The Shi’a-Sunni Split, Part 2

So last time we left off on Ali’s victory over Aisha at the Battle of the Camel.  In the moment, it seemed like Ali had some momentum behind him, but he still faced a number of issues.  For one thing, it was not as though everyone in the Caliphate suddenly got along after they were conquered.  Less than forty years before, Syria and Mesopotamia had been on opposite sides of the bitterest Byzantine-Sassanid Persian conflict ever (this was briefly mentioned in my post a few days ago, but once again… it’s a story for another time), and now they were supposed to just get along?  Faith and religion can be incredible uniting forces, but they don’t change the fundamental tendencies of people.  People will still hold grudges and they will not suddenly become amnesiacs, simply because they all worship the same god suddenly.

Although the contemporary sources don’t cite this as a major problem, reading between the lines is not difficult.  There are certain regions of the Caliphate that consistently pose problems for central control, and the Syrian-Mesopotamian-Arab rivalry would be a repeating issue.

Another issue was the rise of the Khawarij, better known as the Kharijites.  Literally meaning “outsiders,” the Kharijites were purists of the highest order, and they would pose issues for many a Caliphate for years to come.  The root of early Kharijite ideology comes from Uncle Ben’s famous quote, “With great power comes great responsibility,” and the Caliphs were certainly claiming great power.  The problem was that they were not always responsible, or at least their behavior was not above reproach, so the Kharijites would invoke takfir (a less formal means of excommunication for Muslims) against them.  A precursor group of the Kharijites had even been the ones responsible for the murder of Caliph Uthman.  After a battle with Muhammad’s own widow, the Kharijites, who had originally supported Ali, seem to have begun to question his authority as Caliph.

Map of the Mediterranean 650

From Basra, Ali marched his army toward Muawiyah, and the two armies met at Siffin in Syria.  The details of the battle are a little unclear, but it appears to have ended with the refusal of both sides to continue fighting fellow Muslims, due to the Qu’ran’s explicit commandments against just such an act.  Other accounts cite concern of what would happen to their families should the Byzantines counterattack or should the Persians reorganize and revolt (mind you Persia had only truly been subjugated for about fifteen years at the time).

Now, in retrospect, we can see that a Byzantine attack was somewhat unrealistic.  Emperor Constans II was in defense mode, and although the Byzantine navy remained the unquestioned superpower of the Mediterranean Sea, his land army was busy fighting off Slavs in the Balkans.  The Muslims do not seem to have understood this, and both sides withdrew after considerable bloodshed.

To outsiders, the general opinion was that Muawiyah had won, and this narrative was reinforced by the permanent break of the Kharijites with Ali.  Trusting in his tentative truce with Muawiyah, Ali proceeded to pursue the Kharijites until he and his son Hasan drew them into battle at Nahrawan in Iraq in 659.  Ali’s faction was victorious, but he solidified himself as Enemy No. 1 for the Kharijites, despite their being more ideologically opposed to Muawiyah.

In 661, while in prayer, Ali was assassinated by a Kharijite with a poisoned blade, and his son Hasan claimed succession.  Hasan personally decapitated his father’s assassin, but if his father’s claim had been questioned by Muawiyah, Hasan’s was outright contested.  Ultimately, Kharijite resistance never really allowed Hasan to assemble an army of any note, and when Muawiyah arrived in force with his army of Syrians, Hasan had little choice but to surrender.  He would live out the last eight years of his life in Medina, keeping his head down and publishing theological writings, but there remained a substantial number of Muslims, particularly in modern-day Iraq, who continued to hold Hasan as the rightful Caliph.

The Umayyad Caliphate, which Muawiyah established in 661 after Hasan’s surrender, would go on to be almost unarguably the least popular Caliphate of the four major Caliphates (Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid) and less than a hundred years later, their rule would implode.  During this time, the rift between the followers of Hasan and his direct descendants in the male line and the less-organized majority, whose head was decided far less systematically.  To this day, the Shi’a remain more organized than Sunnis, particularly in the Ithnā’ashariyyah’ (called “Twelver” in English) branch.

