In Our Time - Sunni and Shia Islam

Episode Date: June 25, 2009

Melvyn Bragg and guests Amira Bennison, Robert Gleave and Hugh Kennedy discuss the split between the Sunni and the Shia. This schism came to dominate early Islam, and yet it did not spring at first from a deep theological disagreement, but rather from a dispute about who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad, and on what grounds. The supporters of the Prophet's cousin Ali argued for the hereditary principle; their opponents championed systems of selection. Ali's followers were to become the Shia; the supporters of selection were to become Sunnis.It is a story that takes us from Medina to Syria and on into Iraq, that takes in complex family loyalties, civil war and the killing at Karbala of the Prophet's grandson. Husayn has been commemorated as a martyr by the Shia ever since, and his death helped to formalise the divide as first a political and then a profoundly theological separation.Amira Bennison is Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge; Robert Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Exeter; Hugh Kennedy is Professor of Arabic in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, in 618, near Kabul, in Iraq, a man was killed in battle. His name was Hussein and he was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. His death, considered to be a martyrdom,

was a crucial episode in the growing split between two groups of Muslims who had come to be known as the Sunni and the Shia. And yet this dispute didn't begin violently. Arguably, it was not at first a political or theological schism, but a personal disagreement. And the two groups agree on many of the fundamentals of religion. So how did this profound split develop with me to discuss the division between the Sunni and the Shia,

Aramira Benison, senior lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge? Robert Gleve, professor of Arabic studies at the University of Exeter, and Hugh Kennedy, Professor of Arabic in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Amira Benison, the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 and the fledgling Islamic State had to choose a new leader. And this was a crucial moment. How did it lead to the beginnings of a split? The first problem was really that the Prophet himself hadn't made it clear who should succeed him.

And obviously this was a very new situation for the community. He didn't have a son who would have perhaps been an obvious success. there are some hints that he may have nominated his cousin, Ali, who was also his son-in-law. But what actually happened sort of in the rush of the moment was that somebody called Abu Bakr, who was a close friend of the prophet, was actually put forward by another close friend, Omar, and chosen by a group of early Muslims to become the first caliph. Could you just take a step back? Can you give us some idea? of the size of Muhammad's reputation

and the extent of his power at this particular time of his death in 632. Yes, at that time, Muhammad was recognised as a prophet of great importance throughout Arabia. During the last years of his life, he had reconquered his home city of Makkah, having spent some years in a town called Medina, slightly further north. and during that time he had waged war against various Arabian tribes and had also negotiated with many and brought many into the new religion which he preached Islam. However, it has to be said that for a lot of the tribes of Arabia,

their affiliation to Islam was really submission to Muhammad himself. And when he died, they were themselves not clear what they would do next. So, Doremanu, as a warrior as well as a prophet, So they'd be looking for much the same thing in he who succeeded him. It would have to be a he, of course. It would certainly have to be a he. And yes, I think the thing about Muhammad, in contrast to the founders of some other world religions, is that he played many different roles.

He was a preacher, he was a religious leader, a prophet, bringing a new revealed religion to mankind, but he was also a political leader, he was also a military leader. And whoever followed him was going to have to fulfill all those different roles. So it wasn't easy for his family to follow him, so they adopted the idea of election, electing by elders, and somebody who had become the first caliph, as you've mentioned his name.

Can we see in this the beginning of what became the Sunni and Shia split? In a sense we can. So one way of looking at really is that there were a variety of different ways one could have managed the succession. One could have thought in terms of blood relationship to the prophet and tried to find someone who was related to him by blood, which probably would then have been Ali, his, as I said, his son-in-law and cousin.

