Why is the Islamic World divided against itself?

Answer 1

This answer is divided into three main parts. Part A will discuss how, contrary to the general claim by Muslims, unity across all Muslims was not dominant in Islamic History. Part B will discuss particular reasons for disunity from a political perspective. Part C will discuss the religious, sectarian divide in the Islamic World and why that persists.

PART A) Unity Was Never Common in Islamic History

1) Union Makes Little Sense: The first issue is the implicit assumption that the Islamic World should be united as one megolith. This makes very little sense. Other than Islam, most Muslim-majority countries have nothing in common. They range climatically - from dense jungles to arid deserts, geographically - from inland mountainous regions to lowland islands, culturally - from modern societies to tribal regions, linguistically - containing over half of the world's different language trees, historically - with some being subject to European colonization and others remaining powerful independent empires, religiously - containing different sects of Islam and different degrees of moderation or fundamentalism, and ethnically - containing hundreds of distinct ethnic groups or tribes. There is no other religious group, even with less diversity, that is completely united.

2) Successive Political Fracturing: Muslims tend to stress the unity of the Islamic Caliphate in the early period of Islam, often claiming that this is the natural state of Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Islamic Caliphate only held together as one empire for 120 years (630 C.E. to 750 C.E.). This is less time than the United States has existed and roughly the equivalent time of the worldwide British Empire (1830-1950). Therefore, it is not unrealistic or special that the Rightly-Guided Caliphate and its successor state the Umayyad Caliphate remained united. There was a strong intent to integrate the conquered populations and many in the territories wished to become Muslim due either to conviction or to financial incentive. When the Abbassids overthrew the Umayyads in the Middle East, the Islamic Empire broke up into numerous Caliphates and Sultanates (such as the Umayyads, Abbassids, Idrissids, Aghlabids), returning to the natural state of disunity. The Abbassid Caliphate would further break down into in the next two centuries into the Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Buyid Caliphates. The fact that the Ottomans became the spiritual successor State to the Rightly-Guided Caliphate by way of the Umayyads by way of the Abbassids by way of the Ayyubids by way of the Mamluks by way of the Seljuks, is purely incidental and only occurred because the central Middle East was consistently under the control of an Empire that was Islamic. These empires were held together by institutions such as the governates (wilayat), roads, and police/soldiers, just like every other empire. It just happens that track record of violence and repression is better for Islamic Empires.

PART B) Particular Issues Leading to Disunity

There are numerous things that prevent Muslim unity in the world.

1) Concerning Western Imperialism, Colonialism, and Warmongering: Many Muslims hold that the failure for Muslims to be united under one political banner has to do with western forces which divided and conquered them. There is certainly an extent to which that is true, but the Muslims had 25 separate Empires long before the Western regime of Imperialism and colonialism. The first break in the unified Islamic State came only 120 years after its founding (The splitting off of Umayyad Spain and Idrissid Morocco). 50 years later saw the independence of the Aghlabids in Algeria, Tunisia, and Malta and the Buyids in Persia. 100 years after that saw the rise of the Fatimids in Western Libya, etc. By the mid-900s C.E. on (as Europe remained aloof from Islamic affairs except in Spain), Muslim-on-Muslim warfare and attempts for economic dominance persisted until the Ottomans conquered all major Islamic States in the Middle East. This was undone by separatist governors in the more distant provinces (like Algeria and Tunisia) and open rebellion in some of the closer provinces (like Hejaz and Syria). Some of these were supported by Western powers (like Hejaz). Others were crushed by them (such as the Syrians).

2) Concerning Historical Disunity: Muslims have gone to war with each other at numerous times and in numerous places. Nearly every border in the Arab World has played host to a military engagement of some type within the last 100 years. The Modern Arab World has never had anything even close to the European Union or the Schengen Border Agreement. (The Arab League is much more like the United Nations and has no superstate components.) Islam is an even weaker union that has no unified monetary policy, immigration policy, international policy (except perhaps Israel), and no unified interpretation of which version of Islam is the one worth supporting. Although Muslims, as individuals, may feel connected across borders, like those between Morocco and Algeria or those between Syria and Lebanon or those between Egypt, Sudan, and Libya, or those between Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, or those between Malaysia and Indonesia, their governments do not.