I suppose it might be useful here to see what “Sunni” and “Shi’a” actually mean, because this really helps when you’re trying to understand the sect.  Sunni (which is the sect that today constitutes, conservatively, 85% of Muslims is derived from the word sunnah, meaning “habit,” “custom,” or “tradition.”  Today, Sunnis are typically more ritualistic than the Shi’a, as you probably noticed in their Five Pillars in my post yesterday.

Shi’a is an abbreviation of Shia-ne-Ali (followers of Ali).  Essentially, Shi’a means “follower,” and, as a result, their works tend to emphasize the teachings of the Imams (the direct descendants of Ali).  Now, there are disputes among Shias about who the rightful Imam was/is, the majority believing in the Occultation (in essence, Muhammad al-Mahdi’s disappearance in 941, to return at an unknown date).  Because so much of their faith is based on theological writings, rather than tradition, Shi’a belief tends to be a little more analytical and systematic than Sunni (I’m painting with really broad strokes here).

So, there’s a number of other theological differences between Sunnis and Shias that I’m going to try to quickly sum up here (they can’t be quickly summed up).  As we mentioned yesterday, Shias do not believe that they will actually see Allah when they go to heaven.  There are also some differences in prayer.  Sunnis cross their arms while they pray, but Shias keep their hands by their sides.  Additionally the five times a day thing for Sunnis doesn’t apply to Shias; Shias condense it all into three times a day.  Most of the leading Sunni scholars are now dead, and modern-day Sunnis do most of their theological work either with the Qu’ran itself, the Hadiths, or with the writings of prominent Sunni scholars, but the Sunnis lack a central body of “theological government” like the Shias have.  The Marja’ (often called Grand Ayatollahs) are the highest rank in the Shi’a clergy, of whom there are currently 64 (this is not a fixed number).  Below these are the Ayatollahs, and below them are the Muitjahids (essentially, people who have shown enough competency in Islamic jurisprudence so as to form their own opinions).  Mutijahids are not obligated to follow a Marja’, but a Muqallid, (literally, a follower of a Marja’) does not have permission to create his own theological opinions and must follow one more educated and well-versed than himself.

So, next time we’re going to go over how it is that Shi’a survived (which is an interesting story on its own) and why today, the country with the largest Shi’a population in the world is Iran.  As kind of a teaser, here’s a little chart of countries by Shi’a population.

The Robber Council and the Monophysite Controversy

With the legalization of Christianity under Constantine I and its subsequent transformation into an organized religion at the Council of Nicaea in 325, Christian doctrine came under more intense scrutiny and debate than ever before; unfortunately, the people making the decisions regarding doctrine were not always the best-versed theologians themselves.  This was mostly because the Emperor was regarded as a spiritual leader, subject to the authority of no cleric.

When Theodosius II began his solo reign in 416, the church was experiencing a number of controversies regarding the nature of Jesus, and his appointment of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople only worsened matters.  Theodosius was no theologian, and, with a certain interpretation of his life, was not very intelligent in general.  While travelling in Syria, he heard Nestorius’ preaching and was very impressed, so upon the death of Sisinnus, the old Patriarch, Theodosius appointed the charismatic Nestorius.  Nestorius, as it turned out, had many unorthodox beliefs – including his belief that Jesus was not actually the Son of God.  Rather, he posited that the Son of God and Jesus – a normal guy – were simply united in the same body, and, when necessary, the Son of God would take over.  Most of the time, though, Jesus was simply doing his thing as a normal, if more moral than average, man.  In 431, the Bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, called for a church council to condemn Nestorius, and the ensuing proceedings of the First Council of Ephesus confirmed Nestorius as a heretic.  Nestorius was condemned as a heretic, along with several other church leaders.

The controversy was not over yet, however, and Theodosius was arguably the least qualified man to resolve it.   Theodosius had the additional problem of having a “heretic” for a wife in Aelia Eudocia, and she and Theodosius’ vehemently orthodox sister Pulcheria constantly vied for influence over the emperor.  Meanwhile, a new heterodoxy was forming in the shape of Monophysitism.