But other people felt that succession should be based on what's called Sabaqa, or precedence within Islam, people who had been devoted to the Islamic cause from a very early point, regardless of their blood relationship to the prophet. Or thirdly, another option that emerged perhaps slightly later was the idea that the old aristocracy of Mecca, who had ultimately converted to Islam, should

reassert their place as an aristocratic Arab tribe and rule the new empire which was coming into being. So, in the very beginning, there was disagreement at the very least and the evidence of what could be a split. Robert Gleve, can you tell us more about how they arrived at deciding

who should be the first caliphs and where we went from there? It was a... It was a... Amira had said that the Prophet Muhammad gave no designation to a successor. But that's, I suppose, a contested point in that the Shia believed that he did make a clear designation as to who his successor should have been, and the rest of the community ignored that designation. So the Shiite perspective has always been that the Prophet Muhammad designated his son-in-law,

and who was also a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, designated Ali as the successor, but that the majority of the community ignored it at the time. And the historical narrative is that after the Prophet's death, whilst Ali and the close relatives of the Prophet were preparing the burial commemorations for the Prophet Muhammad, another group of followers of the close associates of the Prophet Muhammad were gathering in a place called Sakifa. the Sakifa of a tribe where they were carving up the leadership of the new Muslim empire

ignoring, explicitly ignoring, from a Shiite perspective, explicitly ignoring the designation which the Prophet Muhammad had made during his lifetime, in order to ensure that someone other than Ali became the first Caliph after the Prophet's death. Using the word Shiite,

we're talking about Sunni, but these words emerge over centuries. Were they in place then? Would people go around saying, He is a Shiite. I am a Shiite. I am a Shiite. No, almost certainly not. There was, very early on there was the idea of the partisans of Ali, particularly as Ali's exclusion from the caliphate over the years after the Prophet's death

became more a bone of contention. You begin to see the emergence of the idea of a Shi'at Ali, literally means the party of Ali, which then emerges as a, as a, as a, as a, term in the historical, in the host historical records. So to get this absolutely clear at the beginning, we're still in the first half of the 7th century. This isn't so much a political dispute or a theological dispute. It's more almost a family squablery at this stage. I think it was a, I think it was a, in the early periods, a dispute about the character of a leader.

What sort of character do we want as a leader? do we want someone who has some of the characteristics, the personality characteristics of Ali, who was known as a close companion of the Prophet Muhammad, a relative of the Prophet Muhammad and somehow inheriting, married to the prophets, only surviving child, the Prophet's daughter Fatima, whether the characteristics, those spiritual,

as well as political characteristics, and skills which Ali had should be the qualifications of leadership or whether the leader had to command the support of the leaders of the various elements of the emerging Muslim empire. And whether the most important thing was not whether they had been designated, but whether they could command the allegiance in the form of an oath, a public oath from the various elements of the new Muslim polity, an oath of allegiance to the new Caliph.

And so it was a different form of election as well as a different set of characteristics that you expect from a leader. You can't, because this is such a crucial point in development of what is a massive force in the world and was since then. Can you take us into how the first Caliphs were chosen and how that sort of branded what was to happen for what, let me work it out, 1300 years after that. Yes, the early Muslims and the death of the Prophet

found themselves in a unprecedented situation. And early Muslim politics were, in a sense, experimental, people trying to find solutions. The Prophet himself had made it clear that he was the last of the prophets. Nobody could succeed him in that role. So the community had to find somebody who was essentially going to be manager, chief executive, or ruler in some sense.

The first caliph, as we've just been hearing, Abu Bakr, was really chosen by a small group of people who thought it very important to have somebody in control immediately, not to let things slide, not to let the Muslim community drift apart. And so they chose Abu Bakr, ancient and respected companion of the prophet. And he was in turn designated Omar, and Omar is a very important figure. The first, he lasted for two years. He was an old man and he only rode for two years.

Aboubakur lasted for two years. for just two years, 632 to 634. And he was succeeded by Omar, who came from exactly the same sort of social group. Omar is a very important figure because he, after the Prophet Muhammad, is the most important figure in the development of Sunni Islam. And Sunnis look back to Omar, as it were, the ideal caliph,

wise, modest, strong, and so on. And in between the Sunnis and the Shis, there is, as it were, a rivalry almost set up, a contrast set up, between Omar as the Sunni exemplar, if you like, a good rulership, and Ali, of course, as the she, example, of good rulership. So Omar ruled for about 10 years.

