic, demographic and political transformations. Given the proper conditions, sects could turn into minorities and minorities into sects. There are some indications, for example, that the Yazidis of Iraq and the Ibadis of Algeria are slowly being transformed from sectarian to minority status. This issue is discussed at more length in Chapter 6.

Religious movements, like sects, seem to have emerged in peripheral territories lying outside the domain of state authority, but unlike sects, they never developed a rebellious ideology or evolved a dual system of religious organization. In contemporary Arab history, three movements—the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, the Mahdis of Sudan and the Sanusis of Libya—have emerged at the periphery, but none developed into a distinctly routinized, stable religious system. These were reformist and fundamentalist movements which, instead of rebelling against the central Islamic state, struggled against foreign colonial rule. The Wahhabis fought against the Ottoman Turks, the Mahdis against British colonialism and the Sanusis against Italian occupation. These religious movements seem to have disappeared as soon as independence was achieved. They became part and parcel of the state structure: either visibly, as in Sudan, where the Mahdi movement turned into a political party; or implicitly, as in Saudi Arabia and Libya, where the Wahhabis and the Sanusi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• List of Figures, Tables and Maps
• A Note on Arabic Words
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Part One: Religion and Sect in Islam
• Part Two: The ideology of Sects
• Part Three: The Organization of Sects
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index of Concepts
• Index of Names
• Copyright