Typical diagram of Monophysite doctrine

This might seem like splitting hairs (and it probably is), but to the people at the time, it was incredibly important.  The Monophysites claimed that any understanding of Jesus as having two distinct natures is in and of itself heretical, and they attempted a sort of a coup against the “religious establishment” (the bishops of Constantinople, Rome, and Antioch) in the Second Council of Ephesus.  Theodosius approved the proceedings under the Monophysite Bishop of Alexandria, Cyril’s successor Dioscorus, and Bishop of Rome Leo I (also known as “the Great” for reasons I don’t really have time to go into here), Patriarch Flavianus, and Bishop Domnus of Antioch were all condemned by the Council, but before any action could be taken, Theodosius died, and Pulcheria became the new “empress.”  By law, she could not be the actual ruler, but she could choose to marry someone who would become the new emperor.

Pulcheria viewed the Second Council of Ephesus, as most modern scholars and theologians do, as an attempt by the southern clergy to take over a church that unto that point had been heavily dominated by the Greeks, and her first order of business was to reverse its verdicts as quickly as possible.  As a result, she married the general Marcian, who immediately set about undoing the “Robber Council.”

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the mainline Christian doctrine regarding the “Hypostatic Union” (the synthesis between God and Man in the body of Jesus) was clarified, and almost all Christian sects adhere to it to this day, save the Coptic Church and a few other eastern churches.  For her efforts to correct the doctrine, Pulcheria was later canonized by the Catholic Church.  The debate was not to end here, however, as Dioscorus refused to accept the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon (to this day, the Coptic Church describes itself as “Non-Chalcedonian”).  The great Byzantine Emperor Justinian attempted to solve the controversy by calling the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but the council ultimately devolved into condemning those who condemned Cyril of Alexandria.  The topic of Christology (the study of the nature of Jesus) would remain dormant for almost a hundred years – largely because of the number of existential threats to the Empire that arose in those days with the invasion of the Avars from Central Asia and increasing pressure from the Persians to the East.

The Byzantine-Persian War of 602-628 was, in essence, the final victory of the Byzantines over the Sassanid dynasty in Persia, which had, for years, been a menace on the eastern border.  The war raged back and forth, pushing the Byzantines to the brink, but a coup staged by Heraclius against Phocas the Usurper placed the Empire under more effective leadership and allowed Byzantium to, eventually, be victorious over the Persians.  Heraclius’ popularity was at an all time high in the 630s because of Persia’s subsequent implosion and its subjugation by the Rashidun Islamic Caliphate.  The Byzantine people did not yet appreciate how dangerous the Caliphate would become, and Heraclius seems to have understood them as some funny sect of Judaism.

Heraclius attempted to leverage his popularity, however, by positing “solutions” to the Christological debate.  His first attempt was “Monoenergism.”  He simply said that Jesus’ nature was simply one “energy,” which was left up to the reader to interpret.  Serious scholars immediately criticized this doctrine as a political cop-out, so in 638, Heraclius switched his view to “Monothelitism,” which said that the seemingly contradictory natures of Jesus were united by a single Telos, meaning “purpose” or “goal.”  In this context it is often translated as “will;” however, fierce opposition from Rome never allowed this doctrine to take root, and in 641, Heraclius died, and the main proponent of Monothelitism was gone.

Ultimately the issue of Christology was largely resolved, inasmuch as it has been, by political events.  Around the time of Heraclius’ death, Egypt fell to the expanding Caliphate, and suddenly, the Monophysite Copts (another term for “Egyptian Christian” which has now become an official denomination of Christianity) were more concerned with the survival of their faith than they were with Christology.  Monothelitism fell out of favor with the common people, and it was eventually condemned by another ecumenical council in 680.

Ultimately, as with many theological issues, the Monophysite debate became too entangled with politics to maintain any scholastic legitimacy, and because of this, it never became the honest discussion it should have been, considering its importance to Christian theology.  Nowadays, it’s mostly done in hair-splittingly detailed debates at seminaries, but it’s interesting to note how debates like these tend to unfold.  For more reading on this, look up Procopius (he’ll mostly handle that space between the Council of Chalcedon and Heraclius) and Dionysus Exiguus.