He was assassinated by a Persian slave, but this was not political. People didn't take offence. Well, they obviously didn't like him to be assassinated. But apart from that, that didn't enter into the mix. Yeah. Say that we had the next man who did enter into the mix. Yes, the next man, Osman.

Is there still, is there a... Is there worry about Ali still being excluded? Is that growing at the time? Are the parties the two things beginning to diverge on this point of why don't we put the Prophet's daughter's husband and his cousin in? Is that beginning to happen now? Probably, but these narratives of what went on were developed over subsequent centuries by Sunnis and Sheis,

both as it were, writing their own version of historical events. It's very difficult for us at this distance to know exactly. what people were thinking. But the third Caliph, Osman, was certainly a member of that, if you like, clique, that's a slightly difficult time, but that group of Meccan aristocrats.

He came from the same background as Abu Bakar and Omar. But he has a much more contested reputation for the first time opposition to the rule of the caliph began to appear. It was felt that he

favoured his own tribe, the tribe of Koryesh, against others and that many pious early Muslims were being excluded from their just role, as it were, their true role in the empire, and we begin to get tensions. And this results in the first major trauma of the early Islamic state, which is the assassination of Uthman by rebels from Iraq and Egypt, basically, Muslim rebels, of course, from Iraq and Egypt, who felt that he was not exercising authority in a proper Osexualism. or Islamic way. So this isn't a personal grudge in Hazzac. This is a sort of civil war. This is the embryonic empire and religion beginning to really fight each other there.

Yes. And here the contested views come in really for the first time that for the Sunnis, the Caliph, Othman, was a blameless old man done to death as he read the Quran sitting in his house in Medina. For, I think, where the proto-she is, that people who were going to develop Shi'i ideas. Osman was a man who usurped, effectively. The throne had excluded Ali

and had excluded many of the most pious of the early Muslims from the fruits of office. So already we're in very contested territory here. Before we continue with that particular, let's just step back for a second, Robert Gleven, tell us how big, where is the Islamic Empire, its new empire, what size is it, what power does it have at this particular time? Talking about, let's say, 650, something like that.

Well, the great military advances had been made primarily under the reign of Omar, but also under Osman's reign as well. Abu Bakr's early two-year reign was primarily concerned with reuniting the Muslim Empire in the Arabian Peninsula following the death of Mohammed. So it was a consolidation phase to an extent because there was enormous matters of rebellions, and which are called apostasy, the wars of apostasy in the Muslim tradition. But during Omar and Uthman's time, you have expansion.

In terms of the geography we can sort of comprehend today, what have they got held on? I mean, I've stretched out to the east as far as the Hindu Kush, to the north, as far as the Caucasus, all around the eastern part of the Mediterranean literal and across North Africa. So it was a very large empire, quite a remarkable feat to have,

in a matter of 30 years or so to have conquered such an enormous territory. That's what I wanted to bring in because it's 30 years they made this extraordinary advances. So that's got to be a tension inside who rules because there's quite a lot to rule, isn't there? And crucially, where the centre of gravity of the new empire was going to be located.

So we come to Ali gets it at last, as it were, Amira. Is that it's about time or he's the right man. or are they reverting to we need a descendant of the Prophet? Well, I think the point you've just made about the expanding empire is very important here. You know, sort of the spoils of empire make this a very crucial appointment. Everybody knows the stakes are extremely high at the death of Uthman. Ali's final accession to the caliphate is in fact not uncontested. There are now numerous warring groups, really, within the early Muslim community

who have very different ideas about what should happen. although Ali didn't actively support the rebels against Uthman to some extent they were seen as being associated with him so there was a group particularly the clan of Uthman himself the Baner Umayah who felt that a revenge should be taken for the death of Uthman And you're talking about blood revenge there aren't we so that plays into it as well he thought that as Ali hadn't protested against the assassination