3) Concerning National Cultural Differences: Each Muslim nation has a different ethnic, religious, and tribal makeup. Take for instance the neighboring countries of Tunisia and Libya. President Bourghiba of Tunisia proposed a union with Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, but his own people made it clear that they were not interested. The reason for this was that Tunisia was (and still is) the most progressive state in the Arab World, embracing such concepts as "national identity", "freedom of religion", near-complete "freedom of speech", and a Western-Style Government. Libya was (and still is) one of the most conservative Arab States outside of the Arabian Peninsula. Its people were very tribal with numerous militias sprinkled across the country and a system of bribes and counter-bribes used to keep the tribes from breaking out in revolution. (It seems that this federal bribing system eventually failed but the Libyan government has not managed to eclipse the militas.) With national organizational and cultural differences that were that huge, Pan-Arabism could not begin, let alone Pan-Islamism.

4) Concerning Regional Superiority: Each leader in the Muslim World believes that they are smarter, more capable, and more deserving of leadership than every other. However, uniting under one banner requires that there only be one government. This means that every other state must subordinate their power to one leader. Many Arabs joke about this bemusedly because of a conversation between Nasser of Egypt and Assad of Syria where Nasser said, "I am proud leader of the United Arab Republic based out of Cairo." and Assad said the next day, "I am proud leader of the United Arab Republic based out of Damascus." Both were referring to the same state, but each refused to really cede all control to the other. The United Arab Republic fell apart after three years. (And this was the longest period for such a united state.)

5) Concerning Oil Wealth: The Leaders of the Persian Gulf States such as Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman have little interest in giving up all of their oil wealth and power to accede to a vague hope and dream of Islamic Unification. This is especially true because it can be assumed that the leaders of such small states would definitely not become the leader of a united Islamic government.

PART C) Persistence of Religious and Sectarian Issues

The Divisions between Sunnis and Shiites have persisted for the same reason that the divisions between Catholics and Orthodox Christians have persisted. Once a religious sectarian division comes into existence it is impossible to theologically heal it unless at least one side concedes that its position on the theological issues that the two sects disagree on is wrong.

However, since Catholics and Orthodox Christians have stopped killing each other and cursing each other as heretics for the last 400 years or so, it begs the question as two why Sunnis and Shiites continue to do this. (Note that the majority of Sunnis and Shiites do not feel this way, but a large vocal minority in each camp still do.) There are several reasons for this animosity.

1) Historical Grievances: The primary reason this division persists is that there has never been an atonement by either side for the pain and persecution that it has suffered when the other was in power over a given territory. Although, Shiites endured more persecution at the hands of Sunnis than the reverse, this is not to say that Sunnis have not endured persecution at Shiite hands. Both groups remain defiant that since they have the moral high-ground as granted from their faith, their actions in repressing the other sect, torturing its adherents, and murdering its leaders was progress towards removing the heresy. Compare this to the Catholics, who have apologized for the Rape of Byzantium, which was huge historical grievance between them and the Orthodox.

2) Ethnic Identities: In many countries, especially Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, people identify "ethnically" by their sect of religion. Therefore saying somebody is Shiite in Iraq is similar to how people view being Irish-American or Japanese-American in the United States. It marks you socially and it determines who your friends are, who you marry, what jobs you take, who you love, who you despise, etc. As a result, whenever conflict has broken out, each religious group comes together to defend its people's interests. This results in political and social hatred of the other religion in addition to any theological issues.

3) Rumors of the Other's Theology: Some Sunnis think that Shiites are deluded into believing that 'Ali was a second prophet, which would violate Mohammed being the final capstone of the Prophets, a huge theological issue. Some Shiites believe that Sunnis were paid off to accept the three Rightly-Guided Caliphs before 'Ali and that Sunni Islam was therefore corrupt and ineligible to continue the Islamic tradition. Both have alleged the other was deceived by Jews, which says more about how Muslims view Jews than each other. Of course, both of these are mis-characterizations of the actual theologies of these two sects, but the point remains that as long as these problematic rumors exist, the two sides cannot reconcile.

4) Approaches to Government: Ever since the abolition of the Caliphate in 1936, Sunni Islam has been leaderless and there has come to be an understanding that religion does not participate in actual governance. (This is not a separation of church and state since the two can cooperate closely, but this prevents direct theocracy.) Shiites, on the other hand, have religious leaders called Ayatollahs who do attempt to have terrestrial authority and in Iran have actually achieved it.