as he ought to have done or taken some action he should be forced to do this. And so that was the basis of his attacking him, as I understand it. So that's another element coming in. We have tribalism, we have massive politics, a power politics, or the Prophet Muhammad, but also of the blood revenge notion. Yes, and of course at this point,

the story gets incredibly complicated. You're alluding to Ma'awea, the kinsman of Uthman, and certainly he is head of a group who do feel that revenge should be taken for the death of Uthman, and they feel when Ali becomes caliph, that he should do that. There are other groups, however, who also contest the accession of Ali at this point, particularly a group led by somebody called Talha, another early companion who hopes to become Caliph himself at this point

and is sort of in the same tradition as Abu Bakr and Omar. So just to keep it clear, because we mustn't get muddled at this point, yes. We mustn't get into Italian opera program territory. We've got Ali, we know who Ali is. He's married Fatima, the only surviving. child of Muhammad. He has two sons who will come to those in a moment. He has not yet been Caliph over about

over 30 years. He's now in Irish Caliph, but he's in there, he's tainted. And this Muay is very serious in battle against it. He wants to fight in which they do fight, Robert Gleave. And Ali is drawn in negotiations. And as a result of being drawn into negotiations, a lot of his followers leave him.

Now, why is that? Well, Ali's reign, which began in 656, was troubled from the very beginning in the sense that there was this enormous resentment that had built up from Mawahua, who was the governor in Damascus, about the death of Uthman and the lack of vengeance for that, and the lack of justice. A caliph is supposed to be just. He's supposed to rewrite wrongs that have been done. Ali was failing to do this, and consequently the legitimacy of Ali was undermined. And so this enormous groundswell of opposition in Syria began to emerge right from the very beginning of Ali's caliphate. He also had problems back in the Arabian Peninsula in that one of the wives of the Prophet, the surviving wives of the Prophet, Ayisha was banding together with other companions, Talha, who Dr. Benison has just mentioned, to form an opposition.

And they were building up forces in Basra, in southern Iraq. And so Ali was facing opposition on various fronts. After he's dealt with the opposition from the Prophet's wife, Ayesha, in a very successfully, militarily speaking, He then has to face the opposition of Mawahua. And the two armies meet at a place called Sifin, which is on the modern day border of Syria and Iraq, round about that area. And there's a standoff for a number of days.

And there's a day of bloody fighting. And it's clear that neither side is going to emerge completely victorious. And the Syrians, it's often portrayed that this was a ruse which they were attempting to carry out within the battle. Emerge onto the battlefield, according to the historical analogy, with Qurans tied to their lances, saying that we should let God decide. So the battle is postponed, and we face an arbitration council to decide

whether Ali has the rightful caliphate, rightfully holds the caliphate or not. And at that point, some of his own supporters decide that this was the wrong decision to go into this arbitration, the Tachim, as it's called, the wrong decision to go into Tachim during this battle. Can I ask you to take up the story that you get?

Why was it the wrong decision to go into arbitration? Why did it do him so much damage? There must have been expecting something of a caliph that he wasn't, can you well, you're better at all right? I think it showed that to some of his followers, at least, that Ali lacked the conviction and the self-confidence to believe that he was God's rightly nominated candidate for the job. They felt that perhaps he didn't believe in himself enough.

And this issue of the guilt of Uthman's murder still hung over the whole process and people felt that perhaps he was even admitting some sort of liability for that. So many of his followers deserted him and set up a rival movement. They call themselves the people who went out, the Karajites and they became opposed to Ali and to his rival Mwai at the same time. And it was they who assassinated Ali? Yes, it was another revenge assassination. The man who killed Ali Ibn Muljum is said to have been a relative of somebody

who was killed in the fighting between Ali and the Karajites. So we get this motif of blood revenge coming back into the story again at this level. So can we just freeze the story at this stage? We're not very far on since the death of Mohammed. An awful lot has happened. Ali, the descendant, has been assassinated. Where are we? And where's religion in all this?

We've been talking about wars, revenge, and so on. What is playing out in terms of, is there any theological dimension yet? I think there's no theological dimension as such. And when we talk about theology in early Islamic times, we're not talking about the nature of God, and the Christian theology is concerned with the nature of the relationships between the members of the Trinity and so on. Early Islamic theological debate is essentially concerned with the nature of authority within the community,

within the Muslim community. Who should rule and what powers should this ruler have? And particularly what powers should this ruler have to interpret Quran, interpret the traditions of the prophet and so on. So it's not a discussion of the nature of God so much as a discussion of the nature of authority within the community. Sorry, yes, Robert. And one of the great, one of the elements of the opposition against Uthman was his attempt to standardize the text of the Quran and take the power away from the Quran readers in the regions of the new empire. Take the power away from them to read the Quran in their own, according to their own style. And Uthman wanted a standardized text according to the tradition.

And Uthman wanted a standardized text, which would bring unity to the empire under his leadership. And so there was to an extent of theological dimension to it in the sense that his attempt to enforce a unified text of the Quran upon the Muslim Empire gave rise to those who wanted a certain amount of theological in terms of. of Quran recitation, some sort of independence, were amongst the people who were opposing Uthman. So that was an element of the opposition. So there wasn't that theological debates were completely missing, but the primary element of the debate seems to be in the early period. Who could, who should rule and what sort of ruler do we want?

Can we just dwell on this for a moment? We've got this massive empire which you've been described. It's enormous. and it's grown up in 30 or 40 years. How far were people inside that empire, peoples inside that empire, devoted to the idea of the Muslim religion, how far they thought, well, we'd better join because we'd been conquered? I mean, it's an interesting point.

In a sense, we're talking about political infighting among very small elite. The Muslim group at this time is primarily Arabs from Arabia. there aren't that many converts at this very early period and they're ruling over a vast empire of peoples who actually still remain attached to their own original faiths, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and who have relatively little to do with what's going on

at sort of the upper echelons of government, if you like. That being said, there are also Arab factions, Arab Muslim factions in all the different parts of the empire. And some of these debates and disputes do then get replicated out in the provinces as well. If we're talking about just before we say farewell to Ali Hugh Kennedy, had he been a better politician, could he have managed? Are we talking about his political skills?

I'm trying to get the balance between you're right. There's a huge empire there and you're representing Mohammed. So hadn't he been a good enough politician? Was that what he failed in? Well, we could say if he'd been a political genius, he might have found a way through these problems, but the situation was this has been. apparent in this conversation, extremely complex.

And there were many different groups who he had to try to placate and try to win over in some way. And who knows? I mean, if he'd been Caliph for another 10 years, then the situation might have turned out very differently.

He really didn't have time to establish himself. He really didn't have the space to build up a reliable following, who you could call on. So he was assassinated. and we'd go to Mawai, Amir Benison, nearly at the climactic point of these early years,

but it's worth going through it, because he wanted his son Yazi to succeed him, and so he did. But why was this seen as such a provocative and a really important pivotal act, what the consequence of that was? Can you take us through that? Yes. I mean, it starts really with the accession of Muawiya after Ali.

I mean, a lot of people felt that perhaps Aani's son, Hassan, should have become the next caliph. but in the event it was Mo'Awya, Hassan signed a treaty with Moawea. But the understanding underlying that was that Moawea would not be succeeded by his own family. And towards the end of his reign, however, he nominated his son Yazid as his successor. Can we just skewer him a little bit first? We talked about a family that was aristocratic ruling family pre-Muslim. They were the ancient aristocrats of the deeply ancient Islamic.

power and society. So they were making a big comeback. They said all of a sudden, well, we'll be Muslim as well, but as long as we can rule as well, I'm being very ridiculously vernacular. But that's the top and bottom of it. In a sense, yes. I mean, the Banu or Maya, which is the clan from which Ma'awe came was also the clan of Uthman. And it did have early, important Muslims in its ranks. But a lot of the Banu and Maya were late converts to Islam, and they were the old aristocratic elite of Makkah, who seemed to be making something of a comeback. So when Ma'awea nominated his son Yazid for the succession and Yazid did become caliph, there was a sense that things had really gone all right, that if there was going to be

hereditary leadership within Islam, then really that definitely should belong to the family of the Prophet, not to other clans. So this hereditary leadership comes into the argument then. So we're on that tag now. You can't have a redidhip from Muhammad. You can't have from the old aristocrats and Yazid comes in. But there's a problem. The problem. The problem is one of Ali's sons, one of them Hassan, as Amaria said, makes a deal. He's not going to do anything. Hussein, the other son, doesn't. Yes, Hussein decided at this point, with the accession of Yazid, widely contested, the succession of Yazid, to make a bid for power.

He was leaving at that stage in the Hajas in Medina, but he was invited by, as it were, dissident groups in Iraq, and particularly in the Iraqi city of Kufa, to come to Iraq and seize the caliphate. Now, Hossein was the grandson of the Prophet. As an old man, the Prophet had played with him on his knee, as it were. There was a direct personal communication link here with the Prophet. And he was invited to... I'll interrupt you for one second because it's very important.

Is the resonance of the Prophet still powerful, or have they got themselves terrifically involved in tribal politics to the extent of their Prophet is just a sort of excuse? No, the resonance of the Prophet is extremely powerful, and Hossein is one of the last people who represents a direct personal link with the Prophet, because most of the people who were the companions of the Prophet

obviously died in this period, and so he has an almost unique status as being in this position. So he comes across the desert, and before he can reach the fertile lands of Iraq, a group of soldiers

working for the Umayyads come out, they surround his small caravan, which consists basically of Hussein and his family and his immediate retainers. And after prolonged skirmishing, when Hussein and his family are suffering greatly from thirst and general lack of military supplies and so on, they are all done to death, including Hussein himself.

And so the grandson of the prophet is, in a real way, martyred by the forces of the Umayyads, the forces of godless oppression, if you like, as far as many Muslims would have seen it. And this is, as I understand it, Robert Glebe, a very important moment to Bartadem of Hussein. This is something that still resonant. Well, it still resonated through the centuries and still resonates today in terms of the self-identity of Shiites across the world. So it's a sort of pivotal event in terms of the consolidation of the Shiite movement.

And if you like, the beginnings of Shiism, as we understand it. because from the martyrdom of Hussein onward you have a series of Shiite rebellions against the establishment, against the Umayyads and later against the Abbasids, the second dynasty in the early Islamic period. So you find that the crucial defining identity factor in early...

Shiite Islam is this martyrdom. Obviously, the Shiites have coalesced around the idea that Ali should have been the successor to the prophet, but the martyrdom of Hussein gave the Shiite cause an impetus, which previously had not done. And so the establishment faced a series of rebellions, sometimes in Hussein's name to avenge Hussein over the coming centuries. Can you develop that in Mary of Anderson? Yes. Yes, I mean, this is, as Rob has said, this is very much the key moment in the development of Shias and the martyrdom of Hussein and the accession of the Umayads in their place. But I think it's worth commenting, of course, again, this is this is an idea that develops over time and it wasn't actually necessarily how it was seen at the moment.

I mean, Muslims in general were absolutely horrified that the Prophet's grandson had been killed. Yazid himself is said to have wept when he found out exactly what had happened at Karbalah, so even sort of the anti-hero of the piece was shocked by what had happened. It's worth pointing out that the Umayyads do remain in power and that the challenge to them comes actually from another direction from the Hajazagan, somebody called Ibn Zubayar, who is not Shi, so to speak. And the other point is also that the understanding of what the family of the Prophet was is quite large in this era and the Shi idea that there's a particular line of succession from Muhammad through Ali to Hassan to Hussein

and then other imams after that in a direct bloodline had not yet emerged at this point. There was still a sense that the Prophet's family was much larger. And in fact the Abbasid dynasty who succeed the Amayyads are actually considered family of the Prophet. So over time what you see is if you start a narrowing down of the focus within Shiism towards a particular lineage. We might assume that the Sunnis, the emergence of the protestants who would become the Sunnis who would rejoice in this slaughter of us. But that is saying, but that wasn't the case. That wasn't the case. And it makes a more general point that most Sunnis would respect the family of the Prophet.

they wouldn't think that the family of the prophet should be the rulers of the Islamic state, but nonetheless they were, if you like, the most famous and the most distinguished family in the Muslim world. There was another element that came out after the death of Hussein as well. Hussain had been invited across by the people of Kufa, by the people of Iraq, but the people of Iraq had failed to save him. They'd failed to come out and oppose the Mayads. And so we get a whole body of feeling that the family of the Prophet had been let down, in a crucial way by the Muslims.

And hence, even today, people in Iran particularly and in Iraq flagellate themselves to commemorate as a punishment, if you like, for their ancestors' failure to come out and support Hussein. And the whole Hussein story becomes very articulated. The literally passion plays are performed in Iran especially every year to commemorate the circumstances of his death. will go and see murals on the walls in Iran which show Hussein's horse lamenting and weeping,

if horses weep, over the dead bodies of the slain at Karbalah. It has an enormous emotional resonance in this way. But in some way, did this mark a huge political setback for the Shiites, Amera? I think it is a setback, although there are... I would say they don't seem to recover it in terms of world numbers or numbers from then on. I think it's difficult. We don't really know how many people ever supported the Shia, I mean, or who were of the opinion that it should be the direct line of Ali that ruled. So it's difficult to think of it in numerical terms. But certainly in terms of political achievement, although there

are numerous rebellions in the next decades, they are generally unsuccessful. And gradually the there's a political shift over from the Amayas, as I said, to the Abbasids, which is another line. Not another aristocratic family. They are of the Prophet's family. They're descendants of the Prophet's uncle. Of the uncle. So they are from within the family,

but obviously they're not in the line of Ali himself. I think they do to a certain extent lose ground. And over time, a lot of the imams themselves don't feel that it's worth making a political bid for power. I'm thinking here of the fifth Imam Mohammed al-Bakar and his son Ja'afer Asadik, the sixth Imam, both of whom are extremely important in developing Shi'i theology, and specifically Shi'i religious concepts and law, but both of whom avoided political engagement and actually suggested that it was better for the Shia

to dissimulate their beliefs to adopt what's called taqiyya. What is takia? Dissimulation, if you like. It means living within, a bigger Muslim majority without making it evident that one has a particular affiliation to Shiism.

Yeah, Tejia is a central concept in early Shiasm, primarily because the Shiites perceive themselves as a minority and consequently pursue the idea that in order to preserve the community from attack,

from the majority emergent Sunni community, sometimes you have to hide your faith. Sometimes you have to outwardly be Sunni and inwardly be Shi'i and that God recognises that as a sort of dispensation in an oppressive world, which plays into, if you like, the Shi'i notion of being a minority, of being sidelined, of being marginalised, which in a sense rewrites the history all the way back to the time of Ali. They are wronged from the beginning. And in a sense, the historical narrative that we've been

going through is to an extent, from a Shiite perspective, the product of later theological reflection on what happened in the early period and the idea of Shiite, the true Islam, which is the Ali and his descendants being designated by the Prophet Muhammad, has been marginalized by the majority. And does this give a kick to, as Amira suggested, the development of a Shiite theology? Are we beginning to see ideas develop here about how the Quran should be interpreted, what it's suitable and so in a more defined way. Yes, again, it comes back to this issue of authority, who is entitled to interpret the Quran.

And all this discussion stems from the question that people were asking, how do I be a good Muslim? What do good Muslims do on these sorts of occasions? Who do you turn to to answer these questions? If you're a Sunni, you increasingly turn to the scholars who know the sunnah of the prophet, i.e. the traditions of what the prophet did and said. The scholars are the people you look to, the ulama. If you're a Shiae, you believe that the

imams from the family of the prophet are the people you should turn to to answer these difficult questions. And if you fail, if you can't find or there isn't an appropriate imam from the family of the prophet, why then you

turn to people who might be called Shiite clerics or people who who know and claim to know and understand what the family of the prophet would be, the Imam would be saying, if he were saying it. And Mirabendant, at this time, the well, 8th, 9th, 10th, up to the 11th century and beyond, we had this huge, the translation movement,

but not only translations from the Greek developments, Arabic developments in philosophy and mathematics and medicine. How did that play in to the Sunni Shia? I wouldn't say it plays in directly, but it plays in in a broader sense in that the translation movement brought all kinds of new ideas into Islam, which were adopted by anyone who was thinking about religions, or the logical tools of philosophical disputation were applied to religion,

concepts from neoplatonism, ideas of the first cause, the presence of the divine on earth, and things like this were all brought into the melting potter of theology. And the Shia, as well as other Muslims, engaged with these ideas and incorporated them within their theologies. I think one thing is very important to mention, we've been talking about the imams being the points of reference for the Shi'i community. But of course, bloodlines can die out.

And for most Shi'i communities, but at the majority, Imami 12a Shi'i community, the bloodline died out with the 12 Imam. and the imams therefore disappeared from earth and went into a state called Reba or occultation. And in a sense, it's... It's not really in hiding. They do disappear from the normal materials. Yeah, they become hidden imams,

but they're not... I think to describe them as being in hiding has sort of the wrong resonance. They're in a metaphysical space. They're sort of aware of what's going on on earth. They're not dead, but they're not accessible to the ordinary... Shi'i, who at that point begins to refer much more to the clerics or representatives of the

Imam on earth. Yeah, the resultant situation that you have in Shi'i Islam, following the occultation of the 12th descendant, if you like, who becomes the hidden imam. I mean, the justifications for the hiding or the occultation are partly to do with oppression in order to preserve the community, the community doesn't have a leader which makes them a target, those sorts of things, are play into the reasons for the occultation. But once you have the occultation,

the situation of the ordinary Shi'i Muslim is not so different now from the Sunni Muslim, in the sense that whilst the imams were present, they had an imam to whom they could turn for advice and legal guidance. Once the imam has gone, they turn to the scholars, who, in a sense, take up the role, the functional role of the imam

in the community, albeit without his sinlessness and his perfection, but represent, if you like, interpret the words that we have surviving from the imams, the words and actions of the imams for the ordinary Shi population. So you end up with a situation which isn't so different from the Sunni's who turn towards their scholars for guidance. Finally, I'm sorry, Hugh, very briefly. Has the thinking travelled a long way since 632? Yes

And the idea But the idea remains central That there is to all sheis That there is a hidden imam Or disappeared imam Somewhere in the world And without this imam That cannot be true religion

That cannot be true Islam And that fundamentally Separates the Shi'is From their Sunni neighbours Well thank you very much For taking us through that I think a lot of people Learned a lot

I certainly did And thanks to Amir Abinison Hugh Kennedy and Robert Cleave. And next week, we'll be tackling logical positivism. Thank you for listening. This is Michael Sandell. I teach political philosophy at Harvard University. And this year, I will be giving the BBC wreath lectures

on the subject of a new citizenship. In a series of four lectures, I'll be addressing what it means to be a citizen, not just a consumer. I'll be looking at the moral limits of markets and the role of morality in politics. about the uses of new genetic technologies and the prospects of a politics of the common good.

A podcast of the lectures will be available at the BBC.co.org slash Radio4 website. I hope you'll subscribe.